Two Weeks With Mom
My Mom arrived for a two week stay on Wednesday, July 1st. I haven’t spent a complete two weeks with Mom since living at home in high school. We had a really good time!! Jack was in some sort of sugar swing. He was in a foul mood the entire time, not complaining-just stating the facts as he would say. Luckily he pretty much left us to tour on our own. And tour we did! There may be two or three places in Praha that we didn’t see. I had the touring of Praha itself in a circle so wherever we left off one day we just picked up again the following day. We didn’t go out of town as much as planned. That was due to poor planning on my part. I should have had bus schedules and locations figured out in advance.
The most memorable will have to be the trip to Karlstein Castle. We took a mid morning train. Get this - round trip for both of us cost $6! Total, not each! It took about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. That was because it was a “milk route”. The train stops at every little burg on the way.
When Mary and Nick were here Mike had taken them there. Mary commented on how much cheaper crystal prices were in Karlstein compared to Praha. Boy was she right. There really isn’t a town of Karlstein like a typical town. It is small shops and a few homes that line the road that leads up to Karlstein Castle. Unless you live there, no cars are allowed. They do have horse and buggies to rent, other than that you walk it. It’s a very long uphill walk. Mom and I discovered the healthy way to do it. Stop at every crystal shop. This way you never work up a sweat or get out of breath. Well, almost. Towards the top it gets steep and there are only benches to rest at-no shops. We probably looked like drunks going back and forth across the street to make sure we didn’t miss any interesting shops. About half way up we started to make written notes on prices because it was getting confusing where we had seen which items and for how much. By the time we hit the steep part we knew pretty much which items we were going to pick up on the way back down.
Once to the top there is a courtyard where the ticket office is for tours of the castle. There was also a high school orchestra preparing to perform. We sat down to rest figuring we would watch them. Before long it became clear they were not going to perform any time soon. So I said to Mom, “Ya ready to take a tour?” Her reply, “Nah-let’s get lunch and buy the stuff we picked out!” Fine with me. We took a few pictures from the fortress wall and headed back down.
Lunch was about a third of the way back down, just after we came down the steep part. As we were sitting there the orchestra began to play. It wasn’t real clear to hear, but we thought it was nice to have music with our lunch.
Second best was an idea of Jack’s. We all took a luncheon cruise on the Vltava River. There were some cruise companies that only offered a one hour lunch cruise. This meant they only went as far as the Charles Bridge. Or the two hour one included a walking tour around Old Town Square. I had taken Mom there several times already.
We found one that was for two hours. This meant it went through the lock and up river past Vysehrad. It was on the expensive side, I think about 650kc ($20), but worth every penny. We got a small glass of Becherovka as we entered the boat. Becherovka is a secret recipe of fermented fruit that has been a Czech staple for centuries. Lunch was a buffet of traditional Czech salads, main courses, and desserts. It had just started to rain as we boarded. The clouds started breaking up just as we finished lunch so we went to the upper deck to enjoy the view. Jack said he planned for the rain to stop just so we could take pictures.
Mom and I also took the train to Dresden. We had a little more excitement than Jack and I had with Mike back in June. On the way across the border to Germany not only were there the usual German and Czech border personnel (at one point there was six of them in the train car at one time) checking passports, two guys dressed completely in black also strutted in. I called them ninja patrol; little black stocking caps and all. They made the guy across from us (he was probably mid twenties in age) open his duffel bag and they searched it. Everyone was noticeably quiet as this was happening. They didn’t find anything and moved on.
On the way home just as we approached the Czech border the man across the aisle and one row up was asked by the Czech border personnel for his visa. He didn’t have one. We then learned that anyone from Australia must have a visa in advance to enter the country. He said he didn’t know this. He was taking the train from northern Germany to Vienna. It route passes through the Czech Rep. They took his passport and said he would have to get off at the next stop, which basically was in the middle of nowhere. They told him that he would have to catch another train back to Dresden then make connections to go around CZ via Munich to Vienna. He didn’t seem to be really all that upset. Maybe he knew it was no sense arguing, or he did know in advance and just thought he could talk his way through. Who knows?
This was on a Monday. We picked this particular day to travel outside of CZ as it was a national holiday for the Czech’s. Nothing would be open except a few shops and restaurants. However, most public places are closed on Monday’s throughout Europe. As I mentioned before there is a lot of reconstruction going on. But, we walked to the river, across the Bruhl Terrace by the Catholic Church, went into the courtyard of the Zwinger Palace. We even stopped in at a few sporting goods stores. My brother has a knife collection from a company in Germany, we didn’t find what he wanted. In other words we did our usual 400 mile daily walk.
Out the window of the train in one of the areas that was flat and a lot of agriculture were real tall upright telephone poles. Rows and rows of poles on somewhat of an angle or a slant with a wire or cable across the top connecting the poles to each other. There was something green growing up these poles. Like giant bean stalks. Hanka clued us in as to what it was, hops for the beer! I’d like to see how they harvest it. I never really knew if hops were a bush or grew like peas or soybeans.
It turned out it was a good thing Mom left when she did - we didn’t have hot water. The uncle upstairs left on Friday afternoon for the assumed summer cottage. Saturday evening we noticed we didn’t have hot water. Our landlady sent the nephew over to see if he could fix it, with no luck. Mom left on Tuesday and we didn’t get hot water until Wednesday afternoon.
Observations from Mom
• Not many overweight children. Kids don’t get all the junk food, plus they have to walk to get anywhere.
• A lot of sirens. Everyone notices this. We have come to the conclusion that government paid health has something to do with it. Most sirens are ambulances. The government pays - heh why not call them for a lift!
• So many flowers in the yards. I had thought this spring that maybe it was because we were walking and not zooming by in a car, but, there are more flowers here. Perennials and annuals. Geraniums are the flower of choice for the many, many window boxes.
• Semi’s are the cab over the engine / flat nose type. I never really noticed this until she had said it. There are none with the engine out in front of the cab that is predominant in the States.
• No flys. Which makes outdoor eating wonderful. It seems like every restaurant or cafe has seating outdoor, even if it is only a few tables. We are going to miss having lunch or just having a beer in an outdoor cafe more than anything.
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