We got to the terminal in time and after some complications with them having Cheetah on the plane, things went smoothly. The 5 hour lay over in Amsterdam gave me plenty of time to potty Cheetah and get us back on track. The long leg home was pretty smooth except that We were next to a family with two small kids ( 1 or 2 and 2 or 3). I am not a big fan of small sticky kids, but they were ok I suppose because they didn’t scream the whole time, and the youngest (a boy) slept for the first 4 hours of the flight. They did sneeze and cough some, so I hope they weren’t too contagious!
Landed in Dulles about 4:30 and went through customs with out any problems. Cheetah saw an intact male Lab working in customs and he almost got distracted from his job. We got home about 8:30pm. All in all, I would say that the trip home was better than some other people reported, we were only delayed about 20 min leaving Prague and had plenty of time to make it up before we left for home. It was a cool experience and I would definitely do it again – I would prefer it without the puking and the mud though…if at all possible.
I have lots of things to train and courses to practice. That which does not kill us, makes us better handlers right? Hope you enjoyed my take on this adventure. Watch the videos – they will give you a good since of the challenging courses we had.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Monday - Leaving Liberec…back to Prague!
Cheetah helping me finish my coffee...pre scolding.
We checked out of the hotel and went to breakfast. I had Cheetah with me and she wanted my coffee cup when I was finished as she always does. I let her lick it and the same waitress that ignored us the entire morning obviously caught my infraction from inside the restaurant because she comes out looks at the cup and points at it and then Cheetah –then says “No” and shakes her head. I think I was just scolded in Czech!
We head back to Prague with really knowing if we know how to get back but we figured there should be more signs to then Liberec. We get on the right track after a little detour, then things go well. We are trying to decide whether or not to stay at the hotel we have booked ( back in middle of Prague) or if we should get a room at the airport and turn our car in a day earlier. We find the signs to the airport to be pretty clear – we like pictures!! So we head into the airport, test drive the rental car turn in spot then go to the Marriot across from the terminal and loiter while we figure out what to do next. We called the hotel.com people and they call the other hotel (Desnia) which of course says that they will not refund our money. It is $59, our car was $42/day so saving that almost paid for it. The Marriot quoted 174, that wasn’t going to happen, but the Holiday Inn down the road ( still within the airport) was only $109/night so we decided to do that and take the bus into Prague to finish our sight seeing. We left Cheetah in the room to rest since she was quite unimpressed with public transportation system the first time.
This is where we ate lunch before going to the Castle
In Prague, we ate lunch at this little outdoor place then got to see Prague Castle, after climbing many, many steps. We saw this really cool Cathedral and a tranquil garden. We then headed toward the Sqaure to get a horse carriage tour of the city. I was very neat and took us to the part of town that we had not even begun to explore. It did show us the closest way to get back to the metro station to get home after we picked up a couple of souvenirs. We made back to the hotel with out a problem and went to bed so we could get up at 4:00am.
here is the driver of the carriage ride - using her cell phone!
Toni on the steps on the way up to Prague Castle...this is just part of them!
A view from the top of the over look of Prague Castle.
This is a little street we went down on the way to the Castle
Sun - Feeling better now
Feeling much better now – it is amazing the difference a day makes. The sun is even coming out. But now it is like 20 degrees cooler than when we got here. I had on 4 layers on top most of the day.
The first run was at 7:45 – why couldn’t we have had a later start?? Some people didn’t need to walk their first course until 11:30. Pre coffee, I managed to remember the course and we had a great run – except for the DW contact ( but we still got a score) She wanted to go to the tunnel ahead ( I know what we will be working!!) I had planned a couple of fronts after the teeter, but I was afraid to get to far ahead, so I didn’t and had to handle from the rear with directionals. Luckily it worked really nicely.
Nice jumpers round until the push… if I could have gotten 1 more stride ahead then I could have changed her mind about it being the front of the jump – silly girl, we are in Europe – it’s the backside of the jump. Then we got a little out of sink and she took the far end of the tunnel – that was weird, but I think it was because I rushed the rear cross that I should have gotten a front in for.
