Ms. Peacock in the Conservatory: Titling is not my strong suit.

Occasionally, one needs that reminder, or kick in the butt, to get over themselves and to be thankful for exactly where they are. Sounds trite and sentimental, I know, but it seems that as soon as I want to shut down, curl up in bed, put on “Party Down”, and commiserate with myself because I am feeling alienated or homesick for company, a fortuitous event occurs. Todays happening occurred when my door opened, but from my supine position I could not see who it was, which was odd because the shelves at the end of the bed are only 2 ft. high. Then I see it, a two-foot munchkin bouncing over to me with a plate of apple pastries. I know its playtime and she is so excited and giddy that even the most pitiful of human being cannot ignore her emphatic nature. It is all it takes for me to get up, quit wallowing, and finish everything I wanted to do before I chose to sit down and “be sad”. So thanks, Bets.

All this aside life here is going plavá-ly (a variation on swimmingly). This past Wednesday was St. Wenceslas Day (Den české státnosti); you can learn more about his martyrdom here. Did you know he is also in a Christmas carol-wild! It was nice to have a day off and just as I thought the day was about to turn into a waste (coursing through new curriculum and preparing my write-up for the TEFL Institute alumni newsletters) my favorite person, Aleš, came knocking and invited me to go with the family to Budislav.

Budislav is the most scenic and majestic place. It is paradise, seemingly never ending, and far larger than my beloved Černa Hora. We walked for hours, passing innumerable studanká (plural?) or fresh springs. The most interesting part was Toulovcovy Mastal, the home/hibernation palace of Lawrence Toulovec, which took me a good 30 minutes of at home research (on both Czech and US VPN addresses) to learn more about.

Tangent: If you are living abroad for an extended period and get frustrated when attempting to find basic information via the search engine in your host country then check this out. It will make your life abundantly easier when you want to gather information in your native language as opposed to having to suffer through, the at times horrendous, translations via Google. Bonus, if you are still interested watching some TV programs, changing the VPN will enable you to gain access to Hulu and Netflix.

The story of Lawrence Toulovec is similar to that of a Czech version of “Robin Hood”, but he is very important figure to the history and people of Litomyšl as he built a hospital here in the town square scores of years ago. As I sent in an e-mail to my friend Dario, A man steals from the rich, hides in these wicked series of canyons with his mate, & gives the money to the poor. This area was great because you get to jump and climb on top of all these rocks, through cliffs and canyons, and I felt like a kid exploring. This is of course breaking it down to brass techs, but the story is here if you want to learn something of traditional Czech Fairy tales, history, and have the patience to decipher the Google translation of this story. It was a wonderful afternoon of walking and tracking around. Aleš, Tomáš, and I even found a Geocaching! Ne kaše. & definitely no "cashing"

In our questing, I also learned a great deal about the skills and senses required for mushroom picking. My conclusions are this: White and brown, good. Red with white spots (looking like a Mario, circa Nintendo style, mushroom, bad. In the words of Adam, “It’s good if you want it to be your last mushroom.” To my hallucinogenetically inclined kamarád, rumor/fact has it that these mushrooms may cause some wicked hallucinations. That being said, I am not about to play guinea pig to this experiment, but should I garner further information on this hypothesis of; If I take Mario Mushrooms from Czech Republic, then I will have hallucinations, I will report back and provide detailed ordering information for shipments back to the States.

We ended the evening on another geocash search atop a “small” hill. At the base of this hill stands my Czech boyfriend, in all his wooden, clergyman, glory. Unfortunately, Tomáš has the only photos of our short-lived romance. But not anymore, thanks Aleš for making this dream a reality

Yesterday I ventured to the original open-air market of Czech Republic with new friends Ján & Mišá, but I will report that next time. Along with that will be an impressive break down of my future taste tasting of Czech Beers because Ján says, “Staropramen is the worst beer in Czech Republic” & I have to trust him on that one. Go here to get educated Also, fear not, a reflection on a Charles Olson poem and a mini biography about the man written by Robert Creely.

Picture Mania…

Boo-ya, Queen of this kopec.