Downhill Mountain Scooters

Thursday morning we went to the top of Suchý vrch...http://www.suchyvrch.com/

When we arrived at the top of the mountain we were surprised to see that we had lost two of our scooters along the way.  The bungee cord had broken that was holding them in and the popped right of the back of the trailer.  The owner of the chalet arrived just a few minutes after our discovery and informed us that they weren't that far back down the hill.  Unfortunately on of the scooters wheels was pretty well twisted.  Fortunately we didn't need that scooter!  While the owner of the scooters drove back down to find the missing scooters we went to the top of the lookout tower.

After that we started off on the first half of our exciting 10 km ride down the mountain.  The first half was pretty steep & bumpy, rather like a mountain biking path; however, the last half was nice smooth paved trails. 

A pretty bumpy photography job, but at least it gives you

 an idea of how cute the little villages we went through were

About half way through our ride down the mountain with our scooters the owner picked us up and drove us just a short distance over to Sport-areál České Petrovice where we rode the Mountain Carts.

I wasn't able to get a video of this because I was having such a great time; however, I have an awesome video of Rob Ruhle zooming down the mountain when they were able to join us three years ago.  I'll have to upload that video when we get back state side so you can see how much fun it is.

After the mountain carts we went down on our scooters another 2 km or so and 

we stopped at the place that has an amazing view of the surrounding countryside.

Poland on the left / Czech Republic on the right

Wow...have you ever seen mushrooms that big???
Too bad they aren't edible!

After taking in the view we rode our scooters down for another 

15 minutes or so and then the owner picked us up and drove us back to our car.

What a fun, exciting morning!!!!

At the Race Track

Wednesday night Petr took Katja, Luke, Gabriella and Annika with him to see Pipan's hobby.

This particular car is extremely fast and extremely expensive.

The kids raced with slightly less expensive cars.

Wednesday 10/3 evening

A Little Bit of Cemetery Work

Wednesday morning Petr went mushroom hunting again...another success.  Martina made us some yummy mushroom soup for lunch.

Wednesday afternoon we went to the cemetery to do a little cleaning up.  You can't tell from the before picture because the leaves completely cover the left hand side of the grave, but the big slab on the left had completely fallen over and rolled away from the grave so Petr and Luke rolled it back.  You can see in the after picture that they put in metal posts to hold it in place.  The other thing you can't tell is that all the slabs were covered with thick green moss and Luke, Gabi & Anni spent a couple of hours scraping it all off.

Before

During

After
a little bit of an improvement

Wednesday 10/3 - 

Praha

Tuesday morning we drove from Zamberk to Usti, which is about 13 miles away, to catch the 8:24 am train to Prague.  We arrived in Prague at 10:10 am.  If we had taken the train from Zamberk to Prague it would have taken us an hour and a half longer.

When we arrived in Prague we walked from the train station to the top of Vaclav (Wensceslas) Square.  We were planning on meeting Pavel there but it turned out that Andrea was having some back problems and took an ambulance to the hospital, so we ended up spending the day alone until dinner time when we met up with Petr's cousin's son, Filip, and Zdenek's daughter, Katerina.

Vaclav Square waiting for Pavel

Some of Zdenek's work in Vaclav Square

Statue of St. Vaclav (Wensceslas) in Vaclav Square

Street performers "defying" gravity!

Other street performers

We walked down Vaclav Square, through the open market and made it to Old Town in time to see "The Walk of the Apostles", at the Astronomical Clock.  We've seen it so many times though, that it was more interesting to watch the people watching the clock.

After that we walked across Charles Bridge and made our way to the cathedral.

The tomb of Saint John of Nepomuk (Jan Nepomucký), who was drowned in the Vltava river at the behest of the King of Bohemia, is found inside the cathedral. Apparently he was the confessor of the queen of Bohemia and refused to divulge the secrets of the confessional. He is considered the first martyr of the Seal of the Confessional.

Dinner with Katerina & Filip

On the train ride back

Petr always mentions how dead the towns are at night.  Here's a prime example.  On the way home from the train station in Usti to Zamberk (about 13 miles) between 9:45 & 10:15 pm we passed through 5 towns.  We saw 15 cars, 2 bicylists and 3 pedestrians. That's like driving from Waunakee to DeForest while going through towns/villages the size of Westport, Dane & Vienna.  I would probably see more than 15 cars just leaving Waunakee!

Martina's work

Monday afternoon we were able to visit Martina at her school.  

Sebastian & Tobiah fit right in.

