Hello everyone! It’s time for the promised small blog post about René and my five-day stay in Czechia towards the end of June. Given that it’s now September and I leave Europe in just 3 weeks, I think it’s safe to say that I’ll never be up to date on this blog. But I’ll publish everything I can!

Friday 28 June: Mostly chores

We arrived in Frýdek-Místek mid-morning (for details on the trip to Czechia, please see my previous post), and spent the rest of the morning doing chores around town. That afternoon we caught up with René’s mum and for dinner we joined René’s grandparents, with whom we’d be staying.

Saturday 29 June: Teta Pavla’s birthday party

The next day was the event we’d come to Czechia for – René’s aunt (teta) Pavla was turning 50 and the whole family was getting together for a big celebration at the Vyšní Lhoty pub, called the Restaurace Maryčka, starting at around midday. Our dear cousin Stan was coming all the way from Prague as a surprise for Babička, so at 10:30 or so we made an excuse and drove into Frýdek-Místek to pick him up. We met him near the train station and he gave me a hug that almost lifted me off my feet before turning to give one to René, which prompted a couple of jokes about who the favourite family members were!

We popped into a local florist so Stan could buy a bunch of flowers for Teta Pavla – this is the standard birthday gift in Czechia, as I would find out in an hour or so! Then, running a bit late, we rushed back home, parked the van, and power-walked to the Maryčka, arriving at 12 o’clock precisely. The family had rented out the large function hall for the event; there was a huge T-shaped table set up in the middle and a number of guests had already arrived. Gratifyingly, Babička was suitably surprised and happy to see Stan! René’s family is quite large (or maybe it’s just by my standards – my family is so small) and I lost track as I was introduced to family member after family member, only a couple of whom spoke any English. But of course in typical Czech style they were all very warm despite the language barrier and René translated a number of compliments for me. It was such a pleasure when Jiří, Marika and Sebi arrived – lovely to have familiar faces and the chance to speak English. One thing I found very interesting was that every female family member was being introduced as “teta” (aunt) to 4-year-old Sebi, and every male as “strejda” (uncle). It’s a Czech quirk that every adult in a child’s life is either an uncle or an aunty, regardless of their actual familial relationship. It can get quite confusing for the children, as I would see!

When it seemed like just about everyone had arrived the chatter died down, and the guests started to form a line leading to Pavla, everyone carrying bunches of flowers. It was quite an unusual scene to me, like something that would happen when you meet the Queen or something – each family member would approach Pavla, give her the flowers and a hug or kiss (maybe not like meeting the Queen then!), which she would pass to her husband who would add them to a quickly-accumulating pile on a nearby table, and that family member would move to make way for the next one. René and I completed this ritual without incident. The comedy came when Jiří gave the flowers they had brought for Pavla to little Sebi, and told him to go ahead and give these to Teta. Of course poor Sebi, who had just been introduced to about 20 Teta’s, looked around in confusion, then spotted me, decided I was definitely a Teta, and came to offer me the flowers! He was quickly redirected by his dad but it was still a very cute thing to happen.

After that we were all seated at the enormous table, which was already laden with nibbles and alcohol, and the first courses (out of three) started to arrive. As I’ve mentioned many times, Czech cuisine is very meat-heavy and it hadn’t occurred to me that we would have a sit-down lunch at this party, so I was a little concerned about what might be served. I needn’t have worried – Teta Pavla had organised vegetarian courses for René and I and they were absolutely delicious.

After the meal, at which point I thought I might not need to eat again for several days, the music came on and everyone started mingling. That was pretty much how the afternoon continued – plenty of conversation and plenty of drinking (this is Czechia after all!). I chatted away to the few family members who spoke English and spent a bit of time playing with Sebi. Mid-afternoon we had some unexpected guests arrived – René’s cousin Radím, his wife Jana, and their two young children Filip and Adela. They’d just arrived back in Czech after an international holiday and we weren’t expecting to see them on account of the jetlag, but they made the effort and everyone was happy they did. Jana and Adela were even wearing adorable matching outfits! At around 5pm everyone was corralled into place by the stage and a family photo was taken.

I haven’t been part of a family photo like that in years, probably not since our last Harrap Family Christmas Party, which I think was in 2010. Seeing the picture made me so nostalgic, and I pulled up a photo on my phone to show René – one of our family photos from the early 2000’s, when I was about 5. He loved it so much that, after I’d explained who each family member was, he showed it to a number of his family members and explained my whole family to them, as well.

As the evening wore on the wine gave way to spirits and people started to dance. I had great fun being taught to dance the polka by René, although given how much we’d each had to drink it was really less like dancing and more like holding each other and spinning/running around the room. Our technique was technically correct, but a bit fast! We were some of the last to leave, at around 10pm – Stan, René and I pretty much stumbled back to Babička’s and fell asleep immediately. All in all, an excellent party!

Sunday 30th June – Flying with Stan

The next morning René and I rose late and made ourselves garlic soup for breakfast, a typical Czech hangover cure. The morning was pretty much lost but after some of Babička’s delicious Hungarian goulash and a slice of frgal for lunch we were all feeling much better! And as the weather was good and Stan wouldn’t be in town for long, we set off to hike and fly Prašiva – Stan’s first ever time paragliding! The first flight was good for me, I managed to thermal up above the ridgeline and spent 25 minutes in the air, but unfortunately René and Stan weren’t so lucky with finding the rising air and 5 minutes after launch they were on the ground. I spiralled down to join them and was pleased to hear Stan raving about the flight, despite its brevity! The wind was strong on the landing so René and I spent some time ground-handling – it was even strong enough that when René gave me a push I lifted several metres off the ground, which is always great fun!

When we got bored of that we went up for another flight – the conditions had changed a bit and the launch was extremely challenging. René and Stan took off so low and with such poor wind that René’s legs went through the upper branches of the pine trees below launch – if they’d been a metre lower it would have been a very bad time for both of them! My flight was short and sweet with a challenging launch and landing – definitely good practice. After packing up our gear we headed to the Restaurace Kohutka, the local brewery next to the landing field that René and I like. We’d brought the shisha with us in the van and enjoyed ourselves at an outside table in the sun with a few of Kohutka’s craft beers. A number of pilots from El Speedo turned up at around the same time and they joined us for an hour or so as well. Definitely a pleasant way to spend a summer evening!

Monday 1 July

Stan stayed in Vzšní Lhoty the next day too, but I can’t recall what we got up to, except that in the evening René went to Frýdek-Místek to meet his friend Lenka and Stan and I stayed at Babička’s drinking beer, smoking shisha, and sending René photos of us telling him how much he was missing out!

Tuesday 2 July

After lunch on Tuesday René, Stan and I hit the road. We dropped Stan at the Brno train station so he could catch a train to Prague, then drove as far as we could until the light faded. We found a nice rest area in Austria to park in overnight and continued the next morning, arriving in Bolsterlang shortly after lunchtime. And that was the end of that particular Czech adventure!

Thanks for baring with me through the long pauses between posts. The next one will be about our experiences at the Colours of Ostrava music festival in mid-July – there’s plenty to write about and I promise I’ll try to have it uploaded in less time than this post has taken!