the real Czech way of life

This morning we were picked up by Marta and her dad Vladimir and taken to Jablonec nad Nisou to see how real Czechs live. J Her family was so welcoming and I felt right at home. Her mom made us some delicious apple strudel and then we went to the Petřín lookout to see the beautiful Jablonec n.N. from higher up. We then went to the town reservior and walked for a while, learning a bit about the town from tour guide Marta. We came home for a late lunch of homemade goulaš and dumplings...again, delicious. I’m surely going to miss all this authentic Czech food!! Next we went to nearby Liberec for a tour of St. Lawrence church which was founded by the Dominican order and dedicated to St. Zdislava. I had never heard of Saint Zdislava, but we were told she worked in the Liberec area and dedicated her life to helping others. The coolest part was that we got to go underground to the crypts and see her burial place, along with the crypts of several Dominicans and others who helped build the church. (We were told that tours usually dont go down to see that, but we were allowed to because we were such rare visitors!) After that we tried to go to Lemberk castle but it was closed, so we went to a mineral spring instead. It was so cold and refreshing, and it didnt taste like old pipes like the Karlovy Vary springs! Next came dinner at a local Liberec hotel restaurant, and we were joined by Jakub Hodbod who I met this past year when he was a student at UNL. He also came with us to the Ještěd lookout tower on the highest mountain peak in Liberec where we could see the gorgeous mountains and landscape of the area, as well as Germany and Poland! It was so nice to meet with Jakub again, and also convenient that he lives so close to the Kloučkovas. It is nice to be able to see how Marta lives here, and it gives me a better idea of how things changed for her when she came to Nebraska. Jablonec is a very nice town, about the size of Bellevue, but with more forests and mountains. Its beautiful!

i love/hate maps

Today we conquered Prague alone. No tour guide, no group, just us three ladies. We had a few things that we wanted to do, but for the most part it was just nice to not have 20 other people in our group. So we took the tram from our hotel to more of the center of Prague and took a funicular up to a lookout spot where we thought we would be able to see all of Prague, but that didn’t really happen. But there were many beautiful rose and lavender gardens up there and we also had fun in the mirror labyrinth. After that we walked around some more and again got tired of looking for Infant Jesus of Prague medals in 20 different garnet shops. We also got lost probably 4 times trying to go to a jazz concert on Kampa island but I was happy just following my mom and Jenni like a little kid because I had some Starbucks to keep me occupied. J We stopped in some good souvenir shops along the way to the concert too. We ate lunch at (I think) the best pizza place in Prague and (funny story…) were given menus in Czech, I guess because we said “dobry den” when we walked in and ordered our drinks in Czech. So we whipped out our Czech-English dictionaries and tried for quite a while to figure out what was one which pizza and which one to get. The waiter then noticed probably 10 minutes later that we had no idea what was on these menus and brought us English ones. Thank goodness! Apparently we seemed Czech! J The jazz concert ended up being very good and it was so nice to just sit in the grass, rest, and enjoy good music. After that we took the tram back to the hotel and headed off for the farewell dinner in Středokluky just out side of Prague that included a huge dinner, drinks, and a band with dancers who changed outfits and did dances from all different regions. We then went back to the hotel (we even sang on the bus) and said our goodbyes to our group. It was an awesome trip with a nice group of people!