The final round for large dogs was the hardest course I think I’d ever seen – It had some of the weirdest combinations of obstacles – you will just have to look at the course map. Very few people got around it clean. I can’t wait to set it up and try it out for myself.
We then ran around and tried to trade our shirts, jackets with other countries. I ended up with a Great Britain shirt, a Swiss shirt and a Italian Jacket. We had a closing ceremony similar to the opening, were we finished our shirt trading and attempted to listen to the announcements of the winners.
Channon Fosty and Icon got a 1st in jumpers
I know that our 4 large dog teams were 14th, 15th ,42nd and 67th out of 86 teams.
Our small/med teams were 53rd, 59th 69th and 79th out of 88 teams
USA had 7 dogs in the finals
4 large and 1 small & 2medium
Wings -17th out of 74
Icon- 25th out of 74
Blink , Skylar, Miley, Jimmy Dean, Reebok were also made it to the finals, but NQ’d.
The first run was at 7:45 – why couldn’t we have had a later start?? Some people didn’t need to walk their first course until 11:30. Pre coffee, I managed to remember the course and we had a great run – except for the DW contact ( but we still got a score) She wanted to go to the tunnel ahead ( I know what we will be working!!) I had planned a couple of fronts after the teeter, but I was afraid to get to far ahead, so I didn’t and had to handle from the rear with directionals. Luckily it worked really nicely.
Nice jumpers round until the push… if I could have gotten 1 more stride ahead then I could have changed her mind about it being the front of the jump – silly girl, we are in Europe – it’s the backside of the jump. Then we got a little out of sink and she took the far end of the tunnel – that was weird, but I think it was because I rushed the rear cross that I should have gotten a front in for.
The final round for large dogs was the hardest course I think I’d ever seen – It had some of the weirdest combinations of obstacles – you will just have to look at the course map. Very few people got around it clean. I can’t wait to set it up and try it out for myself.
We then ran around and tried to trade our shirts, jackets with other countries. I ended up with a Great Britain shirt, a Swiss shirt and a Italian Jacket. We had a closing ceremony similar to the opening, were we finished our shirt trading and attempted to listen to the announcements of the winners.
Channon Fosty and Icon got a 1st in jumpers
I know that our 4 large dog teams were 14th, 15th ,42nd and 67th out of 86 teams.
Our small/med teams were 53rd, 59th 69th and 79th out of 88 teams
USA had 7 dogs in the finals
4 large and 1 small & 2medium
Wings -17th out of 74
Icon- 25th out of 74
Blink , Skylar, Miley, Jimmy Dean, Reebok were also made it to the finals, but NQ’d.
Sat - A tale of two seasons… It was the worst of times,….yeah… that’s all I got!
Pictures of the stadium taken from our room - we were very close to the rings.
Several things prompted me to make this title …rain – mud – and puking oh my…oh wait lets not forget NQing! There…that should cover it!
I woke up not feeling particularly well, nothing major, just a little queasy. I thought I would feel better after I got up and moving around.
Additionally, overnight it rained and rained and rained. The wind was blowing like crazy and we went from shorts to wishing we had several more layers to add. It reminded me of oh say the Lebanon, PA spring trial, or an outdoor Berryville trail with the mud or of the famous shoe sucking Rectortown mudfest. The once pristine green grass of the competition field would soon be turned into a swamp of 6 in deep black goop, at least on the large dog courses.
The night before we had a meeting to explain all of the little ins and outs of the regulations and that they were only going to be allowing the next 5 dogs on the field for each ring. That would be a total of 24 dogs out there at any one time…that didn’t really last very long.
We don’t get course maps so you have to walk around the ring trying to figure out where the course goes. There was this really wicked weavepole entry that was only a couple of feet from a jump that they don’t take. I didn’t feel very well to begin with, and that wasn’t helping. Elicia said not to worry, we were all in the same boat. I appreciated her attempt to make me feel better, but I wasn’t convinced.
