Last weekend I spent my long weekend (taking Friday off work) in the Czech Republic with my girl friends. It was Marketa's birthday and she suggested going home with her to visit Prague and then spending some time near her hometown, at her dad's summer house. Sounds good already isn't it?
If you recall the last time I flew to Prague last year to attend her wedding, K and I missed our flight and it was such a stressful way to get me to attend her wedding reception the next day. The joke was on me this time, with them asking me not to miss the flight this time round!
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Our different passports - only the Singaporean passport has some originality in the choice of colours I say ;)
Clockwise from top: Singapore, UK, Ecuador, Czech Republic |
Of course I had to make sure I didn't miss my flight so I left work promptly at 5pm and made my long journey to Heathrow airport. Met the girls after the security checkpoint and off we went! We arrived Prague late at night and took a cab to the hotel where we would stay a night and tour Prague the next day. Again, it felt so nice to just follow and not think about where to go, etc. Especially they speak their native language. All 3 of us just followed Marketa obediently hehe.
When we woke up it was glorious sunshine. As Marketa booked 3 rooms thinking Kine could join us, we ended up with 3 rooms and 4 girls. So I got one room to myself and so did Sarah. It felt a bit weird not to share the room with someone else and it took me a while to fall asleep. I loved my room though, the colour scheme.
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| My teal coloured hotel room |
We toured Prague that day in style, hopping onto this big red shiny old school convertible. It was such a good choice because the sun was scorching and we couldn't possibly walk and see that much if we didn't take this car ride. I make us sound like divas, but Prague is a big city with so much to see, and I just can say we chose the most economical way at that point in time :) Marketa also brought us to this gardens where we walked up to have a good view of Prague. Such a beautiful day, really.
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| View of Prague behind us |
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| We love this red car! |
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| A selfie outside Prague Castle |
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| Forgot the name of this wide street but this was where the protests happened many years ago, protesting against communism in this country |
For the record here in case you didn't already know, Marketa's great, great grandfather was a famous national Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak. So we always joke saying she is from a royal family in Czech Republic. Well, not really a joke because right in front of their National Theatre is a statue of her great great grandfather!
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| With great great grandfather |
Marketa bought bus tickets for us to get to Budvar, the town where she was born. It was a 2.5h bus ride. There we would meet her dad (also called Antonin, but Antonin Dvorak IV) and we would proceed to travel to his summer house. You might not be familiar with this place Budvar but if I say Budweiser beer, yep, this beer is from the town of Budvar. We met her dad and there he passed her the car keys and bought 2 crates full of food for us for the next 2 days. I find it very endearing to see a parent's love for their children, no matter how old they are. To have him come pick us up, and getting food for us… very lovely :)
Marketa then was tasked to drive another 30min to this small little village called Arnostov with only 80 people. This is a village in the mountains at 1,000m above sea level and to get directions, she had the names of a few key places to pass through, and then we were in winding mountain roads with no clue where to go. She called her dad (thank God there was connection!) and he just said "turn left after you see the second group of cows." lol
Her dad's summer house is next to the village pub and apparently he had left a message to the pub owner saying us girls would be arriving tonight. haha it was really funny. We went in and were met with a small group of people, two of which were old hippies strumming their guitars and singing Czech songs. Naturally the group of people all turned to look at us - firstly a group of 4 young ladies walking in, and yes one of whom is Asian looking. Only Marketa could converse with them in Czech and she soon became our interpreter. A younger chap called Milan told us he never imagined using English in this village, and I was probably the first Singaporean to visit this town and Gabby the first Ecuadoran. We all soon hummed along to the songs and had a drink each. The pub owner's wife kindly made some traditional sausages for us knowing we have yet to have dinner. This pub experience was not expected because we were the centre of attention of everyone and they were truly amused to see us that night. It was such a local experience which we all enjoyed. These Czech villagers were so friendly!
As it was late in the mountains, we had to run from the pub back to her dad's house and in the dark too. We soon ran back to get some help from Milan to unload our luggages and our 2 crates of food! We went in and were in awe of the house. When Marketa said to us "choose your rooms!" no she wasn't kidding. I soon thought we would probably wake up to a surprise in the morning when we can see the house and its surroundings properly.
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