On the way

After a predictably late nite, (which we seem unable to avoid on any day) packing, setting the house in order and so on, we had to get out of bed at the horrid hour of 4am.
I really didn't want to know anything about it and I fear that if the alarm clock had been on my side of the bed I would have assaulted it the moment it beeped, and probably have fallen asleep before it hit the ground.

This has happened before... I wake up feeling great, well rested, but at the wrong time of day - I wonder how this could have happened, check the alarm clock settings... and then vaguely recall a violent moment of rage at the innocent beeping device that was only doing what was asked of it.

Anyhow, today, thankfully it was on Hayley's side, and I've never assaulted her yet for waking me up! So up we got, missed the targeted bus as usual, we always seem to do this - arrive at the stop a few minutes after the one we wanted to get has already passed, fortunately there was another a few minutes behind and we boarded safely and made it to the station.

Because of the snap decision to go to Austria, we hadn't made any plans, a thing that Hayley is brilliant at, by the time we leave, everything is arranged, tickets, accom, travel plans when we get there and anything else that might be important. Last nite, last minute calls were made to hotels to make sure we had some place to sleep, and that's about it! We had to buy train tickets at the station and were only able to get our tickets for the train leaving at 06:04 at 05:50... only a little disconcerting.

Nevertheless! We managed to get the tickets and made the train. The Czech Railways (České dráhy) are not running the greatest trains, they have a decent service, pretty much everything is covered but darn the trains are siff... old, and in real need of some love and attention if not replacement.

This is the view from outside the window - this is the second train we're riding... thanks to Hayley waking up the sleeping family we actually got off at the right stop to make the change! If not for her, we'd probably have woken up in Siberia someplace.

Right now as I post, we are doing about 80Km/hr towards one amazing city while the babies debate new legislation - long live 3G!

We are going to Wien (Vienna)!!

Emergency cross-border vac. Catching the 6am train tomorrow. Last minute decision, gotta go pack. Tell you all about it later...

Click here to see where we'll be staying...

Tourism at Home - The Evidence

So, below are some photos of our neighbourhood park that we stopped by yesterday, as well as some pics from our trip to the Brewery Museum and the Plzensky Prazdroj Brewery today.

Being a tourist in your own home town

It is always amazing how many people move overseas with the grand intention of travelling to all the exotic destination in the nearby or not so nearby vicinities.
Speak to them a year later, and more often than not, they may have been out from their town once or twice, but it will invariably not be anywhere near the intended amount. Ask them what they have done in the town that they are now living in? ... very little - after all, they live there now :)

I have this plan that I want to be a tourist in my own home town (which is for the moment, Plzen). The week-end starts to approach and the internet sites are smoking up a storm, retrieving every last shred of tourist information. The only problem right now, is that we are in a state of some climatically enforced limbo. It is not cold enough for the winter tourism (skiing - hoohaaa) and not Spring enough for the summer tourism. Most of the castles and chateauxs only open in April, including in-town tours and sightseeing. Ask the locals what they would recommend doing ... the response is always, "nothing really until the spring".

Well, failing formal tours and sightseeing excursions, I have now planned to open the map book of Plzen in the mornings, look for someplace we haven't been yet (which is most of Plzen); or look for a park or a dam; find the bus routes that will get us there and just have an outing. This morning I was all geared up that we would explore along our little river towards the north and find the nearby sports club that has the tennis courts. Not even 50 metres along the river and Sarah is already complaining that she is tired and she wants to go to the park. Well, we managed to go another few metres, long enough to find out that the entrance to the sports club is on the other side of the railway line and that we would anyway have to go back the way we came to find it. The end result is that we ended up at the kids play park next to our house and sat on the park bench watching the girls clamber about the jungle gym. At least we now know what 100m north up the river looks like and that tomorrow when we go looking for the entrance to the sports club, we will explore another new road. Tomorrow, we are also planning to do the Plzensky Prazdroj brewery and museum tour at my work (at least that is open all year round).