The Prague Experience

I can’t believe I’m in Prague! Yesterday we rode on the bus to Prague and then just settled in our hotel Pyramida until Marta came and it was time for dinner at the hotel. After dinner we went out on the town with tour guide Marta J to see the Prague Castle and Charles Bride at night. How beautiful!! The weather was perfect and the sunset and clouds and water reflections made for some great pictures! So after that we sent my mom and Jenni back on streetcar 22 to the hotel so Marta and I could meet up with some of her friends at a pub. Oooh the pub. Marta’s friends were nice and I was glad that they could speak English very well (I was nervous about that), but we’ll just generally say that I hope to never have a similar “experience” in a pub again and I was surely feeling it the next morning. So battling the headache, the highlights of the next day were the Loreta Shrine, the Prague Castle with the guards and the gorgeous St. Vitus’s Cathedral, the town of Lidice, and then a dinner boat cruise on the Vltava River. My favorite part of the day was the cathedral because of its history, art, and uniqueness. The Prague Castle is very pretty from a distance, surrounding the cathedral and all, but it is kind of just a big building (I knew it wasn’t like a stone one little girls think their prince is in) so I’m learning that the word “castle” can mean many different types of structures. (“Kolač” has many different meanings here too, but that’s a different story…) So anyway I also liked the Loreta Shrine because it is a great place of prayer and the collection of monstrances was impressive, especially the one with 6,222 diamonds in it! Lidice was a kind of depressing part of the day because, in short, Nazis attempted to exterminate the town destroy any evidence that there was ever a town there. The monument to the children gassed in concentration camps was kind of emotional and my favorite part of the museum. After that the cruise on the Vltava River was nice, but I think we had better views simply from the bridge or at different points in the city. After our boating we met up with Marta again and headed for a pizzeria near the Astronomical Clock (even though we didn't actually see it). Her brother Viktor even joined us, which was a nice surprise! The day was pretty packed, and its still kind of surreal that I’m actually in Prague! :-)

Litomyšl

We are now in Litomyšl for two days. We toured the castle on Sunday afternoon and walked the town square on Monday. The castle is getting ready to host the Bedrich Šmetana music festival in a few days I think, so we caught a little of the opera practice. The interior of the castle was very beautiful and I really liked the original theatre. The tour guide said that the theatre was originally built solely for the performances by the royal family, which made me think that my big Vankat family should just take over the castle (we’d all fit…there are like a million rooms!) and we could hold regular performances just with our family as actors! I think we’d make good money.  After the castle tour we saw a poster for a museum of Josef Vachal’s works (I think he’s an artist), so we took a picture by it since Vachal is one of our family names (even though we really don’t know if he’s related to us or not). We never visited the museum because it was closed on Sunday night and Monday. Sunday night after my first tasty duck dinner, Mílan (our bus driver) taught us a card game called Prši, and a couple on the tour with us taught us how to play a dice game called LCR. We all had lots of fun with the new games! Oh and I’ve wanted to get Grandma a souvenir too, so today we bought some red poppies for her.  We’re enjoying our little bit of down time here in Litomyšl!

Little town, quiet village

Not far from our hotel was located an area called the Open Air Museum of Wallachia (a la “Living History Farms”) which included Timber Town, Mill Valley, and Wallachian Village. We saw about 80 buildings – houses, workplaces, houses with workplaces in them, a church, a steel mill, wool mills, a saw mill, barns, and the like. It was pretty shocking to read the descriptions and learn that 12ish people lived in such a tiny house and that the kids’ most coveted sleeping spot was on top of the oven, which looked like a ledge. The military was hosting a folklore festival in Rožnov that weekend also, which was AMAZING! There were maybe 30 dancing/singing troupes all in different kroje and costumes and they were all very good. Some kids, some adults, some in the middle. Each of them had a band also, so the amount of talent in the city those few days was intense! We watched them practice in the town square for a while and then they had a parade through the town. It was so cool! I tried to snap a picture of each troupe as they went by to capture each unique costume. We walked through the Wallachian Village for a while and right before stopping for lunch I saw a man carrying a dudy, so I asked him if I could take a picture of it. Not only did I end up with a picture of his dudy, he and a violinist started playing a few songs for us right in the middle of the outdoor restaurant seating area! Then of course my mom had to talk me up to this guy who put his dudy on me and told me to play, while my mom told him I am a Czech Queen and I’m playing the dudy for my talent in the competition, as I struggled to play the only two songs I know on this new and different dudy, each of which are hard to get used to, so I wasn’t very good of course…it was crazy. She even said the Jackie phrase “I’m Carrie’s mom!!!” (family should understand that reference) I was surprised the guy knew which two songs I was attempting to play, and the violinist tried playing along with me. I guess that just really made me realize how much of a universal language music is. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, music notes can be read and played the same no matter where you’re from! And I’ve also noticed that Czechs don’t smile much…I guess it has something to do with communism and not trusting anyone, I don’t know, but today when they were singing and dancing and playing music there were smiles everywhere. You could really tell they enjoyed what they were doing, and that made it even better to watch. I’m really glad we got to be there during the folklore festival!! Our dinner up near a ski resort in the beautiful Beskydy Mountains included a great view of the sunset afterwards. It definitely made me think about how awesome it would be to have a summer house up in the mountains!

