Koprivince

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Today we headed off to Koprivince where Radek’s father and sister live. We went to Andrea’s (“teta” and “stretta”) house and met two of her three boys. She’s pregnant with a girl (and very excited) and is due about a month before Jill. Andrea knows English well. She studied it in school and also takes classes now because she works for a governmental agency. (Except for the next three years when she will be off work enjoying Czech’s three-year maternity leave-that’s right!) Another thing about having babies in Czech, you have to pick the baby's name from a certain list of Czech names, otherwise you have to pay for and get special permission. Every town has a record of these names in their town offices. I think they do it to avoid odd-ball, embarrassing names like; “Cocoa” and “Apple” and also because every day of the year is someone’s “name day” and it’s like another “birthday” celebration for everyone with that name.

We went with Andrea and her husband (who is also doing well with his English and also works at the same governmental building) and their youngest son to the town festival. I believe the festival was for “St. Bartholomew’s Day” (whatever that is). They had a carnival-type thing set up and I rode the bumper cars and kiddie rollercoaster with Ollie. Kennedy got to take two turns on the kiddie carousel.

After the festival we stopped by Radek’s father’s house (“jetta”). We saw two horses, some white turkeys, large bunny rabbits, chickens and roosters, sheep, and kittens. “Jetta” also took the kids for a ride around the yard on his lawnmower.

We didn’t get back until the kids' bedtime and they were both asleep in the car when we arrived. Jill and I watched one episode of our series and now off to bed we go. It was a fun day.