All our children.

IT crowd on the lake.

We had purchased airline tickets to Czech Republic shortly after one Malaysian plane disappeared without trace. Later, shortly before our departure, another Malaysian airplane got shot down over Ukraine. Thus I managed to get a jet lag by mere not sleeping even before we took off. Still I tried to maintain the appearance of a rational person — moreover, the kids were tremendously looking forward to the trip; Lisa had been seeing an interpretive show about airports and flying over and over for several weeks — hence I had no other choice than to man up and fly.

The flight itself was a pleasant surprise. We had chosen an evening connection, allowing us to have a dinner at the airport; before they distributed in-flight meals, it was so late that the kids were ready to bed. It sufficed to rip them away from on-board TV and convince them to close their eyes. I, too, had fallen asleep, alas only after requesting a second blanket. I can relate to the idea that frozen travelers have less tendency to lurch around, and possibly smell better, yet I did not appreciate having to sit for many hours, wearing several layers of clothing including a head scarf.

We had arrived alright, into the embrace of a sizable welcoming committee (here I want to thank Martina and Radim for their help and patience with our family logistics), and were able to collapse into our beds in Písnice (a Prague suburb with granny's flat). We slept relatively long in the morning, whether thanks to medication or because of our fatigue, I don't know; nevertheless we were so fit on Friday that I could begin checking out Saturday trains to Cheb, which would take us on the first of our awesome weekends.

We had still spent the Friday with our family; our kids very much wanted to meet with their cousins again. All went well until Tom joined the girls on a whirly-gig, and got rather sick on the bus on our way back home. After all, we had our jet lag; it was horribly hot and muggy in Prague — and now the whirli-gig. We had to step off the bus and let my son take some deep breaths, before he could continue.

Big family at the ZOO.

Girls on ponies.

First remark, about family:
It surprised me how well our children managed to play with their cousins. Elsa is almost seven years younger than Tom; she's five years younger than Lisa, Olivia by eight and six, respectively. At their age, that's an abysmal difference, but there was enthusiasm on both sides regarding their meeting a wider family. Apparently the kids subconsciously long to for the largest pack, and know somehow that a family bond is firmer than befriending neighbors or school mates.

On Saturday morning, we took a high speed train to Cheb. Martin had offered taking us in his car on Friday already, but I wanted to enjoy some quiet time at home, where no one is bothered by our getting up early. And it also gave the kids a chance to ride on the train, which is an experience that we can offer them only rarely in California. A weekend with Ryzls consisted of splashing in lake, rowing on it, grilling — and a discovery of an institution: a kiosk = a place where you can go for lemonade, ice cream, or fried cheese (in the case of older and more advanced customers, for beer). Kids were fascinated by the kiosk, and the concept of going there without supervision (after they had wheedled small cash from their parents). I was fascinated by the children's differentiation — Lisa danced, squealed and splashed through the weekend in Andrea's company, while pre-pubscents Tom and Annie snubbed childish play and hid by a computer. Up to the level that Tom eventually refused to sleep with me and Lisa in the loft and made his bed instead on a living room sofa — within range of Annie, who slept on a hearth.

Second remark, about language:
Practically from the moment we disembarked at the Prague airport, our children had switched hundred percent into Czech. They spoke with Annie and Andrea in Czech throughout Saturday, figuring out only in the evening that they know the girls from California and thus could communicate in English as well. As soon as we said good-bye to the girls, Czech language took over for the rest of our stay — until some moment over Greenland, where all of a sudden they switched back to English.

Elsa at Bororo Preserve.

Birthday lunch.

We roamed around Prague for the following five weekdays. I had, in part, visited some associates, leaving the children with granny and their cousins. Only this summer I realized what a difference a grandmother makes in the life of a family — one calls, hands over kids — and is free like a bird. Granny used to visit us in America for long weeks and months, but that's simply something else. The children, being at home, never get the sense of being ELSEWHERE, with different background and rules; I never get the freedom of not having to plan who will eat what for dinner — and granny never gets her freedom to do things her way. Baby-sitting by grandparents became thus very popular by everybody, and we practiced it as often as possible. I used my free time for sitting around, having beer in bars, chatting, and climbing.