wow what a country!

from Monica:
We have plotted 11 relatives on the Czech map. So far it is 6 to 5, Bohemia to Moravia. We still have a couple to figure out. We have visited about 4 of these 11 towns and come near to others. Each region we visit has more cool stuff and the wonders of this country are amazing!!! After 7 days in Bohemia, we are now in Moravia, up in the Beskydy mountains. We are near the border of Slovakia. It is called the Wallachian region, and we are in the town Roznov pod Radhosten. Today there was a folklore festival in this town, with touring dancers and musicians and singers from all over Moravia, each group in their own kroje (costumes) from their region. It was spectacular! Carrie got to play dudy again with a man from a group from Breclavan. Unfortunately, no one had a stomp fiddle for Jenni! Also, this town has a wonderful open-air museum with 70 buildings showing life in the late 1800s with "living history" demonstrations. Then we had dinner at a ski resort on the top of the mountain. Tomorrow we head back to Bohemia, near the home village of Jan Vankat. We'll get to see Marta on Tues. when we head further north to the Jizera mountains. Na shledanou! Monica

hello dolly

The day started off with the Moravé Slovacko Muzeum (in Uherské Hradiště) which had very informative displays about kroje, handicrafts, and farming tools. Of course the kroje were my favrite part! I am amazed at how many different styles there are and how specific the designs were from town to town, whether it be a different colored ribbon or the way their scarf is tied on their head. We also visited a doll fatory in Uherské Brod where we got to see some of the doll-making process including sewing hair into the head, sewing tiny but ornate patterns on tiny clothes, pleating miniature aprons, and dressing the dolls. My mom and I bought small ones from the Plzen and Chodsko regions. After that we drove to Rožnov pod Radhoštěm in the Beskydy Mountains for two nights. More about that in the next blog!

from Jenni

Nine days in the Czech Republic! I can't believe we've been here that long and I can't believe we'll be here for another 11 days! We've seen so many museums and local co-ops, such as the Moravian museum today full of kroj costumes and items from daily life of the Moravian people in the past centuries. Our guides talk about the 17th, 18th, and 19th century life. We'll drive by a building that says 1763 or a similar date. We're seeing some old stuff here! Today we went to the Jelinek distillery. We toured, then tasted two flavors of brandy and a plum liqueur. Ben - we had slivovice (sp?). The shots were strong! Three shots in moments. I was red-cheeked for a while! Earlier in the day we went to a folk doll factory. Mom brought one back for me when she came here so I didn't buy one. I've had some "Mom moments" thinking about her especially when I use her "Say it in Czech" translation book. Last night the Moravian folk band played a song with her name in it - Rose Marie. Monica and I looked at each other. I teared up, the oodles of wine may have helped that, but probably not! I miss mom here. It's a great trip and I'm learning a lot about this country and international travel. Being with a group has its down moments or impatient times, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Time for bed! Carrie will share more. Dobre noc!

tiny bubbles

We left České Budějovice for a long, long day on the bus. We passed by two ancestral villages, Naměst nod Oslavou and Hrotovice. Even though its hard to find a comfortable position on the bus to sleep in, the happiness shared all throughout the bus when someone finds an ancestral village or relatives is very nice. We also stopped in Telč, sister city to Wilber, NE, for a short while, too. In moving more toward Moravia we started seeing huge vineyards, so I knew the dinner and wine tasting at the Blatnička Winery in Uherské Hradiště was soon to come. Dinner was delicious as usual, and the wine…well that might take a while to get used to. (I did find a sparkling white wine in Bohemia that I really liked a few days prior, though!) The entertainment for the night was a great band made up of four men with two violins, one bass, and one dulcimer. And let me tell you, I am now a huge fan of the dulcimer!! (I’ll upload a video of it soon.) Apparently it’s quite common in Moravia. By the end of the night you could surely tell everyone was having a great time because the last 2 hours of the night were mostly comprised of giggles. I didn’t have as much of the wine but I was also laughing just because other people were so funny!  It was another great night of food and entertainment!!

