Embarrasing Elevator Experience

Today I went with my sister, a friend and her baby daughter to the centre of Brno. My friend needed to go to the bank to do something. After filling in a form we were told we had to go to floor 0 to stamp it and give it to the bank. So we walked to the elevator and pressed the button to go down to floor 0.

The lift stopped at floor 3 and 4 on the way down. On both these floors there were people waiting but they couldn´t get in as the lift was full with us. So the lift closed and carried on going downwards.

When it reached floor 0 we got ready to push the pram out but, as we did so, the lift door closed. We started going back up again. We reached the 3rd floor to greet the woman we had seen waiting before. She didn´t look happy to see us. We carried on going up till floor 6. The lift then started going down to floor 0. On the way we knew where we´d be stopping, on floor 3. As we reached floor 3 we were in fits of laughter and trying to hide so the woman wouldn´t see us still in the lift. The door opened to her irritated face.

As the lift carried on down we decided to get off at an earlier floor and use the other lift which took us to the correct floor with no problems.

The last day part 1

The last day began with the sound of multiple alarms at 5 in the morning. How I hate the sound of alarm clocks. I quickly made sure all my stuff was packed. One of my roommates didnt manage to wake up with the barrage of beeping that came from the alarm clocks, but instead got woken up by the grumpy old woman who was going around checking that the rooms were left how they were before we arrived in Dobruška. Her moaning voice was much worse than any alarm could be.

Once my room was given the all clear from the grumpy woman I took my stuff down to the lobby and left it there before going for one more brief walk to the town centre. I took a photo of the tower in the centre of the square and then went back to put my bags on the coach.

The coach journey was long and boring. Most people slept but I couldnt so I listened to music. I wasnt looking forward to arriving in Prague because I knew it meant I had to navigate my way through the different methods of transport within a limited time.

When we arrived in Prague I got all my bags together and then wondered where the metro was. I had about 2 hours to get my bags to a friends shop and then back to Prague castle for the finishing ceremony. I was shitting myself.

Ï walked in a random direction and made it to a big bus and train station which I had been to once before. I remembered there was a metro somewhere in the station. The problem was finding it because everywhere looked the same. I carried on walking around randomly and after about 5 minutes found it. I bought the tickets and got on the metro train. The Prague metro is really easy to use. I got where I wanted to go without any problems. I wish I could say the same thing about the buses.

When I got out of the station I went looking for the bus stop. I could see the tram station but no bus stops. I wandered around with my bags digging into my shoulders. I wish I hadn't brought so much useless crap with me. It was really embaressing. My belt was really loose and I could feel my trousers falling down but I couldnt pull them up and tighten my belt because of all the bags I was carrying. The way the bags were hanging from my shoulder and lying on my back had also caused my shirt to get twisted in a weird way which looked really stupid.

After about 10 minutes I found a bus stop but noticed it was going in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go. So I asked someone with my limited czech where the bus station going to the stop I wanted was. The woman kept saying I should go to the tram stop, which I thought was a bit weird, but I did it anyway and kept looking for a bus stop.

I decided to look along the road opposite the one where I found the bus stop going in the wrong direction. I walked up and down the road for what seemed like ages, exhausted, in pain from my heavy and uncomfortable bag (which caused me to get bruises on the parts of my shoulder it dug into) and with my trousers still falling down.

Eventually, whilst making one of my many visits to the tram station, I saw a bus stopping at the tram stop. It was my bus. I ran to it and just made it on. There was no bus stop where it had stopped so I didn't see how you were meant to know bus' stopped there. But I was finally on the bus and time was running out.

The bus journey was short, only a couple of stops. Once I met up with my friend at her shop I quickly dropped my stuff off, said hello, then goodbye and left to make the journey to the castle.