When I went out for my turn, I was a little rushed because I had to potty her and get us down the stadium field through the one gate. I got there in time, but I thought I would hear a whistle to go in, but this judge only did this Vana White impression, causing me to ask him go now? Ok to go now?? Which made Cheetah do guess what …..go NOW! I was not in position, I had not lead out, and SHIT she was going NOW!! So I spend the entire run contemplating whether I should have stopped her, not let her run…would this now become a habit?? Crap this course is hard, I should get my head together.
this is Cheetah leaving with out me...I am supposed to be infront of that jump BEFORE she started!
I managed to handle her sort of (not very smoothly to say the least) from the rear until the weave entry. I did not get ahead enough ever to cue the collection need by decelerating, I was still running! So she took the off course jump, then made a beautiful entry. She did well on the tunnel discrimination which was very similar to the one missed at tryouts, so I was pleased with that.
Here she is nicely reading the rear cross - a place I spent the whole run.
Between my runs, I decided that maybe if I ate breakfast and had some real coffee, that would make me feel better. It didn’t. I went back to the room and rested a bit. I even took a Pepto-Bismol, but that only proceeded to make me puke within 10 min of taking it, which was about 20 min before my second run.
The second run was set in a swampland by the time we got to it at 11:30. There was a horrific weave pole entry that was at a 45 degree angle out from a straight tunnel with an a-frame about 2 feet (maybe) from the weave entry but the a-frame is a dead on approach. They loved straight tunnels at this EO! She missed the weave entry which I forgot to mention was in 6 inches of mud because so many dogs had slid out trying to stop themselves from slamming into the a-frame. Cheetah missed the weave entry, I thought that standing in the middle of the exit of the tunnel, she would have to collect…wouldn’t she? Apparently not! After the Dogwalk, she took the off course jump and then I missed a 270 and went from the tunnel to the teeter…did I mention that I had just thrown up about 30 minutes ago? Oh well two runs, two E’s – tomorrows another day! I went back to the room to lie down.
Look at the mud on her feet going over the viaduct!
It's a good thing she loves to weave! What you cant' see is how close the Aframe is to the beginning of the weaves.
Toni wanted to know if there was anything she could bring me and suggested a coke. I don’t normally like coke, but it has helped me in the past with an upset stomach. That was the wrong move – as soon as I drank it, within 10 seconds, I needed to get rid of it. So I continued to lay in bed and miss the rest of the regular rounds. Toni came back and told me that they had closed the standard ring for “obvious reasons” to add sand to it. That took about 2 hours for them to fix it enough to finish running the large dogs on it.
I was feeling well enough by the end of the day to sit in a chair and look out of the window and watch the end of the small finals and the medium finals. They postponed the large individual finals until tomorrow.
Friday – Practice and Check - in
Cheetah and I in front of the sign at the arena
Our practice time was around 12:30, so we could sleep in a bit and go to breakfast, for some more local fair. Toni and I then went up to the practice field to scope out what the set up was and to figure out what particular things Cheetah and I needed practice on. Katie suggested that we not worry too much about tricky handling maneuvers, because if they didn’t go well in practice you would go into the competition on a bad note. Basically, get them exposed to the different types of equipment they have and keep it simple.
We met for our practice time and ended up having a pretty good practice. The teeter was very strange and I wanted to make sure that she did not have a bad experience on it. When I got to the teeter, I had her wait then went to the end of the teeter and called her up – holding it in place and lowering it. It was kind of a slippery rubber matting and lots of dogs were flying off of it. She did good. I sent her around another loop and let her do it on her own; she did good. I did it once more with no problems then I went on to the a-frame. She didn’t stop, and repeated it, again with out a stop. I should have marked it better, but we only had 45 seconds out there so by the time you repeat a few things, you are finished.
