Happy New Years!

New Years has come and gone a while ago so I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about my New Years!

My host family and I left in the evening on Wednesday the 27th to take a 1.5 hour drive to a town called Výprachtice, which is where my host dad has his cabin! It was dark when we arrived and both my host siblings were asleep. We started unloading everyone's things and made our way into the house. It was already warm because of a system where my host dad can text the heater to turn on and off! We all made our way to bed shortly after unpacking.

The next day we woke up early to make our way to a ski hill only 10 minutes away called Červená Voda (Red Water). At this time of the year, there still wasn't really any snow anywhere around and this specific day it was raining! Anyways, we got to the ski hill, I rented skis and started skiing! This ski hill has 1 chairlift on the main side, and a T-Bar and another chair lift on the second side where the resort cabins are. We skied until about 12:00, and then made our way to the lunch lodge. I was really amazed with the type and quality of food they have there! I expected burgers and fries and the same food we have at Lake Louise or Sunshine Village! But no! They serve guláš, svíčkova, and knodl; great Czech food as well as some dessert including apple strudel, and medovník (Honey cake). After lunch, we headed back home to the lovely cabin. This cabin didn't have internet or a cell signal; which I think was a good thing and something that just gives you a break from the world for a bit. It gave me time to get to know my host family better.

The next day we skied again, but this time heading the back side of the resort! Like the first day, it was hard-ish to see because of fog and the fact that it was snowing but it was a fun day. I took turns skiing with each of my host siblings; Elenka (10), and Gabriel (7), and I found that both are amazing skiers (much better than I would have been at those ages). It was a lot of fun, though I must say that my host brother at the time liked to swerve, jump and try to steer me into posts while riding on the T-Bar 🤣... We both fell once and the lift operator got mad at us 🤣...

The Saturday of that weekend, my host dad; Marek, realized early that morning that he had something important to do in Brno, so he asked if I was ok with watching the kids for a day, and of course I was so he left and I watched the kids. In the morning, we were all doing our own thing, my host sister asked me to give her a language lesson not in English, but in Russian! So that was fun, and she learned basic vocabulary. Later on, I decided to try and get them outside (which was hard especially with my host brother apparently "losing his pants" 🤣). Eventually I got them outside and we started sledding on hill right next to the cabin, which soon turned into a snowball fight. The snow was hard to get off the ground as it had snowed a day before and already almost turned to icy snow! We then went for an hour-long walk (which took much convincing of my host sister and involved bribery with a trip to the store which was a 30 minute walk away from the cabin). When we got to the store, we found it closed, so we walked back. 10 minutes after we returned, my host dad had return and picked up Pavla; his girlfriend (who is so nice), from the train station. We talked, made dinner/chatted and it was honestly a really cool day.

New Years day was the same as the first two ski days. We skied in the day with Pavla, and in the evening we prepared the New Years dinner/snacks. In a traditional Czech New Years, people make many open-faced sandwiches (called chlebičky). We ate and talked and every 10 minutes from 8:00 PM, people set off fireworks! We set off some at 9, and then the rest at midnight!

I have to say this was a great way to spend New Years and I was very happy with my host dad had planned! Thanks for reading, more to come soon!

FB: Brad Charko
email: bradcharko@seznam.cz





















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