So, I figured that I'd just knock out the last three days all in one go.  Turns out that one post per day equates to a lot of posts.  Who knew?

Aaanyway, so we're in Moravia (eastern portion of Cz, the western half is Bohemia.  you're shocked that Bohemia is a real place aren't you?  and you weren't expecting it to be in Czech Republic, right?  Yep, I was too.).  We're in the mountains in Moravia and we finally found our friends at their rental cottage.  The rain from the night before has passed and we're taking our time getting ourselves together in the morning, trying to figure out if there's a hike nearby that we can do and spending some time with the kids.  

We decided on visiting the legendary Radhost for our hike.  Unfortunately, Vasa and family were unable to join us for the walk, so we got ourselves together and headed out (yes, I am that short that a kid in elemetary school is almost as tall as I am!).  Unfortunately, we discovered that Radhost was packed because there was a festival going on, so we went the opposite direction on our hike, but it was still a lovely walk... and we all discovered how out of shape we were.  Yikes.  In my defense, we don't have hills here in Florida, so I'm totally going to use that as my excuse. :)  The wild blueberries were in season, and they were just fantastic.  Very different from the blueberries that grow here.

We left for Prague from the forest and spent the night in a wonderful little hostel.  We had a full day of wandering and then met up with our brother-in-law, Richard, who happened to be there on business that night!  This whole trip was like a family reunion. :)  We took a 'free tour' and saw all of the major sites that day.  I highly recommend the free tour because the guides only work on tips, so whatever you decide to tip them, if anything, is all that you pay.  Our guide was fantastic and I learned one or two new things.  I used my film camera for much of this day as well, so I'm anxious to see how those images came out.

This photo (above) shows a copy of the death mask of one of the protestors from January 1969, Jan Palach.  He was a student of the univeristy who burned himself at the top of the Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceslass Square) to bring attention to the inactivity of the Czech people against their Russian oppressors.  He is a very important figure in Czech history, and my sense is that his memory is held close tot he hearts of many Czechs.

Prague is a beautiful place, but my heart is in Plzen. I headed there the next day by train, while my brother and Sam hit the road back to Italy.

It was great to be back in my old home.  The first day I met up with a friend, Jirka, and we just sat caught up for quite a while.  Then we both went to Čuba's house in Dobrany (a tiny town outside of Plzen were both he and Vasa live), where I stayed that night and the next.  We made a point to stop at Modra Hvezda (the local brewery) during our first evening.  I love that place. :)

I spent the next day in Plzen and for the evening we made home-made little pizzas in Cuba's backyard oven, played with our cameras, and drank wine under the stars.  It was a fantastic evening and made it extra hard to leave.  There is nothing in the world like Cuba's house... it's like a little oasis of safety and joy.

Zeme Ceske, Domov Muj <3

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After our exciting evening of beer and sangria in downtown Vienna, we checked out the Museumplatz on our way out of town.  I had visited it back in 2008 when I was in Vienna for the first time.  It was a very similar situation... we just walked in and had a little wander.  This is one of those places that is (still) on my list of places to come back to and really spend some time.  I swear I could spend days there.  There are two sticker photos in this group that are significant.  The first is mine - the Give More Hugs - and the second one is a no monkeys sticker.  That is a photo specifically for my friend who is monkey-phobic. :)

From Vienna we hit the road to Czech Republic.  Every time we crossed into another country, we had to buy a 'vignette' for the car to use the expressway.  We ended up with these vignettes all over the windshield :)

We were going to meet some friends at a cottage that they had rented in Moravia (the eastern part of Czech Republic).  My plan - as we had no GPS and could not actually call (but we could send a text message if my cell phone battery was not dead...).  As we drove into CZ, we discovered that everything - EVERYTHING - was closed because of a national holiday.  I knew about the holiday, but I was expecting to find an open bookstore in Brno, a big city, where we could get a regional map to use.  Nope!  Ah well.  It was pretty frustrating because my Czech was TERRIBLE after not having spoken it since 2008, and not regularly since 2007.  Yikes.  I did eventually find an open pub with two younger guys working there who were able get me rough directions to the town.

So... we did eventually find the town.  I had some vague directions from my friend, Vasa, about how to get to the cottage once in town.  The key word there was vague.  We ended up recruiting and old man (Mirka) who spent a good half hour riding around with us in our Panda (which was absolutely full of stuff and had no space for another person to fit) and getting out every five minutes to ask anyone knew where the Americans were going.  He also kept trying to talk to Mike and Sam in Czech.  Like a lot.  Mike was driving and ended up learning all the directions in Czech (right, left, stop, straight, keep going, etc.).  It was a pretty hilarious experience.  

At one point we stopped at a house to talk to some people.  While Mirka and I were talking to the people there, Mike decided to play with my camera as he is learning about shooting manually on an SLR.  The shirtless dude started FREAKING OUT and wanted to know why Mike was taking photos.  He thought that Mike was doing some kind of identity theft surveillance or something... I tried to explain that Mike is just visiting the country and taking photos of things that are different from what we have back home and the guy would have none of it.  He started shouting and pointing at Mike in Czech (of course) and then started to take pictures of him back as a 'so there' gesture.  Of course Mike had no idea what was going on.  Ah, good times.

Anyway, we did eventually find Vasa and the cottage and spent the night there.  We had big plans for a bonfire and a sleep under the stars, but it rained.  It was so, so great to see Vasa.  He was another close friend that I spent a lot of time travelling with (along with Robert who we'd met up with in Palmanova).

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