A Carefree New Year's Eve

Welcome to World Blog Surf Day, a third carnival of shared expat experiences from around the world. When expat blog participants decided that our theme this time would be our favorite holiday or celebration traditions in our new culture, I had a seriously hard time deciding which traditions I wanted to share. Easter traditions in the Czech Republic are so foreign to American ways they will drop your mouth to the floor; Christmas is wonderfully the same and yet different than at home, but in the end, I chose New Year's Eve cause it felt like a coming out party for me as an empty nester.

Me, Naan, and Gulnara

For the first time in 20 years, I did not have the responsibility for anyone's safety on New Year's Eve other than my own. I could experience it with a light and carefree heart. If I wandered too close to fireworks, it wasn't my children's eyes, ears, and limbs at risk. If I saw people drinking too much alcohol, I didn't worry about who's eyes I was exposing to that. I was not responsible for the experience of others.

Our Czech Champagne
for the evening
was Bohemia Sect

My dear friends Gulnara and Nhan joined me at my place for the start of the evening. Gulnara, is originally from Russia and a fellow English teacher. Nhan, a mechanical engineer, is Vietnamese - American and hails from Orlando, Florida. Nhan's medical studies at Charles University had brought them to Prague and we have great fun together every time we got together.

Nhan and Gulnara
in Old Town

My Prague apartment is only 10 blocks from Old Town and about the same from Wenceslas Square. It was the perfect staging spot for a night of revelry. We headed first to Old Town Square which was packed with partygoers and music stages. Nice but too tame.

I had always heard that the fireworks on Wenceslas Square were awesome on New Year's Eve. We left Old Town Square and went over there. The energy and exuberance were fantastic. It was such a different setup than an American celebration, where "the authorities" would be in charge of the fireworks, the music, the entertainment, and the people's role would be to consume it. Here, "the people" set off the fireworks and made the fun. I was fascinated by it. You can just tell the product liability lawyers and lawsuit-happy folks have not yet arrived in the Czech Republic.

Amidst the most gloriously beautiful and expensively-located real estate, anyone who wanted to was setting off professional-quality, firework-show fireworks. Couldn't a spark land somewhere it shouldn't and start all the buildings on fire? Didn't anyone worry about harming everyone else standing around? They most assuredly did not.

It was so much fun, so loud, so exuberant, so absolutely fantastic I watched to see if Prague had made it in the worldwide coverage of great New Year's Parties around the globe. It must! Such was the shared joy of everyone there. One of the things I saw in Wenceslas Square there that night that I had never seen anywhere else, was young Asian men in the twenties, so happy and excited, they were literally skipping down the street arm in arm with each other.

With nary a product liability lawyer
in sight, a bunch of young people
joyfully light them up

Safety? We don't need no stinkin' safety.
This is w-a-y t-o-o much fun.

This will bring out the 12-year-old boy's
wonderment and joy in explosives in anyone.

(Except you, daughters #1 and #2 -
don't try this at home in America)

Wenceslas Square would often look like a
war zone as people scattered
to let the smoke clear

Sadaam sashays
down Wenceslas Square

Do the Czechs know
about Dr. Seuss's
Thing 1 and Thing 2?

Partiers came from as far
away as the Ural Mountains

A couple of
wild and crazy guys

The end of a beautiful evening
with no worries about drunk drivers
on the way home

To enjoy another celebration in the Czech Republic, visit the next expat involved in World Blog Surf Day. Sher, the organizer of our blog carnival, describes her favorite new holiday at her blog Czech Off The Beaten Path. If you would like to see who else is involved in WBSD, and where they all hail from, here is the link list.

Let's fade out here with imagined Lionel Ritchie music....."Celebrate! Good Times, Come On!"

Around the World in 48 Parties

I have two friends in Prague who are my go-to geek girls cause they are always up on the latest gizmos, gadgets, and geekspeak. Sy, who stops and starts blogs in her sleep, and Sher, who's been blogging about dual nationality-married life in Prague for a couple years now, have been a real help to me as I blog.

Sy dreamed up the idea of World Blog Surf Day for expats to share their experiences around the world and discover each other's blogs. The idea was to pick a topic and everyone write on that topic all on the same day and link to each other. Sher has taken over organizing the last two World Blog Surf Day events and lo, and behold, this little 'ole carnival is starting to become an institution. She has it as tightly organized as Martha Stewart's silverware drawer and probably as well documented!

