(4/3) Skiing, Easter, and More

     It has been a long time (over a month) since I last posted. At least I now have enough things to talk about. The weather has really changed since my last post, as it is now getting into the 60s during the day, and the sun seems to be out more. My weak Alaskan body will melt soon. On the plus side, it is nice to no longer need a coat during the day.

    Pretty much right after my last post I went on a skiing trip with my class in the Krkonoše mountains. Fortunately, there was still snow, so we were able to spend a lot of time cross country and downhill skiing. I now feel somewhat confident in my downhill skiing abilities, though I still prefer cross country skis. When we were not skiing there was plenty of time to just hang out with classmates, which I liked.

    After that we had a couple of "open" weekends (by open I just mean we didn't plan anything in advance), so we went on a few day/weekend trips. We went on a weekend bike trip to nearby Nové Město Na Moravě, and also on a hiking/backpacking trip near Jihlava.

    Alan and I went on an orienteering day trip with some of our teammates near Milovice, which is kind of in the northern part of the country. We had a couple of sprint races in a nearby amusement park. Though the races were short (less than 20 minutes each) it was really fun to race in such a unique environment. I don't have any photos of me racing due to most of the course being off limits to spectators, but they eventually opened the park for a few minutes after the races, so I was able to get a few pictures of what it looked like. Apart from races, we are starting to practice more often, which is nice, since I desperately need it.

    Finally, I will talk about this last weekend, which was extra long for us due to the Easter holidays (we had Thursday and Friday off, as well as Monday). Apart from having a longer weekend, the biggest difference is that the Czech holiday has a heavy emphasis on the Monday after Easter. On this day the boys are supposed to go around house to house and "beat" girls with special sticks made from willow branches in return for painted eggs. It's weird. I'm pretty sure this tradition will not take off in the United States. It was amusing to walk around the streets and see grown men walking around with sticks decorated with cute ribbons.

    That's pretty much all I have to say for now. Thanks for reading. I will probably post again in 2 or 3 weeks if I remember.


Playing cards with my classmates during the ski trip. The Kofola is really good.

My class skiing.

From the backpacking trip. It was surprisingly hot during the trip.

A picture from the park we were racing in. There were rope bridges and tunnels we had to use during the race.

Easter Sunday preparing the sticks.

Walking to the houses on the day after Easter.









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