Yesterday was a very frustrating day. I forgot to go pick something up that I need pretty badly, so I have to go today. My birthday gift to Ejdo wasn't a hit in my mind or his. Its rainy and cold. The stupid Hokies lost to Miami 16-14. The windows in our house are so crappy there's a freakin breeze through the living room.

Ahhh. Feels good to just vent.

Now, heres some good stuff. I made a kick ass homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner last night. We're going to have a fancy dinner tonight for Ejdo's birthday. We might actually get the walls in the bathroom painted (with color!) this weekend. My boss isn't in the office anymore today, so its blogging and RBR for my morning.

Looks like things aren't so bad.

Heres a cute puppy photo to brighten everyone's day.

Have a good weekend all!

Almost time for Austria. Can't forget Hluboka though. This was my absolute favorite castle of the trip. The most gorgeous building I've seen. Many, many movies have been shot here simply because of the beauty of the castle. A few of my favorite shots:

Ok. Now onto Austria. First stop Linz. It was a nice enough town, but it was strange to not understand anything again. I was just starting to figure out Czech and now I was surrounded by German.

We only spent one day in Linz, so not many pictures. From Linz we moved on to Vienna for 3 days. We were lucky enough to get to see the King Tut exhibit while there (and most of it was in English!). The highlight was a trip to Prater, which is basically a big Austrian amusement park. Various recognizable attractions, like the swings and sky coaster. Others, not so much. There was a merry go round that used live horses. Wonder what PETA would say about that. Here are some of the ride highlights:

Now the catch with all these rides is that they are all post lunch. And lunch at Prater is a thing of beauty. Behold, lunch:

Thats a pork knuckle, a Budjovice Budvar, two different types of mustard, fresh horseradish, and a side of cabbage. Yum. But none of us were feeling that great after the swings.

Our last few days in Europe were spent doing typical tourist stuff in Vienna. We hit a few coffee shops, more castles and royal homes, and a few museums. Generally intersting, but I think we were a little burned out and a lot of the information was the same, so it got a little monotonous. A few highlights:

All in all, we had a great time. There were some rough patches for all of us, but we all still like each other, which is helpful considering we live so close together, and I think we would do it again. Perhaps some things would be different, but it was such a great experience, I don't know how you could not want to do it again.

Hope you all enjoyed!

Karlovy Vary. Where to begin? Beautiful town, strange vibe. There is a lot of money in this town, mostly because of its roots as a spa town. In the Czech culture, you can be prescribed time at the spa by a doctor. Yeah, like, "Dr, I'm stressed, work sucks". "Ok, go spend 2 weeks at the spa, then call me in the morning". Crazy. So there are natural hot springs in Karlovy Vary, so it was an obvious choice for spas.

Unfortunately, the town is losing much of its Czech culture. The russians found out about the healing powers (aka money making possibilities) and are slowly buying everything out from the Czechs. We heard through some that members of the city counsel are being paid by the russians to approve sales to russians over other potential buyers. So it was weird. Most of the signs were in russian, not even Czech. It was very beautiful, but not my cup of tea.

Anyway, as for the springs. You're supposed to drink the water to cure your ills. So some are for good stomach, some for good head, etc. They all tasted nasty. And the minerals are so strong, you're not supposed to let the water touch your teeth. Crazy.

Again, beautiful buildings. Everywhere. Lots of money. Behold, the Grand Hotel Pupp:

Just one of the many completely gorgeous streets:

But the biggest reason we were there was the Becherovka factory. Becherovka is a medicinal herbal bitters that is made only in this town using only the water found here. It is a secret recipe and is a traditional Czech drink. We had quite a few bottles at our wedding.

The last time the whole family was in Karlovy Vary, Stan, Stephen, and Uncle John did the tour of the factory. But it was the Czech version and they didn't understand much. One thing there were pretty sure on was that there was a fire. Turns out Stan needs to work on his Czech a bit. No fire, and in fact we were asked to pray that that never happened because the whole place would explode due to all the alcohol on site. A tour, a tasting and a toast:

We also ate well. The girls (Michelle, Stephanie, and I) had facials one day and the guys got a little impatient waiting. Here's what happened:

We eventually caught up with them and had a nice meal.