During the second World Blog Surf Day (all about food in one's adopted country) there were 33 bloggers. This time as we write about holidays and celebrations in our new land, she's signed up 48 bloggers around the globe. Here's the breakdown of countries represented:

Switzerland - 7 bloggers
UK, USA, and the Czech Republic - 5 bloggers each
Argentina - 4 bloggers
Canada and Turkey - 2 bloggers each
Indonesia, Bulgaria, China, Australia, Belgium all have one blogger
Plus there's one blogging network with eight bloggers from eight different countries

I'm serving as designated Twitter reporter for the event. I'll be reading each blog and tweeting about each one tomorrow under the Twitter name emptynestexpat. If you know someone who'd be interested in hearing about expat life around the globe or in a specific country, feel free to share this link list with them. Our giant wave of expat blogs is coming tomorrow - Cowabunga!

Welcome Wall Street Journal Readers

Welcome Wall Street Journal Readers! I was delighted to see my blog featured in "Blog Watch" by WSJ Online Editor James Willhite in the Wall Street Journal Technology Section yesterday. Thank you, James. I appreciate having the greatest business minds on the planet stop by and say hi!

For those of you who may have missed my mention, click on my title to go to the article. For those of you who want a bit more background on my adventure, here's an interview I did with Expat Blog Directory last fall here. For those of you who want to share my journey from here on out, welcome. The best part of blogging is the created community and friends I've made from undertaking this deeply fun endeavor.

The Czech government denied my visa

This week I got the bad news that the Czech government denied my visa. I shouldn't have been surprised. They've denied the visas of my fellow Americans in my TEFL class, not once but twice. I was devastated. It's taken me several days to write about it without crying.

The Dream

I fell in love with the Czech Republic back in 1989 watching the Velvet Revolution on TV. Ever since then, I've wanted to experience this culture that seemed to have brought down communism nonviolently with raised BIC lighters in Wenceslas Square, not cold war spending (the Czechs actually credit the cold war spending -- not the BIC lighters, but that's another post).

The more I found out about Czech people, the more I wanted to know. I wanted to know about people who have so beautifully kept a highly human and highly cultured "second culture" alive when the official totalitarian culture was anything but human. What intriguing people. I vowed to live among them someday.

A newspaper man in Minnesota, suggested that Americans back then should help Eastern Europeans adjust to capitalism. I happily signed up for two pen pals, specifically requesting they be from the Czech Republic. We wrote long letters back and forth, way before the Internet, and I cheered them on as they started up small businesses in their respective communities. We wrote back and forth for years. Finally, the daughter of one of my pen pals came to live with my family for a summer and eventually settled in America.

I also met a lovely Czech couple in my hometown of Ames, Iowa from the Czech Republic. Kate Sladka was doing graduate studies in plant pathology and Josef Kedlecek, her husband, was putting her through school while working at a locally-beloved Ames restaurant (now that I've read Bohumil Hrabal's "I Served the King of England" I appreciate his job choice even more).

Kate grew up in this
beautiful apartment building
right off Old Town Square

Kate and I spent hours talking and she told me about all of the beautiful architecture where she lived in Prague in a very special part of town called Old Town. When I found my apartment in Prague, I was less than 10 blocks from her home! Now that I've gone and tried to find her and knock on her family door less than 100 feet from Old Town Square on Celetna, I realize how much her eyes must have ached for that mediaeval, Gothic, and art noveau architecture! I was stunned by the actual beauty of where her family lived. It was even more exquisite than I could ever have imagined. Her view was out of a fairy tale.

I was stunned to learn
that my friend Kate
had this incredible view of the back side
of the House of Tyn

I finally got here Kate!
Seventeen years after we talked.

The Reality

I finally figured out how I could come to the Czech Republic and experience it by reading Rolf Potts book "Vagabonding." His premise is that Americans vastly overestimate how hard it is to see the world and support themselves as they do it. I saw that, I too, could do this. All I needed to do was get a TEFL degree and begin teaching English. Teaching English is the easiest and fastest way to get into a country because there is so much need. Czechs working and moving up in multinational corporations need English because it's the international language of commerce.

So I choose a language school that promised: a guaranteed job after attending the TEFL course, full VISA support, health care, and free Czech lessons so that I could quickly integrate into the culture. Not a single word of it came true. I don't know why my school didn't follow the law. Maybe it's more profitable to have places opened up for the next TEFL class coming in, I don't know. I had relied on them to know the paperwork of their own country. I made an error in taking them at face value and trusting. Frankly, I'm proud to have "some trust in me" because you know how closed down people can get when they feel betrayed.

