Jeret in Prague!

So my brother made it safely to Prague thank goodness. He had a rough start as the night before he left he didn't exactly sleep since he was working his night shift as a firefighter. Then he flew overnight to Prague and missed another night's sleep. But he was a trooper and came to practice with us that same day...then slept for 14 hours to catch up.


Jeret hanging out on my balcony.

We had games that first weekend he was here, actually they were the start of our Czech Championship final series. It was awesome to have him there watching and taking pictures...he was the first family member to see me play overseas in about three years so it was really awesome to have him at the game. The year before I had given him a Slavia jersey so he was wearing it at my game and some other fans mistaked him for being a Czech and started talking to him...really funny situation as he knows zero Czech.

My superfan!!


My bro and I after the game.

The following week he was there we did a ton of touring around the city. Went on a couple of organized tours along with me showing him around as much as I could. Went to all our favourite restaurants, hung out with my roommates and of course Jeret being the wine lover that he is, went to the local wine bar a block from my house. The Czech Republic isn't really known for their wine, beer is their thing, but none the less we would head out to the wine bar and Jeret would try all the local favourites. The wine/beer is really cheap so Jeret really enjoyed that aspect. The guy who owned the store didn't exactly speak English so my Czech was really stretch as I was trying to translate for Jeret what he wanted and I don't exaclty have all the wine lingo down.


Teammates/roommates out at Posledni Mamut, one of our favourite restaurants.


Jeret and I with the dinner for two at Noi, one of the best Thai restaurants I have ever been to!


Jeret and I hanging out at the local wine bar.

One night I was able to get us tickets through our owner to a Slavia men's game. This means VIP tickets, aka all you can eat and drink. All the roommates went and we had just an awesome time, minus the fact that Slavia lost. But the game and atmosphere were great since it was a play off game, one of the highlights for sure.

Jeret left the following Saturday and missed the second round of my games, but it was still pretty neat as he was able to overlap with my parents since they flew in on Thursday morning, but that's a whole other blog...

Catching Up....

I just saw that I haven't blogged since February, just before my brother was coming...wow that's a long time ago but my last couple of months just flew by! I will do my very best to catch up on everything that is if you haven't stopped looking at my blog competely. None the less I would like this for my memories as well. So here she goes...

My Brother is Coming!!!

That's right after almost two season's here and three years in Europe my brother is coming to visit! Wasn't expecting him to come and I don't think he was either, but he booked last minute with a last minute decision and is on his way. He'll be here on Saturday morning and will be able to watch two of my games which is really exciting as I haven't had someone see me play professionally before! Then on Tuesday we're hoping to take a road trip to Dresden, Germany. Then on Wednesday I have an exhibition game and that night I'm trying to get tickets to the first round of playoffs for the men's Slavia hockey team. Then it's Thursday and my parents come! So for two days I'll have all my family here minus my sister-in-law, Amanda! Will miss her for sure! On top of all that we'll try and see as much as Prague as we can, but Jeret's never been overseas before so we'll see how well he deals with the jet lag! More to come!

Vysehrad

Going on with my theme of exploring Prague, I went to Vysehrad the other day. It was actually sunny out which was amazing considering this is still February and we usually don’t see the sun until March. Vysehrad means high castle and during the 7th century Slavonic tribes set up camp on the crag above the Vltava River in south Prague. There was a town here by mid 11th century and a castle was built, then the basilica of St. Lawrence, and the church of Saint Peter and Paul was added. It was then destroyed during the Hussite Wars until after the Thirty Years’ War when the city decided to rebuild it. The Church of St. Peter and Paul has an amazing cemetery on the outskirts of it with famous Czech people burried there. Not sure if you have heard of the composers Smetana and Dvorak, or painter Alfons Mucha but their gravesights are there. It’s now an old fortress with a huge park and great views of the city as you can see from below.


Tabor Gate


Streets of the old fortress


Leopold Gate


Church of St. Peter and Paul...wasn't able to go inside as it was closed, bad timing!


The huge steeples of the church!


The cemetery.


One of the biggest gravesites I have ever seen.


