Ahoj!
Last week was a busy one. I got my bike repaired, went to the local gym (Sports Centrum Evropska), and also ventured into the city for some yoga! I decided I needed a bit more stimulation than just riding my bike and hanging out mostly on my own, so did some research and headed into Prague on the tram enroute to an English speaking yoga class! It was soooooo awesome to be able to speak to people - even if there were just 3 of us in the class! The instructor was from the States, and there was an Australian woman who has married a Czech man and now lives here full time, and also another younger guy who wasn't a 'native' English speaker but could speak English well. The class was very different to 'Hot Flow' back home, but I felt good afterwards and actually slept really well that night. We actually did alot of breathing exercises (the ones I am always skeptical of!) but I went in with an open mind and it was actually good. I will have to have a very open mind on Tuesday when I head in again for another class (also in English) - it is traditional Indian yoga, and aparently there are 30mins of breathing exercises before the poses begin! The guy at the desk told me I would find it very very different - I will give it a crack and see what happens!
The local gym is pretty basic and is handy at only about an 800m walk from here. The clientelle are very different from the Hostivice gym. The are not all body builders with macho grunts every time they lift weights. They are generally dressed in shorts and tee shirts and doing weights for purposes other than bulking to the size of Arnie! There was one interesting outfit though - a guy in tight 3/4 pants made of sweatshirt material, and an extremely tight lycra top with half sleeves, and wait for it... a collar!!! I did have a bit of a chuckle to myself every time he walked past with his tiny little dumbells in hand!
On Thursday night, we ventured across the road from our apartment to the local restaurant 'Fabiano's' or 'Fabian's' as Jase likes to call it. Jase had been eyeing it up for a while - especially since it is named similarly to his hero! I did some research on the internet and found out that it did have an English menu available, and it also had some gluten free food! Man it was good! I had a wine (0.25L - a bit over my limit as you can imagine!), mushroom risotto and a greek salad. Jase had a beer (0.5L) and steak, veges and fries. The whole meal was around $40 NZ! Yay - now we have a local!
On Friday morning (Czech Foundation Day), Jase headed out on a run while I packed up our gear for the weekend - then we headed north to a place called Liberec (pronounced Liberetz). Apart from World War 3 on the way up (Jase was driving and I was navigating - and neither are easy when you have to drive through Prague!), we had a great weekend! We arrived in Liberec around 3pm, and went straight to our apartment. The girl who rented it out lived above us, and spoke English which helped - although today as we were leaving, she told us that our English was "not normal" and that she struggled to understand us!
On Saturday we headed further North-East - to a place called Pod Smrkem. The man in the bike shop here had recommended it when I asked him where we could go. There is a new mtb park there - called Singletrek Pod Smerken. It is a new concept in the Czech Republic - a man made park and it even has it's own designer. Funny! Alot of our tracks back home are like this! The facility was awesome - really fun fast flowing single track - heaps of it, and more being built. There is also a building that acts as a shop, mechanical help, coffee, food, and of course beer. Jase and I had a fantastic time racing around the tracks. We ran into another couple on one track who were from Poland. I said "How far is Poland from here?", and the guy laughed and told us we were in Poland! He then took us back to show us the border markings... funny! So on Saturday we biked to Poland!
When Jase and I arrived back at the shop we were totally covered in mud. Everyone else was completely clean - we couldn't understand it. We ordered a coffee each, then I asked the guy in the shop if there was anywhere we could clean our bikes. He raced inside and came out armed with a hose and a whole variety of brushes. When they heard we were from NZ they were stoked - and we became the star attraction and got the royal treatment! A group of men came over as we were cleaning our bikes - they were saying stuff in Czech and laughing at us - we had no idea what was going on, but I think it was something to do with the fact that I was holding Jase's bike as he was cleaning it, because when we swapped over (ie he held mine while I cleaned it), the laughter stopped. One of the guys spoke English, and came over and introduced himself to us. When Jase said his name was Jason, the guy looked somewhat perplexed and almost amused at the name Jason. When I told him my name he looked delighted and said "that is a very nice name". He told me that his wife was called Jane, and then said "but you are lucky - you have the T's - they are nice"! Classic!
After the ride, we headed back to Liberec - a great city, with a mountain called 'Jested' that has a huge TV tower on top. It got voted building of the year - I am not sure if that was just here in the Czech Republic, but it is a pretty awesome sight regardless. In saying that, we only saw it today as we drove out of Liberec. There was too much cloud cover on the other days.
Well I have probably waffled on for long enough now - will try to upload some photos again - aparently the last ones didn't work quite as well as I had hoped - only 3 of them enlarged sorry!!