My fellow TEFLers and I loved Prague so much, that we were willing to give our school a second chance. "We applied for your visas incorrectly the first time, but this time will be different." It took me a month and a half to find work in America when I came back with only two days notice. I only looked for temporary work at a reduced pay level so that I would be fair to a potential American employer. After all, I was going to race back to the Czech Republic at the end of the summer!

I had invested over $5,000 to sell everything in America and move to the Czech Republic the first time. I happily shelled out the money for another Czech visa because this time it looked like my school had educated itself about how to follow the law and we would not be penalized for their past actions. Indeed, the administrators told us that many times. "Come back! You will not be denied."

My unfinished Czech Business:

I am completely and totally head over heels in love with the Czech Republic and it's culture. I feel like I was just starting to scratch the surface! I loved to share my excitement in my blog over each wonderful discovery. I only went out of town twice in six months because I wasn't focused on seeing all the tourist sites at first, I was focused on setting up my life. I intended to live there for years.

There are so many fabulous things in the Czech Republic I never got to see. I never saw the beautiful square of Telc, I never saw and experienced drinking spa water at Karlovy Vary, or the romance of Cesky Krumlov, I wanted to see Jan Kaplicky's stingray building in Cesky Budovice when it was finished, and modernist and cubist buildings in Brno. The Sumuva! Mushroom hunting! Czech skiing! I wanted to eat pickles in Znomo and marvel at the aqueducts and pretend I'm a partisan in the Znomo underground. What does Moravia look like anyway? I wanted to go to a Moravian wine festival and call up my friend Sher a little tipsy and tell her how much fun I'm having! Insert scream of dismay here! I wanted to see it all.

The people I care about there that I will miss. I dread having to explain to my pen pal in Western Bohemia that I traveled half way around the world to spend time in her country because of how she and others described it but hadn't yet come to her city to see her. I was waiting until I spoke Czech better so we could have real conversations face-to-face. I wanted to knock on her door and surprise her by greeting her in good Czech.

I did get to see my other pen pal in Plzen, (a future post), but since I visited her she has since become very sick, close to losing her life. I would love to go back and see her and cheer her on to a full health recovery. I never did find Kate Sladka despite knocking on her family door at 10 Celetna over and over again. I have no idea where she is.

What was so wrong with us being there?

I know governments have to look at things from a macro level, and one should never take things personally. It's not personal. That hurts too! The impersonality of it all. But how could excited and enthusiastic English teachers bring harm to the Czech Republic? Teaching English felt like our gift to the Czech people. We felt like we were doing out part to bring you into the global community as fast as possible after forty years of repression. We sure weren't doing it for the money. The work was damn meaningful to us.

I can't imagine Czech tourism advertising budgets are very big. At a time when tourism is down 20% (Prague Post, 6/3/2009) and Prague hotel room occupancy is down 8.5%, and now half of the hotels in Prague are expected to go bankrupt (Prague Post, 8/25/09) wouldn't the enthusiastic blogging of expats talking to the folks back home about how amazing the Czech Republic is be a welcome development to the Czech government? My friends would have resulted in seven week long room rentals at the small family hotel near my apartment over the course of 2009, but I know that expat bloggers are great for business beyond the immediate impact of their own families and friends.

I never heard of Cesky Krumlov from Czech Tourism advertising. I heard of Cesky Krumlov through an amazing English-language blog written by a Brit skilled in community development who constantly celebrates the specialness of that place. That one woman is probably responsible for more foreign visitors to Cesky Krumlov than Czechs know.

I don't know what my next move is. I'm honestly in mourning and it's going to take some time to deal with the disappointment. I would have loved to come back to Prague with the free ticket I have but the Czech consulate in Chicago could give me no solid advice. "It's all up to the foreign police, you may get in as a tourist, you may not. They might turn you back at the airport." Without solid guidance that my money in the Czech Republic wouldn't be wasted this time, I'm staying home. See, I can learn. Stay home. Sadly, there is no welcome mat out in the Czech Republic.

The beginning of this sorry saga:

What Just Hit Me?

Kari's Excellent Adventure

A vibrant young TEFL student has just arrived in Prague from the great state of Minnesota.

I had initially hoped to be there to greet her. I'll have to do the next best thing which is read her blog.