Third remark, about climbing:
I had checked out a climbing gym named Smíchoff, which seems to be the one most accessible from Písnice (one bus line with no need to switch). I liked the gym, but I was taken aback by two things. First, besides Radim, who took me there, I did not know a single other person there — long gone are the times when I could enter any climbing establishment or location in the whole country, and meet familiar faces, for the climbing community was so small that you always knew a significant portion of present climbers. Everybody at Smíchoff was a stranger. Perhaps that's where my strange feeling came when I noticed employees always using a first name basis when addressing customers — it may be the place's policy, but when a strange adult calls me Carol only because I'm now at a climbing gym, it smacks of a pretended familiarity that neither of us really feels. It seemed to me like if I entered a shrine of some forcibly smiling religious sect.
At a gym in Ruzyně, the staff uses my first name because we had spent many weekends camping somewhere under an overhang, and no-one drops their jaw when I finally scramble to the top of a 5.9, and where people often greet each other by just a nod, as if there weren't fifteen years since we had seen each other last time. It was much more pleasant (well, I admit, I had to ask Vaclav to remind me of the name of the chap who had greeted me — but after all this time and at my age — what can I do?).

Children could not miss out Gutovka.

There is a new rope maze center at Gutovka.

The highpoint of the week was Lisa's birthday party. She wished to take the whole family to the ZOO, which was not difficult to grant her at all — after grandad and Kristýna arranged a day off at their respective workplace, and after we managed to coordinate converging our big family arriving from two ends of Prague; all went well. We even accomplished keeping all the children together at the ZOO, but give the fact that we had on average one adult per child, it was not such a challenge after all.

I had mentally readied myself to a six-hour marathon, like last time. I was not very much wrong about those six hours, but thanks to having little girls along, and frequent refreshment stops, we did not cover the whole ZOO. We spent the last hour at the Bororo Preserve, where the girls (including Lisa) crawled through an ingenious maze of ropes, while Tom with Honza (whom I actually never get to meet) had organized traffic on a large slide — Honza operated the entrance, while Tom informed him about a clear path in the lower section.

Fourth remark, about water:
At Bororo Preserve, I was fascinated by the situation with drinking fountains. It's a new facility that was opened just two days prior to our visit. I had found here the one and only PUBLIC source of drinking water — a water fountain FOR DOGS. It was a faucet located a foot and half above ground near the entrance, equipped with institutional bowls for the canines — nothing for the CHILDREN — despite dogs being prohibited in the Preserve, and the place being filled with running and rampaging children — so I would have expected some concern for hydrating the regular visitors, not dogs (I would have equally expected a dog fountain at a dog park, training grounds etc. — but at a kids' playground???). Not that I had any inhibitions using water from a dog-labeled faucet — but apparently I was the only one; granny was even worried whether the water was safe to drink. I must say that a system which forces you to carry a bag with drinking water, in twenty first century, in a two-million city in the middle of Europe, seems to be rather absurd.

A ferry to Dolní Žleb.

Kids (and grown-ups) had embraced the institution of kiosk.

I think that Lisa was content with her party, but then Elsa began to ask, when will there be the cake? I kind-of did not count on that, so we improvised a lunch in Adria on the next day, promising a subsequent cake in Světozor. I was not really surprised when the kids eventually chose only ice cream — eveybody ended up happy. I could also leave Lisa behind with the girls (and grandparents) in Franciscan gardens and take Tom to a Lego museum. Comparing with ZOO prices, it was rather crazy — two hundred (crowns) per person is simply too much, given what they offer. And again I was glad not to have to pay for Lisa, who would not really enjoy it much (again, the advantage of granny's care — Lisa did not feel slighted, for she WANTED to stay at the playground rather than go the a museum, for it's DIFFERENT with granny than with her brother and mum).