Next we went to the jumpers side again for a 45 seconds session while the little dogs went to the contact side. She did fine, except she missed her weave entry, which I made a little bit hard on purpose. The weaves are really odd and fat, made of metal and all a solid color (yellow). The bottom of the contacts are red not yellow and they are also rubberized. The jump bars looked like branches with the twigs cut off and painted. I don’t have a bar knocking problem, but I would think if you did you dog would soon change it ‘s mind. All and all it was a pretty successful practice.
Later we went to go check in with the vet and make sure our paperwork was in order. During that time, Cheetah met two new boyfriends...Tracy Golden's Blink and Bam. She flirted with them and they were more than happy to flirt back. She has a real thing for male BC's
We also took a group photo!
On a very sad note, one of the USA team members Stacy came with her Schnauzer Crusher and when she got to the vet check, they stated that he couldn't compete b/c he had his ears cropped. No where in any thing they had read mentioned this, but they simply refused to listen to reason. It was a very sad moment for us, and I can't even imagine how it would feel to go all the way over there and be told you can't play and not even be reimbursed for anything.
Thursday -meeting the team and the Team dinner
Each morning we got a ticket to go down to the little restaurant across the street to have breakfast. They had really strong coffee and an odd assortment of food items.
• Tomatoes
• Rolls/baguettes
• Ham slices
• Pepperoni
• Fruit
• Sliced cheese
The waitresses didn’t speak a lot of English, but enough to get by. The same crew was there for breakfast and dinner. This morning was really nice, so we sat outside with the dogs, but later when it was rainy, we were allowed to bring them inside…pretty cool!
After breakfast, we went out to the mall to get a fan. The mall WAS air-conditioned BTW! Toni and I thought we might just move into the furniture store for the rest of the week. We found a fan and then went grocery shopping. You have to pay to get a shopping cart. We got some flavored carbonated waters (This country is obsessed with bubbles!! )
We drove around a little bit looking at some of the countryside, albeit not entirely by choice. They are also obsessed with round-a-bouts and it is easy to get off on the wrong part. After we got back and assembled the fan, it was time to get ready for the team dinner.
here is the buffet
Me waiting to the chance to go to the buffet
It was at another restaurant at another nearby hotel that was doing its best to be Las Vegas. We got a ride over with Lisa Bowers and her husband David, whom I had met at breakfast that morning. It was nice to see everyone on the team, some I knew, and others I didn’t. Unfortunately, Janneke and Elicia were still trying to find their way out of Prague and did not get to the dinner. We got some instructions about when the practice was on Friday and what to be ready for.
• Tomatoes
• Rolls/baguettes
• Ham slices
• Pepperoni
• Fruit
• Sliced cheese
The waitresses didn’t speak a lot of English, but enough to get by. The same crew was there for breakfast and dinner. This morning was really nice, so we sat outside with the dogs, but later when it was rainy, we were allowed to bring them inside…pretty cool!
After breakfast, we went out to the mall to get a fan. The mall WAS air-conditioned BTW! Toni and I thought we might just move into the furniture store for the rest of the week. We found a fan and then went grocery shopping. You have to pay to get a shopping cart. We got some flavored carbonated waters (This country is obsessed with bubbles!! )
We drove around a little bit looking at some of the countryside, albeit not entirely by choice. They are also obsessed with round-a-bouts and it is easy to get off on the wrong part. After we got back and assembled the fan, it was time to get ready for the team dinner.
here is the buffet
Me waiting to the chance to go to the buffet
It was at another restaurant at another nearby hotel that was doing its best to be Las Vegas. We got a ride over with Lisa Bowers and her husband David, whom I had met at breakfast that morning. It was nice to see everyone on the team, some I knew, and others I didn’t. Unfortunately, Janneke and Elicia were still trying to find their way out of Prague and did not get to the dinner. We got some instructions about when the practice was on Friday and what to be ready for.
Liberec??? where the hell is it??
Apparently, no one in Prague ever goes to Liberec, because we asked several people and got interesting advice like:
• A Cop that said – go back (pointing behind us then, when the light changed – GO GO!)
