Mělnik

This past weekend I actually had off from hockey. So that meant that I had some time to explore the beautiful little town of Mělnik. It's a town of about 19,000 that is situated 30km north of Prague. I have actually been their before but only for a couple of birthday parties limiting my site seeing to the inside of a restaurant. So this time I was able to explore the town mainly know for it's location and vineyards. It's situated on top of a hill overlooking the country side and the Valtava River. Along the slopes of the hill are a number of vineyards. Sara and I had a great time exploring the sights of the Namesti Miru, the Renaissance chateau, as well as the church of SS Peter and Paul. Here are some pics of the day.


The Musuem


Namesti Miru


How old do you think this arc way is?


Church of SS Peter and Paul and part of the Chateau


Courtyard of the Chateau (you couldn't takes pictures inside, too bad as it was really beautiful)


Overlooking the Bohemain country side and Vltava River

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

These past few days in Prague have actually been sunny. Minus today that is as it has been raining on and off all day. Kind of put a damper on my plans to go and explore the beautiful town of Karlov Vary, but that’s okay as there’ll be more opportunities for that. So in honour of the sun shine we’ve been having, and hopefully more nice weather to come, I thought I would put up some pictures of my neighbourhood that were taken in the fall. Hopefully you can get a glimpse of the area I live in. Here they are...


View from my window


Looking down the street


Looking down the other side


Jaselska - my street


Cute little street parallel to mine


Dejvice, major street a block from my house


And finally Cafe Corso, one of my favorite coffee shops in my neighbourhood

Starbucks is here!

Much to my delight, today while I was shopping I received a text message from Chelsa telling me that she was in Starbucks. Ah what? I had heard that there might be one opening up some time in February but didn't realize that it was actually true. I guess it just opened three days ago. Well I stopped shopping right then and there and took the next tram to Starbucks to meet Chelsa! You might be thinking why would that be so exciting when there are a ton of cute little cafe shops lining the streets of Prague where coffee is about half the price. Well yes I do love going to my local cafe shops and have acquired the taste of strong European coffee, more like espresso, but there is nothing better than a Mocha Frappuccino or Carmel Macchiato. Maybe it's just the reminder of home...something North American, but I must say it sure made my day!

Our Friends...the Policie

Last Friday night Chelsa, Sara and I were driving home from practice like any other night when the unthinkable happened - we blew out our front tire. We were almost home, on the cobble stone streets of Prague when we heard this loud bang! Sara was driving and turned off at the next possible option which was the street leading into the T-Mobile Center where the Sparta Praha men’s professional hockey team play. So we hopped out and thought...humm...what are we going to do? I personally have never had experience changing a flat tire before but thankfully Sara has. So she got out and was already in the trunk about to get out the spare tire when low and behold our friends the police show up. They pulled up beside us and basically said that we were not allowed to park there. Well no kiddn’. Chelsa asked if they spoke English and of course they didn’t, but could see from the flat tire in the front why we were there. Amazingly enough they got out of their little police van and proceeded to change the tire for us. What nice gentlemen! I was truly amazed with this act of kindness. The one poor guy was reefing on the bolt for like 15min and was telling us that we were going to have to phone a tow truck who would be able to get the bolt off for us. Of course we had our agent on the phone at this time who was translating for us. But thankfully he got it off and he could change the tire. The situation was quite funny as we were just standing around doing nothing and were wondering if we should pay them as a thank you or something like that. Michael our agent said not to and was like “see not all police are corrupt here”. Thankfully that night we got to see the kinder side of the police!



I apologize that this picture is not very clear, but Sara just took a quick picture with her camera phone of the police van. Would have liked to take more but thought they might not appreciate it.

What Was I Thinking?

Sara, Chelsa and I invited some teammates over the other night for supper. So I being the go getter decided that I wanted to make an apple pie to give the girls a little taste of Canada. When I was home back at the start of November my mom and I were watching Oprah and saw Cindy Crawford on there making a strawberry pie with her homemade crust. Well I needed a crust and thought “humm...that crust looked good on TV and seemed easy enough to make”. Okay that’s the first problem with my thought process. Anything that looks easy on TV is NOT easy in real life! Second problem, the flour in the Czech Republic is more like grainy type of flour than the light fluffy stuff back home. So needless to say the Cindy Crawford recipe did not work out, and I more of a crumble than a dough.

Round two...where would I go to find a good pie crust recipe as I didn’t have one in my cook book. That’s right I went to the women who makes her own marshmallows...Martha Stewart. I love her website and found a simple recipe for a pie crust and also some help tips for making them. Rule number one was to not work the dough too much. That went down the drain right away as I had to work it tons in order to make it all stick together. So no I didn’t have a nice flaky crust, but my apple pie with strussel topping worked out and was a hit with everyone. Thanks to Tilly Wiens for that recipe in the Parliament Community Church cook book. Not sure I’ll be making too many more pies in the near future here in Prague but I sure did have an interesting afternoon.

Back in the Czech

Well after two weeks home in Canada I am back in the Czech Republic. I never mentioned before that I was going home for Christmas mainly because I was going to surprise my friend Andrea who thought I was staying over in Europe for the holidays. Well it worked and I sure surprised her Christmas day!

My time at home was great, but it of course flew by. I was able to get up to Watrous, SK a couple of times to see my family and my grandma. Her time was running short so I was very thankful to spend some quality time with her before she died this past week. Also on New Year’s Day the Czech National Under-18 Women’s hockey team came to Regina on their way to the World Championship which was held in Calgary. Chelsa, Sara and I had a chance to host them for those days which kept me busy as I had seven girls sleeping over at my house. It was great to show them a bit of our country and for them to see how cold it really gets in the winter time - now they won’t be wondering why we wear sandals until October. There are about 4 girls on that team that play regularly with my Slavia Praha team and our coach is their manager, so that is how we have the connection with the team. I have to brag about this team as they actually won bronze in the tournament. This is a huge step for their national hockey program as it’s usually Sweden of Finland winning the bronze.

So like I said I am back in Prague trying to back into the swing of things. I started to work again this week with the little kids and the first day definitely tired me out...16 kids hanging on you all day will do that to a person. I still have Czech classes twice a week until the beginning of February so I was back at it with that. I’m trying to switch the Czech back on in my brain as it was a struggle during that first class. Along with all these things, hockey’s in full force once again which is great. I can feel the all the food I ate during Christmas and will hopefully burn that off and get back into playing shape. That is all the news for now, Happy New Year and I hope that everyone had a fantastic Christmas!