From Karlovy Vary we went to Cesky Krumlov via Plsen. If Plsen sounds like Pilsner to you, it should. Its the town where the Pilsner style of beer was invented. And its the home to the original Pilsner beer, Pilsner Urquell (literally the original pilsner). This factory was nothing like Kozel, more like Disney does breweries. But it was still pretty cool. Come on, a beer vending machine. How could that not be cool?

Onto Cesky Krumlov, my favorite town of the trip. We did all kinds of cool outdoorsy stuff here. Took the kids horseback riding and rafting in the same day. The rafting was the #1 thing I wanted to do on this whole trip and it was totally worth it. There are dams across the river and channels were cut into the dams for rafting through. Kayaking competitions take place all along the river. It was awesome.

Cesky Krumlov is also cool in that the castle has a moat that is protected by bears. No water or crocodiles, bears. Bears that are fed old bagels and doughnuts, but still, bears.

We stayed at a most excellent pension, right on the river (the Vltava river). They fed us amazing breakfasts and we got to watch all the goofballs go by on the water. Great place. We were upstairs and downstairs was the daughter's confectionary. Awesome.

Cesky Krumlov was our last Czech town and it was by far my favorite. I'd move there in a heartbeat. Great vibe, very friendly people, and fantastic food. On to Austria!

OK. Week 2. Prague. Where to begin. We saw the window where the 30 years war began with the chucking of a priest (defenestration, what a fantastic word):

We saw the astronomical clock, of course:


We saw St. Wenceslas.

We ate lunch at a fantastically interesting place whose name translates into "At the Seven Roaches". Who wouldn't want to eat there?

A really neat thing about Prague: before all the streets had names, directions were given based off what the buildings looked like. It was in an establishment's best interest to have a picture of something on their building so directions were easier. So it would be said that the restaurant was at the Three Gold Stars:

Or at the White Swan:
You get it. It was a fantastic way to learn nouns, colors, and numbers. One of my favorite things about the town. We lived by the Green Tree, ate at the 2 Cats and at the Little Bear. Everything was "U", or at, the item pictured. Good stuff.

We went to the Jewish Quarter, which was pretty interesting. There is the tiniest cemetery I've ever seen with thousands of people crammed into it, because the Jews were only allotted so much space in the city. Rather sad.

The Municipal House (Obecini Dum) was another awesome thing to see in Praha. It was decorated by all the great Czech artists. Most have their own room/rooms where they were given full reign over what was placed in the room. Alphonse Mucha, one of the most famous Czech artists did a few rooms in the Dum and they were awesome. The whole thing is art deco, which Mucha popularized and its amazing to see. Here is just part of a wall in his room:

We were lucky enough to get tickets to see the Czech National Symphony in the Dum. Had ourselves a 150 crown ($10!) ice cream before we went in, which was totally worth it:

The symphony was amazing. The acoustics were fantastic and the atmosphere was just incredible. One of the few times I've almost been moved to tears by live music. Just the opportunity to do that was one of the highlights of the whole vacation to me.

We also visited Vysehrad, the "traditional" castle of the Czech Republic. It is here that the nation was governed in midevil times. We saw the castle (obviously), the church (of course), and something new (right), a cemetery. Only this cemetery contains the graves of all the famous Czechs that ever lived. Artists, musicians, inventors, politicians, everyone. Mucha, Dvorak, Skoda, Smetana. It was pretty neat to see all these important people in one place. Imagine what that would look like in the US. Here is the large crypt that many of the urns are kept in:

We needed to do laundry while in Prague, but there are no laundromats. You basically go to a cleaner, they weigh your clothes, wash them, and give them back to you the next day. Silly us, we didn't know it took that long so we had to wash clothes in the tub. Yay for family bonding:

After 4 days, we moved on to Karlovy Vary. On the way we stopped at Karlstejn and the Krusovice brewery. Karlstejn was one of the few castles built for the sole purpose of storing the royal treasures. Most are locked up in banks now, but replicas are on display. It was founded by Charles IV who was the King of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire (aka, very important dude). It was quite beautiful:

Now, onto the brewery. We arrived at 3 only to find out that the last tour went out at 2. We were informed about a place that sold stuff (which was all we really wanted) down the street a bit, so we headed down there and used our purchasing power. Saw some hops growing along the way:

This post is getting way too long, so we'll pick up everything from Karlovy Vary on in the week next.