Still within that week, the kids managed to see a model train museum (with the family, while I had my own program), and we also went to a public swimming pool in Podolí. It surprised me how well preserved it remains after its almost fifty years of existence. Then we were shocked by the water's temperature — apparently California had made us soft. I can't really imagine that I used to swim there five times a week — but I do remember quite vividly that I always used to be cold in my swim classes. And this time we came during a real heat wave.

Water nymphs in Kamenice.

A 1952 movie, The Proud Princess, was filmed here.

A second Czech weekend approached with the speed of a lightning. We had planned a trip to a cabin, with a family of my old friend Tomáš. All plans naturally succumb to Murphy's Law, thus soon after we more or less finished tuning our logistic (Tomáš would drive to Děčín to fulfill a contract, pick their girls up at their granny's house and take them to the cabin, while his wife Šárka picks me and our kids up in Prague, and takes us there), things began to change and complicate. Eventually Šárka took me and the kids, drove us to THEIR granny, where a Friday night party took place on account of several childrens' birthdays and name-days. Tomáš's parents strangely remembered me — we had met once or twice almost twenty years earlier — so I don't know now, whether it's a good sign, or whether I had caused any embarrassment back then.

Our kids naturally loved a party with a pack of other children (only I somehow failed to count them all, or figure out who was whose cousin). Especially since they had the run of the back yard, trampoline — and a very curious, tame frog in a pond. Furthermore, steam boats float up and down Labe, and a main train line to Dresden runs behind the yard — thus Tom could follow the busy traffic. Sleeping in a tent also met with success, and when we gathered in the morning and set out, another ride on the ferry awaited us — and then the cabin in Jetřichovice.

For the afternoon, we had originally counted on a hike — letting a bus take us some distance and then returning along some view points back to the cabin, but fortunately for us, we had missed the bus. It was positive because this had given us time to have lunch at a kiosk, and then we only had little time left for a small walk to Dolský Mill — which in this crazy hot and muggy weather was so tiresome that I can't really imagine any greater challenge. Dolský Mill was impressive; I got to finally see with my own eyes a spot, where the Proud Princess used to stuff armsmen into flour bags! The mill is a ruin today, alas, only a few perimeter walls remain, but perhaps it is being renovated (that was, I hope, the reason for an excavator was disturbing the picturesque scene of the old stone building pressed under the sandstone rocks). Our way back was, again, crazy; we tried to keep the morals up by promising ice cream from a kiosk to our troops, and in the end we had never reached it, resting and recovering by a grocery store.

Windows of the Dolský Mill.

Our little cabin.

We got back to our little cabin totally cooked, roasted and fried. Yet before we managed to start a camp fire, a crazy thunderstorm had arrived. Kids found new energy and went off to run and wreak havoc in the loft, while we busied ourselves by moving our setup indoors and outdoors several times in a naive hope that it would stop raining. Eventually it did stop, and Tom rejoiced that the landscape looked like on an old Chinese painting — the kind with rock spires emerging from the haze. Tomáš and I were a lot less happy seeing this kind of view — a summer storm meant an end to our climbing aspirations. Sandstone soaks water up like a sponge and one cannot (must not) climb even for several days thereafter.

We had spent the rest of the evening in part by roasting sausages (everybody), drinking beer and chatting (adults), hunting grasshoppers (Tom) and building little goblin houses in a nearby forest (girls). With the arrival of darkness, Šárka and Tomáš had announced a night war game — the kids were tasked with going to the woods to check out their houses, whether goblins had moved in. And indeed, as soon as Šárka and I pushed the children out on the meadow, one could see some light moving in the forest. Anička and Maruška kept going, for they visit the goblins all the time. Lisa was scared, while Tom with his manly attitude claimed that goblins don't exist and that it's all nonsense. Eventually I managed to get them going over those some two hundred yards of dirt road — whereupon Tom stopped being afraid and started to chase after a grass lizard. As far as I know, all kids had made it to the forest, heard the goblins, and found Tomáš there, who took them back to the little cabin. By then all were great heroes and nobody had EVER been really afraid.

