Stephen Cuffey

The pictures posted here are parts of the more humorous side of Czech living. The first few pictures you will see are of our washing maching. It is a very old Slovakian machine with directions in Slovakian but still a lot of kick to it. Quite literally actually, during the end of the washing cycle it enters what we call the 'violent cycle' in which it tumbles the clothes so violently that it actually moves the entire machine. At the beginning of the year it moved and hit repeatedly the kitchen cabinets next to it, breaking a pipe underneath the sink and causing a small flood. So now we have to sit on the top of it or physically hold it back in some other way to keep it in one place.
The last two pictures were taken the day after we arrived home from Rome to find our heater broken and our flat at 5 degrees Celsius, which also meant no hot water. Coming home wasn't much of a relief from the cold temperatures outside. So we dressed in all of our warm clothes, layered together, and tried to survive. We lived in that for a couple days before the landlord came over and got it fixed. On the upside, it now works significantly better than before it broke. And life goes on in the Czech Republic.