Kari is on day three of her Prague discovery. I've created a link to "Kari's Excellent Adventure" on my list of Czech expat blogs.

Kari, pictured here with her mom, is the daughter of my childhood friend and neighbor Julie Waters.

Update on 9/6/2009: Kari has graduated with her TEFL certificate from the Language House and is now off to mainland China to begin her teaching year. Because the Communist Chinese government censor Blogspot and Facebook from their citizens, Kari has had to restart her blog at an uncensored site. You can access it there. Here is the link to her first blog describing her Prague adventures.

'Empty Nest Expat' Among the Best Expat Blogs according to Tripbase

Yea! All bloggers need is a little positive reinforcement that people are reading and appreciating what they're writing to keep at it. I was astonished when I got an email that said my blog made the list of best expat blogs as chosen by Tripbase, a top travel website.

What is Tripbase and what is their mission? They use over 3,000 blogs and travel websites plus 22 million individual reviews to help travelers create a matching vacation destination to their wants. LA Times calls it "the Match.com of Travel."

I've taken a look at many of the other blogs that made the list - wow, I feel honored to be in such company.

Here's their press release about top expat blogs.

And here's their selections in other categories.

What a great place to find exciting new blogs to read. The amount of winnowing and reading the editors had to do to come up with this list is substantial. And hasn't the Internet made you appreciate the work of editors more than ever? Show me the cream! I have only so much time! I'd like to thank whichever one of my readers suggested me for this too. It made me day!

Digital History Being Made This Weekend

Wow, if you aren't on Twitter yet, I can't recommend it enough. It has been absolutely fascinating to see the power of social networking sites when it comes to getting news out about the contested Iranian election. I spent all Sunday "watching the election" on Twitter and the difference between what's on TV and what's on Twitter is fascinating.

On Saturday, one of the huge trending topics on Twitter called "CNNFail" was "where was CNN coverage of the election?" Moment to moment reports of what cell phone networks, satellite networks, landline networks were being censored by the Iranian government were constantly reported. Citizen journalists and real journalists are twittering and videoing and letting the world know what's going on based on what platform isn't jammed and censored.

So here's the questions I have based on the explosion of Twitter reports that provides "power to the people!" It's fascinating to watch various Twitter streams come in from folks in America at the Lakers game, while meanwhile the Iranian students in dorms are worried about their safety, and yet other people around the world are organizing sympathy support by asking the world to wear green tomorrow to show support for the people who feel the election wasn't fair.

My question is "how do we judge credibility of those tweeting? It seems pretty darn easy to set up an account and pretend you are an Iranian student or demonstrator, but how do we know? Where's the corroboration? And my second question for all citizens of the world is "gee, if they were to shut down all these networks in your home country, how would you deal with it? How would you communicate?"

Welcome New Followers

In the last couple weeks, I've had a couple people sign up to follow my blog. Thanks for reading, I appreciate it! Some of my followers have an obvious connection to the Czech Republic, but sometimes I can't always figure out the connection.

I wish the Blogspot follower sign-up sheet asked people to tell the blog author they're following what it is they are responding too specifically in my blog -- other than my fabulous self, of course :-).

Happy Blog Birthday to Me!

One year ago I started this blog to help me go through the emotional journey of graduating my youngest child from high school, downsizing and potentially selling my home, and moving across the world from the American Midwest to Prague, Czech Republic.

My home in America

One year ago, I was living a very American mom lifestyle in a 3 bedroom/3 bath suburban home with one child at university and another in her senior year at high school. I only went places by car. I didn't yet know how to blog. I didn't yet know how to Twitter. I didn't yet know how to couchsurf.

I was mowing the lawn once a week. I read somewhere that not having a lawn to mow anymore frees up 30 hours a year. Hallelujah! I still own the house and the magnificent blackberry tree that goes with it. Currently, I have it rented out to some terrific people.

At the beginning of my blogging journey, I was working on what to do with all of my "stuff." I don't think of myself as particularly attached to possessions but once a lifetime of them have built up, the task of thoughtfully going through each and every one and making a decision about what to do with each one is overwhelming.

Fortunately, I found this fantastic book that helped me go through the process in an incredibly empowering way. It's called "When Organizing Isn't Enough: Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life" by Julie Morgenstern. Wow, did that book help me. I didn't waste any years in procrastination before starting. All of those posts are under the label SHED. They used to be the most-read part of my blog.

