Rugby, Music and Potato Pancakes

Saturday night I met the gang at the Sport Bar for a little Rugby. It was the Scotland vs England, which meant that Adrian would be basing his mood for the night on the outcome of his beloved England team, but Rob would be rooting for Scotland. As my interest in Rugby has grown over the last weeks, I found myself also rooting for Scotland. Scotland played a really solid game and beat England by the skin of their teeth, but it made for an interesting game. Afterwards, I went with Rob and his girlfriend Marta, Chris, Elizabeth, Lucy and Megan to see a band named BT n J. Their flyer describes the sound as "Hiphop funky latino quartet". I think that's not really it. The music was pretty funky jazz, but not particularly latino. The vocals were pretty much just hip-hop. With the flute in the backgroud there were some pretty strange layers working together, and it made for a pretty interesting sound. Eventually Lucy went to pick up a friend who was coming for a visit, and we hung out at the bar for several hours chatting and just having a good time.
On a side note, I have learned my Czech numbers, and was actually able to communicate full with the bartender for the first time about how many beers I wanted, how much I owed and how much change to give back. I was very impressed with myself.
On Sunday night I had Curtis and Scott over to my place for dinner. I made stuffed potato pancakes, Curtis brought some wine, and Scott brought some homemade red cabbage. We chatted about life, women, men, travel, Prague, etc. All the things you would expect us to talk about.

Feels like Spring

This weekend there was a bried respite in the winter cold. The sun appeared and melted all the snow and ice, and warmed everything to just above freezing. On Saturday I took a nice little stroll through my neighborhood which I hadn't done yet. Sunday I met a group of people for Brunch including Scott, Curtis, Beth, Megan, etc(for a complete list please see Curtis's posting of the same event). We had a nice time. There were I think 10 or so of us, and we ate and watched the Olympic games. Afterward the crowd began to shrink in groups of 1 and 2 until only Curtis, Megan, Kelly, and I were left, and we wandered through this lovely park in Holesovice, which I can not wait to see in the real spring, and across the river up to the 17th Century Chateaux in Troja. We wandered through the gardens and took lots of pictures which I will post. Eventually we wandered over to the zoo to catch a bus, which was easily the worst bus ride I have been on here in Prague. Unfortunately the warm weather is not going to last, but it was a much needed reminder that Spring will come.

Birthday

For those of you who sent birthday wishes, I'd like to say a collective thank you. My birthday went very well. Originally I had not planned on having a celbration as such. Generally I just wanted to go somewhere with a couple of friends and throw some darts. People kept asking about my birthday so at the last minute I decided to pretty much just announce where I was going to play darts and see who turned up. The place was recommended to me by my friend and supervisor Ann (who also had me over for Christmas dinner). I was a little nervous about the place because it was located in a Herna bar, but it turned out to be quite nice. There were at least a dozen pool tables and 3 electrronic dart boards which suited me just fine. Approximately 15 people showed up, which was pretty great. For those of you who know me, you'll surely be impressed that I could amass a friendship group of that size in just four months. In the five months I lived in New York I managed to amass exactly 1 brand new friend. The wonders of expatriate life. In any case it was loads of fun. I played darts most of the night, and so was a little less social to those who didn't, but fortunately there were enough people in attendance to keep everyone entertained. Also I won 6 out of 8 games, so I was pretty pleased (My teammate for most of those games was Matt, who had never played before, and so was pretty pleased as well). Anne and her friend John, the only other experienced players also put in good showings, though Megan who had also never played before demonstrated pretty great skills that I hope to exploit from now on. It's always good to have a good opponent. Anyway I drank lots of Czech beer, recieved to bottles of Becherovka and lots of books as gifts, so all in all a better birthday than I had anticipated. Megan was kind enough to take photographs while I played darts, so here they are...Pictures