The tram journey to the castle took about half an hour. Luckily the tram went from the tram station with the invisible bus stop so finding it wasn't a problem. At the stop before my destination stop a police man got on. My travel ticket, due to my inability to find bus stops, had expired and therefore I was riding the tram illegally. He walked to the other side of the tram and was slowly walking in my direction checking tickets. I remained calm, hoping my stop would arrive before he got to me. If that failed I was preparing to do the whole 'sorry I can't understand what you're saying. Oh i'm meant to buy tickets and stamp them' routine although I doubt that would be succesful.

I was lucky. Just before he got to me my stop arrived and I calmly walked off feeling relieved. I made my way towards the castle and navigated my way through the different courtyards to the meeting place under a balcony. Luckily that wasn't too hard but because of how long the tram journey to the castle took I was about 15 minutes late. I had to look for my group who were already touring the castle. But I wasn't the latest to arrive.

The Performance

Each class on the third last day had to do a performance in the evening. My class decided to recite czech poems. Each of us in turn recited a short poem, acting it out and then, when everyone had performed, we turned around to reveal on our backs letters which, due to the order we stood in, read Dobruška 2005.

I was dreading the performance. I don´t like performing poems in English let alone in czech. We were the first class to perform which was good as it let us get it over and done with and then able to enjoy the rest of the evening. I was hoping I wouldn´t burst out laughing during my poem because the women performing before me was completely mad and her performance was hilarious. She was talking about a cat and a dog and acted out the scene with finger puppets and her own unique meows. In the practices I had been unable to control my outbursts of laughter during my poem as I thought about her performance.

But when it came to the real thing everyone performed perfectly.............well the woman before me had quite a few problems pronouncing basically all of her poem but it was part of the charm of her performance.

The other classes performances were fun, especially the last one which was hilarious. It consisted of the class members pretending to be each other during a normal lesson. It was acted excellently and the jokes, which played on the classmates poking fun at each other, were extremely funny. One girl in the audience even collapsed with laughter. Don´t worry she got back up again but looked in pain from laughing so much.

It was a really fun end to the evening and I was relieved my performance was over.................or so I believed.

The next day my class found out they enjoyed laughing at our versions of the poems so much that we and one other class had to perform them again to everyone and also to the major of Dobruška. Great. None of us wanted to do it but we did anyway and it went well. I was told my performance was cute and funny because I read it well but with a British accent.

The forgotten coat

My coat must hate me. I am such a terrible owner.

First I left it behind in Brno after only just buying it last year and didn´t get it back till just before I went to Dobruška. I made sure I looked after it in Dobruška and carried it in my hands when I went from Dobruška to Prague for the end of the course. But somehow when I went by bus from Prague to Brno I didn´t have it. I really didn´t want to lose it again, especially as I didn´t have it for winter last year and losing it now would mean I wouldn´t have it for winter this year.

I went through the last day in my head wandering where my coat was at all times and couldn´t work out how i´d forgotten it. So I texted the person I stayed with in Prague to ask whether she had it. Luckily she said she did. She also, luckily, had a friend coming by bus to Brno that day and so my coat made the bus journey to meet me at 5 o clock.

My mum doesn´t know about this and, after her reaction to me forgetting it in Brno last time, she hopefully will never find out.

The Random Trips

When we weren´t going to visit castles we were taking incredibly random trips. The first was to a furniture factory. We saw them making chairs and sofas but we didn´t see the point of the trip. We then went to a printer factory. We walked around looking at them assemble the massive printers. It wasn´t particularly interesting but we were able to take, or maybe that should be steal, some posters the printers had printed.

The next trip was to a watch factory. It was a small factory with 6 people assembling the watches and a few other people doing something else but I have no idea what. We even got to see their watches through the ages. Rivetting stuff.

We took a trip to a brewery next. Many people got excited because it involved beer. When we got there we found out they weren´t actually making the beer at that time because it was the wrong time of year or something so none of the equipment was present. So we walked around empty rooms imagining the machinery working away. We also got to throw some grain, can´t remember what it was, that smelt really bad at each other.

