Two things

First, I cannot deny you the pic of Tähti watching tv. I don't have such crap at home so it was her first experience and she seemed to enjoy it. Especially cats... and ski jumping, she was hunting the ski jumpers. The tv was on when she was staring at it but the camera didn't catch the pic....
Second, a chat friend of mine came to Prague. I needed a break from family matters, I needed to pick some books from the National Libbrary and just... anyway so their stay was really welcomed. I told parents that it's some sort of friend who studied in Florence with me and then moved to Rome ... you know, my Mom has her views...
Anyway, it started snowing on December 28 one hour or so before Alessandra and Paola arrived and it looked nice for a while... and nothing remained till the next morning. They didn't take credit cards at the hotel so we went out to find some exchange place since the girls took some euros from their cards back in Rome. Banks were already closed and the exchange offices were offering such rates that they should be arrested for theft on the spot, some weird looking guy offered us to exhange money (I wonder, if I started to negotiate, whether he'd try to sell me something not anymore valid and Ukrainian for that matter) and I just sent him to the right places and wasn't polite... Prague sucks and its people suck most. However, I gathered all the money I had, overdrew (as I discovered much later) my account and cursed all the time. It is widely known that I hate Prague and now I got another valid reason. Then we hung around, I showed them the bakery, the pub and agreed to show them around the next day. The bakery is the most important lunch institution for my faculty after the cafe at the rectorate which was closed during the winter holidays, though. The pub, place named Indigo, is just the pub. International cuisine would sound too posh, I'd describe it as what the personnel's grandmas made, what the personnel encountered elsewhere and some other food ideas combined. And yummy, cheap and nutritious, regarding that it's between the National Library and Arts Faculty, it has to be. The canteen at the National Library has its specific charm, it's not the 60's style, it's pure 60's... but one has to be trained for it.
The next day Ale and Paola showed interest in glass so I showed them the factory outlet of some good glassmakers, I showed them where to get the crystal jewellery (Swarowski guys came from the North Bohemian region where all such stuff is produced until today, after all. And the North Bohemian things are much cheaper since they don't spend heaps of money on showing up), see Ale's neck. We ended up in Louvre. They boast enough on their website but it's true that the service and meals are perfect, the place has atmosphere, when you sit there with a coffee, they aren't bothersome (but the lack of bothersomelessness of Tynska which will get its own blog entry one day is unsurpassed) and I just like it.. although I go there usually only when invited. It's not that expensive, though, and you can stuff yourself with bread if you're a hungry student... which is counted as service charge of neglectable amount. Then I left for Olomouc. I think I even didn't have anything to knit with me.
Ale and Paola brought me Italian sweets undescribable to those who don't know them and a book on medieval gardens which I really appreciate because I needed it all. I miss Italy so damn much..... No news from Guggenheims, either they threw my application because it arrived after deadline (well possible with Italian Post) or they took me in consideration and will let me know later, the date to inform the refused ones is past at the moment of writing (i.e. Jan 15, this is a retrospective entry for which I left some place before).
That's it.