Meeting friends for dinner @ Petřín Hill

Some friends of Colin were in Prague for a week after sky diving in London and we planned to meet them for dinner on Petřín Hill. 

It is one of the tourist stops that we have been meaning to do since we moved to the CZ, but never got round to it.  It is a hill with a tower and is covered in park land and a very reputable restaurant.  There is an old funicular that takes you to the top that was first opened in 18somethin.

We got there a few minutes early and after posing for all the regulatory photo shoots quickly found out that the restaurant was closed. 

The girls below are pointing to the “babies” tower in the background (in the very far distance), which is the tower next to our apartment.

A closer view of our “babies” tower…

This is the restaurant that we almost had supper in…

And this is us doing our best to “strike a pose” And this is me and my hunny (in case you couldn’t guess).

Play date with Anička and Josefinka

It has been over a month since the girls left Eufrat school in Plzen and there has been much pining for their friends.

Anička was Sarah’s good mate from school and when their parents let us know that they would be in Prague on the Sunday, we jumped at the chance to meet them for a play date at McDonalds at lunch.

The gang together:

Sarah with Anička:

Sarah with Josefinka:

Our Gorgeous Red-Head

For the friends and family who remember a wiggling baby Sarah... Look again!

First day at Ballet

There has been a massive count down after we enrolled the girls and bought their kit. There was great excitement last week after we bought all their gear as we came home and tried it all on, with Mom carefully sewing elastics on to ballet shoes and little bows on to leotards. The girls dressed up in their costumes; their hair was all done; and we paged through their new ballet book trying out all the moves.

Finally, the big day arrived for the first ballet class! Today teacher Helena picked them up from school and took them to their first lesson.

I think they were pretending to be kittens in their class, but either way, the 2nd pose definitely looks more appropriate...

Knoodeling down the canal

Canoeing down the Ohře, more precisely.

One week into Amber's new school term the first outing is planned. It is to be a canoe trip. The parents are keen to go along to meet other parents and school peeps, and mingle a bit whilst having some fun with the girls.

What is more, faaaall (as the Americans say - to the English-speaking world "Autumn") can be seen storming down on us and this is a good time to enjoy the outdoors before it arrives.

The trip is going to take up Saturday, and is scheduled to begin about an hour south of Prague at Tynec, but there is not enough water in the river, and so we will paddle the Ohře between Hrad Loket (a very nice castle) and Karlovy Vary, our oft-visited haunt.

The country out there is picture pretty and so we are all looking forward to it.

All the necessary prep was done on Friday, which was simultaneously our anniversary date night, and so it was a late and somewhat wined night.

Needless to say, the Wood household, slow in the mornings when speed is in the air, was out of the starting blocks about an hour after the pistol sounded. Our trademark haste was in evidence as we scrambled for the subway to the meeting point. However, as we left the apartment, it became clear that summer, which has been ruling unopposed for the last weeks had abdicated, faaaaall was negotiated out of the deal, and winter seemed to have everything under control.

Ignoring the immediate exclamations from the girls as we left the building, we somehow convinced ourselves and out offspring that it would warm up as soon as we got into the sun. Problematically, the sun didn't show up.

Chilled, we arrived at the departure point, a full 30 minutes late and, thank heavens, not the last to arrive! Logistics sorted, we make for the hills and, apart from Sarah returning her early-morning Mc Donalds chocolate doughnut partly digested into a cardboard cup, the trip went along smoothly enough.

Upon arrival at the river, the temperature was a bold 7 degrees, and I'm not talking about the water. 7 degrees is not ordinarily any kind of problem at all, but when all you are prepared for is the mid 20's, 7 is a challenge. 7 with wind is even worse... we had wind.

*sigh*

Leslie (the principal) giving the law and safety drill to a shivering crowd.

It was cold! The change of clothes we'd taken in case one got wet were put on, with the raincoats over that to keep the wind out.

That, with the addition of a life jacket worked long enough to get us onto the river, and then, with all the exercise, the warmth came back... slowly.

