Well, the first weekend in November 2007 Michaela and I decided to take a train four hours out of Prague to the East also known as Moravia.  We went there to visit Klara, who was an au paire in Redwood City, California which is how Michaela met her.  Since she was recently back in CZ for the first time in many years, it was great to be able to visit her and her family.  They live in a small village of about 1600 people.  The weekend was actually the weekend when the small lakes in the village are nearly drained and that allows the fishermen to easily catch all the carp and other fish that live there.  It was a great time, and well worth the wait on the train to get there, we arrived around midnight Friday and left Sunday afternoon. 

There above is me with Klara, and then Michaela with Klara as well.  Next is a photo from inside the village castle.  This weekend was full of food, and the castle even had some free salamia and sausages and fresh breads to taste.  There was this history guide type of person who was inside explaining some of the things on display.  We were even shown the grand ballroom where local weddings take place, it was pretty cool to see.

The beer drinking picture is actually on the outside patio of the second floor of the castle.  This castle even has rooms for guests to stay overnight for when there are local weddings and people are coming from out of town.  Down below in the courtyard, there were various artisians, and my favorite was the blacksmith guys, who were burning coal and all...

Now, you can start to see some of the fishermen fotos.  Its hard to explain what this was all about, but there were maybe thirty fishermen all doing there thing, getting the fish from the lake into large buckets and then up into the wells in the back of this large truck.  It was pretty nasty weather so we didnt stay and watch too long.

After watching the fishermen, we made it to the bar next to the lake to sample some fish and beer.  We met a local name Jura, next to me in one of the photos, he actually decided to buy me a shot of vodka without asking of course, and then I did the same to him.  Michaela and Klara had to help him home later on that night, as he was not able to ride his bike, I am guessing nothing out of the ordinary for good old Jura.  Jura was doing a great job of speaking to me in Czech the whole night too.  Of course I had no clue what he was saying, but to him that sure didnt matter.  He was a nice guy.

Then later in the night, the younger guy below Mike came over and had a beer with us.  It turns out he is from the village too, and his family owns the bar.  He spoke darn good English which somewhat surprised me.  So he asked if I wanted to head out with him and some of his friends to another town to go to a disco, so I said sure.  We hitched a ride with a friend of his, and then made our way to the neighboring town Studenka.  I had already had a few beers, and was not able to do any dancing, but that was alright, the scenery was interesting as usual and it was nice to be out with a local in this part of Czech.  Mike got us a ride home, he lives in the same village as Klara, about seven km away, and I was asleep by about one am...

I slept for quite a while that next day, I dont think I was out of bed until around 10 thirty or so.  Actually Mike gave me a phone call saying he was out in front of Klaras house, so I went out to meet him.  I am guessing that we will all meet again next time we are out that way.  Klara is going with 20 or so friends to the mountains and renting some chalets for new years, and we were invited and are joining her and her friends, some mountains near Poland I guess.  Should be a ton of fun too.