Hello and Goodbye to Prague

I know, I know, most of you thought that maybe our 60 days of travel had suddenly come to an end and bridey and had eloped for a second marriage ceremony somewhere mysterious. But no this has not been the case. We have been putting 10 and 12 hour days touring the city of Prague, travelling in South Bohemia and spending much time with our adopted Czech family here in Prague. Some days it has felt like a full time job!

bridey and I connected with Ed & Denise two weeks ago as planned. Thank goodness things with the volcano settled down, so our flight from Egypt was successful in getting us to Heathrow and then on to Prague the next day. Ed & Denise flew in from Amsterdam after one of the first flights out of Vancouver to Heathrow.

We spent 10 days with Ed & Denise here in Prague and the south counstryside. We have shared an apartment here in Prague with breakfasts that you would not believe. The breakfasts were so big that we could make our lunch every day from the breakfast table. During our time with Ed & Denise we did meet up with our friend, Josef (a fellow volunteer when we were volunteering in Iona) and his family. This has been a wonderful time; a real opportunity to experience the daily life of a Czech family. Josef also toured the four of us around a part of Prague that tourists would not see and took us to an old style "communist era" bar for beers. These were the cheapest beers we drank anywhere...and the atmosphere created by the oppressive natured bartender and the dour old men drinking beer was surely remeniscent of the communist time.

During the week we also travelled to a Nazi era transit community, Terezin, where the Jews of Prague and the surrounding countries had been taken to hold in the ghetto until they were transferred to the concentration camps for execution. This was a very moving, emotionally difficult day for all of us as we walked through such a troubling part of our world history.

We have had awesome weather for 7 days with blue skies and sunshine every day. We saw lots of historical sites (too many too describe), went to a marionette show, a blue light show and ate great Czech food and consumed many litres of pilsner beer - yes, at times, even bridey was drinking beer which will be a surprise to many of you (there don't have cider here).

Last Friday we packed up and headed out from Prague in a rented car to see some of the countryside and a few historical communities (UNESCO world heritage sites). This gave us an opportunity to view the Czech countryside so that our only perception of the Czech Republic was not that of the city of Prague. On our last day of the weekend, we travelled through Plzen (any beer drinker will recongnize that this is the home of the original pilsner). It just so happened that this was the same day (May 2nd) that the city was celebrating the liberation of the city by the American forces at the end of WW 2. They have hundreds of WW 2 vehicles and uniforms that they get dressed up in and re-enact the American army rolling into Plzen. This was an unbelievable sight to see and the feeling was probably as celebratory as the day it happend on the 5th of May 1949! We could not believe we were so lucky and blessed to have fallen upon this experience!

On Sunday evening we took Ed & Denise to the airport for their flight to Italy and bridey and I returned the rental car and returned to the same hotel residence into a studio apartment - same great breakfasts though. Max, the manager of the residence has been the most helpful and gracious operator that a traveller could expect to be blessed with.

This past week we have spent immersed in the lives of Josef and all of his family with the exception of the one daughter. We have learned so much about day to day life and have had so many political discussions. They have fed us every day and we have spent hours talking and being guided around a different face of Prague. Josef's son, Jacob, led bridey and I through the Jewish part of historical Prague. This took us through all of the synagogues. cemetery and celebration hall. Because he is studying Judaism there was much that he was able to tell us that we would not have learned from the literature we had been given.

Today we spent the afternoon with a friend of a friend - this is Janet and Laura's friend Martin. Through our time with him we had another layer of Prague exposed and a very entertaining time as he is surely the funniest person we have met on our travels to date. He is an entrepeneur and investment adviser. This gave us a different perspective than that from Josef and the members of his family who are all either clerics or studying theology or social work. Although saying that he is different, he took us to a restaurent that he has involvement with in terms of charity work and youth.

The weather turned on Sunday and for the first time since we left Canada we have had cloudy cool weather with periods of rain. Quite a shock to the system after Egypt and the original very pleasant transition into Prague.

Tomorrow evening we will leave for England and preparation for our charter trip to Croatia with our English walking club. We will be in Newcastle for a couple of days and this is a city we had not spent any time in while working in the UK. We have been having an amazing adventure and holiday! Hard to believe that we are on to Croatia now!

I do not have my card reader with today so could not post any pic's. I will do a catch up while we are in Newcastle!

Hugs to everyone from us and hope life is treating all well!