June 14, 2007
Dobry den,
Libor and I spoke of how mutually unprepared we are to teach this year's courses last night. He said his older son Mattias had met Robert Fulghum at the Rover Scout meeting referred to in one of the links I sent you in the last travelog. It seems to be a big year for meeting people--me and Petr Dvorak, Matias and Robert Fulghum, GWB and all the disgruntled Czechs who do not want their city closed down by a visitor who wants to use their soil for missile bases.
And as for the question of royalty: Voytech speaks no English in spite of his one week course with me four years ago so I guiltily hung around all morning while he mopped and cooked lunch. My attempts to help were met with laughing "ne, ne"s. The the coup de grace fell when he delivered slices of watermelon to the garden after lunch. I tried to entertain Beni by squirting seeds from between my thumb and forefinger but ended up entertaining myself with the pleasant thwock of seeds hitting grape leaves. None of you except my relatives and former students know that I knocked a contact lens out a girl's eye in l966 and avoided being the scandal of Girls' State (the students don't know this part) only because two girls from Bassfield, Mississippi pre-empted my newsworthiness by being caught in bed together.
Anyway, I tried to be guestly good and weeded in the vegetable garden a bit. I hope I don't learn that I have uprooted some valuable interplantings. Also used experience removing the suckers from tomato plants to help discern what to remove from the grapevines. Did not come away with any handsful of the infant grapes so guess I did a good job there.
We began the early afternoon over wine and snacks in the garden but were driven indoors by a hail storm which damaged nothing important. We continued our festivities indoors with a Czech movie with English subtitles. The movie, Ucaztnici Zajezdu, which would probably be translated into Tourists in English, is about a group of trippers who go with a travel agency on a bus to Croatia. The drivers are obsessed with having their brown plastric coffee cup holders returned, a middle aged couple is dying to find a partner for their "ham-thighed" daughter who ends up finding a great one on her own, and there are two elderly ladies who spend a great deal of time on one of them's past. It was quite good and reminded me of my similar trek to Croatia three or four years ago.
Milan came home with cherries from Veronika's grandfather's trees so I stuffed as many as possible into my mouth while kicking the soccer ball around for Beni. Also made the family recipe slaw from the outer leaves of the cabbage which Betty was discarded from her pork and cabbage dinner. Voytech really likes it, Betty ate some politely, Milan snubbed it cold, and I ate a huge heap.
Thursday afternoon we finally realized my fondest Ratiskovice hope and rode the drazin. Now, I remember from my Mickey Mouse Club Jiminy Cricket educational cartoon days that the draisine was an early version of a wooden foot-pushing-on-the-road bicycle. This drazin is a pedal powered private rail car that covers 2.2 KM and back on disused rail line that once went from a coal mine near Ratiskovice to the canal heading north and the Morava River. There are two blue upright bicycles, complete with darling little bells to warn traffic out of our path. These can bemoved to face inthe direction in which you wish to locomote and turn the carriage wheels. Suspended between them are facing two seater green canvas seats resembling lawn chairs. Milan, Veronika, and I took turns pedaling while the third party got to sit in the canvas seat and be the queen.
A few meters past the edge of town we were riding through pristine forest with blue and yellow and pink wildflowers, orange and yellow and white butterflies by the beezillion, and mushrooms growing between the rails. On the outbound we spotted a small red deer eying us but he finally bounded on over the track. Coming back, a little bird ran the rail in front of us (rather like your protagonist, Lee) until we got too close and he flew off.
Then we perused the tiny railway and coalmining museum in two railroad cars--one about 70 years old and the other about 160 years old. The seats were made of wooden slats, would seat about 6 people each and originally had controllable steam heat under them. The caboose/baggage car was the older carriage and looked like it would make a great playhouse.
A small 10 percent beer in Milan's favorite pub and now it is back to work on the English course and the salad I promised to make for supper.
Slave driven,
Lowell
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