"Uncle" Zdeněk

Monday morning we went to visit Zdenek.  We had a wonderful visit.  He is working on a medallion for us of all the kids, so we took a look at the progress so far.  He also showed us his newest book that was published in honor of his 80th birthday.  He said to us, "This is my whole life, here in this book."  At the bottom of this post I've included a short section of the introduction to the book.  It gives a nice description of Zdenek and his work as well as a really good idea of the poetic way in which the Czech people speak.

I forget exactly the relation, but I think Zdenek's grandfather and Petr's great-grandfather were brothers.

taking close-ups for the detail work on the medallion

the sketch and the beginnings of the sculpture

Zdenek signing his book for us

 

EXCERPT from the Introduction

Important life anniversaries should not in my opinion, become a pretext for summarizing the life achievements of living writers, poets, painters, sculptors, singers, actors or composers - in short, of artists of all sorts.  One never knows beforehand when an artist's greatest work will be conceived.  Thus for example a literary critic may laboriously put together a monograph for the sixtieth birthday of a renowned poet and, alas; the Muse visits and the poet composes his masterpiece at the age of say, eighty-five.  The poor literary critic can do nothing but play the monograph at the very bottom of the bookshelf and start all over again.  If you are an artist, age does not play much of a role in your profession, as long as the endowed treasure of talent is developed to its fullest, carefully taken care of and never left idle.  And you must enjoy your work.  This is hard to understand for someone who has never experienced the delightful moments of creative fervor when the surrounding world is forgotten and the mind focuses solely on the process of the blossoming of the creation growing beneath your hands.  A bit of good luck is needed, too, but what is most important is a deep interior.

Although we can never know the extent of someone's creative journey, the same uncertainty does not apply to the opposite extreme of the adventure - the beginning.  It is said that an extraordinary creative talent in any field manifests itself at least by the secondary school years.  That is the time when people get their fundamental ideas and absorb the strongest stimuli that they will bring out, expand and turn to good account for the rest of their lives. That's what I believe.  But it takes years for this budding, bustling, from great inner depths' springing source of inspiration and desire to emerge, without which it would be senseless to solidify into a clear form.  This crucial time - Christ's years - is the age when a true talent is said to reach its first great successes.  Only by having enough wisdom not to be dizzied by the heights reached, one is capable of taking further responsibility.

This is exactly the case with Zdenek Kolarsky.  Born in Kostelec, he was lucky to be surrounded by sensitive teachers able to discover his artistic talent.  He then studied glassblowing at the secondary art school in Zelezny Brod, and his talent and interest determined the next step in his journey - art studies in Prague.  There the solid fundamentals where unquestionably laid, ranging from creating monumental sculptures to the finest graphic art.  What opportunities!  Such a wide creative spectrum has since then been organically present in Zdenek Kolarsky's work, allowing him to manage many types of artistically distinctive commissions; figure sculptures and medals, however, became his central interest.

In 1964, at the age of thirty-three came a dazzling success:  Kolarsky's Czechoslovakian three-crown coin.  It was issued from 1965 as a regular coin of Czechoslovak currency.  How many artists have the privilege of having millions of people encounter their artwork on a daily basis?

Sunday

Sunday morning started off with Mass.  Luke & Sebastian were both to serve.  Sebastian was very apprehensive about serving at Mass for the very first time and in addition to that the Mass being in Czech, but afterwards he said it was awesome and he was wondering if he could serve again right away tomorrow.

On the way home from Mass we stopped at the store to buy rohliky which Petr does absolutely everyday.  He must have fresh rohliky.  Rohliky are bread rolls shaped like a fat cigar.

11 cents per rohlik

After this we had a series of minor mishaps.  Annika slipped and fell down as we were walking back to Libor's house.  At home Petr and I were having our morning coffee out on the patio when the dog bumped the part of the table holding one of the sides up and the mug came crashing down breaking on the sidewalk.  At almost that same moment Annika spilled chocolate yogurt all over the dining room floor and within minutes of cleaning it up she slipped on the still wet floor and hurt her bottom again.  Thankfully the rest of the day was relatively uneventful.

Pavel & Annika in matching colors

After coffee Petr, Pavel, Tobiah & Karen went to visit Slavik Kral who lives just a short walk from the Kainek's.  Slavik is a retired postal worker, an artist, and one of the very few people in all of the Czech Republic living today who have 5 children.  His 5th grandchild was just born this morning in Brno.  He and his family are also very involved at the church.

The picture on the right is a sketch of one of Petr's neighbors.

As he was showing us all his artwork in his home he mentioned that Petr's parents had given him Petr & Pavel's crib.

Petr & Pavel behind the crib they slept in as babies.

In the afternoon, Luke & Katja went for a bike ride.  Gabriella watched Czech cartoons.  Karen took a little nap and Petr and the rest of our family went out mushroom hunting again.  The rest of the evening we just relaxed and played games.