Looking north up the river


The promonade along the castle walls.


Looking south down the river.

Adventures with Jeni on Petrin Hill

So my time is winding down here in Prague and I'm trying to get in all the sights that I haven't seen already while being here. I would like to say that there are only a few things to go and see but actually there's quite a bit! This city is huge with a ton of history and things to see. We decided to head to Petrin Hill as it had just snowed the night before so thought that maybe there would be nice pictures up there.

Petrin Hill is 318m hill situated just south of the famous Prague castle and close to the river bank making it a great destination for picnics and walks. You can walk up it or in our case we decided to take the funicular up it and walk down. Yes I know I call myself an athlete. hehe. On the very top is the Petrin Tower which looks like the Eiffel Tower and was but in 1891 for the Prague Exposition. You can climb to the top of it for great views, but being it was winter it wasn't open. There is also a huge wall going around the grounds at the top of the hill called the Hunger Wall. It was built in the 1360s by the city's poor in return for food. Once again a ton of history. Here are some pictures of the day...


Jeni and I in the funicular on the way up.


Looking across at the city and the castle.


Huge church at the top of the hill...not sure what it's called.


Petrin Tower


A view of Prague...too bad it wasn't a more clear day.


A lookout tower Jeni and I found that is part of the Hunger Wall.


One of the paths we took down the hill.

My Last Road Trip...Thank Goodness

Last weekend was our last road trip of the season and it was a memorable one for that matter. Not only was it our last road trip of the year but there were a couple of other factors that made it a trip that I will probably never forget.

First off we left on Sunday morning at 4:30am. Yes that’s right, my team was too cheap to leave the day before and drive the 8 hours, stay in a hotel and get a good night’s sleep before a very important game. How important? Well we had to win that game in order to clinch 1st place in our European League, as there are no playoffs. Let’s just say I was less than excited with the thought of leaving at 4:30am. That means we were up at 3:30am and out the door by quarter to as our rink is about a 20min drive away. And of course nothing is ever really on time here so our bus pulled up about 4:45am. So we load up and were on our way.

There’s another factor to this trip that I have not talked about and it’s the fact that I had the flu. As I had said in my previous blog, Thursday was my last day of school. For some reason after school I started to feel sick. That night I had to babysit a friend’s son and after that came straight home to bed. Didn’t get much sleep of course as I was in the bathroom most of the night with the runs. So Friday I laid low, didn’t go to practice that night, then Saturday started to feel better and thought that I was kicking it. I was being too optimistic. Did not get much sleep on Saturday night and it didn’t help that I had to be up at 3:30am.

I pretty much slept the whole ride to Maribor minus the times that we would stop for a bathroom break which in my case seemed to be needed every time. The thing with our buses is that you never know if you’ll get a bathroom on it or not. There is always a bathroom on the bus but sometimes it’s locked and out of service. Makes complete sense of course as everyone is trying to drink as much water as they can (well more like us Canadians are doing this) in order to hydrate for the game. Thankfully (I think) we stop almost every two hours or so because my coach/the bus driver have to have a smoke. Oh yes and you probably are thinking that we would stop for a pre game meal somewhere along the way. Nope that never happens, you just pack your own meal consisting of sandwiches and what not for your pregame meal. Basically anything that we have been taught over the years for preparation for a game is thrown out the window as soon as your plane touches down in the Czech Republic. The luxuries of playing college hockey seem so long ago.

We get to Maribor, Slovenia an hour and a half before our “big” game. We walk around the rink a few times to wake up, then start our warm up for the game. Surprisingly enough we came out hard and after the first period were up 2-0. I was hoping this could continue so I could sit out the third but unfortunately they came back and tied it 2-2 going into the third period. We fought back and won 4-2. On any other given day we would have killed the team but due to the circumstances that was not the case. I was extremely thankful when the game was finished. I had four points on the night which I was quite proud of as one time I scored a goal, grabbed the key to the locker room and went to the bathroom and was able to make it back in time for my next shift. Luckily for me that was the only time during the game that I needed the bathroom as by that point I had nothing in my system. At the end of the game my equipment wasn’t exactly wet as there was pretty much no water left in my system.

