Krik's Picks

Great grandfather's house in Karizek When my brothers picked me up at the Prague airport, there was no time for dilly-dallying. We were already an hour late due to my flight delay in Amsterdam. Nobody was blaming me, but there were plans and schedules to keep. So we made a quick stop at our hotel. I dropped off my luggage. (I was too early to actually check in.) Then the rest of the family loaded into the van and we were off. (If you need some background about the people on this trip, read my Prologue post, click here .) Our immediate destination was a little town called  Karizek, located about 22 miles west of Plzen . That was the town where my great grandfather Josef Krikava lived until the 1870s when he emigrated to the USA. The house where he lived - No. 2 Karizek - is still there. In fact it's still inhabited by members of the family that bought it from Josef. My Mom and Dad had found it many years ago while doing genealogical  research. I had never seen it, but I t...

As I trudged out of the Prague airport terminal with my luggage, on a bright sunny morning last November, I spotted two of my brothers waiting in a van to pick me up. I was the straggler, arriving a week late to join my siblings and parents on our first ever whole family vacation. You see, I'm the oldest of 5 kids. I'm 65 years old, and I'm 17 years older than my youngest brother, Richard. Some of us have traveled together in the past. We even had family vacations before Richard was born. But I left home for college shortly after Richard was born, and we never had a family trip with the 5 siblings and our parents. At the Prague airport returning home, minus Jim who left earlier The Czech Republic, really more specifically the region of Bohemia , is our ancestral homeland. All of us have been there in the past; just not all together. Our parents, who are now 88 and 85, traveled there twice a year for 20 years after they retired. One of my brothers, Jim, has an apartm...

Here's a venue that really has it all. Located on 'Eat Street' in South Minneapolis, Icehouse is a surefire winner whatever your mood. For my wife and me, the Saturday night dinner show is our usual attraction. The music starts at 6:30 p.m. There's no cover charge. It's usually a duo, occasionally a soloist. The music is restrained enough to accommodate dinner conversation. But the line-up of locally renowned artists assures that you're going to hear some good music as well. When we came last Saturday, the performers were Patrick Harison and James Buckley. Harison plays the button accordion and Buckley plays acoustic bass. They performed a wide variety tunes, mostly jazz, some with Middle Eastern harmonics. As a music venue, Icehouse is intelligently designed. The stage is in the middle of a big, two-level dining room. We've only ever been seated on the ground floor where there isn't really a bad table for hearing and watching the performers. There m...