Czech Please

Hello, I am writing here tonight to give you an update of the past two days. Yesterday (Friday) I didn't do much during the day but at night I went out with some friends. We went to Alcanto Cocktail Bar in Old Town Freistadt. It was a lot of fun there but everyone in Austria smokes so you really smell when you leave there. One of the school was having their prom last night (their proms are different their our proms) so there were a lot of kids all dressed up and hanging out at Alcanto. One kid sat next to me and when my friend told him I spoke English he turned to me and said "I want to buy a Dodge Charger". I thought it was pretty random but also funny. See above for a picture of Julia and I.

Today (Friday) I went to a country I have never been before, the Czech Republic. Gunter's cousin, Bernhard lives there so he was going to show me around. Gunter dropped be off at the train station in Summerau (10 min drive from the house and about 20km from Czech) at around 8. The train (I think it was two cars) departed at 833 to Ceske Budejovice or Budweis. It costs 5 euros for this trip which is about $7.50. The train ride was about 1 hour and 20 minutes. When I got off the train I had no idea what Bernhard looked like but I thought I saw a guy standing there who was waiting for me and I was right. Bernhard is originally from Austria but moved to Budweis 9 years ago to teach German. He is a very intelligent man. We walked from the train station to the town's main square. This walk was only 10 minutes long. The main square is one of the largest in Europe. While we were walking we stopped in a book store and Bernhard ran into an ex colleague of his. Her name was Vivian and was the first American I have seen so far during my trip. She moved to Italy 32 years ago to teach English and moved to Czech 11 years ago to do the same. She teaches at Southern Bohemia University. She is originally from New York and Illinois. Anyway, Bernhard invited her to go to a meeting with him tonight and she agreed and met us later. After that encounter Bernhard and I walked around some more and then we walked up the "Black Tower"(see pic above). There were some really nice views from the top. After the Black Tower we went souvenir shopping (you know what the means Mom). They didn't have a good selection and not even sure if it will stick to the refrigerator but it will have to make do. After walking around the center of town for a couple hours Bernhard and I drove to a mall to have lunch and meet Vivian. Things in the Czech Republic are SOOO cheap. For lunch I got a chicken cordon bleu w/ french fries and a pepsi light and Bernhard got some meat and potatoes and sauerkraut dish and a drink and the total for our meals were 159 Koruny which is about $9.00 (Helene maybe you can move here, it is a little closer than Macau). So there we were eating and we were talking with Vivian and I told her where I was from and OF COURSE she has a aunt that lives in Catonsville, a cousin that lives in Baltimore and a cousin that lives in, you guessed it, Owings Mills. Her cousin's name is Karen Gibbs and lives on Heneson Garth. I mean seriously people, what are the freaking chances? I mean WTF (pardon my German)!!!!!! Here I am in some random mall in Southern Bohemia with the only American I've met in 2 weeks and she has a cousin the lives on the same street as the Asher's and the Warranch's. If this world isn't the size of a pea I don't know what is. Anyway after lunch we had to drive an hour to pick up a friend of Bernhard so they could go to this meeting together. He drove around the country roads to get there and they were really nice. We stopped at a few towns along the way. His friend lived near Cesky Krumlov (apparently the beginning of the movie The Illisionist was filmed there, it has the 2nd largest castle in the Czech Republic). I might get back to there and explore another time. Bernhard dropped me off at the train station (this time Kaplice, which is only 40 minutes from Summerau) and I got back home around 4. Czech was an interesting country and I'm looking forward to hopefully go back and visit Prague in early November.

I mean seriously people, her cousin lives in Owings Mills. Can you believe that cause I certainly can't.