Weekend at Ladislav's

I've just returned from a weekend trip to the lovely town of Vodnany (VOHD-nyan-ee) with 30 of my favorite students and my great friend, Boris. You may remember a few of them from such events as: the December ski trip, the April ples, or the June pool party.

The weekend was spent at Penzion Sport, a family-run hostel-ish place with a volleyball court and big open field. Ladislav, the owner, would ask us each morning what we all wanted for dinner, and then would roam around the hostel for the rest of the day locking and unlocking doors inconveniently, and emptying beer mugs with his buddies on the porch. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, the local fire department was using our sport field for firehose relay races. We laughed a lot.

Actually, the week went off without a hitch. The students, who I've grown quite close to over the last year were so great. We played cards like they were going out of style, played softball with a soccer ball and bat for hours on end, learned the ins and outs of Ultimate Frisbee, and sang Beatles songs late into the evening.

On Sunday morning, we ventured to Hluboka Castle... certainly one of the most beautiful castles I've seen thus far.

It was a great weekend, friends. I hope yours was as well. Talk to you soon.

Castle Hluboka.

In the castle park with Marie, Jakub, Jana, Marie, Lucka, Lucka, Eva, and Boris.

Me and Boris the Physics teacher in the castle gardens.

Runner 503

It was a huge weekend.

On top of meetings, and traveling, and eating, and exploring in Prague with my fellow teachers, I made a bold move. I decided to run a race. Along with 1300 other men, I ran the Mattoni International Grand Prix 10k race through Prague.

Never in my life have I been a runner. For sure, I've run... but I've never been "a runner."

I signed up for the race one week ago, having begun training for the event only one day earlier. My great friend, Joel... also a non-"runner," planned to run the race as well. Neither of us had any grand aspirations of placing top 10, or even top 500 for that matter. Our plan was to finish. And to do so in under an hour.

Our final time was 59:02. Out of 1300 men, I took 731st place. I feel pretty good about it.

Who knows, maybe ten months from now there will be a post about the Prague marathon? Cuz apparently I'm a runner now.

Five us ran on Sunday. The ladies (Christy, Sam, and Marianne) ran the Women's 5k. Joel and I ran the 10k. Don't worry, Joel and I got medals too... this was just taken before our race.

Joel and I, just prior to crossing the finish line.

The first weekend back in Prague. This is a group of teachers in front of the drip wall in Wallenstein Palace gardens in Prague. Pictured from left are: Me, Stephen, Jodi, Zach, Ben, Courtney, Chrissy, and Stephanie.