PICTURES and VIDEOS!!!!

I think this will work if you go to this link to look for the pictures and video of my trip so far. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/carebear007

Dancing Queen

Today was quite fun! This morning we toured the castle at Český Krumlov which dated back to the 1500s. I loved the artwork and decoration of the castle. I can't even imagine people living there ever!! There are bears in the moat of this castle...sweet. After that we bought garnets! :-D I got a ring and a bracelet, Jenni got two necklace pendants, and my mom got some small earrings. (Plus the other stuff we were supposed to get people back home.) Our lunch was delicious, ending with fruit dumplings that were SO tasty with blueberries inside. I'm definitely going to learn how to make those at home. So after the castle we went back to our hotel area in Ceske Budejovice and to the grocery store. It was fun trying to figure out what stuff was there because nothing's in English. My mom did get some houska (not decorated) but we havent tried it yet. Tonight for dinner we went to the Budvar restaurant and this was the first time we had potato dumplings instead of just bread dumplings. The pivo is great! Krušovice is my favorite beer so far. The food is delicious too but the portions are huge here! I rarely finish a whole meal. So at the Budvar restaurant there was a polka band for entertainment and I figured hey, why not polka. So I got to dance with Ted, Janet's (our American tour guide) husband, our bus driver Mílan (he is so smooth!), and then I pulled two men out of the bar to come dance with me. The first one couldn't polka at all (disappointing!), and I'm not sure if he could speak English or not. Very little I think. The second one was from Germany and could speak English pretty well. He didn't really know how to polka either, but he picked it up very quickly and turned out to be very nice. Plus, when I wasnt dancing I tried to sing along with the polkas, and (not to toot my own horn) a few of the band members had their eye on me all night...but they were too old for me so I just kind of laughed and went along with it. After their performance I think one was trying to give me his phone number, but he only spoke Czech so that was an interesting "conversation". It was such a fun night with the dancing and singing! Tomorrow we are stopping by an ancestral town of ours (Hrotovice) and a winery afterwards, so we'll see what happens with those two adventures!!

Nashle,
Carrie

P.S. I have not yet written about my morning with Michael Cwach, the dudak from South Dakota now living in the bagpiping region of the Czech republic. We met in the Tabor town square and I played right then and there...awakward, but these people will likely never see me again anyway. There was an elementary school class who was walking across the square and enjoyed my dudy playing. It was funny. I think I should have been better to practice in front of Michael. However, I've only been teaching myself for about 5 months, so I'm surely not a pro yet, and the dudy Michael brought was different and very difficult to play, but it was nice to see a familiar face, especially one who speaks English! I'll keep practicing!! :-)

Monica's novy

Ahoj a dobry den! This is such a beautiful country! Zeme ceska, domov muj! The architecture is phenomenal and majestic, the countryside is gorgeous, with more mountains than I knew. Some of the bus rides get me queezy. But hey...I haven't thrown up yet, nor did I on the plane! We loved Domazlice, Klenci, Plzen, Tabor, Karlovy Vary with it's hot springs, and now we are in Cesky Budjovice. We've visited many ancestral homes of people on our trip and made some good hits on relatives or finding homes. The closest WE came was in the village of Slavetice, where a 70 year old man knew some Vankats there who were farmers. The food is delicious but oh so many dumplings!! Carrie's concert with master dudak Antonin Konrady and his band was the best thing so far. Jenni also did a great job on the stomp fiddle. The video of that will be long remembered! Today Carrie met with Michael Cwach from USA, who is living here now, for tutoring on the dudy. We are having a fantastic and most memorable time. Na shledanou and Spanem Bohem! Monica

grr pictures

i am working on getting a web album for pictures up, but it is 1:15AM here and i really need to just get some sleep. i will try to get the pictures up tomorrow night!

-C

chodsko 2 - JACKPOT!! (kind of...)