Digressing entirely: This morning when we woke up, I mused to Colin: "how about a cross the border trip next weekend?". The answer, as predicted, was "sure, why not!" (this has become quite common now for any new or radical suggestion). Now, from Plzen, cross the border has so many new meanings. The first question, is "which country?" There are so many to choose from.... So, the whole morning and the entire evening, I have spent online looking for an answer to that question. The first thought was Germany, we are only 70kms from the border. So, we researched places of interest near the Czech republic, then how we would get there (planes, trains or automobiles?). Then, while looking at the bus trips, the price for Prague to Vienna scrolled by for CZK300 and then there was suddenly a whole new thought - what about going to Vienna? So another frantic search frenzy - and we now have 2 very possible options for the week-end and 2 very detailed budgets for each scenario (sorry, can't take the project manager out of me on any given Sunday ;). It looks at this stage that our favour is towards Vienna - I mean - just how divine can you get!

But seriously, have you ever considered the fact that we travel thousands of kms to a new destination, to look up tourist information about sightseeing tours and interesting sights. But how many of us have ever done that for our own home town and actually pretended to be a tourist for a week-end. Next time I am in SA, how about we go for a shebeen tour to Soweto?

Fierce Independence

It is amazing how very quickly little personalities fight for independence and the elusiveness of "big'dom".

Catching the bus these days, we have Amber & Sarah insisting that we sit back in the bus shelter while they look out for the bus that has the appropriate number. We then have to board the bus either far behind them, or at a different door to them. Once on the bus, the two of them justle and jostle for position on a chair at the furthest end of the bus from us and engage themselves deep in conversation. They have created and perfected a language which sounds like fluent Czech that attracts strange looks and supressed smiles from all around them. One of their latest tricks is to sit at the back of the bus and to interact with the motorists behind them (especially if it is another bus). On the way home from our ski trip, the number 13 bus was following right behind us and the bus driver was so close on our tail at each stop that if there wasn't glass between them he could most certainly have touched their noses. He had a captive audience in Amber & Sarah as he pulled faces and put on and off imaginary glasses and hats and generally had A & S in stitches the whole way home - not to mention the rest of the bus that had noticed the antics of the 3 of them. When we got off at our stop we even got a special goodbye "toot" from bus Nr 13.

While travelling away, we have to give them both turns to pull the suitcase (even though it is nearly as big as they are). They grunt and groan over the bumps but will never admit that it is too heavy. Walking to the shops with the backpack, they make sure they also get a turn to carry it on their back (we have learned that it helps the load on the way home if they both carry their school bags to the shops and we fill them up with groceries on the return trip).

The very latest one now is that they want to go down the elevator by themselves and wait for us at the bottom of our building while we finish pfaffing to leave the house (find keys, wallets, bus tickets .....). There is a very well co-ordinated sequence of turns between who calls for the lift, pushes the open door button, pushes the appropriate floor button and hold the door open for us to all vacate (and lo and behold anyone who steps a foot out of line!!!)

In the not too distant future they will be catching aeroplanes without us (oh my gosh!!!).

Skiing at Špičák (pronounced Shpiechak)

It was really touch and go for a while as to whether we would actually get to Špičák or not! Have you ever tried to make an accommodation booking where neither parties can understand each other? We tried the e-mail thing first, but never received a reply. Eventually, I scanned through my limited knowledge of Czech and the dictionary and worked out all the correct words to say. The only problem with this is that he could now understand me, but I had no clue what he was saying back! Fortunately, a Czech colleague saved the day and phoned through for a reservation for us on Friday morning.

The next challenge was finding our accommodation when we got off the train (after forgetting our map at home and the resort's contact details!). Every one we asked "Kde je Penzion Barta?" (Where is Penzion Barta?) just returned the conversation with a blank look and a long string of Czech words, which we kind of figured meant that they had no clue.

After trudging up the street and only finding ski slopes and ski lifts, we then turned around and trudged back down the street, to find a big tourist map just metres from the train station where we had disembarked a good 40 minutes earlier with "penzion barta" very clearly shown on the map and was infact about 5 metres as the crow flies across the snow, but about 50 metres around the corner by road (Satellite image link here, just imagine it covered in snow).

By this time, we were thanking our sanity of sleeping those extra 2 hours in the morning and not trying to catch the 5am train but the 7.30 train as there was a high level of crankiness in the 2 littlies already. We then blazed forward, swapping jeans for ski kit and headed back up the street to find out how the whole ski thing actually works. With ill fitting, hired ski boots and skis in hand, we had about 1 hour to kill before we all (yes, all 4) had our first ski lesson at 12:15. We spent the time munching a pack of peanuts followed closely by chocolate and skidded and slipped our way around the base camp as there was very little snow and thick layers of ice everywhere.

