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.