Mission to the Czech Republic

Spending Christmas in Ostrava has been both hard and enjoyable. It felt so strange being away from my family, but I did get to experience many Czech traditions and got a great vacation out of it too!

A Czech Christmas:
(scroll down further for the Vacation part)

Paul came to visit a few days before Christmas. I loved getting to play “tour guide” and have someone to show around Ostrava, although I did accidentally put him on the wrong tram one time and send him by himself, without a working phone, to the other side of the city. I think I was more freaked out than he was, but he managed to make it back alright. Impressive in a city where no one speaks English! He also visited one of my classes and got to meet some of my students.

The Friday before Christmas we went with Kevin and Laura (other Fishnet teachers) to Vienna for the Christmas markets, because “sometimes you just need giant pretzels and Starbucks”. The city was amazing, with all the Christmas lights, and there were markets set up in every available square with all sorts of crafts. I bought some beautiful hand-painted ornaments. Between trains and buses, we had quite a long trip back and didn’t make it to Ostrava until almost 5am on Sunday morning.

So we slept until noon on Christmas Eve, and then hung out at the flat until that evening. Czechs celebrate Christmas on the 24th, and Adam and Hanka were kind enough to invite us to their flat for a traditional Czech Christmas dinner of carp and potato salad. It was good, but I didn’t care for all the bones in the carp. At the Czech dinner table, you can’t leave the table during the meal on Christmas; anyone who does will be the first to die in the coming year. We all get up at the same time at the end, and under our plates there are some coins and a fish scale from the carp, to keep in our wallets for “good fortune” for the next year. We also exchanged gifts, but you never write or say who the gifts are from; they are all supposed to be from Ježišek (baby Jesus). I got socks and a CD from Adam’s band.

Another Christmas tradition we did was the pouring of lead. You melt a little bit of lead and then pour it into cold water. It hardens immediately and you are supposed to tell your fortune by the shape it makes. It’s fun to do, and they turn out looking like Monopoly pieces. I never figured out what shape mine was, though. The kit came with a guide for interpreting your shape, but they didn’t seem to make much sense (for example, it could say something like: if your lead looks like a window, it symbolizes respect. Where did they get respect from a window?). We also “cut the apple,” where if you cut an apple across the middle and there is a star shape, you are supposed to have good luck. If it’s not a star, I think it means you will die in the upcoming year, but is it really possible for it not to be a star? We finished out the night playing cards and watching part of a Czech fairy tale on TV, which is popular at Christmas instead of actual Christmas movies.

We slept in late on Christmas morning and watched one of Laura’s Czech movies, which was pretty funny. At 5 we went over to Nathan and Lucy’s for a traditional American Christmas dinner. It felt more like a family dinner since there were nine of us there. The food was wonderful, with three different kinds of pork and apple pie for dessert. I even tried Christmas pudding, which I think they told me is a British thing, but it’s over a year old when you eat it and it’s black. It wasn’t bad, but I think the fact that the lights were really low helped it look more edible. One of the highlights of the night was when we participated in a tradition from Nathan’s family. Every year, they would sing a song of which I’m not entirely sure of the title, but there are 9 verses to sing. Each person or couple sings a verse, and you sing the chorus in the middle and toast and drink between each one. It was an absolute blast and I want to start doing it with my family! We then watched the first half of My Fair Lady on Czech TV, who broadcasts those types of movies instead of Christmas movies.

Our Vacation:

The day after Christmas, Paul and I took a train to Brno where we spent a few hours eating and exploring the city. Then we took an overnight bus to Munich where surprisingly I actually slept pretty well. We had some time to check into our hostel before we picked up Zach and Tyler at the airport. They were a few hours late since they’d had a medical emergency on board and had had to land in Ireland, but it was so good to finally see them! We spent that day walking around Munich and enjoying the sites, which consisted mostly of churches and a beer hall (imagine drinking beer with 4,000 other people with a traditionally dressed German band playing American classic rock music).