• Several people that couldn’t tell us any thing
• The Taxi driver who said after some contemplating - meaning he didn’t really know where it was either –
o Go around the circle and look at the signs and see if you see anything that helps!
o Your fist time in Prague?? Driving?? There is much construction! (along with a face that said “ YOU ARE SO SCREWED!”) and finally -
o You could follow my colleague out of the city for 700 kc ( about $35)
Toni and I decided to be stubborn and set out on our own armed with sketchy google map directions and a quickly setting Sun. I knew we had to go north out of town, but there didn’t seem to be a way to do that! So we circumnavigated the city of Prague and eventually ended up on the correct road. It was I believe the first time Toni or I were ever happy to see numbers!!! We can read them! Then eventually we saw a sign for Liberec! WOOHOO!
Along the way I noticed something interesting… There is a lot of open farmland out side of Prague, but the parking situation is horrible. Why don’t they spread out a little bit??
At about 11:00 we arrived at an exit to Liberec, but we still don’t know where the hotel is, so we stop at a grocery store that is closed and empty except for this very nice couple that speaks very little English. I show them my directions that I printed out hoping some of the odd words mean something to them (because they sure don’t to me) The wife goes to try to find someone else that is in the store area that speaks better English. They were a very nice couple and tried hard to help us out. I have never been on the minority end of a language barrier before, and while I have never been rude to anyone that didn’t speak English at home, I vowed then to for evermore be more patient and helpful to non native speakers from now on. The other person came and was pretty helpful, although we still managed to miss the turn we needed to take. We turned around and got back on track, found the sports arena, then tried to find the hotel. Toni said in a sarcastic tone – “Why are you going this way – turn around do you really think you can just drive around and find the hotel like before?” and just at that time, I come to an intersection - and their it is! The Hotel Arena! YEAH – We are here!!!
We check in and go upstairs to discover that this hotel doesn’t have a/c either! What is with these people??? The room is nice, and it has really big windows that open to almost the size of doors, but there really wasn’t a cross breeze, so the room was stuffy. Toni is way more hot natured than me, and she was not very happy about the prospect of going the next few days with out a/c. They only have one fan and someone took it already (this was a rare heat wave according to the front desk). We decided to go out tomorrow and get a fan. So we went to bed about midnight with a warm room and little air flow.
• A Cop that said – go back (pointing behind us then, when the light changed – GO GO!)
• Several people that couldn’t tell us any thing
• The Taxi driver who said after some contemplating - meaning he didn’t really know where it was either –
o Go around the circle and look at the signs and see if you see anything that helps!
o Your fist time in Prague?? Driving?? There is much construction! (along with a face that said “ YOU ARE SO SCREWED!”) and finally -
o You could follow my colleague out of the city for 700 kc ( about $35)
Toni and I decided to be stubborn and set out on our own armed with sketchy google map directions and a quickly setting Sun. I knew we had to go north out of town, but there didn’t seem to be a way to do that! So we circumnavigated the city of Prague and eventually ended up on the correct road. It was I believe the first time Toni or I were ever happy to see numbers!!! We can read them! Then eventually we saw a sign for Liberec! WOOHOO!
Along the way I noticed something interesting… There is a lot of open farmland out side of Prague, but the parking situation is horrible. Why don’t they spread out a little bit??
At about 11:00 we arrived at an exit to Liberec, but we still don’t know where the hotel is, so we stop at a grocery store that is closed and empty except for this very nice couple that speaks very little English. I show them my directions that I printed out hoping some of the odd words mean something to them (because they sure don’t to me) The wife goes to try to find someone else that is in the store area that speaks better English. They were a very nice couple and tried hard to help us out. I have never been on the minority end of a language barrier before, and while I have never been rude to anyone that didn’t speak English at home, I vowed then to for evermore be more patient and helpful to non native speakers from now on. The other person came and was pretty helpful, although we still managed to miss the turn we needed to take. We turned around and got back on track, found the sports arena, then tried to find the hotel. Toni said in a sarcastic tone – “Why are you going this way – turn around do you really think you can just drive around and find the hotel like before?” and just at that time, I come to an intersection - and their it is! The Hotel Arena! YEAH – We are here!!!