My children have thrived on their own. Each of them are attending their university of choice and living their own dream. They're loving life and they haven't needed their mother stateside to do it.

Pinch me!

And where am I now? I'm living in Prague!!! In the six months since I moved here, I've found great students, great friends, a great neighborhood, a great flat, a great flatmate, and a great church community. I feel like I'm living my values 100%. Life is awesome!

My property maintenance consists of cleaning my apartment every other week when it's my turn. That takes about two hours max.

I no longer have to worry about oil changes, or tires, or brakes. That frees up even more time. Using public transportation has been a Godsend. In six months, I've lost twenty pounds because I'm walking to and from metro and tram stops rather than merely to the driveway. I have zero worries about traffic - imagine how stress-free that makes life.

Even the stress of having a rotten president has gone away! Hallelujah!

Over a year of blogging, I've written 226 posts. I've had 4,200 visitors and 10,000 page hits. My blog was chosen as Expat Blog of the Month (thank you Julian!) in December of 2008. Now that I'm actually living here in Prague my readership keeps growing about 5% a month. If this were a business that would be an outstanding rate of growth. But it's not, it's just for fun.

And fun it has been. Blogging has helped me focus, focus, focus on achieving my dream of moving to Prague to learn about this beautiful city and the wonderful people of the Czech Republic. Thank you for reading and being part of the conversation!

Watching Obama Land in Prague

Grant P., a fellow expat in Prague, watched Obama come into Prague on Air Force One. This is a mere stock photo of Air Force One. Grant's video is great! Check out his post by clicking on my title.

Prague in Photos

My friend Michael, writing at Blogging Gelle, created a wonderful photo essay entitled "A Sunday Walk in Prague II." If you haven't seen it yet, take a look.

What I especially enjoyed about it was his first 'photo walk' of about a year ago was sooooooo inspiring to me as I planned my journey to Prague and thought about living here. Now I live here and I know most of the places in his essay! How cool is that?

Click on my title to see his work.

President Obama in Prague!

Dreams of My Father (in Czech!)

President Obama came to Prague to speak and 30,000 of us showed up! I was excited especially after my blogged open letter asking President Obama to come to Prague to talk to the Czechs about the radar base was read by a corespondent at the BBC. A producer emailed me and asked if I would be willing to do an interview. "Could you also find us a skeptical Czech to interview," they asked. Someone who represents Prime Minister Topolanek's viewpoint [that the American way is the "highway to hell?"]. Ha. That would be easy. ALL Czechs are skeptical!

I tried to get a press pass at the American Cultural Center. And why not? Bloggers get press passes to almost everything back home from the Democratic and Republican conventions to the Inauguration. Now that newspapers are closing at the rate of one a week in America, bloggers have never been a more important part of the democracy conversation. I have to admit I felt sheepish though when I took my place in press pass pickup line and asked the embassy lady if I was on the list. The guy in front of me was from Danish TV. The guy behind me was from the Washington Post Berlin bureau.

"Name?" she said. I told her my first name and surname. "No, the name of your media outlet." I gamely replied "Empty Nest Expat." Gentle readers, you would have been proud of me. I managed to carry that off with a straight face. "Uh, I don't think you're on the list," she said. "But here, she said, is an invitation to have a closer spot at the speech."

It was harder than I thought to find a skeptical Czech who was willing to go with me and be interviewed. I called a friend on April 1st and asked him but he couldn't talk right then. He called me back the next day and asked "Is this for real? I was laying in bed thinking about it and then I remembered that you Americans have this holiday...." No, no. This was for real. Not an April Fool's joke.

I asked another Czech who I knew to be really skeptical of Obama's stimulus package. He had asked me after the stimulus package passed, "Why is America spending all of that money going into debt? We [the Czech Republic] couldn't afford that debt. And why is all of that money being funneled to companies rather than regular people? It just creates graft."

He wouldn't be my skeptical Czech either though. "Journalists? I'm skeptical of them too. They just pull a bit out of what everyone says to manipulate the news." Man, these Czechs are tough cookies. They don't have much faith in ANYBODY!

Luckily, I met this articulate young man at the tram stop on the way to the speech. We instantly hit it off. He looked at my invitation and said "this is very Czech. It's meaningless. It's just to make you feel important while you stand with everyone else at the speech."

"But it's from the American Embassy!" I said. "Doesn't matter. It's not going to get you any closer. This is Czech," he kept saying.

