Kontexty (Posts about general-blog)

Slunovrat: The Day the Sun Returns

VK — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 21:30:05 GMT

Slunovrat. In Czech, it means solstice. But literally, it translates to the turning of the sun. That’s what they taught us in elementary school: twice a year, like clockwork, once in winter, once in summer. The shortest day, the longest day ... and the sun returns.

I remember thinking:

Wait, really?

I started breaking the word slun-ovrat apart to find a meaning. Slun[ce] means sun. But what exactly is ovrat? It sounded vaguely Czech, but I’d never heard it used on its own. The only association I had was with ploughs or tractors turning at the edge of a field. A kind of "reversal point." Was it the same with the sun? Did the sun stop? Turn around? Did it come back to the exact same spot where it rose? Was ovrat a hint at some special solar dynamic that no one had really explained?

I wanted to ask. But I didn’t dare.

Francis Is Dead. Long Live the Pope?

VK — Thu, 08 May 2025 10:55:30 GMT

I still remember the end of Pope Francis’s first Urbi et Orbi. People were waiting for the traditional greetings, one language after another. A ritualized embrace of the world.

But he didn’t do it. At first, I was surprised. But then, I felt a strange relief. I realized: I don’t have to sit through a theatrical performance that no longer says anything real.

Instead of playing pope, Francis chose to be present — to speak directly, to those who suffer. He didn’t need to perform closeness. He wanted to live it.

Czech Christmas 2023, Compassion and Klánovice Fireworks

VK — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 21:13:25 GMT

The year 2023 was a strange Christmas season in the Czech Republic, which was marked by a state mourning on 23 December. That's why I decided to write this blog and collect little snippets of what happened after the tragedy at this Christmas time. Pieces that caught my attention and which show that at Christmas time we must not lose hope.

Klánovice is a municipality near Prague formally part of the Prague agglomeration. It is bordered by a large forest, the Klánovice Forest. There have been murders in this forest in the past, but what happened here in December 2023 was particularly cruel and the whole country was left in shock by the act. On Friday, 15 December, a double murder with a firearm took place there, in which a two-month-old baby in a pram and her father died, see 1, 2. The police failed to catch the murderer until 21 December 2023, when the same criminal shot 14 people at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University and then turned the gun on himself. It turned out that he had killed his father earlier that day. The total number of dead was thus 18, see 3.

Lasagna cheaper than ready made product from the store?

VK — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 20:00:00 GMT

In virtually any supermarket in Hamburg, you can buy ready-made lasagne in 1 kg packs. Just pop one in the oven, wait an hour, and you’ve got dinner for two. At ALDI, they sell them for just 3.99 euros, making it one of the cheapest almost-ready meals you can get in that quantity. I buy them from time to time, they taste good. But several times I have come across these lasagne, from various stores, that were too sour. It's hard to tell then if it could have been the spoiled meat, or just the abundance of tomato puree and lemon juice in the béchamel.

When I went grocery shopping yesterday, I put two packs of these lasagnas in my cart so we'd have food for the weekend. Then I thought, what if I made the actual lasagna myself? Could they be better? And can I actually save money if I make them myself? Luckilly I have found dehydrated lasagna noodles in the shop so I could slid the semi-finished products back into the shelf.

In this post I describe how I prepared these with my son and if it was possible to make this gourmet delicacy cheaper than the ready made product.