May 19th - May 25

We spent a long weekend in Berlin, Germany over Max's half term break. We really loved Berlin, it's an exciting place to be. To make the most of our time, we took a half day walking tour around the city. It was great and we learned so much from our guide.
Here we are at the Brandenberg Gate. Also, since we live in a country that was part of the Eastern block, we were again amazed at how little is left of that dividing line.
Here is a little piece of the Berlin Wall. (This little piece isn't easy to find and has to be protected).
After all that sightseeing, Katrina certainly had worked up an appetite! Berlin is also home to some great ancient history museums with Greek, Roman, and Babylonian art and architecture on display. We also got to experience the international side of Berlin at the Fair of Cultures which happened to be taking place the weekend we were there.
The kids were real troopers, and so a trip to Legoland was in order. We got to see all the main sites again, scaled down to Lego size. Here they are at the Reichstag parliament building!
We were also joined by Uncle Tim who met us in Berlin. We all traveled back to Prague together where he will spend a week with us.

May 10th-17th

The Physics Education Department has a yearly retreat over a long weekend for faculty, graduate students, and their families, and this year it was in the Krkonose Mountains in the northern part
of the country on the border with Poland. In English the name means "The Giant Mountains" and they are the tallest in the Czech Republic at about 5,000 ft elevation. We stayed in a lodge owned by the university and really enjoyed the natural beauty, the fellowship, and the food. While the weather wasn't exactly cooperative (it rained a fair amount), we didn't let that stop us from hiking. Here you can see the pretty scenery when the sun broke through.



One aspect we really enjoyed was hiking to various lodges serving hot chocolate, palacinky (thin pancakes filled with jam and topped with whipped cream) and apple strudel. The food at our lodge was also delicious. We haven't talked much about traditional Czech food but this was very typical. For breakfast we had hearty bread and rolls, ham, cheese, yogurt, and granola. Lunch and dinner always began with a soup. Our meals included mushroom and pork stroganoff, pork loin with mashed potatoes, breaded pork cutlet with boiled potatoes, and the classic Czech dish known as svickova which consists of pork roast with mustard cream sauce and fluffy boiled dumplings called knedliky. We definitely needed to hike after all that! In addition to outdoor activities the kids learned to play some Czech card games and do beading work with their new friends.
The bus ride also gave us a chance to enjoy the Czech countryside.

Now is crunch time for Charyssa and her students. Cambridge exams, TOEIC certificates, and end of term competency exams all loom in the near future for her students, so she is busy creating reviews for them. Rod finishes his teaching duties at the end of the month and continues to edit manuscripts and collaborate with his colleagues on remaining projects. We are looking forward to seeing Uncle Tim and friends Tim and Karin in the coming weeks.

April 26th-May 9th

What do witches have to do with springtime? Everything if you are in the Czech Republic. The night of April 30th is known as Witches Night. Traced back to the Celtic tribes who once lived in Bohemia, it is the inverse of Halloween and marks the end of winter.

Czechs celebrate with a bonfire topped by a figure of a witch who represents the winter. (It's also a good way to burn up all the brush that has accumulated in your garden over the winter!) Our neighorhood had a huge party in the park with every kind of witch making activity imaginable for kids, a costume contest, food, music, and a big bonfire. It was great fun.

We have been having some nice spring weather with occasional rainy days. Here are the kids having fun at a park near Charles Bridge.


Rod was out of town with members of his department at a teacher training workshop on Saturday and took these images of the picturesque Czech countryside.