Our ski instructor Jacob met us at 12:15 and we followed him for the few hundred metres to the kiddies slope with our ski boots feeling like lead; the skis on our shoulders (ours and the girls); ski poles (ours and the girls), while dragging A & S who all but believed the world was going to end if we didn't carry them too.

Fortunately, the novelty of putting on skis kicked in and the mood lightened significantly for the duration of the lesson (which was spent with Jacob just trying to keep A & S upright). Colin & I didn't get very much out of the lesson, but certainly enjoyed watching the antics of the 2 newest ski enthusiasts.

After the lesson, it took us close on 45 minutes to get back to the camp with the now very ratty tatty moods in tow.

We decided to hitch a lift on the local train shuttle to the next town - Železná Ruda (that housed the closest ATM) and have dinner while waiting for the return train.

It was stunning. This little town was incredibly picturesque and we were kicking ourselves for forgetting our camera. Sarah slept the whole while, first on Colin's shoulder while we walked through the town, then on her chair in the restaurant, then on the floor on our jackets in the restaurant, then on Colin's shoulder while walking back to the train. She woke up at the train station and perked up when we started feeding her the chicken schnitzel and smiley face potatoes from her supper.

Sunday morning we got smart. We left the 2 girls for their private 2 hour lesson and we hit the intermediate blue slope for a bit more action. It was great fun and I can claim to even have had a spectacular wipe-out! The weather was stunning with blue skies and the ski run was in the shade of the pine forest. The ski lift was the time killer though and limited our number of runs to about 3 or 4 before we had to go back to fetch the girls.

We had a lunch of pizza and sauer kraut soup and then we walked through the forests a bit alongside the ski runs. The girls were horsies (as usual).

After lunch, we took the girls back to the kiddies slope and in more sensible boots, ran around while they practiced staying upright on their skis. We managed to teach Amber the concept of the "snow plow" which was a momentous occasion; Sarah was just giggling and practicing the sideways-onto-bum maneuvere.

Tip: Chocolate and Jellies are a great mood lifter! Skis off, we had a great time playing in the snow - and as you can see - "The Woods were here!".

(The picture after of our bum prints in the snow has been censored!).
At about 4pm we headed off the snow, swapped ski pants for jeans and walked a bit through the town of Špičák before having dinner at the restaurant next to our pension.

Monday morning, with no ski instructors available to take the girls, we spent with all 4 of us on skis playing on the kids slope.

Colin & I took turns to ski with Sarah down the hill (her between our legs). After Amber had a turn between our legs and remembered her snow plow techniques, she then braved the slope on her own, following in my tracks. She was incredible to watch - snow plow position, bum in air with her poles paddling along side her in a chookoo train motion - very cute!!!

After a lunch of Bratwurst and Chips, we headed home to pack and wait for the train to take us home.

Pending some more snow - See you again, Špičák!

(Link to Our Web Album)

I want my... I want my... I want my...

You think I'm going to say MTV...? Wrong mate!

I want my Marmite, Pecks fishpaste, Cross and Blackwell Mayonnaise, Syrup and please, oh please some Borewors!

Savoury spreads have not been thought of here - there are none, not different types friends they don't exist! Thank heavens they have something that resembles 5 Roses!

The CZ mayo is being made available to the unsuspecting public against the Geneva Convention, and NATO resolutions aimed at supporting peace and order. This stuff is diabolical! If you took pure sunflower oil, mashed it up with paper pulp, deflavoured it, added goo for extra gummyness and fat for extra mouth-clingyness you'd be close to the stuff that's sold here.

And the radio! Its not often I pay attention to radio as a rule, but when they play "Tie a yellow ribbon" and Air Supply it kinda catches your attention and you know that serious and speedy industry reform is required. Scanning the FM band I can tell you that if you thought Highveld music sucks (which it does) there is no comparison with the sin being committed here.

Anyone know of anyone coming over with some space in their case?

All Geared Up

I am SOOO excited!
Next weekend we plan to go skiing down South (on the German border) at Špičák (Spitzberg) and today we bought all the kit!


Ski pants, jacket and gloves for me (Total R450 for the kit!!! - Long live Tesco and winter sales) and ski pants for Colin.

