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Well I was up before the wakeup call again today but I slept in compared to the last couple of days and woke up at 7AM. Took my shower and then I went ahead down for breakfast before Gilles. I went for a walk down to the river with Jennifer and it started to rain quite heavily but it was still warm.
We left the hotel at 10 and arrived at the castle within 20 minutes or so. It was quite the walk up the steep lane to get to the castle - should have been my first clue! We took a great shot of the boys going up the castle steps and also got a great group shot.
They split us into two groups to take tours and I went with the boys and coaches so I could get pictures. Lots of steep stairs and bad knees is not a good combo...duh! It was interesting we got to a part of the castle where we had to put these big slippers on over our shoes to go thru parts of the castle...really fun trying to keep them on our feet. The tour started to get long because the tour guide and Czech people and us english people so she separated us and one of the coaches read the info to us from room to room but then we ended up standing around a lot waiting for her to come back and tell us which room to move to. It boys were getting bored really quickly.
We also got told that we couldn't take pictures inside the castle - huh? Even our tour guy was stunned and we couldn't figure out why that would be. We understood no flash photos because of the paintings but no photos at all made no sense to us. So every time she was in another room with her Czech people, our tour guy and myself snuck taking pictures. We were like kids stealing cookies. I missed going to the tower though because I knew my knees just wouldn't take it. Going down the stairs wasn't a picnic either - I must admit I had a little cry because my knees were just burning but I survived and I made it to the bus and I got lots of super pics so to me it was still a great trip!
It was raining quite hard when the tour ended so we decided it wasn't the best conditions to see the botanical garden.
We went back to the hotel to rest (ha!) and eat. I went to our room to unload the pics from the camera and then met Matt and Gilles at a pizzeria down the street. The food was really good. Gilles got a pizza with ham and bacon, Matt got spaghetti and I got fusilli with chicken, veggies and a sauce - yum and I got more veggies!
Gilles and Matt stayed at the hotel and I hopped on the bus to go for a wine tasting trip. It was this great family who had a wine cellar under their house and they make about 600 litres of wine a season (red and white). The guy did not speak a word of english so he spoke to Bobbina who spoke to Mark in another language who then translated it for us. The guy was so happy to have us there and to show us his wine. He started us off with some clear fire water which is very much like Danish schnapps - it has a nice punch. I had 2 shots. Then he brought us to the cellar and we tasted about 8 white wines and he had bread and cheese for us to clean our palates between tastes. We went to another room for more bread and meat and head cheese...well the bread was good - beautiful fresh rye bread! Then we went back to the wine cellar to taste the red wines. We were getting pretty silly and giggly by this time...so we were laughing so much. He uses these great glass containers to suck the wine out of the kegs or vats to serve us and he was letting people try to suck the wine - holy cow did we laugh. I got a lot of great pictures. The house had a beautiful garden. It always amazes me how effectively europeans use their small spaces. We could so learn a lot from them.
He also had an extremely friendly dog and cat and of course I doted lots of attention on them and they both were fighting (not literally) for my attention....aww shucks! His wife also grows hemp (everyone thought it was marijuana) and she makes these pastes for pain management. She rubbed some on Noel's back since he is still walking crooked after his back went out on Monday.
We then hopped on the bus to go get everyone who didn't come for the tasting from the hotel to bring them to the arena for the game.
The local team backed out of playing us at the last minute because they didn't want to lose so they had to go to a town about 45 minutes away and they hand picked people to play us. They were 18-19 year olds and they were huge!!! We lost the game and there were a couple of fights - my baby was involved and the guy ripped off his helmet and it took his guage out. He bled and it hurt. A player from the other team head hunted for one of our best guys and hit him from behind into the boards and he was out for the rest of the game with a shoulder injury. So all our guys on the ice (Matt included) got into it. Not happy!!
But at the end of it all they got together on the ice for a group photo and pretty much behaved like boys and shook hands and got over it!
We got back to the hotel just before midnight. The days are so long and full of activities it is very tiring but wow are we having a good time!
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