by Brian Crawford | Dec 4, 2023 | language, personal
December has arrived, and Duolingo has posted its 2023 Year in Review statistics for its language learners. I figured I’d join in and post my stats, and offer a few quick words about Duolingo. For the past year and a half or so I have used Duolingo (almost)...
by Brian Crawford | Nov 30, 2023 | personal, writing
Two days ago I completed NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for 2023 by writing 50,000 words of a book during this chilly month of November. Now it’s time to go back and start editing what I’ve written; much of what I wrote was composed without...
by Brian Crawford | Nov 17, 2023 | personal, travel
Today some friends and I visited the Convent of Saint Agnes of Bohemia. The building itself was founded around 1231, while the art gallery within it contains medieval and very early Renaissance art spanning from the late 1200s until the early 1400s. Nearly all of the...
by Brian Crawford | Oct 21, 2023 | nature, personal, travel
Today we hiked the area around Karlštejn Castle, a Gothic castle built in the French style and founded in 1348 by King Charles IV. On our hike we also visited two quarries that were worked by prisoners of war during the late 1940s and early 1950s. I’m not sure how far...
by Brian Crawford | Aug 7, 2023 | personal, travel
Yesterday and today I walked around Prague Castle, the largest ancient castle in the world. It features palaces, gardens, a monastery, a Romanesque basilica, and a Gothic cathedral founded in the year 930. There are also plenty of exhibits demonstrating what life was...
by Brian Crawford | Jul 20, 2023 | personal, photography
I got up at 5 something this morning and decided to go for a walk north along the Vltava River to the Charles Bridge, a medieval stone arch bridge in the center of Prague. It was a beautiful morning, and only a handful of people were on the bridge itself –...