Next Saturday morning, the plan (we still have to make all the reservations) is to leave on the 5am "snow train" which departs a few hundred metres from our doorstep and takes us for a 90 minute ride to the mountains and drops us off 200m from the ski lift. We will then book the girls into the ski school for the majority of the day while we have our refresher beginner lessons, then head off to the slopes. We plan to stay at the ski resort for 2 nights and ski ourselves "stukkend" and head back on the 4pm snowtrain to Plzen on Monday afternoon.

And if you are looking closely, you may even spot us on their webcam .... ;)

Things that make me go "Hmmm..."

First impressions of a foreign land...

Cool things:

1. The weather - literally and figuratively...
   
   This is one of the warmest winters that have been experienced here according to some locals. While for us its a bit of an adjustment, its really not difficult to endure and there's not a lot to complain about. On the good side, there is snow, which, even at my advancing age is fun to play in and I do it eagerly, having 2 babies helps obviously. Throwing snow balls at the wife and kids is not beyond me and when I get the chance I take it ;).
   
   Melting snow is not so great, jolly great pools of black mush form especially on the roadsides and lie in heaps for days and days after everything else has melted.
   
   I've known about the existence of snow ploughs for a while, but never seen one in action. I had this idea of a long tail-back of traffic behind a caterpillar-like earthmoving monster clearing roadways, and maybe some of them are like this. The ones I've seen here are on rubber, not tracks and do about 60Km/h down the road easily keeping up with traffic and skimming the edge of the road. The problem is, that as they pass, the snow that they're ploughing scoops up into the air and lands with some force, meters away. This is great if you're in a car, but if you're a pedestrian it could be horrid.
   
   Its not that you can't go outdoors here, its just that you do different things. Hayley's tips: i) when it is just starting to snow, take a walk outside in the dark and look up into the sky. Watching the snow falling gently onto your face is stunning (or standing behind the double glazing in your undies and T-shirt and watching it fall in the streetlight). ii) Never leave home without your beanie and gloves.
   
   
2. The other weathery thing is the way you live here. The outside walls of the houses have got to be 2 feet thick, every window and door is insulated, windows double glazed and doors have some kind of laminar insulation and seals all the way around so that nothing gets passed them, not draughts, windy noises, nuthin. The windows can open a crack ingeniously at the top, almost like they were coming off the top hinge and so you get fresh air.
   
   Double glazing also keeps out the traffic noise and so on. Every South African home should be built with these things, when its just below 10 outside you can switch off all the heating and just with the way the place is built you can walk around in shorts and a T-Shirt.
   
   
3. The plugs...
   
   I may be easy to please, but this is SO nice - everything here is a 2 pin plug, like the ones in ZA, but here the sockets are made for 2 pins. One doesn't have to fanny about trying to get your 2 pin to stay in the hole or connect, or change the plug to a 3 pin. Very nice.
   
   
4. Public transport...
   
   The public transportation system here works! You can set your watch by the various busses, trolleys and trams about town.
   
   If you want to get to Prague, there's a bus every half hour and it costs a total of KČ 174 for a return trip (R58). Just to give you an idea, a litre of fuel here costs a Euro (close to ten bucks mate! put that in your complaints pipe...). To do the distance in an average car would cost about R170 just in petrol, so still cheaper to bus a family of 4 to Prague than drive there and you get coffee / hot chocolate etc on the bus. Hmmm. When you get to Prague, you walk 20M to the underground and off you go again...
   
   Conveniently there's a train that runs directly to the ski resort every day etc etc
   
   
5. Getting to the office...
   
   The trip to the office is about 1km and can be done by bus if the weather is a trifle disagreeable or if you are late. Otherwise, there is a very refreshing walk to work with the cool fresh air on your face and in your lungs, which is a very invigorating way to start the day.
   
   
6. Beer for lunch in the canteen...
   
   Don't even consider walking to the table with a water or tea with your midday lunch - you are heavily frowned upon. Topping up a very large glass with the local non-alcoholic beer from the tap is the only done thing - or order a PU if you are having lunch with the project team (learned that one the hard way)

Off things, if you can call them that

1. Shops...
   
   Boring Pick 'n Pay type shops being referred to here. The layers out of shops have no flipping clue. There is almost no sense to the way the Spar is laid out, for example, one type of product is next to another of its kind in one instance and then there are other little bits of it dotted around haphazardly. The mayonnaise is in the fridge with the butter; the honey is on the shelf with the muesli; the jams are with the chocolates; the peanut butter is with the pickles; and we are still trying to find the crushed garlic and marmite (or any savoury sandwich spread for that matter)!
   
