Lookin for a Chateau...

Hemingway and I got up yesterday, said goodbye to Sue, and met our driver for the trip out to Chotoviny. It was a nice ride though the countryside and we arrived in perfect form, although we were a bit shocked at the cost. I thought the estimate we got back in the states from Jamie seemed VERY low, but I definitely wasn't expecting a 500% increase. Oh well, live and learn.

Carrie, Jamie's executive director for the castle, greeted us and we chatted her up for a while. She's been here for months working on getting this place ready for all the crazy thing they are going to be doing here. She's mentioned several times how nice it is to be able to communicate in English. Carrie made us a very nice lunch, which was great because I was overly hungry. She also talked about the local Easter whipping tradition she experienced.

After getting settled in we went to the nearby town of Tabor to get some grub, pivo and a bottle of booze. We also stopped on the way back at a little shop actually in Chotoviny. This town is very small and when we were here last October we had no idea about the shop and even a few little bars in town. Carrie promised that later on in the evening we would make our way to her favorite pub.

A few hours after we got back from the shopping, Jamie and Amy arrived. It was exciting to see them and I was glad they made it safely. Amy looked fairly beat up from the travel but it didn't stop her from eating dinner (pizza we picked up at the store earlier) with us and then heading out to the pub.

The great thing about the smallness of this crazy town is you can walk pretty much anywhere in no time at all. This is especially god cause if you get caught drinking and driving here, you might as well say goodbye to your life. They are very strict about that.

So we all walk over to the pub and we meet up with some of Carrie's friends. This pub has no sign and a dark hall leads to the room. Pretty much you have to live here to know about it. Carrie teaches English at one of the nearby schools and some of her students also met us at the bar. In this country you can drink at 16 and its really no big deal for kids younger than that to be in the bar hanging out. It depressed me somewhat that I saw the kids smoking too. You can smoke here at 14 or 13. American tobacco companies have little to worry about for future business.

We drank, talked and learned more Czech words from the locals. There was a hockey game going on between two rival Czech teams and occasionally the place would erupt with screaming anytime someone would score. There was a small room in the back with a pool and foosball. Amy made a joke early on about flying half way around the world to play pool. I didn't get in on the pool games, but I did team up with Jamie to have our asses handed to us by two 14 year olds. They whooped us every single time. I chalked it up to several facts including 1. they were sober, 2. they knew how to play and 3. we weren't sober at all. It was funny too cause the kids would scream just like the men watching the hockey game when they scored goals on us over and over again. When Amy played she would spin the little dudes around wildly and she got yelled at in Czech by this kid.

This is a shot of the group with the bartender and her boyfriend. We closed the joint down and walked home. Had a great time. The kids are cooking a big traditional Czech dinner which I'm very excited about. Then about 3:30am we'll be leaving for the airport to fly to Paris and will meet up with the Hemingway gang of thugs there. I'm glad we're going to France. My brother needs a new hat.

Carez...