October 26, 1997

Regrettably, I no longer have the first letter we sent to family and friends in September that announced our decision to sell the house, store the furniture, and move to Prague for a hiatus.

The following is the second letter we sent:

October 26, 1997

Just to update you on our BIG ADVENTURE. . .

As you know, we are staying at Mike and Hanka’s old apartment for about a month.  Their new apartment is what we will be using as our mailing address. 

   Jenecska 41

   161 00 Praha , Czech Republic

   Europe

We sold the house in early October.  We knew this couple would be making an offer after they had her parents with them the second time and the positive comments the mother kept making.  They made an offer, we did the counter offer, they accepted, everyone’s happy.  I think.  At first we had second thoughts that we should have just rented it out.  There were pluses and minuses to both selling and renting.

We had arranged for Jack’s son, Mark, to take our sofa.  I’ve wanted new, so why pay to store it.  Their offer stipulated we leave both the sofa and love seat.  That’s two heavy pieces that won’t need to be stored.  The stove and frig were included in the selling price of the house.

Closing will be mid-November, but we don’t have to be out of the house until the day our plane leaves on November 27^th.  We’ll store the furniture in a climate controlled facility.  We still intend to come back to Grand Rapids in 12 or 18 months.  There is a strong possibility of building since we think we found our perfect floor plan.

We purchased the dog carrier late in September, giant size.  Right away we put it in the back of the van.  Now when we say “Do you want to go to the park?” he jumps right in it. The vet will be giving us a tranquilizer in case we think he needs it.  Shep has all his paperwork together so he is actually better prepared than we are.

The van sold the same weekend we advertised it.  We’ll drive the Geo to Dar and Thom’s.  They are going to sell it for us in Geneva.

I gave my notice the last week of September.  Rather strange reaction.  He was royally pissed at first.  I think he thought he was the last to know, when in fact, he was the first.  He has since accepted it.  Of course, he now has some unrealistic ideas of what I can accomplish in six weeks.  Oh well – “Let it be a challenge to you” as they say.

Now, ya gotta come visit.  Prague is a beautiful city rich in culture and history.  The Cathedrals are awe-inspiring.  There are palaces, museums, and street after street of every architectural style.  Walking down the street lets you feel what it must have been like when Mozart and Dvorak lived there, or King Wenceslas in the first century.  As often as we have been there we haven’t seen everything we have read or heard about.

Before you come, read up on the city.  Eyewitness Travel Guide gives the best detail about the history behind the places to see.  It has more photographs than any guide we have looked at.  Frommer’s is also a good travel guide.  Praha is only a couple hours from Germany, and about four to Austria.  We came by train once from Vienna.  Vienna, another city everyone should experience.

We purchased a laptop computer, so we will still be able to do e-mail.  Currently (until late November) our address is jhhubbell@msn.com.  If you have e-mail, let us know your address before we leave.  That way we can e-mail back to you our new mailing and e-mail addresses.

I guess that about covers it.  We are sincere about the offer to come visit us.  If the idea of staying with us isn’t all that appealing, we also know of a newer hotel that is very reasonable.  In fact, we have stayed there on three occasions.