Visiting friends in Plzeň

Anička and Josefinka are Amber and Sarah’s mates from the Eufrat school in Plzeň.  We have met them for play dates since we have been in Prague (Play date with Anička and Josefinka) and during the last meeting, Jiri and Martina suggested that we go to a hockey match with them during the winter season.

Having never been to a live ice hockey match, we eagerly accepted.

Jiri organised us the tickets and on Friday night, 21 November, we planned a trip back to Plzen to watch the match and then to spend the night with them in their home.  Amber and Sarah would spend the evening playing with Anicka and Josefinka with Martini staying home to watch them.

As we left Prague on Friday evening, the first snow of the season started to fall.  It was a great welcome to the winter, snow and an ice hockey match!!  We walked to the stadium during the hardest part of the snow storm and so arrived pretty wet and cold.

The match was phenomenal!  Plzen was playing Znomo and the crowd was wild!  There was even a professional crowd section, where the hard-core Plzen supporters were all dressed in gear and chanting and stomping in time and rhythm – incredible experience!  Unfortunately Plzen lost in the penalty shoot-out, but hey.

This is morning breakfast, with Jiri and Martini at the head of the table and Anicka and Josefinka in the front.

The girls all playing up a storm in the bedroom:

Jiri plays in a jazz band and treated us to some music:

On Saturday, after leaving Jiri and Martina, we headed out into the village to visit Tomas and his horses (previous visit to Tomas).  The road sweepers / snow ploughs are not working on Sundays in his village, so we navigated a very slippery, slidey road to his house and were unnerved by the sight of abandoned cars already in the ditch along the road.

His horses were very sociable today, expecting a treat to emerge:

This one took a special fancy to Sarah’s hood and kept nuzzling his nose right into it – even her hair was taste-tested: Tomas very kindly gave them both a ride before we left as him and his wife were about to go for a ride before evening.

Visit to Tomáš

Apparently, it was "World Childrens' Day" on the 1st June. Now please tell me why no-one ever told us about this at the tip of Africa while I was a children ???. How we used to think it was so rude to have a Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day and everyone forgot about us children!

Tomáš' village was celebrating the occasion with a "Fair" in their local playground and we were invited to join in the fun and games. The children had the most kiddies type fun that they have had in a while with us - painting; shooting water guns; playing skittles; sliding; being dished out handfulls of sweets; blowing bubbles; and riding in a horse-drawn cart!

Tomáš and his wife Elena to my left:





After all the games, we went back to Tomáš' yard for our first "non-South African" braai - a "grilovaný". Which, quite frankly was absolutely no different to the way we do it back home. Absolutely devine! I also had my first glass of wine since leaving the fair cape, and ironically it was not even Czech, but Hungarian white wine.

The "horses" even came to supper that evening ...


Tomáš and Elena:

After supper, Tomáš took us to see the local "castle" in the village. It was a chateaux that was linked to the local monastery and has been neglected for a few decades....

Thanks Tomáš! Next dinner date will be boerewors, pap and spinach relish at The Woods'!!

More Pics

Fields of Gold

The first time that we saw the yellow fields was while George (my boss) was driving us to the airport for us to catch our Paris flight. I was speechless for the rest of the journey (a whole hour to Prague) as every field was a blaze of yellow - and far more spectacular than any of our SA sunflower fields. With us having been Plzen bound for 3 weeks, during our last trip to Prague the fields were all a very nondescript green with no hint of the glamour that they were about to give the country. Driving back from our Paris trip on the yellow bus, I was adamant to capture a glimpse of the scene on film. So, hence the very blurry, window smudged photos ....

On Sunday, we were privileged to be invited to one of my Czech colleague's home. He has a 2000 m2 plot and has horses that his wife show jumps. After telling him about our 2 horses in the family that occasionally pose as children (only when it suits them), he insisted that we come around for them to visit his horses. We caught the train to a station near him and he picked us up from there. As yet, I had not satisfied my hunger for the photos of the yellow fields, and so was feverishly snapping away from the violently moving train window.

When we arrived at his home, we were welcomed by very excited dogs and his 2 horses in their stables right by the gate - in fact their kitchen window looks right into the stables. It was an incredibly homey scene with his wife in her riding breeches grooming the horses and the hay in piles nearby. They led their horses out of their stables and My God!!! their one horse was HUGE!!! I think he said that he was 18 hands, but Goliath is a better description. The horse paddock was across the road so we all traipsed back out of the gate and across the road and watched as the horses went bazerk playing in the field, bucking and prancing and generally playing very wildly (all the while being chased and nipped by the very over excited terrier). The girls were gobsmacked. It was like watching the movie Spirit up close and very personal.

When I pulled out my camera to start taking some shots, the very large horse saw the shiny silver thing and decided to investigate, coming straight for us, practically bulldozing A&S (who were rather annoyed at his lack of respect for their personal space) - pic of his approach and the less than approving expression of the Saz below :)