We 4 were on a raft with another couple, so remained together for the duration. We had considered taking 2 canoes instead of the raft, but the thought of being lone paddlers for the entire trip seemed a tough ask and so we opted for the raft thinking it would be easier...

Praise the Lord, Hallelujah and glory to God... the sun came out almost as soon as we were on the water. The river lit up and was a real beauty...

Enlarge the one above... moments before, or should that be minutes before, all the leaves you see on the surface of the water were falling from a tree on the river bank, right in the middle of a sunbeam. It looked like giant, golden glitter bits falling onto the water. I wanted to capture it on camera, but you know... the camera was in a zip-lock bag as a precaution and, as with so many other precautions, by the time I had finished dealing with them, the magic moment had passed! Bother! From that moment forward, the camera ran the risk of swimming precaution free! It's close enough to upgrade time to take a little risk ;)

We stopped for some well-earned lunch at this wonderful spot on the river, opposite a rock-climbers paradise, with a good number of them in paradise.

All my girls attending to hunger on the river bank.

This was the lunch stop, looking ahead from the previous shot - BTW, all these photos are geotagged, so, you can have them show up in Google Earth, MS Maps etc if you feel inclined. I want to find an easy way of doing this right here in the blog, but haven't gotten around to that just yet.

Now all filled up, back to nature and the shallow river Ohře.

Job (the organiser), his wife Jana and their mutt Alex, enjoying the ride.

Apart from stopping to go around a weir (which would have been WAY more fun to go over) we didn't stop until we got to Karlovy Vary and the endpoint.

De-boated, and in the little remaining sunlight of the afternoon, the kids had some fun running around while we waited for everyone to arrive and trek all the way back to Praha again.

Only 2 of us were awake by the time we got home, and we all 4 will be sleeping well!

9th Anniversary

This year’s anniversary crept upon us in stealth mode with all the goings on of moving house and finding schools…

We managed to organise the au-pair for the night and so we set off for din-dins at “cowboys”. The restaurant is set just below the castle wall and has a fantastic view of the city from the terrace.

We approached the restaurant from the top of the castle wall and here it is below:

And the view of the city…

Homework Time

School is only a few days in and we are already into homework mode.

In the girls new bedroom though, we are really organised with desks and mini office chairs for them to work at.

Dad the homework director:

First day at school

Our main reason for making the move to Prague at this stage, considering that there is a big relocate to Reading in March, was to have the girls attend a proper international school. The informal tuition that they have had thus far with student teachers has just not been working.

Amber is enrolled into Grade 1 at the Christian International School of Prague. Unfortunately, although Sarah should be going into Grade 1 according to UK standards, this is not the norm for Czech or the American system on which CISP is based. Also, added to this, the Grade 1 class is full, resulting in Sarah still being in the kindergarten this year. Fortunately for us though, the Czech school in the same building has a great government run kindergarten which Sarah is attending. Sarah was very disappointed that she has had to go to a Czech school while Amber gets to go to an English school, but she is very linguistically capable and will probably be fluent in Czech before we leave next year.

Anyway, there has been much excitement amongst the girls at the prospect of going to a "big school", after they have been in a very cosy 10 kids total school since we have been in the CZ.

Sarah's school started on Monday, 1st September while Amber's school opening was only on Wednesday, 3rd September.

Sarah at the entrance to her school:

In the hallway:

Sarah's teacher "Teacher Jana", giving instructions to Helena:

Saz settling in to her new class and playing with some mates, these two are Nigerian, but there are also, American, Russian and Ukranian kids in the same class:

   

On Tuesday afternoon, there was a "meet the Teachers" at Ambers school, and then the first big day was Wednesday 3rd September.

Both babies ready for school with their new backpacks:

Amber's teacher, Mrs Hartman, waited in the foyer of the school for all the grade 1's and 2's (they are a joint class). Sava, the boy in the blue shirt is a lively character, and is already entertaining his mates with stories and games:

    

A quick pose with Mrs Hartman:

and then they all lined up, waved good bye, and went off to their class: