Raceday

Our cabin is situated a few kilometers from the Czech town of Horsovsky Tyn, in a small isolated neighborhood known as Horni Valdorf. In this tiny village many people know the Hyrman family
(Lukas') quite well. Today one of our neighbors participated in an amateur Rally race in another nearby town and we came out to show our support, as Mike and Lukas are both big Rally fans.

Rally racing is a cheifly European sport. It differs from other types of car racing in that the track is typically a winding, public country road that is closed off on the day of the event. Spectators can only see each car once each round because there is no way to spectate the whole track, so they gather at hairpin turns and other locations that let them see exciting drifts or crashes. It was good fun, and aside from waiting to see our neighbor fly by, in the last heat we got to see someone knock over a yield sign.

Mike's Australian Shepherd puppy that has stayed with us the last four or five days still has no name. He reminds me of parker.

Busses are quite cheap here so we may head to Croatia or another place for a few days. Valdorf is a great home base for exploring Europe, so there is a lot of potential in the way of places to go.

-Fin

Trabant

Today, Mike and Lukas went and bought a Trabant that we had checked out yesterday. What is a Trabant you might ask? It's a car that was designed and mass-produced during the Soviet reign over Eastern Europe; it's a Communist car.

It was 3500 Czech crowns, equivalent to $175.00 Canadian. Built in 1982, it is still in mint condition. It runs on a lawnmower engine. Top speed: 95kmph. We'll be touring around Europe in it. I'm excited.

The goings-on so far...

The first three days have been a great success. We landed safely in Sunny Munchen [Munich], where Lukas s brother Mike promptly picked us up. We ve been staying in a tiny room of Mike s friend Jan s. Jan shares the apartment with another German man named Andreas. They re both terrific people. In fact, everyone I ve met on this trip so far has been friendly.

We first got to the apartment in the late afternoon, where we cleaned up our room and went out to a local greek restaurant. Later that night we headed to a party, where I found everyone in Munich speaks English quite well. Most of the people were about ten years my senior, which made for interesting conversation. I slept only a few hours that night.

Day two was the start of Oktoberfest, a festival dedicated almost solely to drinking beer. We poked around the festival, an area with a respectably sized amusement park and about 15 enormous tents that serve as beergardens for about six thousand people each. Every single one was full, so we went back to the apartment for a while and explored the city until evening.

We made it into one of the tents at about 8:30 and stayed until it closed at 11. I slept well that night.

Today we re heading to the cabin in Valdorf. We ll be staying there for at least a month.

I m alive and happy, the trip so far has been a fantastic success. I cant post pictures right now unfortunately; I ll try when we get to the Czech Republic.

The premiere!

This blog will serve to keep people up to date on my goings-on overseas, as well as to document the trip for myself.

It's T-minus 30 hours or so until I leave. We'll be flying direct to Munich, and will be staying...I'm not sure where. Lukas isn't very forthcoming with the information.

He, along with my other close friend Adam, will be my accomplices at large.

Time to get packing!