So after the game it’s back on the bus for the 8 hour drive back. Now back in college we would have pizza’s waiting for us on the bus, which at this point in my career would be like heaven but at the time I didn’t think much of it. But nope, refuelling the body after an important game isn’t exactly on the minds of our coaches. They said we would stop for supper later once we were in the Czech Republic. Humm...great that’s only two countries and 6 hours away. Like seriously could they not just go to the bank and exchange some Czech Krowns into Euros cause really it’s not that difficult or not to mention they have these plastic cards now and days called Visa’s and wow...they work in every country! So 12am we make it across the border and stop in the all night cafeteria where most of our team ate. Tea was of course all I could keep in my system as a few hours ago I had to have the bus make an emergency stop for me. Quite funny really. Finally we made it back into Prague at 2:30am. So 22 hours later my last road trip FINALLY ended!

Culture Day

Last Thursday was my last day of school at Riverside and also happened to be culture day. Every classroom picked a country to learn about/display to other classrooms and I ended up helping the Year 2 class as they decided to do Canada. I actually don't usually go to school on Thursday's as that is not my day to work but I could not pass up the opportunity to help out representing my country. So I brought in as many Canadian t-shirts as I could, along with a picture book about Canada. I also made a ton of maple cookies for the year 2 and year 1 classes so they could try eating something Canadian. Then I made butter tarts for the year 2 class that learned about Canada. I have never made butter tarts before and they actually turned out really well, but were not that easy to make so I now have an even greater appreciation for those who go through the slow processes of making them.

I then brought in my hockey equipment to show the kids how you would get dressed for a game and what it looks like. Now if we were in a Canadian school this would be ridiculous of course as I'm sure over 50% of the kids would actually be playing the sport. But in an international school in Prague this was actually a good idea. The kids really enjoyed watching me quickly put on half of my equipment along with letting the kids try on my helmet. The year 1 kids just stared at me in amazement and didn’t say much. One kid told me I looked like a super hero, another a giant. I asked one class what they thought you called my shoulder pads and someone shouted out they were called a shield...ah not quite...but close.

Then in the afternoon the older kids put on kind of a fair for all the students with the country that they represented. So they had some games pertaining to their country along with food that you could buy. It was fantastic to say the least because the school has so many kids from different cultures, and of course the mom’s went to town on the food. For the Spanish pavilion we had a whole tapas bar, sushi for the Japanese one and hummus with the Jordanian. The kids had a blast the whole day and really enjoyed learning (and eating) about other cultures, especially when the school is very multicultural.

The staff actually had a send off for me which I was quite surprised by and gave me a sweet card along with a couple of pictures of Prague and some bath products from here. It was really sweet as I did not expect anything. I will truly miss the school and of course all the teachers there. I can honestly say that Riverside is a school unlike none other I’ve been to before. The teachers are all extremely hard working and genuinely nice people. I’ll miss them for sure, and of course my students that I worked with. It was a great experience for me as I have never worked with kids with special needs before outside of the gym. Most of the kids just needed a bit of extra support in one subject area or another, and hopefully they actually got something out of our sessions. Not to mention I taught swimming and never in my life would I have ever thought that would happen. Actually if you were to tell me ten years ago or even five that I would be teaching swimming lessons in Prague, I would have laughed in your face. But nope it’s true, I did that and made it through and actually enjoyed it...most days!

So now I’m off for the next couple of weeks until the season is over which I am fine with. It will be nice to spend some days at home planning my trip with my mom for March/April along with being able to get out and see the rest of Prague and the things I haven’t gotten around to yet.


Kids working on making Canadian flags.


Me with a student in my attempt to "quickly" get dressed.


The little guy with my helmet on.

Budapest

So this blog is a long time coming as about two weeks ago I spent the weekend in Budapest. We had another weekend off from hockey so I of course look for somewhere to travel. I was looking around and thought that Budapest would be a great place to go. Not to mention I was able to get a bus ticket return for about $40 Canadian - steal of a deal, so off I went.