The other trip that I remember taking was a trip to the school in Dobruška. It was a nice school but having just finished school I didn´t particularly feel the need to see another school.

The in thing in Dobruška part 2

Yep I just checked and we are still the in thing in Dobruška. They are still playing that video of us on the Dobruška channel.

Prague part 2

The bus left right on time at 5 am. Then for some reason after a 5 minute drive it stopped at what was apparently the Dobruška bus station. It was an ordinary road. We waited for 20 minutes as the bus driver walked up and down the road smoking.

The journey was quite long. I think it was something like 2 and a half hours and nothing much happened. When we arrived in Prague the first thing we did was go to Macdonalds for the toilets and a coke. Amazingly the toilets were free of charge. It wasn´t the only MacDonalds we were going to see that day. There were at least 6 MacDonalds that we saw in our day in Prague.

The day consisted of shopping, watching my friends get a tongue piercing and ear piercing and looking around Prague. I bought a couple of books and we had a falafel, the first non czech food in a month. That falafel tasted soooooooooo good.

The day went quickly and soon we were having a quick dinner before going to catch the last bus going to Dobruška. The restaurant, to my annoyance, didn´t serve fruit dumplings so I had to make do with chocolate fondu. Make do makes it sound like I didn§t enjoy it, which is a lie because it was a pretty damn good alternative. But my friend and I asked how long the meals would take because we were in a rush. The waiter said 5 minutes. It took 20 minutes. I had to eat the fondu very quickly. I also ended up eating most of my friends food. Then we only had about 20 minutes to get to the bus station.

We ran to the tram stop as fast as we could. Of course it decided to start pouring with rain. Just as we reached the tram it closed the doors and drove off. So we had to wait another 5 minutes for the next one. We took the tram to the metro station and ran down into the metro, not bothering to buy a ticket as there was no time. Suddenly I heard someone whistling and shouting. I kept running as I didn´t want to be stopped by the police and charged a fine. The whistling and shouting continued so my friend turned around and stopped before calling to me. Apparently I had dropped my camera in the rush and the whistling was a man trying to get me to stop so he could give back my camera. Thank god my friend stopped.

We continued running and got to the train platform but we just missed the train. The next train took something like 7 minutes to reach the platform. Time was running out.

Once we reached the station we needed to get off at we did so and sprinted to the exit. In the mad dash something fell out of my friends bag and smashed, leaving an orange puddle on the floor. We kept running. The same thing happened again. It was the baby food my friend had bought because she couldn´t eat normal food for a week as a result of getting her tongue pierced. When we reached the exit we had to momentarily stop because there was more than one exit and we needed to get the one that leaded to the bus station. We took the wrong one which took us along a slightly longer route to the bus station.

It was pouring with rain and as we got to the bus station we realised the bus had gone. When we went to ask if there were any buses still going to Dobruška we were told there weren´t. We then inquired as to whether there were any buses going to any neighbouring towns. They told us there were no buses going to Dobruška. So helpful.

So we ended up in the pouring rain wondering what to do. We rang up numerous people but they couldn´t help us. We then rang up someone in Dobruška. Luckily they were able to speak to a taxi driver over the phone and get us a decent deal. Usually the taxi drivers charge foreigners ridiculously high prices and to get to Dobruška, a 2 and a half hour journey at least, it would be way more than the 3 of us could afford. The driver drove the 3 of us to Dobruška for 2000 crowns. We were very very lucky. We were also very very exhausted and completely soaked. We got into the taxi and couldn´t help but laugh. It had been a day we certainly wouldn´t forget.

On the journey back I volunteered to stay awake and make sure the taxi driver didn´t try to steal anything from us or attack us. It was 9 o clock, already very dark and we were driving through empty roads for the later parts of the journey so you can never be too careful. My friends slept. I was so tired but luckily the driver had music on which helped me stay awake.