We check in and go upstairs to discover that this hotel doesn’t have a/c either! What is with these people??? The room is nice, and it has really big windows that open to almost the size of doors, but there really wasn’t a cross breeze, so the room was stuffy. Toni is way more hot natured than me, and she was not very happy about the prospect of going the next few days with out a/c. They only have one fan and someone took it already (this was a rare heat wave according to the front desk). We decided to go out tomorrow and get a fan. So we went to bed about midnight with a warm room and little air flow.
Our Day in Prague
The next morning we checked out of the hotel, and headed off to do some looking around Prague. Since we had to bring Cheetah with us – it made for an interesting day. Many places in Prague allow dogs to go in to them, and around the streets most of the dogs were loose – just following along with there owners and intact. I have never seen so many pairs of testicles in all of my life!
breakfast outside our hotel
Here is the metro in Prague
In order to go into Prague, we had to get on the metro again, and we had to buy a ticket for Cheetah to ride. The biggest problem was that in several of the stops, the only way to get from one level to the other was to go via escalator, so I had to carry her up and down them. She didn’t really like that too much, but she was a trooper and tolerated the process.
Here is a view of the escalator that we took later to show you the steepness of them. Imagine I have Cheetah in my arms.
Once we got to the stop we wanted, we started looking in the little shops and things and found some cute jackets with PRAHAH and CZECH written on them. He sales guy was so nice and completely fascinated with Cheetah. I don’t know why, because there were tons of dogs in Prague. He gave us a discount on our shirts and told us how to say thank you in Czech. I am not sure how you spell it but it sounds a lot like “dickweed!” Well, that’s one way to remember it!
view along the streets of Prague
Cheetah and I on the front steps of the museum
A view of the city from the museum
Here are signs from McDonalds and KFC - Except their menus are a little different!
We tried to go into this museum, but no dogs were allowed, so we went to go find a place to buy a Gelato instead. I got a berry one and it was really good. We apparently arrived during some kind of rare heat wave, because while we were in the square a water truck came around and sprayed anyone who wanted to get wet. Cheetah and I took advantage of it and the kids chased after it.
Here we are in the Square
After we cooled off we walked around and made our way into this cathedral, but nothing was allowed in it. No dogs, No touching, No pictures – we took a picture of the sign to prove just how crazy the sign was! The pigeons were everywhere and were driving Cheetah crazy because they would not fly away until the last minute.
This is the astronomical clock in the square
We headed back to the hotel to pick up our car and then go find this park that I had seen online that was supposed to be close by. Of course we had to take the metro back, so that meant more escalators and an elevator. Cheetah doesn’t really like elevators or should I say “lifts” anyway, but the ones in CZ are REALLY- REALLY small, so by this time Cheetah is thoroughly and completely over it. She through a doggie tantrum (meaning that she just sprawled out on the floor and became a mule). I had to push her into the last elevator, but I think for the long day she had of sightseeing and weird happenings, she did really well to just fight it the one time (I can’t imagine if she were a kid).
Off to go find the park we go - maybe??? Asking for directions in this town is very tricky. Some people know some English and others don’t. Czech is a very difficult language to understand. Some other languages you can at least guess what the words might mean in English….but not Czech! So I was really happy when we found someone that could understand us. But we couldn’t figure out how to get to the park because the words one the google maps I printed and the names of the streets in real life were totally different! We stopped at this little Italian place on the outskirts of Prague to get a pizza so we could eat it while Cheetah got to play a little ball. At home, if you see a refrigerator with drinks in it, then you are supposed to take one out and take it up to the counter to pay for it. Well that is apparently NOT the case here. We made a taboo move of self serving our bottled drinks and I thought they were going to have a heart-attack! At first I thought they were just strange, but later noticed similar control freak like soda guarding at other restaurants. At least they were able to point us in the right direction to the park. Again more testicles on free ranging dogs than you can shake a stick at! Surprisingly, there was no reactivity, and pretty decent recalls. I am also convinced that the Czech have a genetically advanced whistling gene that I am jealous of! After a romp in the park and a mediocre pizza, it’s off to find Liberec!
breakfast outside our hotel
Here is the metro in Prague
In order to go into Prague, we had to get on the metro again, and we had to buy a ticket for Cheetah to ride. The biggest problem was that in several of the stops, the only way to get from one level to the other was to go via escalator, so I had to carry her up and down them. She didn’t really like that too much, but she was a trooper and tolerated the process.