The first stop for us today was the Chodovia pottery factory in Klenči that makes the florally decoreated black or white pottery and (I’ll call them) “home accessories”. It was so neat to see the process. I remember seeing pottery like that that my Grandma Rose owned. Our next stop was Domažlice, in which my family traces relatives. One word: JACKPOT. I had been trying to save money thus far in the trip because I came here with a mission to find some more kroj (Czech costume) pieces for myself and some cousins, and Janet (our American group director) led us to paradise. The first shop had a few newer pieces, very nice, and definitely the style we were looking for. We bought some goods and kroj pieces there (it would take me forever to describe them here, but they are gorgeous!). Then we stopped at a “fast food” place to get lunch since we only had a few hours in Domažlice. My mom and Jenni got Smaženy Syr (fried cheese on bread is how they described it) and I tried a hot dog because I wanted to compare them to Wilber Weenies. The hot dog tasted very similar and was quite good. We also stopped in a bakery for a “Czech Pizza” – a big kolač, about the size of a medium-sized pizza. It was with cheese and then some poppy seed drizzled across in big Xs. We also got a “buchta”, which was just a softer dough than the kolač and kind of drizzled with cream cheese filling instead of it being inside. It was not the buchta that I know, but whatever it was, I may have liked it better than the kolač. After all the food we found an “Antik” shop and hit the kroj jackpot. There were two floors to this shop, each with gorgeous, authentic, antique kroj pieces. We were very surprised at how low the prices were! We felt it to be a steal, but I bet they were just happy to get them off their hands! Jenni got a colorful apron like I wear with my kroj back home, my mom got a “jumper” (skirt and vest combo, which most of their styles were) and matching jacket and an apron, as well as about 3 other aprons, and I got a jumper and jacket as well. I had been hoping for a beaded vest (which they had) and also the jacket, but I didn’t get any beaded vests. I’m not really sure why, because the handiwork was breathtaking and now I wish I would have gotten one. I must have just gotten talked out of it. Darn! They did have one head scarf, but I learned that those are just for when a woman is married. Our pieces are magnificent, just what we wanted, and made me feel so great that my kroj back home does look very similar to the kroj we found today! Before heading back to the bus we stopped in Domažlice’s Assumption Catholic Church. The churches we’ve seen so far this trip are surely the most beautiful I’ve ever seen! So after Domažlice we went to some other people’s ancestral villages, and then finally one of ours, a tiny village called Slavetice. The locals were amazed at Mílan’s bus driving skills and also that a huge bus would come into their little village. We snapped some pictures by the town name, town crest, and town chapel, and then went to talk to the family who watched us pull our huge bus in. Jana (our Czech tour guide) translated and asked if any of the family names we had told them sounded familiar. He said he recognized the name Vankat, a farmer and forester who used to live just to the left of the chapel. The family is since gone and another man lives in the house so we didn’t check it out or anything. But even knowing that there is a small glimmer of light of finding a family name in a town makes this whole thing worthwhile! After that we continued on to Tabor, where we are staying tonight. We ate dinner, walked around the town square, and just observed the people a bit. The weather has been almost perfect here! Tomorrow morning I am meeting with Michael Cwach (leant me his dudy) for the first time since January. I hope it goes well and I don’t mess up! Already this trip has been a success!!

Update: Late tonight we got some email help from home about the names and corresponding towns. Our records don’t show having Vankats from the town we visited today, but holy cow do we have lots of names, dates, and towns now!! So even though we may not have found our exact relatives, it was so cool to hear the man be excited to know a name that we said of our relatives and be able to help us a little bit (so we thought). We even took a picture with him and his family! It turns out we do trace a relative back to a Slavetice village, but its in Moravia, not Bohemia, and the name wasn’t Vankat. Oh well, it was still worth the trip and being able to meet some helpful locals! Maybe on my next trip here, right?

chodsko 1

(Teplá Monastery, Plzen, Klenči, Domažlice)

Teplá Monastery – I wasn’t quite sure why we were visiting a monastery, but I am glad we did. It was so neat to see such aged but beautiful buildings, I think built in the 13^th century. I couldn’t help but wonder if the people who were building it and painting the gorgeous murals those many years ago expected it to be still in use (plus a sort of tourist attraction) today.

