Big Weekend cont'd

OK so now I'm really going to talk about Sunday. I hope. 

Sunday we all went to Church in the morning of course. David talked about the Team's week and all the close connections they made. Very nice. Then we all went down to Vitek's jewelry shop so the Team could get some stuff. Vitek makes his own jewelry at his shop. It's really cool to see him work, he's a true artist. He also has some antique jewelry too btw. I left the guys there though because I had to go get ready for The Picnic.

We had a family day out at a park in town. I finally got to play fotbol! Yeehaw! It was fun but it really showed how bad out of shape I am. I managed to hold up alright though. Somehow at the end of our game it was 6 on 3. Three Petrs (including myself) against Vitek and a horde of kids and adults both. I think we won though. I can't remember for sure but we played much harder then. Tons of fun. 

Then we retired to the playground and fire for lunch etc. 

This is the fireplace where we roasted, you guessed it, sausages. I can't say how I am glad at  how much Czechs love sausage. Sausage has always been one of my favorite things to eat. I never get tired of it. So I've come to the right place. 

Sausage wasn't the only thing on the menu that day though. Periodically this loud blaring music would ring out like a demonic ice cream truck and shock everyone into silence. At which point some unknown purveyor would sing "Laaan-goshe!" Then then everybody would laugh. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then Vitek came up to the table with this stuff that kind of looked like a pizza, if pizzas were made by Lunchables sized for adults.  It was a piece of fried bread (yum) with ketchup (eeew!) with some unmelted cheese on top of that. Believe it or not it's pretty tasty. Nobody believed me though when I kept saying I liked it. 

All in all it was quite a pleasant little picnic. We were intruded upon by a beggar though. Just look at this shameless miscreant!

Just look at him! Food all in his beard! Giving us those "sad puppy dog" eyes! Shameless I tells ya! He did get some sausage before he was through though. Weiner dogs are popular here for some reason. Go figure. This guy was pretty funny. 

I planned on getting a picture of the kids in their natural habitat playing on playground but they spotted me.

These are the Prochazka kids, Petr, Barbara, and Karla. They lined up like good little kids when they saw me. I tried to get them to just go play but they don't speak much English so I just went ahead and took the picture. They crack me up. Whenever I run into them they do a bit of a double-take while they remember how to say "Hello" or "Good Morning" in English. They think it's hilarious to say "My name is. . . " in English.  Petr has the makings of a legendary "preacher's son" by the way. On the way to the park, Ivana, their Mom was teaching one of the kids words with that rolling R sound sort of like some Spanish words. I was like, "This is great! I need practice with this!" It was comforting to learn that some of their weird 6 consonant in a row words give them trouble too. Even if it's just the little kids. 

But the picnic wound down and it was time to get home and get ready for the farewell dinner for the Team. 
The dinner was at U Mansfelda, an old (I'm guessing it's old, everything else here is too) restaurant that serves traditional Czech food.  That's Karl in the white shirt. And of course I got the back Petr Balous. That's Mirek on the right. I had wild boar with the Czech dumpling assortment. Boy was it good. Oh so you think I should have gotten veggies? This is Czech Republic! Actually the boar came with a little salad on the plate which I promptly ignored. I could have been worse though. One guy had fried cheese as his main dish with french fries on the side and he was Czech. John sat next to me and got Trout. Believe it or not it tastes a lot like American trout according to him. John was on a quest to get carp at some point during his trip. 

In CR it is a long standing tradition to have Christmas Carp. Every year people go a buy a live carp. You know those things are huge. Anyway, they keep it in the bath tub for a week or so to let it's (aherm) system (ahem) clear out.  The kids play with it and all that fun stuff. Then they eat it on Christmas day. I'm so looking forward to that! Uh, not really. Well because of this John was curious to see how they prepare the notoriously gross-tasting fish. Alas it was not on any menu the whole time he was here. Which to me just proves that nobody actually likes to eat those nasty things they just do it for tradition. 

Well dinner was finished and dessert gotten through and the party broke up. I rode back with team to drop them off at Hotel Plzen.
Here's the gang again once more. Kellie, Serena, Karl, David and John. I only really got to hang out with them for a weekend but felt like I'd known them for a long time. I'm glad to say they're keeping in touch. They all got home OK (with a few adventures in customs). I really appreciate their openness and how they took Deidre and me in. We're all on the same Big Team.  Thanks guys.

pax