its the holiday season!

Sorry, I didn't take as many pictures as last time, i'll try to do better for next entry :P

The Friday after an unbelievably beautiful (and slightly terrifying) week in Italy, we drove back to Kroměříž so that I could attend my English teacher’s (formally Kristina Hamšiková) wedding at the church attached to my school. She married a German man, so the sermon was translated into both Czech and German to accommodate both sides family. Besides the fact that it was unbelievably cold inside the church, it was a beautiful ceremony. My class of 2B sang and was the band, so I actually got to be a part of the whole shebang. Then afterward we took pictures with the newlyweds and wished them luck before they left for the honeymoon.

That night, I went to my councilor’s house in Zlin so that I could go to a Christmas ball organized by his daughter/my friend Nicole. It was very nice, great decorations and a fun atmosphere.

I spent the night at the Lukovicovi house and the following morning we cleaned up the dance and went shopping, followed by an… eventful, lunch at the mall. Following lunch we drove back to Kroměříž for my first lacrosse practice. It was really cool, and I was finally glad to be doing a little physical activity. After practice they invited me to go to the Cerny Orel (a pub on the main square) for their Christmas party. By the time I got home that night I was ready to take a bath and go to bed, but when I opened the door to my bathroom, I found a kaper (Czech for carp) swimming around in my tub. Turns out, this was to be Christmas dinner J

Monday we had the Rotary Christmas dinner. One of the Rotarians is married to a professional singer from Japan, so she put on a small show before dinner, and was super. Then, we had the traditional soup, carp filet, and potato salad. Afterward, I gave out little snow men ornaments I had made, and Rotary gave me a present. It was a silver and Czech garnet bracelet for Christmas. It is B-E-A-utiful J on the off chance any of them read my blog… THANK YOU! I was also informed I would be switching to my next host family on the 29^th…

Tuesday there was a half day of school, half of which was videos, and the other half a Christmas party J Wednesday was the start of holiday break. So I did the rest/most of my Christmas shopping and made sweets with my host mom and sister. At night I went to the Christmas party with my scout group, there were a lot of new faces and fun things to do. As a present from the whole group, the Mafia gave me a bandana with the scout name on it. They told me it was so I wouldn’t forget them :P There was a scavenger hunt, a present exchange where everyone got random thing, and then we sent up a hot air balloon type thing for good luck for the New Year. The carp in my tub, had acquired an even larger friend :D

Thursday the 24^th was the day we celebrated Christmas. In the morning we played Christmas carols, made more sweets, cleaned apples, decorated the main tree, and I made smaller trees in vases and decorated them. For lunch we had carp sushi, and then at four o’clock we went to Christmas mass at Panne Maria. After church we came home and had prepared for our feast :D we had a short reading of the Bible then had our potato salad and carp by candle light. After dinner, we all got an apple. We cut them in half, and supposedly, if there is a star in the middle, you will have luck for the coming year. So I asked what would happen if you didn’t get a star, and my mom told me that then it doesn’t mean anything :P

After apples, Ondrej lit some sparklers in the kitchen (another tradition), and then a small bell rang, meaning that baby Jesus had come with our presents. We gathered around and presents were handed out. I got some cosmetics, and some small girly things, plus a pair of garnet earrings to match the bracelet I had gotten from rotary. The rest of the night was spent watching movies and playing with presents J then, spat…

Christmas morning I skyped my family back home and opened presents I had gotten from back home.

I guess it is traditional to spend the 25^th with your grandparents, so we headed off to Stramberk to spend the next two days at the Ranch with the Debef clan. We had a smaller version of Christmas, and had another present exchange. I got some lotion and MORE chocolate :P I have really enjoyed all the time I have spent with Ondrej’s family, I have my fingers crossed that they might continue to take me along to family get-togethers even after I switch families :P

The 27^th was fairly laid back, we laid around most of the day, but did go to see a pretty cool are exhibits at the local museum featuring photos from the communist era. There was also a History of Kroměříž that we looked atm. My host mom showed me a necklace she had donated, that she had found in her backyard garden. In the evening we had one of Martin’s old teachers over for drinks and to look at Martins pictures from Australia. Monday was also a relaxing day. Nothing really happened except for a visit from an old family friend who now lives in England.

Tuesday was my last day living with the Eliska and Ondrej Debef, so in honor of this they took me out to lunch at the restaurant we had eaten at for their anniversary in Přerof and then we did some sigh seeing in the city. It was a really nice day, and I was sorry to have to pack up and leave that night.

Now I am living with the Hrabalovi family. I live with Jana and Zdeněk and their daughter Eva (19) and son Tomaš (17). Tomaš was the exchange student from Kroměříž to Alaska last year. So far I’m just spending some time getting use to being with a new family. New Years Eve Eva had some friends over to the house and we sat around, talked, played games, and then walked down to the main square for midnight. We lit some of our own fireworks and wished each other a “Stěsty Novy Rok” Down at the square we met Dina who was there with some of her friends and all went to Slady before calling it a night.

Yesterday we had a special new years day lunch. We had a chick-pea soup and beef fillet with potatoes. It is said that the more chick-peas that are in your soup the more luck you will have this year. We had beef because something about eating something that could fly means your luck will fly away. And as for the potatoes… well they just really like potatoes in CZ :P

This morning I woke up to snow (:D) and went swimming at the pool about a quarter mile from our house. It was very refreshing, but reminded me just how out of shape I am… hopefully I’ll get to go there more often to improve that :P I also google map’ed my commute to school. Its 1.25 miles to school… Mondays should be fun ;)

Some things familiar, some things peculiar:

1: When you give and receive gifts from under the Christmas tree, you don’t tell anyone who they are from. All presents are said to be from “Baby Jesus”.

