This past Saturday I took Anna (the oldest) to Karlstejn Castle, which is situated above the small town of, you guessed it, Karlstejn. The castle was founded in 1348 by Charles, or Karl, the IV to provide a place of safekeeping for the Bohemian/Czech crown jewels and the Imperial Regalia (which were the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire). Interestingly, women were forbidden to enter the castle. However, Charles IV's wife, Anna, was able to break-in (in drag) at one point. I guess this story has become one of the most popular Czech comedies.  Here's the castle above the town:

Look mom! A picture of me! You'll be so happy.

This is Anna. She's so tiny! Haha.

We got lunch after we took a tour of the castle. Anna's English is better than our tour guide's was! I'm always impressed with how well children can learn new languages. It's amazing. I wish I still had that... Anyway, I got goulash in a bread bowl and Anna got this pancake thing folded in half with chicken inside. It was pretty good. While we were in Karlstejn and when we were eating lunch she was like "I want them to think I am from America too. So I won't speak Czech to them." Haha. Then she ordered some lemonade thing that had a very long Czech name and I'm pretty sure that gave her away. She's so funny, and probably one of the sweetest girls I have ever had the pleasure of getting to know.

Yesterday I had a day off, so I went into the city to do some exploring and run some errands. I had to get some more pages sewn into my passport at the embassy, so I decided to walk around downtown for a bit while that was getting done. I walked around to the back of the embassy because there's this cool park/orchard thing I read about, so I figured I could find a bench there, enjoy the sunshine, and eat my lunch. By the way, what is it about simple baguettes with butter, ham, and cheese, that are so darned good? I'm sure it's because it's in Europe. Haha. So I had my ham and cheese baguette, some Manner cookies (where are my Vienna friends, when I miss them so?!), and some peach and apricot Fanta. Seriously. So good. I think I could drink Fanta every day for the rest of my life and die happy. And really fat...

After my lunch in the orchard (and some photo taking, naturally), I went to this church that was nearby and was supposedly some big tourist destination. Inside they have this little Jesus baby doll up on an altar, all dressed in fancy clothing. Haha. It looked like some creepy porcelain doll from the 80's, but a lot of people seemed to really like it. There was even a museum to the side of the church that had all the little costumes that have been given to the church for the baby Jesus over the years. Creepily funny, if you ask me. Haha.

I then took the tram over to a street called Na Příkopě (which I am incapable of pronouncing. When there is one of those little marks above the r it makes a sound that people say is like a mix between an r and a z. The Krseks, however, told me that that's not how you say it at all. It's more like how the french say the j (zh), but with some additional weird thing they do with the tongue. I'm determined to figure the pronunciation of this letter out.). There's lots of shopping to do and the buildings are mostly all old, and all very cool looking. Of course I stopped in at H&M...

By then it was time to go pick up my passport. Rather than taking the tram back, I decided to walk the whole way, and just wander around. I walked around the National Theater and went to this little island in the river. When I came to Prague with my Vienna group, some of us went to this island and rented paddle boats from this little rental place there. It brought back a lot of fun memories. :) This time it was a lot prettier though. It was October when we went, and most of the leaves had already fallen off the trees and most of the stuff was dead. This time everything was green and in bloom...

After I picked up my passport, my feet were protesting any more walking, so I decided to catch the tram and head home. While I waited for the tram I had this really cool experience that I think will stick with me for a long time. As I walked up to the stop, I noticed this blind girl approaching from the other direction. She stopped a few feet away from me and we just stood there while everyone else was walking around us and the other passengers who were waiting for the next train. All of a sudden, her white cane tapped into my feet and as I turned in her direction she said "Oh pardon, pardon!" and then asked me something in Czech. All I could say was "Anglitsky" ("English"). So then she started talking to me in English. She asked if she was standing alright at the tram stop (she didn't want to be too far forward, or too far back, in case she missed the train) and I told her she was standing in the perfect place. She asked if I was a tourist, and I was like "well, sort of, but not exactly. I'm an au pair, a nanny, this summer for a family here." At this point a train was approaching and I asked her which tram number she was waiting for. She said 22, so I informed her that she would want to get on this tram that was coming in. She asked if I was getting on it as well and I told her no, I was waiting for the 12. So she bid me luck with the children this summer and went on her way.

Such a cool person! Earlier that day, there was a church that I wanted to see. There was some long skinny pathway in front of it and a sign that said "Klub." This sounds really, really dumb, but I turned around as soon as I saw the sign and walked the other direction, afraid I was going somewhere I shouldn't be going. And here was this girl, who couldn't see a thing, and she was getting on a tram, trusting that people were telling her it was the right one, and trusting that she would be able to get off at the right place and get to where she needed to be. I can't even walk down a path because I'm worried I shouldn't be there. This experience really put things into a totally new perspective for me. I should have kept on walking, and if someone told me off, then I could say in a thick American accent "Oh sorry! I didn't know!" and then leave.

Anyway, I thought that was a cool experience that I learned a good lesson from. I hope from now on I will remember that and not be deterred by dumb little signs in my path.

 In other news, I started working out again for the  first time in two months. My body basically hates me right now. But being sore is such an awesome feeling.

That's right, I've joined the big boys now. Haha.

This past weekend we went up to the Krsek's cabin within the Šumová mountains, in the town of  Borová Lada, which is about 5 km from the German border. It was gorgeous up there, so I really hope we get to go back. Mr. Krsek made it sound like they would be going up there fairly often, so I'm hopeful. We spent the weekend just basically relaxing in the mornings, and then either riding bikes or going on walks in the afternoon.