Here is a view of the escalator that we took later to show you the steepness of them. Imagine I have Cheetah in my arms.
Once we got to the stop we wanted, we started looking in the little shops and things and found some cute jackets with PRAHAH and CZECH written on them. He sales guy was so nice and completely fascinated with Cheetah. I don’t know why, because there were tons of dogs in Prague. He gave us a discount on our shirts and told us how to say thank you in Czech. I am not sure how you spell it but it sounds a lot like “dickweed!” Well, that’s one way to remember it!
view along the streets of Prague
Cheetah and I on the front steps of the museum
A view of the city from the museum
Here are signs from McDonalds and KFC - Except their menus are a little different!
We tried to go into this museum, but no dogs were allowed, so we went to go find a place to buy a Gelato instead. I got a berry one and it was really good. We apparently arrived during some kind of rare heat wave, because while we were in the square a water truck came around and sprayed anyone who wanted to get wet. Cheetah and I took advantage of it and the kids chased after it.
Here we are in the Square
After we cooled off we walked around and made our way into this cathedral, but nothing was allowed in it. No dogs, No touching, No pictures – we took a picture of the sign to prove just how crazy the sign was! The pigeons were everywhere and were driving Cheetah crazy because they would not fly away until the last minute.
This is the astronomical clock in the square
We headed back to the hotel to pick up our car and then go find this park that I had seen online that was supposed to be close by. Of course we had to take the metro back, so that meant more escalators and an elevator. Cheetah doesn’t really like elevators or should I say “lifts” anyway, but the ones in CZ are REALLY- REALLY small, so by this time Cheetah is thoroughly and completely over it. She through a doggie tantrum (meaning that she just sprawled out on the floor and became a mule). I had to push her into the last elevator, but I think for the long day she had of sightseeing and weird happenings, she did really well to just fight it the one time (I can’t imagine if she were a kid).
Off to go find the park we go - maybe??? Asking for directions in this town is very tricky. Some people know some English and others don’t. Czech is a very difficult language to understand. Some other languages you can at least guess what the words might mean in English….but not Czech! So I was really happy when we found someone that could understand us. But we couldn’t figure out how to get to the park because the words one the google maps I printed and the names of the streets in real life were totally different! We stopped at this little Italian place on the outskirts of Prague to get a pizza so we could eat it while Cheetah got to play a little ball. At home, if you see a refrigerator with drinks in it, then you are supposed to take one out and take it up to the counter to pay for it. Well that is apparently NOT the case here. We made a taboo move of self serving our bottled drinks and I thought they were going to have a heart-attack! At first I thought they were just strange, but later noticed similar control freak like soda guarding at other restaurants. At least they were able to point us in the right direction to the park. Again more testicles on free ranging dogs than you can shake a stick at! Surprisingly, there was no reactivity, and pretty decent recalls. I am also convinced that the Czech have a genetically advanced whistling gene that I am jealous of! After a romp in the park and a mediocre pizza, it’s off to find Liberec!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Finally found Wi Fi!!!
We are finally at a site were we have wi-fi access! So I can now give you the nitty gritty on our travels to this point!!!
Monday/Tuesday -
We had a fairly uneventful flight with the exception of a little bit of turbulence as we traveled up the east coast on our way towards Amsterdam. Once we landed in Amsterdam we had do find Cheetah a place to potty and because of that we had to go back through security afterwards. We also noticed some really cool airplane logos over here much prettier than what we usually see in the states.
Afterwards, we tried to take a nap in these really cool chase lounge chairs, but Toni is not a very good napper!