On the way to Plzen we stopped in Stod so I could take a picture in front of the city hall because the dudy I have on loan from Michael Cwach was made by Lubomir Jungbauer, the mayor (I don’t know if he is anymore) of Stod. J

Plzen – we weren’t expecting to go here, but were excited to be able to stop in the town square because we have ancestors from Plzen. We didn’t see any family names or anything, but the town gave me a different perspective because it was more industrial and more of what I predicted the Czech Republic to be like. We stopped in the Catholic church (St. Bartholomew), walked in the town square, and it was time to go back to the bus already.

Klenči – OH MY GOODNESS!! This might have to go on the list of coolest things I’ve done in my lifetime. Tonight we heard the Antonín Konrády band for our evening entertainment. Antonín is basically a dudy master! He invited me to play with him (AHHH!! How exciting!) so I said ok and we played the two songs I know (so far) – “Budejce, Budejce” and “The Bohemian Café Song” (in Czech). I played the melody, and they knew the songs so they (the violin, clarinet, accordion, and dudy) elaborated it. I was shaking out of excitement the whole time because it was me, a dudačka for only 5 months now, plus only self-taught, and a master who even won an award in England back in the mid-late 1900s. I still cant believe it. It was AMAZING. We also bought a stomp fiddle (looks like a percussion stick doll thing…see pictures) and a horse hair jug (also see pictures. Then Antonín gave me a horse hair jug as a gift for playing my dudy with him. I cant even explain on here how amaznig that was! There are pictures and videos so stay tuned for a few of those!!

karlovy vary

Today we spent all day in Karlovy Vary, a spa town in Bohemia. It is known for its mineral water hot springs. Doctors prescribe patients to drink 2/3/4 cups a day for about 3 weeks or so from one of 10ish springs, and apparently that helps in the healing process. We bought small decorated glass cups to drink from the fountains and honestly it tasted pretty nasty. Hot water, a little bit salty, and like it was water from old pipes, but then again, that’s what it is. I drank from spring number 1. We also got some oplatky, which is like a big round flat wafer. I got cinnamon flavored and had it warmed up. It was delicious. After having a crazy time trying to figure out who’s massages were when and where and how much they cost (I thought more English would be spoken here…its not!), Jenni got the right massage in the right place, my mom got the wrong massage at the wrong place for a higher cost, and I got none. So I walked along the River Teplá by myself for a while and that was quite nice to just take in everything. We met up for late lunch at the Good Soldier Švejk restaurant J and I had goulash that was my best meal here so far, even though they have all been quite good. After lunch we walked up some more hilly areas to see the Russian Orthodox church which was very beautiful. We think we may have walked in on a baptism, but who really knows when they're talking so fast in Russian or something! We then walked to a concert at the Catholic Church (St. Mary Magdalene) of some classical pieces with an organ, violin, and soprano (from the National Theatre Prague). My mom and I both took little naps during that because although the music was great, we were SO tired (jet lag!). Then Cassie and I decided we would like to see some of the sights on the rock/mountain/hill side. That was the best adventure of the day because we pretty much just walked it by instinct because no one could speak English that helped us and the map was quite confusing. So instead of just seeing “stag leap” we saw (see pictures!) a big cross, two gazebos, and stag leap. They all had AMAZING views of Karlovy Vary. That was my favorite part of the day – getting lost but finding the correct stops along the way! Dinner was at a local restaurant and then we just walked the town some more. The group is friendly so far and I am already impressed with the Czech Republic! J Tomorrow: church, Teplá monastery, and Klenči (we’ll see a band with a dudy!!!!!!). Dobrou noc!

lány

We stopped in Lány where the late Czech President Msarek is buried and where the Czech version of Camp David is. The cemetery was amazing. So much history, and even a few last names we recognized! We also ate a great meal of chicken, potato pancakes, and veggies in a small local restaurant. (Oh yes, Jen and I got wine with our lunch on the plane from Chicago to Vienna.) my first reaction to seeing the real Prague outside the airport was a loud gasp and probably a few too many “oh my gosh”es. The red roofs are really what made me feel like “wow this really is it!” That probably makes sense why Assumption’s roof is red!

