Our little trip...

Our vacation was supposed to be 2 weeks this year so we thought we would take consecutive weeks on break – one week to visit family and one week in Greece. A quick look at vacation sites quickly showed us that Greece is not a good option this time of year, that is unless your idea of a good time is sitting on a small beach, shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of drunk, sun-burned tourists. That left us with a plan to visit family by train...Sadly trains were all booked up so we were forced to drive.

Here is an overview of our driving tour:

We had taken along “Germany’s best-loved driving tours” (thanks Filip and Misa) and had hoped to find a nice side-trip from the book. Obviously an entire driving tour was not possible but we figured we could certainly manage a good chunk We picked Goslar and spent a nice, relaxed afternoon there. It was a huge hit with Sasha as it had a real knight and probably the last Panini stickers anywhere in Germany!

We made it to Praha that same night, coming in through Teplice. Teplice, once a nice small town, now seems more like the Red Light District of Czech. As you come down from the mountains you are greeted with women “waiting” at bus stops, little huts along the side of the road that are open for business and finally girls dancing in windows in the main part of town. An entire town built on prostitution – a very disturbing feeling to say the least. (sorry no pics of this)

Jakub found his way quite easily to Mirek’s apartment – always an impressive feat given he learned to drive after leaving Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic). Mirek was happily waiting with his super home-cooked food for us and presents for his boys (Sasha, Jonas and Jakub). We were carrying our usual package of English books for him and a bottle of wine to share. We stayed up that night till 4:00am and Jonas woke up at 6:00am. Mirek took the boys so that Jakub and I could sleep in - I actually slept until 9:00 and Mirek had coffee and breakfast waiting. Ah, what a great start to a vacation.

We spent Sunday exploring parts of Praha Jakub had never seen - Vitkov (see pics below) - before heading out to Bratislava.

Bratislava for us always has a pretty familiar rhythm: fancy lunches with Babicka, lots of time spent around meals at Igor and Luba’s and the nightly swim in the lake with Igor. I think it is one of the times I really feel like I have come back to family. This is something I really appreciate right now given my parents and brothers are so far from us. After only a couple of days we had to head to Latky, one of our favourite places in the world (for a few weeks that is).




Life in Latky is simple. You go to bed early, a few hours after dark after all the wine and slivovice has been drunk and all the spec eaten - in our case after a glass of Grand Cru wine that was intended as a gift for someone that does not like wine. Get up early as the sun is bright and the crickets the most beautiful alarm clock in the world. Spend the day hunting for mushrooms, getting milk from cows, and resting in the grass.








Jakub and I both got to go for our first real runs since leaving Mill Valley - trees, hills and solitude! Heaven. The best part was there were meals waiting for both of us at the end of our jonts. I ran to meet everyone at Marta's for lunch and Jakub ran home to a great meal made by Jana, his aunt. Even got a great recipe out of it...

Babovka (Czech Bundt Cake)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
¾ cup oil
¾ cup milk
2 eggs
1 packet of baking powder

Mix the ingredients well, beating air into it for fluffiness
Pour most of mixture into bundt form, set aside small amount of dough
Add cocoa to remaining dough, pour in to form in circle as well
Bake 180C for about an hour

After only a few short days it was time for us to head back to Hamburg. We are always sad to leave this part of the country and often talk about buying something here, a small cabin is only $10, 000 USD. Just when I get really romantic visions about living here for a year friends are quick to bring me back to reality...

A neighbour of our good friends put an axe through his mothers head. His blood alcohol level was 2.5, hers was 3.0! No one wanted to press charges as there were sure the mother would not want this, the police therefore let it be. When the mother came home from the hospital, after being in a coma for a month, she desperately wanted to see her son. Unfortunately his brother had beaten him so badly he had run into the hills and was believed to be tending sheep somewhere.

Another classic....an extremely poor family sent their son off to the US to make some money. Things only got worse for them in their small town. One night a wealthy looking man came and asked if he could stay the night. The couple gave him shelter and decided they would kill and rob him. They did kill him only to discover it was there own son, returned from the US to surprise them with their new wealth.

So, real estate is cheap but.....