ONE MONTH. That is how long I have been in Prague now, which seems unreal. This past week it seems to have really hit us that we live here. Going to school, studying at local cafes, going grocery shopping every couple days all has become the norm and Prague feels more like a home than a foreign land. And, we have now made it a tradition for a weekly dinner with my R30 family.
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| Mac&Cheese night! |
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| After hiking in Mikulov. |
This weekend
there were two options: drink beer or drink wine. Meaning, half the program
went to Oktoberfest to buy 11 Euro beer, which just isn’t in my budget for this
fall considering the fact I’m living in a city with the best beer selection in the world;
and where you can buy .5 liter for about $1. So, instead a group of 15 of us
went on an overnight trip to the wine country of Moravia in the southeast of
the Czech Republic. We all signed up for this only knowing that we would be
wine tasting, and then because of the word choice in an email that was sent to
us we thought we were sleeping in a wine cellar. We honestly did not know what
to expect the moment the van picked us up Saturday morning. Hair did, sweater
and boots on we were all ready for a relaxing weekend at a vineyard...right?
But in hindsight, have we ever gone on a trip without some form of hiking
involved? We should’ve known...
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| The group in Lednice. |
Sisters, reflect
back to the land cruiser and how we always fought over sitting in the back
because it was so bumpy. Well, imagine having to sit in a van that bumpy for
four hours. But don’t worry, “My
Heart Will Go On” was one of about ten songs that were consecutively being
played on and on and on to muffle the squeaking of the wheels that sounded like
they could’ve fallen off any moment. And it wasn’t until the last 5 minutes of
the return journey that the AC started dripping all over Garrett and Nathan in
the back.
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Climbing the stairs of the observation tower.
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The first stop
with Tony the bus driver and Geiger our leading man, was the South-Moravian
town of Mikulov, where we were told, once we got there, that we would be hiking
up a hill: sweaters and all. Our next stop was a castle and Unesco Park of
Lednice, where we had yet another hour and a half walking around a lake, 302
steps up a tower made by the man who invented the pencil, and Nico and Marisa
who chose not to climb the tower got their official archery certificates so can
now take part in the next Hunger Games.
As the day
continued all of us were getting more exhausted, hungry, and in a desperate
need for some wine. We finally made it to our final destination of the small
town of Boretice for wine tasting in the cellar from the 1700s. Even being pre-warned to eat a
lot of food, with seven hours of drinking as much wine as you desire ahead of
you, no amount of bread could save you at this point. First of all, wine
tasting is a bit different than back at home. Rather than sipping and spitting
out a small portion of wine, our glasses were poured half way full and then we
were rushed to gulp it down before the wine pourer came back to us. The next 6
hours that followed would include bread, wine, wine, bread, wine, and doing the
YMCA with Czechs: something everyone should experience in their lifetime.
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| Wine tasting! |
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| The main attraction on Sunday |
The next morning
began with a man giving anyone who wanted them some Cuban cigars when all we
wanted to do was get home. And when we finally left we got lost, stuck in
traffic, and thought of new ways to get comfy in a very tiny bus. Let’s just
say the highlight of Sunday was seeing a huge mushroom. Overall though, it
ended up being a great trip I got to share with my closest friends here!
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| The wine cellar! |
Lessons learned:
- When going on a hunt for Mexican food, don't forget your Czech phrase book so you understand that they went to the bank and will be back soon.
- Keep track of the ratio of bread eaten to wine drunk
- Sleeping in the
wine cellar would have been less creepy than sleeping where we actually had to
- Czechs are
horrible drivers
- If you are
British you WILL be the center of attention
- Specifically NO ice cream allowed on the bus
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