Stinky Cheese and Sticky Skis

Whew what a weekend. After the last post I had an afternoon of Deli-Dali-ing before the big trip. We had lunch at this delicious restaurant near the old square and then went to see the Salvador Dali exhibition (my favorite artist of all time). It was the first time I had seen this painting of his called "Portrait of Abraham Lincoln Gala Watching the Sea." When you look at it close, it is a woman looking out a window with lots of detail. From a distance of 20 meters, however, it is the portrait of Abe... and very trippy.


I also really loved this photograph of him holding an egg next to his face and looking through his fingers, but I can't find it online. So this is a good one for you to enjoy:


So anyways, after the exhibition Jeff, Emily, Brittany and I did a little shopping and then we headed back home to pack. Brittany and I were both going on the trip, so we left here around 6. After grocery shopping, driving, etc we arrived at the cabin. There were 9 Czechs in our group and 2 Americans in 2 little European cars (one person took the bus most of the way there), 5 mattresses, and 1 european outhouse. If I didn't know all of the people very well before we got there (besides Tomas and Ondrej), by the time I left we were thick as theives. I also learned a lot of Czech this weekend because not everybody's english was great and people just forgot a lot. It was soo fun though. On Friday night we went downstairs in the cabin to hang out with this group of cross country skiers who were staying in the room below... It was a great night. About 5 of the people there had guitars and they were all good at playing them. I think its safe to say everyone had a lot of fun.


This is me, Tomas, and Brittany.


Tomas with the butterfly he made friends with.


The next morning we woke up to a light snow. As we ate breakfast and began to get our gear together the snow picked up. By the time we left it was like a blizzard. The creek the next morning in the snow.


The tree out front before we went skiing.


The tree out front after we went skiing.


Breakfast, however, is where the stinky cheese comes in. Honza and Alejcka were eating this french cheese which smelled horrible but I decided I would be brave and try. Let me just say, I would not try it again if my life depended on it. Eww. I definitely had to brush my teeth after that. So later I made them eat cheddar just to get even. :) And as far as sticky skis go, that is part two of this dialogue. Brittany and I were planning on renting skis, but ended up just borrowing these really old ones that were at the cabin... well they hadn't been waxed in a decade. So we skied for about 2.5 hours before we gave up because the snow and ice kept collecting under our skis and we couldn't slide like you are supposed. It was fun though, and a really good workout. I had no idea you went up and down so much in cross country skiing.

Here is a map of the mountain we were on.


Alena with the other skiers in the backgroud.


The snow.


Me and Brittany at the pub waiting for everyone else to get done.


Ondrej and Alena hanging out at the pub.


The little town we were near.


Ondrej and Tomas with their pretty hairstyles.


Drinking hot wine and other delicious concoctions that evening.


After a lunch of Spagetti, or "Schpagetti" as the Czechs call it, everyone had a ton of energy. We all went outside and had a snowball fight, made snowmen, and I made a snow angel. It felt to good to have some carefree fun...




I thought we would come home around 4, but we ended up staying until about 10 Sunday night. Let me tell you I was suprised to hear when people started making soup for dinner, but its ok because I represented the Maddock legacy at hearts and beat everyone by over 40 points. I also won by shooting which I think earns me at least a few style points. :) Anyways, thats it for now.... I have to go to Tesco and do some laundry. I hope everyone is having a good day!