There was one point where I got slightly worried. The driver stopped the car in the middle of nowhere where no cars were present. He got out and went to get something from the boot of the car. My mind started to wonder about what he could be getting. What if he was getting a knife or an axe. It was stupid of me to be thinking these things but I was so tired. My friends were still asleep so it would be up to me to do something if he tried anything. Luckily he came back with a map book. I felt relieved.

We eventually reached Dobruška at 11 pm. I went straight to the toilet and then to bed.

The in thing in Dobruska!

Apparently we are the site to see in Dobruska.

The other day I discovered Dobruska tv, a channel dedicated to Dobruska and the region its in. And guess who were the stars of this channel. Yep, it was us, the members of this czech course. They played filmings of us at different times of the course. And it wasn't just one showing. They played it over and over again. They're even selling the filming on dvd. I'm sure the dvds are selling like hot cakes.

Dobruska Webcam!

If you go here you may, if you're lucky, be able to see me!: www.dobruska.cz/kamera/kamera.html
Its a webcam of the town centre.

The Plague!

Not being able to use the computers here much makes it difficult to update this blog with everything that happened. But I just realised I didn't write about the sickness that swept the course in the 2nd week. It started one afternoon when my roommate and a girl from another room began vomiting. They then had a high temperature and went to bed. Everyone thought it was probably just a coincidence.

The next morning when waiting for the bus to arrive to go on a trip there weren't many people waiting. About half the people on the course weren't present. Gossip travelled fast and it turned out that many people had gotten sick and were vomiting during the night. I myself had woken up numerous times in the night feeling sick but hadn't vomited. But I was still feeling sick when I got up and I ended up feeling really bad for the whole day. But I went on the trip anyway and I was happy I did because it got me out and doing stuff instead of being stuck in bed bored to death.

We ended up going to a castle and looking at about 30 statues (yes, it was as exhilerating as it sounds). I spent the time trying not to be sick as there weren't any toilets nearby. It didn't help that it was a really hot day and I had a temperature. After we went walking up a hill towards the bus.

Once on the bus we went for lunch somewhere (I can't actually remember that part of the day at all) before going to a place referred to as 'heaven'. I question whether it really was heaven because I still felt the pain of my headache and slightly nauseous. To reach heaven we had to walk up a mountain for about an hour. It was a nice view but by then I felt really crap. They then took us rock climbing in heaven. One of the girls on the trip was sick.

I didn't have dinner because I didn't think I could hold it down and waited on the bus. One or two other people also came to the bus as they too were now feeling sick. On the way back apparently someone on the other bus was sick. I feel sorry for whoever was sitting next to them. In fact I feel sorry for everyone one the bus. The smell of Chanel is bad enough let alone Chanel + sick.

Once back many people (me included) went to bed. Two of my roommates were in bed still sick. The sickness ravaged the course for about a week. People were only ill for about 2 days at the most but those who weren't affected initially got the illness later. Many people blamed it on food poisoning (due to the fact that the food at the restaurant we ate in the night the sickness started was a bit dodgy). But officially it was a virus. Whatever it was we'll never know.

Prague Part 1

On Friday night one of my classmates was leaving (he signed to the course for a shorter period) and so we all went to 'the club.' We were all going to go to some forest party (whatever that means) but apart from about 4 people we all missed the bus (I feel sorry for those 4 people, what a party it must have been). So the club (or two rooms with a mini dance floor and DJ, the DJ not being mini) was fun and even I got up to dance on quite a few occasions (it took about 3 beers). But a friend and I left (with the intention of going back) a little early to check on two of my roommates who were drunk and had left. We found them back in my room where one of them had thrown the offending Finnish vodka that had contributed to his drunken state out of the window (two floors up). The other roommate wasn't so drunk yet and so the three of us tried to get him to drink water and put him in bed. The water made him throw up and so after that he got back in bed and started asking for the nurse. My friend pretended to be the nurse but he wasn't falling for it, saying that nurses wear white and she was wearing black. He also kept saying good night to me for some reason.

