Megan's Birthday

So I write this at the conclusion of a birthday party. I have spent the last two days making the Megan's daily routine and the preparations for her party appear as effortless as possible. On thursday night I snuck a decent frying pan into her house, and on Friday morning (after a secret trip to the grocery store) I prepared home made pancakes. I also created a wonderful apple syrup from scratch which was just perfect.
For the party saturday night Megan wanted a pretty wide variety of snack foods from a list of potentials I had sent her in advance. I cooked a few of them before the guests arrived, but kept a few in reserve. Once everyone began to arrive I basically turned myself into host so that Megan could mix mingle and drink without worrying about everyone else. I kept the food table fully stocked so that everyone had plenty and the wine and booze flowing. Curtis ans Anne began doing yoga and Adrian and the girls ocupied the "jukebox" to keep the music entertaining. In the end I let the last few people out around 6am (Megan had been asleep for hours).
Overall I would say that Megan had a very pleasant birthday, and that I helped make that happen.

The Golden Pig

I was teaching a class the other day that mostly revolved around advertising. I asked the student to describe for me her favorite tv commercial. She thought a bout it for a while and was describing it. Basically it's a scene of a father and daughter in the woods talking. They are having a nice little chat when the conversation rolls around to the christmas golden pig...
"Excuse me?" I interrupted, being a terrible mistake for a teacher when the student is producing well, but I thought there might be a translation error.
"The Christmas golden pig," she repeated.
"Pig? Like oink oink pig?"
"Yes"
"It's golden?" She gave me a couple of czech words which basically mean gold covered or gilded, which verified that I had not misheard, and that she had not mistranslated.
"What does this have to do with Christmas?" I asked a little befuddled. I mean I understand that all cultures celebrate holidays differently and I have already come to terms with the fact that the presents at christmas here are delivered by a flying baby jesus, but golden pigs?? Come on! I thought she was pulling my leg. However it turns out that children here are taught to fast all day for Christmas until the evening meal. If they manage not to eat at all they are promised to see the golden pig. Apparently if you see the golden pig then you are supposed to get a wish or something to that effect.
I had basically forgotten whatever it was I was supposed to be teaching, and kept mumbling things about gloden pigs for Christmas.
For the next week I went around asking everyone if they knew that there was a Golden Christmas Pig. I keep imagining gilded pigs running around the Czech countryside hiding from naughty little children who eat on Christmas.

Melnik

On the long train ride back from Kutna Hora, Megan and I read through the guidebook that we had carried there. One of the more interesting and easily reached places is a small town just north of Prague called Melnik. There is of course a cathedral of note, a small castle (really more of a palace), but most interesting is that it lies at the heart of Bohemian wine country. Generally Bohemia is not known for wine, but this little town and the fields that surround it are dedicted to this and have been for centuries. Most of the vines orginated in the burgandy growing area of France. After the last few weeks of heavy walking, Megan and I thought wine country sounded just fantastic, so on Saturday morning we got up and headed to the bus. It was a quick one hour ride and we had stopped to get a map in advance this time, so that we might not get lost repeatedly. Melnik was actually quite small and we managed pretty well. Shortly after we arrived, there was a small parade through the center of town and we stopped in the square to watch it pass. After that we went for a little lunch, which unfortunately took forever, but soon we were on our way to the wine cellar. The church was definitely worth seeing, and has an attached bone church, which we missed (though I have heard it is unimpressive compared to the one at Kutna Hora). We went into the castle and found the area for the wine cellar tour. Here's how it works. You pay some money and they send you alone into the wine cellar to look around and read about it's history and the history of the region. Then you go back to the shop and they hand you a small wine glass, and send you down into another part of the cellar where there are several barrels topped with the various vintages from the winery. They give you a description of the different wines to read and leave you alone to taste and try them. Megan and I managed to get through most of them and it was fun to try them and compare them. Oh I almost forgot, they give you little bits of bread to clean your palate between bottles. Finally the place was closing up, and Megan and I had to make our way back to the bus and head back to town. we cooked dinner that night creating a fun little chicken parmesan, and then we were both beat so we crashed out. Pictures..

Kutna Hora (take two)

It turns out that Megan had never been to see the bone church, and when I went to Kutna Hora that's all I saw since the group ended up at a pub getting drunk (http://markwright.blogspot.com/2005/11/rest-of-weekend.html). We decided to take a daytrip down there and this time see as much as possible. We got up early on Saturday and hopped a train. An hour later we were walking over to the bone church (kostnice). I made the trip inside a second time, and it was worth seeing again. This time there was more daylight which made it less creepy, but still very interesting. Megan took lots of pictures, and we headed off to explore. The first thing I wanted to do was find the little pub that we had stopped in at last time I was there, and despite a few wrong turns I managed to find it. It had started to rain a bit while we were searching so I hoped that we could go in and have a drink while we waited out the rain. unfortunately the place was closed, so we had to continue to walk in the rain.
From there we were heading into the main part of Kutna Hora where there is an incredible church and several other sights worth seeing. unfortunately I took a wrong turn and the map sucked so we had a little touble finding the place, but eventually we got there. I was very excited and we wandered around looking at everything for several hours. The big cathedral (St. Barbara's) was really something. Anyway, after that we headed off to get something to eat and drink and found a great little restaurant and brewery called Dacicky's and had some spectacular food and great beer. After that we headed back to the train, but I managed to get us lost again, and we took a very scenic route. In the end we made it back, but the train was rerouted and took us two hours to get home stopping at every little village that had put out a wooden patio by the railway.
We finally made it home however, and met up with Scott, Adrian, Matt, and several others for some fun latin dance music at a little local dance pub. Megan and I called it a night around 2am however, as it had been a long day. Because I had been there before I stupidly didn't bring my camera so the photos are from my camera phone. Pictures...