Last week was a busy one. I got my bike repaired, went to the local gym (Sports Centrum Evropska), and also ventured into the city for some yoga! I decided I needed a bit more stimulation than just riding my bike and hanging out mostly on my own, so did some research and headed into Prague on the tram enroute to an English speaking yoga class! It was soooooo awesome to be able to speak to people - even if there were just 3 of us in the class! The instructor was from the States, and there was an Australian woman who has married a Czech man and now lives here full time, and also another younger guy who wasn't a 'native' English speaker but could speak English well. The class was very different to 'Hot Flow' back home, but I felt good afterwards and actually slept really well that night. We actually did alot of breathing exercises (the ones I am always skeptical of!) but I went in with an open mind and it was actually good. I will have to have a very open mind on Tuesday when I head in again for another class (also in English) - it is traditional Indian yoga, and aparently there are 30mins of breathing exercises before the poses begin! The guy at the desk told me I would find it very very different - I will give it a crack and see what happens!
The local gym is pretty basic and is handy at only about an 800m walk from here. The clientelle are very different from the Hostivice gym. The are not all body builders with macho grunts every time they lift weights. They are generally dressed in shorts and tee shirts and doing weights for purposes other than bulking to the size of Arnie! There was one interesting outfit though - a guy in tight 3/4 pants made of sweatshirt material, and an extremely tight lycra top with half sleeves, and wait for it... a collar!!! I did have a bit of a chuckle to myself every time he walked past with his tiny little dumbells in hand!
On Thursday night, we ventured across the road from our apartment to the local restaurant 'Fabiano's' or 'Fabian's' as Jase likes to call it. Jase had been eyeing it up for a while - especially since it is named similarly to his hero! I did some research on the internet and found out that it did have an English menu available, and it also had some gluten free food! Man it was good! I had a wine (0.25L - a bit over my limit as you can imagine!), mushroom risotto and a greek salad. Jase had a beer (0.5L) and steak, veges and fries. The whole meal was around $40 NZ! Yay - now we have a local!
On Friday morning (Czech Foundation Day), Jase headed out on a run while I packed up our gear for the weekend - then we headed north to a place called Liberec (pronounced Liberetz). Apart from World War 3 on the way up (Jase was driving and I was navigating - and neither are easy when you have to drive through Prague!), we had a great weekend! We arrived in Liberec around 3pm, and went straight to our apartment. The girl who rented it out lived above us, and spoke English which helped - although today as we were leaving, she told us that our English was "not normal" and that she struggled to understand us!
On Saturday we headed further North-East - to a place called Pod Smrkem. The man in the bike shop here had recommended it when I asked him where we could go. There is a new mtb park there - called Singletrek Pod Smerken. It is a new concept in the Czech Republic - a man made park and it even has it's own designer. Funny! Alot of our tracks back home are like this! The facility was awesome - really fun fast flowing single track - heaps of it, and more being built. There is also a building that acts as a shop, mechanical help, coffee, food, and of course beer. Jase and I had a fantastic time racing around the tracks. We ran into another couple on one track who were from Poland. I said "How far is Poland from here?", and the guy laughed and told us we were in Poland! He then took us back to show us the border markings... funny! So on Saturday we biked to Poland!
When Jase and I arrived back at the shop we were totally covered in mud. Everyone else was completely clean - we couldn't understand it. We ordered a coffee each, then I asked the guy in the shop if there was anywhere we could clean our bikes. He raced inside and came out armed with a hose and a whole variety of brushes. When they heard we were from NZ they were stoked - and we became the star attraction and got the royal treatment! A group of men came over as we were cleaning our bikes - they were saying stuff in Czech and laughing at us - we had no idea what was going on, but I think it was something to do with the fact that I was holding Jase's bike as he was cleaning it, because when we swapped over (ie he held mine while I cleaned it), the laughter stopped. One of the guys spoke English, and came over and introduced himself to us. When Jase said his name was Jason, the guy looked somewhat perplexed and almost amused at the name Jason. When I told him my name he looked delighted and said "that is a very nice name". He told me that his wife was called Jane, and then said "but you are lucky - you have the T's - they are nice"! Classic!
After the ride, we headed back to Liberec - a great city, with a mountain called 'Jested' that has a huge TV tower on top. It got voted building of the year - I am not sure if that was just here in the Czech Republic, but it is a pretty awesome sight regardless. In saying that, we only saw it today as we drove out of Liberec. There was too much cloud cover on the other days.
Well I have probably waffled on for long enough now - will try to upload some photos again - aparently the last ones didn't work quite as well as I had hoped - only 3 of them enlarged sorry!!
Oh yes - the same thing has happened - now only the first 2 photos enlarge...hmmmm I will get to the bottom of this soon. Technology is not my strong point.
Hope all is well back home
J
Hope all is well back home
J
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