Then he asked 'the nurse' for a banana. She handed him a banana and asked whether he wanted it peeled for him. He replied that he just wanted to hold it.

We decided to leave him to sleep and went for a walk with some other friends to a petrol station (I know, sounds exciting doesn't it). The petrol station was the only place selling food that was still open at this time and we were all hungry (and craving sandwiches which none of us had been able to have since the course began). So we went and bought food and then returned to the study centre to eat it. Most people then went to sleep. It was already 2 in the morning and two of my friends and I had to get up at 5 to go to Prague so we decided to not bother sleeping.

Before going to catch the bus I had a quick shower. Unfortunately I forgot that the hot water gets turned off at 10 pm. That shower was f**king freezing but it did wake me up.

Worse than Chanel no. 5!

Yep, on the journey between the large town of Hradec Kralova and the small town this course is situated in (Dobruska) I was unfortunate enough to encounter a smell worse than the infamous (well here anyway) Chanel no. 5. I'm not naming this smell in the hope that i'll never have to encounter and therefore mention it again.

Bebe!

Chocolate digestives are so last season. My new favourite biscuit is Bebe biscuits. I can't stop eating them (mainly the chocolate flavour but all the flavours i've tried so far are really good). I don't know what i'll do when I leave here.............actually I do, i'll go back to eating the chocolate digestives.

Things I hate here!

1. I hate how we are stuck in a small town with not very much to do.
2. I hate how in the Czech Republic the use of a public toilet, toilets being a basic human necessity, cost money. Even worse the use of toilet paper costs extra. And its not like the women who work in the toilets even do anything for their money. The toilets are usually disgusting.
3. I hate the random smell of shit that floats around this town i'm in and which you encounter every now and then (we've started to call it Chanel number 5, in fact I think someones using Chanel right now).
4. I hate how my roommates always boil eggs in the evening in my room. The room smells disgusting (almost as bad as Chanel).
5. I hate how, when i'm trying to sleep late in the evening or even in the early hours of the morning, one of my roommates always comes in after staying in his girlfriends room and turns all the lights on, starts showering and singing and generally being really noisy before he himself goes to bed. I know this also annoys my other roommate.
6. I hate how I wasn't able to get my exam results with my friends and celebrate with them.
7. Knedliki (bread dumplings). I wasn't that keen on them before I came here and, after having them for lunch and dinner almost every day, I detest them!
8. The czech keyboards. I hate how y and z are switched around and the fact that I cant use apostrophes, brackets, question marks and exclamation marks. But at least ive worked out how to do @, even if it isnt the most useful of things.
This blog entry is likely to grow in size as time goes on.

TVs and Radios

Since i've been here i've been on the tv and the radio.

People came first from a radio station and recorded part of our lesson. It wasn't expected and my teacher just asked us questions (which we had just learnt how to answer that morning). It was like quickfire questions and was really nerve wracking because I didn't want to be the one to make a mistake (even if my answers were said with awful pronounciation). I got asked where i'm from, what my name was, whether i'm a boy (just because that we something we had learnt how to say, not because my gender was in question) and what was my profession. The teacher then made us describe things. I had to describe a lemon (not the most exciting of things). The radio reporter then interviewed some people. I wasn't asked to be interviewed. She must not have been impressed with my czech (she interviewed people from the top 2 classes and i'm in the bottom class).

The tv reporter came 2 days later to film part of our lesson. We were learning how to order food at a restaurant and were roleplaying. So they recorded some members of my class pretending to order food and large beers (velke pivo) before arguing over who was going to pay. They then recorded my class doing the whole talking about ourself briefly one by one and describing objects. This time I got to describe a train. I decided my train was large, old and blue. The filming ended with our teacher pointing at objects in the room and us stating where they were.

Our class appeared on the channel 1 news for a whole minute (well clips from our class with a voice over so you can't hear our terrible pronounciation).

Back at school and I only just left!