   Also you have to pack your own shopping bags here. At PnP you can ponder your list of things to do while the teller rings up the trolley and all you have to do is flip out the credit card at the end and you are done. Here, not only do you have to do the usual unpacking of the trolley and pack you own bags, but the tellers are on speed. These Czech girls make them tills beep faster than a horny cricket in the mating season, and there you are packing up a storm in very undignified manner. The busiest part of the shop is the checkout, its like a 100m sprint.
   
   Hayley hates carrying the shopping home and our purchases are limited not by any other factor than what we can easily carry home herding or towing 2 babies who we have also got carrying backpacks filled with groceries ;). Fortunately, it is only a 400m walk!
   
   
2. The bureaucracy...
   
   Everything is complicated. To travel on an efficient bus you must first do the inefficient red tape of buying the ticket in a particular place instead of on the bus. If you want to work here there are about a dozen processes that need to be done monthly if this and quarterly if that and within 30 days of the other thing if something else is true - its like you need a full time accountant just to hold down a job.

Just things:

1. The language...
   
   The language barrier is difficult sometimes, a lot of the people here studied English at school so there is some very elementary understanding in some people, but most can't say a word.
   
   Large shops, banks etc will have a few people who can speak English, but you can see that every time you call on one of them its quite unusual. You'll walk into a bank, go to the Customer Service lady and ask her if she speaks English (Mluvite Anglicke - pronounced mlooveete anglietski and then there's a moment before she says "Moment" and hurriedly makes a call, jabbers away for a bit and in a few minutes someone comes down to deal with the foreigners.
   
   Prague is much easier to navigate, but like London, there are about a hundred different languages floating around at the average coffee bar, so I think they're more geared for it.
   
   
2. We discovered a washing machine that also dries clothes.
   
   
3. People appear to not be hung up on having flashy cars and big houses.
   
   
4. Most Czech people are born in, grow up in, live in, and die in the town that their parents were born in, grew up in, lived in and died in that their parents were born in....
   
   
5. We never seem to get to bed before 1am!

Dobrou Nots!

A Little Perspective

I happened upon an amazing discovery about a week ago...

We were on our way to meet Amber and Sarah's new school principle and head of teaching and, along the way crossed over one of the rivers in Plzen. There were half a dozen or so little wild ducks paddling about on the water and we stopped so that the babies could see them and ask the usual set of questions.

The weather was biting, I'm not sure what the temperature was, but I guess, if it was above zero, it wasn't far, at any rate, the wind makes sure that your experience of the low temperature is as uncomfortable as possible - more on this in a minute...

As I watched the ducks swimming toward us (they obviously assumed we had some food for them and someone had rung the tea bell) I considered how darn cold it must be for those little beasties bobbing about on water when the ambient is literally freezing. A moment of admiration or something passed and we moved on.

A few days later I was upgrading my warm-wear at a sale in one of the centres here and chose a down and feather jacket. I'm wearing it in the photos of us by the lake in Hayley's entry below, and basically have not worn anything else since I got it. This thing is fantastically warm, I mean unbelievably warm. With a long sleeved T-shirt you can wear nothing but this jacket and be really comfy even when its really cold.

I remembered the ducks paddling happily on the freezing water and thought "Hey, those guys have got it good!" they are no where close to cold. They are permanently padded up in a feather and down coat and are probably not aware that its cold out. Apart from those little pink feet, which must be made of some kind of pliable rubber so as not to go solid, all the mechanisms for moving the feet, walking and paddling are up under a cover of feathers and must be very cozy.

I don't know how many ducks contributed to the making of my jacket, but I thank each one of them for it. I recon I have a few more feathers in my jacket than the average duck, but then again I'm a bit bigger than the average duck, so I guess it must even out. So if you are drawn to pity a feathered friend flying or swimming by on a cold day, fret not, he is well warmed and you are probably feeling the cold more than he is.

This brings me to the subject of wind... meteorological wind you understand...