He was right. We were in the back half, far, far from the press risers. The producer emailed me and said they were unable to get down from the risers to talk to the people. It didn't look like the interview would come off. I was disappointed but knew that the interview wasn't the point of the morning.

Protestors at the entrance to Prague Castle.

Gee, I guess I needn't have worried
about how I looked when I went
to try and get a press pass.

Yes, that number is 70!

A Czech patriot wearing his medals
and proudly displaying a beloved photograph
of his father with Founder of the Czech Republic Masaryk.
This man was imprisoned by Communists after WWII.

My pal Petr whom I met that day
kept me entertained for three hours.
He was my skeptical Czech!

Michael
aka Blogging Gelle!

Everybody watching for the big entrance.

30,000 cameras reach up as the couple takes the stage.

The experience itself was underwhelming.
Three hours of waiting
with the realization you can't see a thing!

Thank goodness someone invented YouTube.
I hope to write more
about Obama's speech after the Easter Holiday.

The American flag, the Czech flag,
and the European Union Flag.

There is always room for wit on my blog.
These protestors made their point
by making everyone smile.

30,000 people leaving the square -
all wanting to go
a different direction than us.

After we had left the square, I got another text from the producer saying "can you come down here in five minutes, we are able to get off the risers." By then we were long gone out of the square and going back through the alley of 30,000 people and into the square would easily have taken a half hour.

I have increased appreciation for journalists after this. We were tired. We just wanted to go home. Journalists have to write something, after all that standing, and then produce it on deadline. Their job is a lot less glamorous than TV makes it look. And they do it day, after day, after day.

Cheering on the Athletes at the Prague Half Marathon

Today my friend Anna ran her first half-marathon! What a fun and exciting challenge to set. Gulnara and I offered to serve as her "Sherpas," the people who carry the water and raisins necessary for refueling along the way.

Over 6,000 people from 79 different countries had signed up to run. It set off at the Rudulfonium and went through some of the most beautiful streets in Prague. It was probably cobblestone most of the way.

This was Gulnara's first time at a race too!

A nice Czech couple who helped us find our way.

Three fun-loving ladies from Spain
ready to run!

Adorable Anna
preps for her first half marathon

Three pals before racetime

Milan from the Czech Republic

Marc, an auditor from Luxembourg
We enjoyed getting to know people before the race
and cheering them on.

Mohito from Japan
works here in Prague
as a construction engineer.

Czech native Karel
was excited to run.

Agnes and Stephanie
are U.S. Department of Defense civil service staff
working in Germany
They were off to see the Mucha Museum while
their friend ran the race.
Thank you for your service to our country, ladies!
We appreciate it.

This woman and I had fun
chatting about her height
we never spoke the same measurement system
though so let's just say
she was a good half a head taller than me.

We American ladies had to give our native friends
a hard time about the European
way of doing things.
Notice how the male numbers don't have an "M" for male.
Men are the default.
They put an "F" for female who are the exceptions.

The parade of flags

Another Prague native ready to run

Jorg from Germany

As the race gets close to starting
you can feel the runners get jazzed
as their adrenaline gets ready to be sprung.

And they're off!

The Prague Half Marathon
is officially opened by Vaclav Klaus,
the President of the Czech Republic.
The first piece of music played
as the runners take-off is
Smetana's "My country."

I shook the President's hand
but got a bigger kick
out of listening to two teenage Czech girls
literally squeal when they got to meet him.

President Klaus
of the Czech Republic
(he's better-looking in person than in the paper).

My compliments to him and his English teachers.
His accent when speaking in English
was practically native.

This man, who is Czech Secret Service
totally impressed me with
how graciously he did his job
with a constant smile
for those in the crowd
even as he protected the President.

The lead pack
halfway through the race.

A fun exuberant Czech runner.

It was nice to experience his enthusiasm
because Czechs in the crowd don't
cheer on their countrymen.
They just watch.
Anna said the only cheers she heard
along the way were in English.

Anna coming in strong and with a smile
near the end of the race.
Her goal was to run a 2:30.
She ran a 2:32.
Bravo!

I saw these braids go by during the race
and knew it could be only one woman:
Black Girl from Prague!
I was right.

Marco from Bavaria
blew us kisses as he raced.

Everyone should get a medal sometime
in their life, don't you think?

Anna happy, tired, and sore.

Can you get a better backdrop for a race well run
than Prague Castle?