Here is the view from the back porch of their cabin:

Each night we ate dinner at the smallest restaurant I have ever eaten at before. They served all sorts of dishes with meat from different wild animals. The first night I had Fallow Deer (it's like a deer with spots, but not a baby deer. It just keeps it's spots its whole life, apparently) and the second night I had regular deer. Both were delicious. Ironic that I come from an area with lots of hunting and the first time I have deer meat is in the Czech Republic. Go figure.

The restaurant comprised of this one tiny room with a table that could seat about six people comfortably, and then a small one behind, that could seat two people. Like I said, very, very tiny. But also very delicious.

On Sunday we went on a bike ride through the national park. Here are some views from the ride:

We ate lunch at this restaurant, and there were lots of Germans there. I was sort of rude because I was eavesdropping, but oh well. This will sound strange, but I think German, when spoken well, is one of the prettiest languages. I know. Call me crazy. So I allowed myself to be serenaded by the sweet melodious tunes of the Germans around me while I ate my chicken with dumplings and sauer kraut.

After lunch I went on a littler journey on my own to see a remnant of the Iron Curtain, which was a couple of kilometer's away from where we ate lunch. The Krsek's told me that there was a 5 kilometer area leading up to the actual border between West Germany and the then Czechoslovakia where no one was allowed to live. Since Borová Lada is about 5 kilometers from the border, before the Iron Curtain fell, you couldn't go any farther past the last houses in the town. Crazy.

On Monday Barbara and I went on a walk along the river, which if I remember correctly ultimately becomes the Vltava, which runs through Prague. It was so gorgeous! I'll just let the photos speak for themselves:

Another fun adventure here in the Czech Republic!

So I managed to get out to the city a couple times this last week. I get two days off a week, so I've been trying to go explore as much as I can (today being an exception, as I had somethings I wanted to get done and frankly, my bed was just too comfortable...). One day, I went to see the gardens of Valdštejnský palác. Dating back to at least 1621, the palace was built by Albrecht von Waldstein (Valdštejnský = Waldstein), who was the commander of the Imperial Catholic armies during the Thirty Years' War. Now the Czech Senate is housed here.

Another view of Karls Bridge, this time from another perspective.

The next day Martina took Barbara to her Horse Park (which are some really cool stables she bought and restored about two years ago). I went along to watch Barbara while Martina was trying to get some work done, so I got to go see it as well. My camera ended up getting locked in her office for practically the whole time I was there, so I didn't really get any pictures of it, sadly. Next time I go I will have to make sure I gets some photos. After Horse Park, we ate lunch at the palace. Martina told me that during the Communist years, all the senior (I'm assuming she was referring to old when she said senior) writers were placed. Supposedly there's some really beautiful gardens as well. There's so much I have to check out!

This is the church of sv Jiljí (St. Giles), who was being chased by some hunters and wound up getting shot in the foot by an area, consequently becoming the patron saint of cripples, with his own pretty ornate church...

The last open-air market in Prague. It was originally run by the German community in Prague, and one could buy flowers and vegetables there. Now it has artwork, wood toys, food, flowers, and all sorts of stuff.

The Convent of St. Agnes. This is the oldest surviving Gother building in Prague and was founded in 1233. I ended up just walking around the building, because I couldn't figure out how to get in. I'll have to go back and see if I can figure it out.

My view while eating lunch in Kampa park: the National Theater.

Things are going well so far. Anna and Magda are away on a school trip this week, so things have been really calm with just Barbara. Over the weekend we went up to their cabin in Borová Lada, which is about 5 km from the German border. I got to brush up on my German a little bit, which was fun. Being so close to the border, if anyone there speaks a second language apart from Czech, its German. But I'm loving it here!

I have now been in Prague for one week and so far things have been going really well. Here's a quick list of my accomplishments so far:

1) I successfully navigated the Prague public transport system by myself, as of Sunday.

2) I also managed to find my way to church. The fact that I made it semi- on time is an accomplishment in and of itself. On the weekends the buses don't run as regularly, so my options for getting there were to leave the house at about 7:20 and catch the 7:35 bus and get to 9:00 church really early, or catch the 8:25 bus and run the chance of being late. My desire to be early to everything was warring pretty strongly with my hatred for mornings... in the end my hatred for mornings won out, but I was only five minutes late, so they hadn't even said the opening prayer yet.

3) I have been mistaken several times for a local, even when wandering around the super tourist-y areas. I feel like this is a success... even though it's probably not that hard. It's not like I'm in India where it's obvious I'm not from there. I'm white. I have brown hair and blue eyes. Czech's are white. BUT, it's not obvious that I'm from the States when you look at what I'm wearing, unlike most American tourists, so I consider it an accomplishment. I was asked on three separate occasions something in Czech, so I guess I looked pretty legit... although when I opened my mouth and said "English?" it became pretty obvious. I wish I knew Czech. This language is REALLY hard, and I say that having taken some Russian, which is supposedly one of the more difficult languages? Russian I could understand a bit of it when I was taking the class (granted, it was stuff like "How are you?" "I like to eat ice cream and read books."), but this is a whole other story. I ask Anna, the oldest, how to say something and when she tells me, it literally sounds like gibberish. I try to say it and I can't do it. Very frustrating. But I still want to try to learn at least a little bit.

4) I found several websites with cheap/budget airline tickets. A whole new world has been opened to me. Especially since I'm only supposed to be here 90 days, and I wasn't planning on leaving until about 120.... I'll just have to take some trips outside of Europe.... where to, where to? Any recommendations?

That's all I can think of right now, but I think that's a pretty good little list for my first week. On Saturday we went into the city for the day. We ate lunch at a restaurant that was on this little island between the locks/sluice gates and the Vltava. The river is on several different levels, so they have to have periodic locks/sluice gates throughout the city for the boats. Here's the view from the restaurant. That's the national theater in the background, and behind the island towards the left of the photo is the Karl's Bridge. You can't see it in the picture. But it's there.