I arrived there Friday afternoon, thinking that maybe the language would be somewhat similar to Czech, um...not even close. I have to admit that my first impressions of the city were not that great. The bus station was really sketchy. Doesn’t help that it was a rainy cold day, but there were homeless people everywhere, sleeping in the metro station and quite a few sketchy looking characters. But of course I have traveled quite a bit so am to the point where that stuff doesn’t phase me anymore and instead is quite the place to people watch.


I was able to make it through the still communist inspired metro, and found my hostel alright. It was situated a block away from the Danube river so was a great location. The owners of the hostel were just great giving out tons of information about the city. Although I knew quite a bit going in as had read my travel book on the bus already...yes I’m a geek and love travel books! First stop was the Hungarian National Museum. Once again I am a geek and really enjoy history museums. More like information on the country. I had pretty much zero knowledge of Hungary or of any of its history so the museum was great! What did I learn...well to make a long story short the country has pretty much always been occupied or controlled by someone else. The main information that they want to leave you with is that the country was pretty much founded in 896 by the alliance of seven tribes called Magyar (Hungary). Their first king was St. Stephan crowned in 1000. Then in 1541 the Ottoman’s controlled the territory which was huge as in present day Slovakia and parts of Transylvania. Next were the Habsburg’s which is you live in Eastern Europe you know all about them as they were quite a dominate and influential empire in that came into power in 1686. They were in power for a long time where finally there was a duel monarchy Austria creating an Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until WWI. What I found really interesting is that after WWI the country was divided and it lost two-thirds of its territory. I can’t imagine that happening. Then of course came WWII and then after Communist control and finally back to republic in 1989. Such crazy history!

National Museum


Inside...pretty amazing!



After the museum I walked one of the main pedestrian streets and went shopping for souvenirs and finally ate at a traditional Hungarian pub/restaurant. They of course like in the Czech Republic serve goulash as well as make claim to the spice of paprika. You can buy paprika everywhere and it’s in tons of the dishes! I decided to go for the mushroom goulash instead of the gizzard goulash...was not feeling that adventurous that night, and had a great meal. Not to mention it was super cheap. Like Czech it’s a pretty cheap country when you eat in the local places. Oh and the money is quite different as well as it’s about 180 Hungarian Forint to $1 Canadian. So it’s really hard to convert. Not to mention that at night I was still thinking in Czech Crowns where I gave the waitress a really bad tip but if we were in Prague it would have been good. Didn’t realise it until I was a couple of blocks away. Whoops!

Then next morning I awoke to the sun shining. This was pretty much a miracle as in Eastern Europe the sun does not shine. I was expecting rain so needless to say I was extremely pumped as I had planned to do a walking tour. First up I headed out to the Nagycsarnok, or the main market for breakfast. This place was awesome with a ton of stalls inside a huge building consisting of two floors. They sold fruit, vegetables and really any kind of meat you wanted along with a ton of paprika. If lived there I’m sure I would be a regular at the market.



The Market


Inside

From here it was off to my walking tour. I’m a fan of the old walking tour as you can get a pretty good sense of the city after one of these. Our tour was supposed to be about 4 hours but ended up being 5 so was quite the tour. We saw a ton of statues as the city is littered with them. But I honestly can’t really remember any great stories about them. We were then off to Saint Stephan’s Bascilca the church that is named after their first king. It’s exactly 96m high which is after 896 when Hungary was founded, and there’s a rule in the city that no building can be higher than this point. So as you’ll see from my pictures, there are no skyscrapers in the city. Speaking of the city it’s actually two cities as well; Buda and Pest. Buda being on the west side of the Danube and Pest on the East.


St. Stephan's



Next it was a walk up to Varhegy or Castle Hill. Like in Prague there is a large castle on a hill beside the river. I have to say it’s not as nice as Prasky Hrad but it’s still great none the less. The views from the top are amazing of course as you can over look all of Pest and the huge Parliament building that they have. Along with the castle on top of the hill you have an old Medieval town that was built back in...It was awesome to walk the streets and look at the old buildings and churches, not to mention the awesome promenade that overlooked the city...just great views.