On the second day, having learned from the crisis with the afternoon heat, we had set out early morning to Maria's Overlook. The trail went uphill, but through woods, making it rather manageable — and it was windy at the overlook. And the view was exquisite; Bohemian Switzerland (that being the official name of the region) is very pretty. We had to cajole the kids into going a bit farther to Vilemínka, but it included a rest stop in a cool saddle, and an opportunity to build yet another goblin house, and thus it was no problem. I think that my kids actually did not make it all the way up to Vilemínka — they both got stuck at an incredible adventure — picking wild blueberries. Those don't grow at home, and the effect was great. Another lunch at a kiosk followed — and it was time to pack, clean, and head back for the city.

Bohemian Switzerland.

Blueberries were a greater lure than overlooks.

Fifth remark, about excrements:
The saddest thing about the whole Bohemian Switzerland was a consistent layer of papers in the woods. It was totally depressing me: beautiful rocks, nature, landscape — and shit everywhere (pardon me, but there is no other way to express this reality). I understand desperate tourists who simply MUST GO. I don't understand the management of this park, why not arrange for some form of an outhouse, at least at the most frequented spots and parking lots. For example, at the trailhead to the mill, or on a parking lot in Jetřichovice under Maria's Overlook. Crowds of people walk through the woods, and if only half of them were able to use some port-a-potty and tossed their paper (not to mention the more organic part of their waste) into a hole, everything would look quite different.
And maybe, if scraps of toilet paper weren't scattered everywhere, other defecators might feel embarrassed enough to cover up their scrap with dirt.

We suffered only two days in a stuffy Prague and headed out again to our cottage, to meet the rest of our family. More precisely, granny, granddad and the girls; Týna, alas, had to go back to work. Our kids were happy to be with their cousins again, and they all ended up playing in a sand box, strangely including our almost pubescent Tom. A pack of kids had drawn attention of the neighbor's kitten named Sammy, who had shown exceptional affinity to cuddling, and let the children smooch and carry and pet him, unlike his shy brother kitten. Tom and Lisa demanded to go to a kiosk again, which did exist in Dubenky two years earlier, but it wasn't open this year. Actually, even the swimming pond was empty, and only our duck Lisa dared to splash in the water, eventually luring in the other girls — even so, they tolerated the icy water only knee-deep.

A mushroom-hunting expedition turned out to be a much better success. It's again something that the children don't have at home, and so they enjoyed it tremendously. To our great surprise, we had found a sizable number of boletes (porcini), and the kids got into the hunting spirit. In the evening then came the highpoint of our whole trip — we had planned our visit in Czech Republic so that we could attend Folk Holidays in Telč, and I took the offspring to a concert. We wanted to see Hop Trop; yet these famous groups traditionally play only after a less famous performer opens the evening; the show lasted for a long time and Lisa began to nod off towards the end, when finally our stars appeared.

Alas, our climbing got canceled.

A pack (kitten included) in a sand box.

Naturally we could not skip a trip to Roštejn; this time, granddad first took me and my kids to a lake in the woods, and returned for granny and the little girls, shuttling them all the way to the castle. We were supposed to finish the rest of the way on foot, which gave Tom and Lisa some cause for whimpering at the beginning. But then I had found my first bolete of that day in a ditch, and the rest of the hike passed in the atmosphere of enthusiastic mushroom hunting. We went through our obligatory tour of castle ghosts, climbed up a tower, and the kids received an obligatory ice cream (while granny and I had our obligatory coffee).

On the next day, granddad and grandma had pondered, what program to choose for the kids, thinking of some newly opened fairy-tale themed amusement park in Kamenice, but eventually I managed to convince them that it was unnecessary. Parks and museums aren't anything special for our children; mushroom hunting and petting the neighbor's kitten, for example, are much more entertaining. I did not expect to be very successful in the woods on Saturday morning, especially after we had met other hunters, but in the end we were bringing full bags back home again.