Vysehrad

Megan had never visited Vysehrad castle which is a shame because it's actually on the Prague metro, so I decided to take her. I myself had not been there since Curtis and I went in November (http://markwright.blogspot.com/2005/11/day-out-with-curtis.html). This time the trees and flowers were all in bloom, and it was realy much more like walking through a great big park with small ruins laying here and there. I was able to guide Megan a bit, since I had been there with Curtis, and I knew a little more about it from studies sinec that time. Also, though I can by no means speak Czech, my ability to read it has made some small progress, and I was able to read more of the signs and such since last I was there. Also since I had been there last, they have opened a new little museum called the Goticky Sklep (Gothic Cellar). There were several wonderful displays from the architectural digs about the site, as well as history and legend about Vysehrad. I found it very educational and entertaining.
The weather held out for us most of the day and we wandered through the parks and flowering trees. Eventually we headed to the beer garden that sits atop the hilll overlooking the city. We ordered drinks and sat outside, but the weather turned on us finally and we had to head indoors. Fortunately the bad weather was shortlived and we headed back out for some sausage outside. Shortly after that we headed back home and relaxed after all the walking.

Eight Years Ago!!

I was teaching a class that largely revolves around different types of national issues from homelessness to crime. The interesting thing about many of the Czechs is that they have lived for so long in a closed society. Though travel has of course opened up for them dramatically since the revolution, they are still sometimes restricted by money or motivation. In any case, I am often astounded by the perspectives they have. Today the issue was crime.
One of the more interesting things about living in the Czech Republic is the near absence of violent crime. In fact, except for a few pickpockets and the occasional mugging there is almost no crime at all. You can see this exemplified every day in the way they behave. The first time you see an 8 year old riding around the city's public transport alone be prepared for a little holier than thou shock. However, the one that really gets me is that mothers out for a days shopping will often leave their babies in their strollers outside the front door while inside. I'm not kidding. At first I thought this was insanity, but then remembered where I am. It's simply unthinkable for most Czechs that someone would do something horrible to their baby.
The point is that when I brought this topic up in class, the students' first reaction was to say that crime was out of control. We talked about that for a while, until I got them to admit that it was worse than it used to be, but that in comparison, was quite low. As part of my arguement I brought up the story about the babies. One of my students was quite surprised. She said Czech mothers are very responsible (which I have found to be very true), and that she thought they were being more careful. I asked why, and she said "well, we had a kidnapping eight years ago, and everyone was very concerned." I rest my case.

Many Cultured Weekend

Thurdsday night I had a bender. My friend Ian showed up at pub night and mentioned that it had been a while since he had a 5am night. This seemed like a challenge, so after pub night we went off with Scott and played darts and pool, and drank until well after 5am.
On friday, Megan decided to cook me dinner, having partaken in my culinary skills now for several months. Our plan was to have another outdoor weekend, but the forecast was against us. In any case Megan prepared a chopsky salad, paprika chicken, and dumplings. It was of course delicious, and there were plenty of leftovers. After dinner, we headed over to Matt's place for a little house party. We were the first there, though we arrived over half an hour late, and the party was a little slow to get moving. Eventually Chris and Scott arrived, and everyone started drinking and having fun. I went out on the balcony with Scott for a while, whicle Megan discussed poetry with Chris and Matt. Later in the night four Spanich girls that Matt's roommate invited came in, drank 2 bottles of rum, and began dancing and singing. It was an interesting introduction into their culture, as they showed us a traditional dance of Southern Spain, and sang what I gathered were traditional songs. One of them was even so nice as to give me her address and phone number in Spain should I ever visit. However, I was still pretty beat from my bender on Friday, and the girls didn't speak much English (Scott and Matt's roommate speak spanish), so I headed home with Megan around 1am.
Saturday night we met up with Scott for what is arguably the best svickova in town. We ate dinner and chatted over pivo for a couple of hours. After that we went off to see a band that includes Scott's celebrity student Mira. This man is some kind of local Czech rock star, and simply oozes charm and goodwill. Apprently his wife is also pretty famous. At least famous enought o be recognized. In any case the band was an interesting mix, and played a wide variety of songs though the most fun for me were The Girl from Ipanema and Lili Marlen. These were two of their softer tunes, but there was plenty of good rocking and a little pop as well. As Scott said you never what's coming up next. Megan and i left Scott with Mira around midnight or so (might have been earlier).
Sunday the weather was cold and rainy, so we just stayed in, but on Monday the weather cleared up for Mayday. The first of may is something akin to our Valientine's Day. Traditionally you are supposed to take your girld to the top of Petrin hill and kiss her under a flowering tree (there is some dispute as to specific types of tree). I couldn't miss the opportunity so Megan and I headed out to Ptrin Hill. Curtis wanted to meet us and spend the day, since we hadn't seen each other in months, so we met at the bottom of the hill and began the climb. There is a small moastary called Strahov at the back of the hill. This was our destination. Megan and I went in to take a peak at the interior of the library, though very little is accessible as the monastery is still in use. We found a lovely little flowering tree for our customary smooch, and then met back up with Curtis for the walk down. Back in mala Strana we ate lunch at a spectacular Mexican Restaurant, and decided we were not ready to call it a day. We walked over to a spectacular baroque garden called the Wallenstein garden. After that we took a tram up to the Royal Gardens, and strolled on through those into Letna Park. We walked past the anti-communist rally held at the base of what was once a giant Stalin statue, and on over to the beer garden that overlooks Prague from the north. We had a drink and the sperated with Curtis. Megan and I walked back to her place, where I gathered up my stuff and headed home. I had not brought my camera, so pictures will have to wait on Curtis and Megan.