I was just thinking how i'd only just finished school forever, only to return to lessons. Its my normal daily routine (apart from not being at home and having to walk to school). I get up at 7.00 to have a shower before going to have breakfast (which is only available between 7.00 and 8.00). Actually to say I get up at 7.00 is a lie because, although i'm awake at 7.00, I have to wait for my roommates to have a shower before I do (I prefer to go last so I don't feel so rushed). Having 3 roommates, all of whom want to use the one shower, means I get up at about 7.45. This also means I miss breakfast. But missing breakfast doesn't matter because the teacher doesn't seem to mind us eating in class so during the first break I go to the small supermarket next door and buy bread rolls (rohlik), water and chocolate bebe biscuits. The lessons start at 8.15 and finish at about 4.00 (with breaks and lunch in between).

The lessons on the course, although intense, are really fun. The teacher is really nice and funny which is reciprocated by my classmates, all of whom are really fun. I feel comfortable talking in my class, even when having to speak czech (my terrible pronounciation doesn't even matter because i'm not the worst at it in my class). We have learnt a lot in a short space of time (even though I still can't say the things I want to say) and my listening czech skills are improving. But the language is very hard and I have a long long way to go. We are getting o understand the way it works with all its different cases, genders and tenses and often within the cases and genders there are exceptions to the rules (for example words ending in e can be either feminine or neuter and so you just have to learn what it is and some words, which from the endings you'd expect to be masculine, are actually feminine or neuter and so again you just have to learn them).

I just wish they used more vowels in czech words. The lack of them doesn't help in the pronounciation. And unfortunately i'm still getting homework.

The greeting

Once everyone had arrived we all had to sit in this hall where we had dinner and then had to go through the welcoming process. I really needed the toilet. Unfortunately the greeting process took about two hours (not including the eating part). To make it worse the greeting involved the teachers reading out our names and us standing up, telling everyone a bit about ourself (preferably in Czech) and then walking to the front of the hall and shaking the headteacher's hand (and receiving some notes about the course). I was shitting myself. Not only did I have to do something I hate doing (talking in front of 80 people about myself) but it was expected to be in Czech. And to make matters worse most of the people before me did theres in excellent Czech. Apparently a lot of the people here can already speak Czech well and have come mainly to improve their writing ability. So my mini speech consisted of me saying good evening (dobrý večer) and then in english saying my name, where i'm from, that my mum is Czech and that I have just finished school and want to study medicine at univesity. I wanted to sit down as quickly as possible (I still really really needed the toilet). Instead the headmistress kept me standing up and told me in Czech something about how I wasn't actually meant to be on the course because when they were considering me there was someone else from england who was older than me also applying and they thought I therefore had a lot more time to learn the language. But because the person has the same surname as me (and their first name also begins with A) they accidentally sent me a letter of acceptance and therefore felt they had to let me on the course. Its nice to feel like you're wanted somewhere you're going to be spending 4 weeks. Laughing the headmistress then told me numerous times that i'm very very very lucky. I didn't feel lucky, if I was lucky I would have been allowed to sit down. The evening ended with a singalong hosted by the scarily cheery (and also scarily weird) Mr Yamaha (he has an obsession with his yamaha keyboard, its his family). Watching other people's eyes peering over at their neigbours to see their feelings about the singing was funny. Thankfully after the singing we were allowed to go to our rooms and I finally got to go to the toilet.