We were returning back to Prague on Sunday — that is, me and my kids. There was a somewhat confusing situation at the bus transit center in Pelhřimov. Internet said that at eleven eleven there was a bus leaving in our direction, yet no sign in the center would mention such a connection, although I covered every platform and studied all the listings. Well, the bus departs from a side street and is NOT listed on a schedule posted there; you can find out by noticing a line of people gathering there, who KNOW.

Gathering, cleaning and drying of mushrooms became a great attraction.

Roštejn.

I think that by leaving for Prague, a vacation hangover had fallen on our children. They began to complain of feeling homesick, of missing their daddy and their hamster and their friends. Perhaps there was a factor of not expecting to experience anything more in Czech Republic. When Tom and Lisa could look forward to more trips, castles, a concert, museums and friends, they did not miss their home, but at this moment, they had completed their collection. I, on the other hand, still had things to accomplish that I had had no time to complete during the previous two and half weeks, and I also tried to say good-bye to my friends who had helped us a lot this time, not only with our logistics, but by simply being and remaining our friends despite the usual distance in space and time.

Sixth remark, about restaurants:
Granny's flat is located near a famous SAPA (a Vietnamese marketplace), and I found it convenient alternating the otherwise ubiquitous and monotonous Czech fried cheeses with Vietnamese fare, which is our favorite at home. Martin had taken us into a hole-in-the-wall soup place — they cook only soups there, and the waiter asked in broken Czech, whether beef or chicken. We had the beef variety, and it was great. Yet later, when I took my kids there as well, I ordered in Vietnamese, pho tai. The difference is in that they toss raw slices of steak in the boiling broth and the meat arrives pink and juicy. While the beef soup ordered in Czech was great, the one ordered in Vietnamese was better yet, by the fresh meat. Later I brought Tomáš, Radim and Gabka to the hole, and I think everybody liked it there. We also tried a local, more upscale, restaurant, where we asked in vain for mi xao don — crunchy fried noodles that Lisa likes. The waiter apologized that local noodles are unsuitable, for it must be made from thin noodles that you can't buy in Czech.

Our departure occured again in a big family style — they had built a huge Sorry game in the airport hall, thus the girls had organized the pieces, while Tom played against another little boy on a giant chess board. He claimed to have won, but I had not followed their game as closely as to be able to confirm. The final send-off included a small kink, as granny failed to issue the children some chocolate eggs that she had brought, but fortunately the gate operators had relented enough for our cute Lisa and allowed her to run back and grab the present.

Saying good-bye to the Highlands.

Departure.

Munich, Germany, had fouled my mood. They did not only remove coffee machines from the international gates, but now they wouldn't even sell you such without scanning your passport. The excuse is, it being a duty free zone. I don't get it. And I was quite glad to have packed our lunch along in my backpack, when I noticed that another family paid fifty dollars for a couple of sandwiches and two bottles of water. Next time, I should be ready to face Munich. And I should expect that it makes no difference whatsoever how many times you log in and choose and confirm your in-flight seating — our boarding passes held completely nonsensical numbers, spread across the whole plane. I went to deal with a ground attendant, who smiled and declared that our seats were not really that far from each other and that it will be OK. I countered that I was not hoping for anything more than a flight spent in quiet and solitude; I would be glad to put my earphones on and stop worrying about everything else, if only she could tell me to whom my children should turn in case they need something. This had somewhat frosted her smile, and suddenly it was possible to switch our seats at least so that the kids sat together. I got a place two rows behind them, which I eventually swapped on the spot. Also, unlike many of my fellow passengers, I came properly equipped for a cold-storage freight treatment, wearing a hat, a sweat-shirt, and a dawn vest.

We had managed to sleep on the plane again, and thus our journey had passed relatively quickly; we had found ourselves back home again, together with Sid. The children had enjoyed a very nice closing of their summer break, and I had realized that I had just experienced a real VACATION after a long time. I did not need to run any official errands in Czech Republic this time, and thanks to the grandparents I tasted a bit of freedom again — a condition whereby one can hand one's beloved offspring to granny and set out to (re)discover worlds, without planning and organizing.