Walking up to the castle


The side view of the castle as I could not get far enough back to get the whole thing in a picture


Another view


View from the top of the castle...you can see St. Stephan's in the background


Another angle with the Parliment Building in the background.


An example of the Medievil Streets


Pomenade on the opposite side of the castle overlooking another part of Buda



There was a ton of information on that tour and I’d be lucky to remember half of it. The tour guide definitely loved his country and kept telling us stories on how they were the first to invent this and that. Apparently the telephone that Bell discovered was because of his time spent with Hungarian scientists and so on. They do have the oldest metro station in Europe as it was built in the 1890’s. Only some parts of it are still opened and I actually did ride it. Quite small but to be expected as people back then were not as huge as we are now. Also they built the first suspension bridge. I took a ton of pictures for my dad as I knew he would be interested in that. Although I did see pictures from WWII where I think most of the city was destroyed along with all of the bridges, but they did rebuild them back into their original state.


The suspension bridge


View from the bridge looking back at Pest


View looking at Buda

After the tour I headed to the House of Terror; a museum displaying information when the country was run by the Nazi’s and Communists. I found it really interesting especially all the information from the Communist time. What struck me the most or what I remember most vividly was a video I watch on the work camps they used to have. They documented survivors of these work camps and their stories. Everyone was always in fear of being sent to one of these and rightfully so as there was one story of a women who was found making out with her boyfriend behind some leaders house. Well she got caught and was sent to a camp. They also had about 6 women who used to be in one of these camps and showed them returning to the camp a couple of years later when the Communists had left. They also had their guard or Communist head lady (I’m not sure what you would call her) there as well. It was quite something to watch these ladies confront this lady who used to control their lives as she could decide pretty much anything for them...as in are they are allowed visitors, or scrubbing the toilet as punishment. It kind of seemed as those she didn’t think she was as harsh as what the ladies claimed her to be...I think she was in denial of course One of the ladies openly forgave her which was awesome to see and pretty big of her. I went for a walk that night and here are a couple of night pictures...


Agricultural Museum at night




View of the castle at night

Sunday morning I got up fairly early as I really wanted to make it to the baths. Hungary is known for their thermal baths, a fact I knew nothing about until a friend told me about it before I left. So naturally I had to take that it in as well. I went Szechenyl Furdo a huge bathhouse in the middle of this beautiful park. I looked like I was entering a museum it was so big and old being built in 1908. I paid my entrance fee and was told where the change room was. Upon entering the change room I see a man in a towel blow drying his hair. Hum...they told me the wrong one. So I went back outside to ask again. Um...nope that’s the right one. They have little small enclosed change rooms where you can change into your bathing suit and then lockers on the side where you can put your clothes. Like I said the place was huge as I had to ask in order to figure out how to get outside to the thermal pool. Granted inside the place was filled with pools, saunas and places where you could pay extra and receive a massage. The water was about 35-37C so quite warm but not as warm as the Moose Jaw Spa. Or maybe that’s just because the temperature there was probably only about 0C compared to -20C so maybe that’s why it felt hotter. I don’t have any pictures from the inside of the pool as I kept all my stuff in the locker but you would have seen a huge outdoor play with statues everywhere and water pouring out of them into the pool. You kind of felt like you were back in the days of the Romans at one of their bath houses. There were a ton of local people there as well just hanging out for a Sunday swim, along with lots of large men wearing speedos (this is Europe!) playing chess in the water too.


The Bathhouse...as you can see it looks more like a museum.


Side profile

My last big sight to see was the Parliament Building. It’s the third largest in the world so I really wanted to take a tour of it and was not disappointed. It took about 9 years to build and was finished 1905. They have 20km worth of hallways in it along with Hungarian crown which was stolen in the past and then found and now displayed in one of the main rooms. They also house parliament there two or three times a well. It’s really quite amazing as you can see from the pictures.


Outside the Parliment






The roof of one of the many hallways


The Parliment seats

All in all my time was awesome and I think I learned more in regards to history than I did all through my high school years so the $40 bus ride was definitely worth it!