Other observations:

- LOTS of forestry and fields. Was not expecting that.

- We saw some people mushrooming…how cute.

- Jana says there are lots of deer, wild boars, badgers, and a few bears, and I think two others that she said but I can’t remember. So hunting is big.

- Lots of “man ‘pris” (male version of capris) and I am a-ok with that.

- Everyone has bikes. Biking or walking seem to be preferred over driving…how nice!

- Shorter distances between “towns” than I thought there would be.

- Roads are ridiculously narrow and I don’t understand patterns of traffic or laws.

- Lace curtains in almost every window. Beautiful.

- Red poppies grow everywhere in fields and such, but Jana says they're weeds to the fields, so maybe its not so good.

- Many flats in towns and “weekend houses” in villages.

- Many gardens.

Tonight in Karlovy Vary

Walked the River Teplá and surrounding area shops and such. Will write more tomorrow because I didn’t sleep on the plane and I am SO tired. Tomorrow’s day is all exploring Karlovy Vary and getting a massage in the Parkhotel Pupp. J

chicago - vienna

Chicago – Vienna (by the way, i'm editing the times of these posts to be when i typed them in my laptop)

- my first time eating a meal on a plane (with MANY more meals to come that day I figured out) was stroganoff and spaetzel

- everything was “happy”…“happy [trail] mix”, “happy orange juice”, so Jenni played with her happy snacks and made them sing and dance a little bit. J

- Austrian Airlines stewardesses were in bright red with turquoise accents, a strange combination.

- So many things were in German (?) first

- Austrians must be bred to be tan

- Austrian military boys…fantastic.

- Flew over Dublin…sweet

- Culture shock the minute I got on the plane because not everyone could understand what I was saying, and it will be like that the rest of the trip. Kinda cool, kinda worrisome.

- Foreign guys (for the most part) have amazing style and smells J.

- Languages are crazy. There are so many and I feel quite inferior only knowing English and very few Czech words. I’m trying to use my Czech and Czech dictionary as much as I can here.

chi town airport

Jenni and I are sitting here in the Chicago O’Hare airport waiting for our flight to Vienna. My mom loves her Dramamine, so she’s asleep on the table. I already freaked out once because the lady at the Austrian Airlines counter ripped up my boarding pass I received in the Omaha airport that said Chicago to Vienna. After convincing my mom and Jenni that I didn’t lose it, she really did just rip it up, we tried to figure it out at the security checkpoint. Little did I know it was the wrong one anyway. Phew. We got some “Chicago-style” pizza for our 4 hour layover (not Giordano’s unfortunately). We’ve met 8 people from our group already and they all seem quite nice. To my surprise there actually is one girl younger than me! Honestly, I was geared up for it to be me and a bunch of older people, but I think the group has a variety of ages which is good. I’m so excited to see Marta at the airport (I hope). Right when we got checked in at the Omaha airport I exclaimed “we’re going to PRAGUE!!!” and that’s pretty much all I thought the entire flight to Chicago even. Our next flight is about 9.5 hrs long – not fun. I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night because I was so excited, so hopefully I’ll sleep a lot on the plane. Next time I write I’ll be in the Czech Republic...WOW!!

Nashle,

C

T-minus 17 hours and counting...

I am so excited for my trip to the Czech Republic!!! I'm sure everyone who's been around me recently (or even since January probably...sorry guys) is sick of me talking about it, but this is me fulfilling one of my dreams here! This is what I've been saving for, working for, competing for, preparing for. All those kolace as a little girl and now I'm going to be able to eat real, authentic ones! (Although I will always have a sweet spot for my family's.) Bohemian Cafe -esque food daily...ok by me! To see the castles, bridges, red roofs, landscape, churches, rivers, historic buildings, and (the would-be highlight of my trip, I'm sure!) possibly a trace of my ancestors...I can't wait! I just about cried seeing their names on the list at Ellis Island, and now I get to actually walk the same land they did hundreds of years ago - what a dream! So here I go on a trip I'll remember forever...enjoy my blogging along the way! :-)