The Next Day

The next day was again boiling hot which made the journey to the university not too fun (3 hours in a coach with no air conditioning and windows that you couldn't open). Before the coach journey to the university I went on a walk around Prague to waste time. I want to write what i just wrote in the correct order of when it happened but this stupid computer won´t let me copy and paste so I can´t be arsed. It also won´t let me do paragraphs and commas take about a minute to load.....................Stupid machine. So anyway, when I reached the university place in Dobruška I met my roommates. There was one guy from Greece and one guy from Finland. They´re both really friendly. The three of us share one room and then there is one more room which none of us took because we didn´t know how many more people there would be. But there wasn´t really enough room in the cupboards for all three of us to put our clothes. So I used a cupboard in the second room. But just as I was putting my stuff in another guy walked in. For some reason I didn´t think he was our roommate (which he was) and thought he was just some random person and was wondering what he was doing in our room. So I rudely just stared at him. He returned my rude stare. My other two roommates greeted him and then I felt stupid. I promptly took my clothes out of the cupboard and back into my room. Initially I didn´t say a word to him and he didn´t say a word to me and he slightly scared me because he always looks really really pissed off, but thats just the way he looks.He´s actually quite a nice guy. I still don´t speak to him much though. While i´m writing this theres this guy behind me who hogs the computers all day and won´t let anyone else on computer number 1 because apparently it has all his files. So he just sits here playing games. Selfish bastard, if it wasn´t for him I would have been able to use the better computer.

The bowling pub

Some friends of mine here and I decided to go bowling. Being the Czech Republic the bowling alley was a pub which suited us all fine. But none of us knew the way. So we went to this pub where the owner said he would show us the way. We were all fine with this because, although it was dark and the town was empty, we couldn't make sense of the directions and we were in a large group. Also there were houses all around us so we felt relatively safe.

But on the way the man said he'd take us on a short cut. We were slightly weary of this but went along with it. The short cut took us along some sidestreet which was dark as there weren't many street lights. It then went into this foresty path. It was pitch black and one of my roommates got out his phone which had a light on it, allowing us to see a little. So we carried on walking slowly in a line as the path was very thin when suddenly the person in front of me started to back up slowly. He then ran and the people in front started to scream to run. I turned around and started to sprint away but tripped over because the path was so thin (and I couldn't see where I was going). But I quickly stood up and carried on sprinting while thinking to myself if this were a horror movie I would have been the idiot who falls over and the killer then kills.

We all stopped back in the town and were wondering what had happened. Apparently the man had suddenly stopped and reached into his pocket grinning, at which point they had started backing off slowly before running. It all sounded surreal and a bit stupid. Then we saw the man walking towards us. He was swearing at us in Czech (obviously) and was shouting at us saying that he just wanted to help us and we embarrased him. He walked off, still swearing at us. We all felt bad but at the same time thought he over reacted because we were only looking out for our safety and what we did was completely understandable.

We decided to apologise and so went back to his pub which was now closed. We knocked on the door anyway and he answered, asking what we wanted (not knowing it was us). We started to apologise and in answer got told to f**k off (well the equivalent in Czech) so we did.

We decided we didn't want to go bowling anymore and went to a pub down the road instead where you can play pool. It was a fun but very surreal evening; definately one I won't forget.

Before The Course

Things didnt start well. When I arrived in the Czech Republic it was boiling hot and I was wearing jeans and a jumper. This was quite an easy problem to solve and I did so (by taking off my jumper, not my jeans). Luckily I met Pavlina, the woman I was meant to meet, as soon as I entered the arrivals lounge. Her husband drove us to their flat where I was told they were going to take me out to dinner and it was suggested shorts would be a good idea due to the heat. So I put on my shorts, and in my hurrying, while tying my shorts, somehow managed to rip them and yank off my button. I went to the restaurant in jeans.

The food in the restaurant was good and by the time we had finished eating (and watched the beer drinking races with giant straws) it was late. I was tired and so decided to go to bed. However when I went to wash I was presented with a nasty surprise. Earlier that day my mum had given me some travel washing stuff for using in sinks but on opening it managed to brake the lid off. This meant the lid no longer screwed on. It was wrapped in a plastic bag with a rubber band tying it together and so should have been ok. But due to the rough handling of my bag by airport staff it had opened and leaked all over my bag containing my washing stuff. So I spent an hour or two cleaning the sticky but now very clean contents of my washing bag. Needless to say the next day I was feeling quite tired.