I have recently learned that there are 2 basic kinds of wind: warm wind and cold wind.

Wind is the same noun for the single as it is for the plural, like one sheep is a sheep and two sheeps are still sheep, so one wind is a wind and two winds are also still wind.

Wind (pl) are the same species no matter whether they are cold or warm, but there are some drastic physiological changes that wind undergo when they change from being warm to cold.

Warm wind are well fed and lazy. They are round in shape like a Buddha and are all jolly. They can move quite quickly, but prefer not to and are quite content to laze about in the sunshine and tell jokes.

If they bump into a person, they say "Pardon" in Wind as they bounce off of the clothing or skin and move on without quarrel. Because of their larger size, warm wind are far less dense than cold wind and are therefore quite light.

When the sun goes away and there is not enough warmth around for the wind to feed on, they all get hungry and grumpy and rush around vying for the little warmth that there is. The problem is compounded by the fact that all wind are quite tall (or long) and their height (or length) doesn't change when they become cold, but their girth certainly does. This change makes them long and thin, just like an arrow, and because they are naturally round, they form pointy bits at their head and toes.

Cold wind are packed together very tightly as they crowd each other for warmth and they move around very fast as they are quite uncomfortable and think that the exercise will warm them up.

When they bump into a person, their spiky heads or feet run right through your clothes and poke little holes into your skin, they don't bounce off anymore, and are happy to stay with you to warm up. They wouldn't think about trying to avoid you, or apologising, which is why, even when you are in a shelter of some kind, out of the main flow of cold wind, when they spot you, they school over like sardines and you feel a sneaky wind bite you some place you weren't expecting.

I never knew it, but this is why it feels so much colder when wind blows.

An afternoon in the country

So, what should one do on a lazy Sunday afternoon?

We walked across the road to the local SuperSpar and bought some edibles to satisfy the hungamonsters of the 3 & 4 year olds and headed off on bus 30 to the local lake for a picnic (all of about 10 minutes away)!


Strangely, this winter is incredibly mild. As you can see, the snow of last week is completely gone (next snow expected on Wednesday) and the lake is usually completely frozen over at this time of year.

Before coming here (and after A & S gave away their bicycles to the orphans) we promised the girls that we would buy them new bicycles to go riding in the forest with when the snow was all melted and gone. It is getting more and more difficult to find the excuses as to why we haven't got them bikes yet, but the winter chill will just have to be reason enough until then. The forest alongside the lake will be excellent for riding in as they have running and cycle paths around the entire lake and through the forests.

We are really hoping though that the real winter will arrive as I am itching to get a new styling pair of white ice skating boots to go skating on the lake with - not to mention all the skiing we were supposed to be doing. Holding thumbs tho, we are planning to find some ski slopes this coming week-end or the one thereafter.

Picture Postcards from PRG

(View of Prague from the Prague Castle)

So the stories go that Prague is the heart of Europe and the most beautiful city in the world. So far, I have no evidence to the contrary!

Today, we did our first sight seeing trip to "the big city" after living in our little town for nearly 2 week, 80kms SW of Prague. Since we don't have a car yet (and finding it more and more unnecessary), we took the "Big Yellow Bus" (as Amber calls it) to the city and then navigated with the underground and trams to get around.

Today, our plans were to visit the Prague Castle (Pražský hrad) and saw about a quarter of the castle during the day. Unfortunately, due to not having had breakfast and it being a bitterly freezing day (although the thermometers were lying that it was a mild 4 degrees, it felt closer to -10!), our stomachs demanded a hot czech meal of goulash and beer and a walm centrally heated 'restaurace'. So, we will definitely return to visit the rest of the castle (although probably during the summer months).

First sighting of the castle:

Below, a building that is particularly impressive architecturally and aesthetically, but I have no idea what it is for or when it was built:

The girls definitely fancy the guards - when we got home, the highlight of their days were the guards and the yellow bus - go figure! :

Inside the castle is a very impressive cathedral, St Vicus Cathedral:


Within the castle boundary is the row of houses that were home to the alchemists who during medieval times attempted to turn metal into gold. (don't think they ever found the elusive philosopher's stone tho ;) :


And then, enough was enough and we were VERY excited about having some hot goulash with dumplings and the ever prsent Pilsner Urquell!