I know I'm a horrible human being, but I'm finally getting around to posting about Europe. I'm gonna do it in weekly intervals, to keep things relatively easy to deal with.

So, first week. We were in Ostravicice for most of this week, visiting Brno most days and spending time with family the rest. I won't bore you with the family stuff, but it was pretty fun to meet all the relatives. And to eat all their awesome food.

Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic but it felt like home by the time we left. Knew where everything was (basically) and could get around fairly easily on our own. Started to really pick up the language here. Enjoyed some fried cheese sandwiches as well:

As I mentioned before, all 10 of us shared an apartment this week. Here is a shot of most of us in the main room of the apartment. My inlaws slept on the two couches and it was our kitchen and living room. No kitchen sink, and only a small college type fridge. Spent a lot of time on the balcony outside the double doors.


Notice the case of beer. We went through quite a few of these. Much needed and appreciated. The beer in CZ is far superior to most beers I've had in the US and are quite a bit cheaper.

While in Brno we ate at the Hotel Pegas, which is a restaurant that also is a brewery and rents rooms upstairs. Everyone does a little bit of everything here. Pegas has great food and beer and is also the place where we were, ahem, seperated from our camera. Huge issue at the time, still not happy, but it could have been much worse. Hotel Pegas:

One thing we did plenty of, aside from drink, is visit castles. While in Ostravicice/Brno we hit two, Spilberk and Pernstejn. Spikberk is right in Brno and is where the city's royalty lived. It also contains the jail. Many many people died in this building due to the conditions in the jail. It was amazing to see. Totally underground, very little light, very little ventilation. I could get into the details, but there are a lot. Let me know if you want to know more. Creepy place.

Pernstejn was pretty awesome to me as it was the first castle we visited. Used in lots of Czech movies because of its beauty. Lots of intricate vaulted ceilings and rockwork. Pernstejn is so big you can't really get a shot of the whole thing at once.

We also spent some time in the Pavlov area. This is a major wine production area for the country, but in a different way than Napa in the US. Here most people own their own grapes and produce their own wine. You simply knock on a door and see if they have wine to taste. It was fantastic. Met some very interesting people, including one gentleman who served us while only wearing a dirty wife beater and his boxers. Amazing. And the wine was fantastic. Who'da thunk it?! We also visited another guy whose cellar is older than the US, but he was fully clothed so the pictures aren't as good :-)

Left Ostravicice and headed to Prague by way of Kutna Hora. Its a world heritage site, very cool. They had some awesome architecture and, of course, a church. But the coolest thing is a church at the edge of the town called the Ossuary. Imagine Indiana Jones running through the little obstacle course dealy at the beginning of Temple of Doom. Ok, remember all the bones? It was kinda like that....only way, way creepier. Turns out a lot of people died of the plague here. And once the threat had passed, the priests wanted a way to remind people of their own mortality. So the dug up the bones of the dead, cleaned them, and decorated a church with them. Don't believe me? Take a look at this chandelier:

Yeah that made entirely of bones. All of them in fact. It contains at least one of every bone in the human body. I spent a while looking for the little bones from the ear, but it was a little overwhelming. Here's one last shot from there, showing one of the four huge pyramids of skulls. Weird place.

From Kutna Hora we went on to Prague, via the Kozel Brewery. Talk about awesome. We actually arrived 25 minutes late for the last tour, but the receptionist called the tour guide and asked if he would be willing to stay late to give 10 Americans a tour. He agreed and off we went. Turns out he was the engineer that designed most of the factory. What a tour! We saw the bottling plant, the tanks, the goats, everything. And at the end, we drank! Fantastic tour. Best of the trip for me. This sign basically tells you all how healthy their beer is for you. You can have 3.5 eggs, 225 grams of meat, 325 grams of fish, 1925 grams of soup, or .5 liter of beer. You pick:

In Prague we're staying at the Betlem Club. Great place to stay right in the middle of Old Town. Good stuff. More to come next for week 2.