2: If a little kid needs to use the bathroom, it is fine to take them to the nearest grassy spot and let them do it there. I have seen many parents dangling their pants less child in public areas waiting for them to do their business.

3: Fire detectors are neither mandatory, not common in homes. No matter why this is, im sure it helps that most houses are almost entirely made of stone.

what is it... 4 months now?

Alrighty, moving forward :)

The Monday after Jindrichuv Hradec, there was no school, so my family and I took a trip to Ostrava for the evening, where I hung out with my friend Brian, from Wisconsin, and they had dinner with an old friend. Afterwards, we headed out to the Ranch to spend the night at babicka's house in Stramberk. It was nothing too special, but Ondrej's parents are very nice, and not in the best of health, so we tend to go up there as much as possible. Afterwards we visited the famous Stramberk tower at the top of the city, everyone else had already seen it before, but I had a good time :P after the tower, we bought some famous ear cookies, and headed home.

The following weekend, we went to Ondrej's brother’s house. The only think anyone said previous to our departure was "do you like pig?” As it turned out, this was a weekend devoted to eating, and preparing an entire pig. after the first wave of repulsion passed, it was actually really fascinating. I had no idea that pretty much every single part of the animal was made into something. My favorite part was filling small portions of the small intestine with ground up pig to make normal sausage and blood sausage. They really did let me help with the ENTIRE process... it was so cool! (although, I’m afraid this might have helped my opinion of meat :P) unfortunately my hands were kind of dirty so I couldn't take pictures, but everyone else did, so hopefully I’ll get copies :)

i was also really surprised at how much everyone liked the dead pig. We even took pictures with it on the meat hooks, and had the kids pet it and shake its hooves!

the following friday was the final ball for my dance class, lots of fun getting dressed up and showing off what we had learned :P

The weekend after, we drove my host sister, Hanka, back home to Prague. We spent one night and one day in the city, and it was beautiful! I took pictures, but unfortunately misplaced my wallet, so I couldn't buy anything :/ we ate at a super cool Indian restaurant, saw the Christmas market, visited the horse, spent the night in Hanka's apartment, had STARBUCKS coffee the next morning (:D), visited the Jewish district and Paris street, saw a really cool guy playing a recorder with his nose, then had to head home.

That Wednesday after school, my Dina, her parents, her grandma, a church friend, my host parents, my host moms nurse, and I all fit ourselves into one 9 person van and went to Vienna for the evening to see an impressionisms art exhibit and the Vienna Christmas market. It was some spectacular art (some privately owned) that I was told may never be displayed in another exhibit.On our way out of the art exhibit some one saw a strech hummer, everyone got excited and ran to look, it was hillarious :) we had some hash brown things, roasted chestnuts, hot wine/cider and i had chocolate covered strawberries... deeeelicious! then, we piled back in the car and back to CZ.

Another beautiful city, I only wish I could have spent more than 5 hours there :P

Friday afternoon I took the train to Ostrava, where I met Brian again. His rotary club had planned a bus trip to Budapest and Bratislava and he managed to get the ok for me to come along. That night I slept at his host parents house and the next morning at 5 we boarded the big purple pokka dotted bus. It was an awesome weekend with Brain, Kate, Christmas markets, and a copious supply of Becherovka. Unfortunately, it was a very foggy weekend, but we still got to see quite a bit. Budapest was beautiful, we were taken up to Catadella (at the top of Budapest) and showed around by a true native, coincidently also a rebound :) And last but not least, I spent my first night in a European hotel, and may I say, there are some significant differences. Sunday was spent in Bratislava, it was not quite as visually appealing as Budapest was, but still had a very nice market, and even better coffee :P That evening for dinner we went to a famous goose restaurant. it was the kind of place where you could only order the meat in units of whole geese, and as a gift at the end of the meal, they gave you the bones to take home to make soup with. The food was delicious, and we enjoyed goose soup the following Wednesday.

That Friday, I had the ball for my second dance class. Afterwards, I came home, slept for a couple hours, then hopped in the car to go to Italy for a week of skiing with my parents, some other doctors' families and Dina.

Besides the fact that is turns out I didn’t know as much about skiing as I thought I did, the week was really great. The Alps were spectacular, I couldn’t believe I was ACTUALLY there...

The little town our hotel/apartment was in was having a Bethlehem exhibit throughout the whole city, so we went out to see that almost every night.

The "around the mountain" ski day I had been told so much about, was unfortunately a little beyond my capability level. So instead of circling the mountain with my family, I hung out on the bunny slopes with two women who were more the relax and have fun type :) but I still got some gorgeous pictures!

What’s new...

1: In a hotel room, before it it possible to use electricity, you must first insert your door key card to a slot by the door... without this card in place, no lights will turn on :P

2: (one people probably already know) all cars are manual , I have seen one automatic shift car, and im almost sure it was a special import.

3: TV shows don't air on the hour and half hour. Because most TV stations cut out either most or all commercials during shows, they are not a half hour or hour long. It’s fairly normal to watch a show at 15:05 or 18:50. For example Kriminalka Las Vegas (CSI Las Vegas) airs Thursday at 21:35 :P