The next day we took a trip to Neuschwannstein Castle in the Alps, only an hour or so away by train. We’d debated whether to use our last day in Germany to go there, but it was worth it! The castle is supposedly the model for the one at Disney World. Set on a high hill in between towering mountains, King Ludwig’s Newschwannstein is quite a site from the ground! It was so beautiful with snow all around. We took a horse carriage ride to the castle entrance…I felt like I was in a fairy tale! The castle itself isn’t that old (well, not as old as most other European stuff), but was still visually stunning. There was also another, smaller yellow castle on a lower hill nearby, which we thought actually looked more like a hacienda. Paul said it was built by Ludwig von Sanchez. We toured the inside, and then decided to hike up to a bridge overlook that we could see in the distance. We asked one of the workers how to get there, and he said it was closed in the wintertime. But we were looking out the window behind him and could see people standing on it! I was like, that guy is lying to my face! I know it’s not as funny in writing, but it became our joke for the rest of the trip: All of Europe is actually closed in the wintertime. We found out that technically it is closed, but we just jumped the fence anyway. The bridge offered an amazing view of the castle from behind. We kept going and hiked up into the mountains in the snow. It’s been months since I’ve done any sort of hiking, so it was a very refreshing change of pace! The hardest part was getting back down the road from the castle (no horse carriage on the way down). I wish I could describe this better in writing, but I almost busted it trying to walk down. I was scooting along really slowly trying not to slide, and I went to grab the fence for support. Just then I started to slide and, if you can picture this, my feet started running in place on the ice until I completely lost my balance and, with a death grip on the fence, my entire body swung under the fence railing and out over the hill that I would have rolled down if I’d let go. It was too slippery to stand up! By that time everyone on the hill was doubled over laughing and Paul had to hike back up and help me. Sarah, if you’re reading this, I thought you’d really appreciate it. I’m still laughing about it.
The next day we moved on to the next city on our itinerary: Salzburg. Salzburg is famous for two things: Mozart and the Sound of Music. We were having coffee in a café when we realized, after reading in Tyler’s travel book, that Mozart was born in the flat two floors above us. Our hostel shows the Sound of Music every night. We watched part of it, and could see parts of the city in the movie. We spent most of that day at the fortress/castle thing overlooking the city. It offered a magnificent view of the Alps from the top. We saw the dungeon and “torture tower,” the marionette museum, and lots of displays on Austrian military history. I really loved this city; it’s got the “European charm” that I love so much and it really does feel like a fairy tale, with the narrow cobblestone streets still decorated for Christmas. I wish we’d been able to spend more time there, but we had to head to Vienna after that night.

The first day in Vienna was a little stressful since it took a long time to get there, and it took us a while to find our hostels and check in. Because it was so close to New Years, booking was a problem and we’d had to split up to two different places that weren’t exactly close together. We really only managed to see the Cathedral (Zach and Tyler saw the crypt which I had seen in June), and walk around the city at night. But in Vienna, that’s not such a bad thing. We saw the town hall, the museums, and the Hapsburg’s winter residence, the Hofburg Palace, from the outside, and had a great Austrian dinner with sausage and dumplings. We finished that night with a Starbucks stop, which I always appreciate since Starbucks doesn’t exist in the Czech Republic. Later that night, after we’d gone back to our hostels, I heard a knock at our door. I was a little hesitant to open it since it was quite late, but when I did, Zach and Tyler were standing there! Apparently their hostel was something straight out of the movie “hostel” and they said either they were going to bunk in with us that night or stay up the whole night blockading the door. I saw it the next morning and it was pretty sketchy…but they had red, silk sheets. The whole place is a dump and they give them silk sheets? Don’t stay at the Blue Corridor in Vienna, if you ever plan on visiting…

Vienna the second day was much more enjoyable. We spent most of the day at Schönbrunn Palace, the Hapsburg’s summer home. It was incredible, especially just knowing how old it was and how many generations of that dynasty had walked those same hallways. Mozart played a concert their when he was just six years old, and it was the childhood home of Marie Antoinette. The property itself was worth the trip. The place includes a zoo (supposedly the oldest one in the world), a maze, and the Gloriette, which is a small building on a hill on the backside of the palace, from which you get an amazing view of the palace and the city. I’m sure the gardens are amazing in the summertime, but we couldn’t have had better weather so the place looked great regardless.

After a rest at the hostel (a different one this time), we went to the town hall square to celebrate New Years. The place was packed out with people shooting off fireworks, and multiple stages and bands. There wasn’t actually an official fireworks show (Zach said he didn’t realize it was “BYOF”) but the ones set off by the locals were impressive enough in that they were everywhere. We had one zoom by about four feet from our heads, skimming over the crowd. There didn’t seem to be rules about anything, and people were just throwing firecrackers…and they were LOUD as anything when they went off. It almost felt more like a war zone than a celebration. But hey, we celebrated New Years in Vienna…we thought that was pretty cool.

The next morning we hopped a train to Prague where I again got to play tour guide. Prague is always beautiful at night, and I enjoyed being able to share it with them. Unfortunately I had to say goodbye earlier today and take a train back to Ostrava, where I’m currently sitting on my couch wishing I didn’t have to teach at 7:30 tomorrow! It was pretty hard to say goodbye, knowing I won’t see them again for another six months, but it was such a blessing to have them come visit!

So there’s my Christmas break update. I hope you enjoyed it. I pray you also had a blessed Christmas. Happy 2007!