Once we got to Prague, we tried to find the rental car place, and we went through customs, but Toni said that it was too easy, so we were probably going to get a complete orifice check when we tried to return.
I also got my first patdown...I feel like a real traveler now! We finally located the building that the rental cars were in and tried using my debit card to the account that I had saved up money for this trip in. Luckily, I also brought a credit card becuase even though I told them that I would be out of the country, they didn't seem tell the rest of the bank about it. The lady was not impressed with our questions and my wanting to know how to get to to Prague and if our car was going to really be big enough. She looked like "I will break you" from a Rocky movie. We then tried to follow her directions and we go the hotel. WE GOT SO LOST! I don't know how we ever found the hotel, but luckily I had google mapped it and looked at some of the pictures of the intersections and then I recognized this triangle and knew exactly were we were. Finding out where we could park was an adventure in itself. We had to take a shower to turn back into humans again then we had a really nice dinner and went to bed - without A/C!!!
here is a picture we had someone take of us at dinner - I think he had been drinking a little too much ????
Here is a picture of me going to dinner - the arrow is pointing to our hotel - that little tiny ally way is where we were supposed to park. I ended up parking on the street around the corner b/c I couldn't get in a spot there!
I forgot about after dinner... We picked up Cheetah from the room and got on the metro ( which was free by the time we got there) to go down to the Charles Bridge. Cheetah didn't really mind the metro tram so much but the stop we got out on only had an escalator - and she did NOT want any part of that, so I had to hold her up the escalator. One of them was a really long set and I am glad that she is only 45 pounds!
Then we walked to the bridge. Here are some pictures of that at night. At one point we looked over the edge and saw some seagulls. I made the mistake of looking interested in it and I thought Cheetah was going to jump off of the bridge and into the water - it is a long way down.
Monday/Tuesday -
We had a fairly uneventful flight with the exception of a little bit of turbulence as we traveled up the east coast on our way towards Amsterdam. Once we landed in Amsterdam we had do find Cheetah a place to potty and because of that we had to go back through security afterwards. We also noticed some really cool airplane logos over here much prettier than what we usually see in the states.
Afterwards, we tried to take a nap in these really cool chase lounge chairs, but Toni is not a very good napper!
Once we got to Prague, we tried to find the rental car place, and we went through customs, but Toni said that it was too easy, so we were probably going to get a complete orifice check when we tried to return.
I also got my first patdown...I feel like a real traveler now! We finally located the building that the rental cars were in and tried using my debit card to the account that I had saved up money for this trip in. Luckily, I also brought a credit card becuase even though I told them that I would be out of the country, they didn't seem tell the rest of the bank about it. The lady was not impressed with our questions and my wanting to know how to get to to Prague and if our car was going to really be big enough. She looked like "I will break you" from a Rocky movie. We then tried to follow her directions and we go the hotel. WE GOT SO LOST! I don't know how we ever found the hotel, but luckily I had google mapped it and looked at some of the pictures of the intersections and then I recognized this triangle and knew exactly were we were. Finding out where we could park was an adventure in itself. We had to take a shower to turn back into humans again then we had a really nice dinner and went to bed - without A/C!!!
here is a picture we had someone take of us at dinner - I think he had been drinking a little too much ????
Here is a picture of me going to dinner - the arrow is pointing to our hotel - that little tiny ally way is where we were supposed to park. I ended up parking on the street around the corner b/c I couldn't get in a spot there!
I forgot about after dinner... We picked up Cheetah from the room and got on the metro ( which was free by the time we got there) to go down to the Charles Bridge. Cheetah didn't really mind the metro tram so much but the stop we got out on only had an escalator - and she did NOT want any part of that, so I had to hold her up the escalator. One of them was a really long set and I am glad that she is only 45 pounds!
Then we walked to the bridge. Here are some pictures of that at night. At one point we looked over the edge and saw some seagulls. I made the mistake of looking interested in it and I thought Cheetah was going to jump off of the bridge and into the water - it is a long way down.
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