Well its been a while.  Now that we are all settled there doesn't seem to be much to write about.  Daily life is pretty mundane.  Same as it would be in Canada.  Work, school, figuring out what's for dinner and what should we do on the weekend.  And I certainly wouldn't be blogging about that at home so topics are slim to none. 

So on that note I will write on a seemingly innocuous topic of salt. Yep salt. 

Its winter so you would think that salt would be every where in Prague (although all the ice and snow from earlier in the winter is long gone).  But they don't use salt.  Instead its some kinda crushed rock stuff.  Very fine and just as annoying as salt.  Not that its really important at all but I have been wondering why they don't use salt at all on the roads during the winter.  And then it hit me.  They don't use salt on the roads because they use every available grain of salt on meat.  It does not matter what kind of meat, what cut of meat, whether you buy it in the grocery store or order it in a restaurant; there is so much salt that I cannot stomach it.  Ground meat in particular is very bad so our typical winter diet of chili and shepherds pie has gone by the wayside. 

So what to do, what to do?  Well, at this point I don't really know.  I've become much more of a vegetarian and much less of a meatatarian for now.  Thank God the for tomatoes and cheese.

Happy New Year

Hard to believe but we made it through another year. Looking back, I'm still not sure what side of the fence 2010 falls on: there was good and bad and ugly.

Lets start with the good. We finally made the move to Prague where work became easier and harder at the same time. Everyone seemed to adjust well and we are all going about our business thank you very much. The year brought a lot of opportunity for travel for all of us and was capped quite nicely with a Christmas ski holiday in Val Gardena, Italy. The mountains were breath taking even if the skiing wasn't all that great as the weather was unusually warm. And it was nothing, if not educational. Here are some of the things we learned...

...don't let your mother have your iPad to play with. It's like pulling teeth to get it back.
...if you put the 4 boys in one car and the 3 girls in another car for an 8 hour drive, the girl car smells better at the end of the day
...at 86 years old, papa can still put on the skis and do some runs
...at 46 years old, I am too old and fat to do much of anything
...it's not really feasible to lock 7 people in an apartment in a foreign country and expect sanity to be maintained
...Italian TV is worse than German TV
...that nana would rather visit a mall than a historical site, no matter the significance
...it apparently snows everywhere in Europe except where it is supposed to snow


As for the bad, I suppose in retrospect it wasn't really all that bad although at the time it seemed as if the sky were falling and I was the sole target. But when you think that we got through the turbulence with our health and relative happiness intact, then we are very lucky indeed.


And the ugly you ask...Jamie's one and only haircut in Prague. Still gives me the shivers.


Happy New Year everyone and all the best for 2011.

Czech women spend their money on 5 things: hair care, manicures, cigarettes, clothes and food. In that order. My list looks more like: food, chocolate, wine, beer and workout t-shirts. Last Saturday however, I became a fully-functioning Czech lady-citizen and spent some money on hair care. (I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a Czech lady-citizen ceremony, but I couldn't find a number to call to tell them that I was taking the oath.)

Apparently working for IBM and moving half-way around world has taken its toll on my golden locks and I am way more gray on-top than I would care to admit. So I checked around to see about recommended places and prices to un-gray myself. Turns out there aren't many english speaking hair-dudes within the hair-dude community and not surprisingly, they can charge what they like. A typical hair-cut and dye job is priced at about the same as a full kidney transplant in most 1^st world nations. And while the Czech women and their expat lady friends can live with these prices I had a very hard time justifying them.

So whats a gal to do, you ask? Well you go to your local hypermarket and you buy the Salon-in-a-Box. For the equivalent of $8 CAD, you can get a fully-functioning Loreal #15 brown, do it yourself dye (or perhaps 'die') kit. Daring I admit, but really who would notice if I showed up as a purple headed enablement leader? Most of my work is with the male population in Eastern Europe and lets face it most men wouldn't notice and many of the women here have purple hair anyway so it wouldn't be a problem.

So come Sunday afternoon, I locked myself and Caroline into our upstairs bathroom and opened the box. That wasn't even hard. The box came with one set of gloves, 2 or 3 tubes of stuff and a container for mixing. What the box didn't come with was english instructions. After staring at the pictures where the smiling, maicured lady demonstrated how to do this, neither Caroline or I were any further ahead. And since the iactual written nstructions didn't mention the words for butter, chocolate or beer I decided that google translate would have to be deployed.

So off to the computer we went and I typed in the first sentence from the instructions:

MAKE SURE YOU WEAR THE GLOVES it screamed. How bad is this stuff I screamed, if you have to wear the gloves. IN THE VERY FIRST SENTENCE.

The next set of instructions weren't so straight forward. This is what I got from Google:

Apply the rest of the remaining 2-3 cm shemesh co y of the Incas and the roots.

So according to Google, the box was supposed to contain an Inca.  I automatically assumed it was an Inca warrior who would dye my hair for me while gently massaging my scalp with his strong warrior hands. (well, perhaps I made that last part up, but the Inca part is at least true). Nonetheless, we were really hoping to go back into the bathroom and find the warrior awaiting his assignment. But no. Nothing but a couple of wet towels and Bailey the Dog wondering what all the fuss was about.

At any rate, we felt we knew enough to start the process. So Caroline carefully mixed the appropriate tubes of brown gunky stuff into the test tube like container and we let it sit for a few minutes so that it was properly absorbed. And then it really did turn purple. And smelled so much like ammonia that my nostrils were burning. Once again I found myself wondering how bad is this stuff really? Oh, and did I mention the mixture was now full on purple? Not mauve or light purple, but purple. Putting purple ammonia on my scalp wasn't sounding all that pleasing with or without the warrior. But I decided to go ahead anyway – afterall, $8 is $8.

OMG. It was just like being in the Lord of Rings where gollum finds the ring and screams “it burns us, it burns us”. But at least my hair wasn't turning purple; it was indeed brown as advertised. Although probably not as brown as it could have been as there was no way I was keeping that stuff on my head for the recommended length of time. So as soon as possible I rinsed out the ammonia and lathered my head with polysporen instead of the conditioner it called for. Turns out that polysporen has many conditioner like properties so this wasn't a bad idea at all and it soothed the 3^rd degree burns.

And finally, after all was said and done, I went back to google to type in the rest of the instructions to see if we had done something like mixed the wrong stuff together. What I got back from Google was this:

Grind can pass the final quantity evenly enough to pee the whole length of hair. 

So I obviously didn't do anything wrong and it wasn't even ammonia after all but plain old pee. Which makes sense when I think about it cause the bathroom did smell for quite a while like a hundred cats had peed on my head.

Which probably explains why Bailey kept visiting us.

People Who Should Not Travel

I am what 'they' refer to as road warrior.  I have been through most of the world's major airports and I've seen a lot behaviours that I wish I hadn't.  As I get ready to board yet another flight, I thought i would publish my own personal set of behaviors that should get a traveller banned from flying or staying abroad.  Feel free to add to the list as I'm sure there are others... 


1. Any passenger, namely me, has the right to turn around and tell the dude behind you that cutting his nails on an airplane is so over the top gross, that they are to cease immediately.  Especially, wait for it... If the cuttings fly over your shoulder.  Seriously. 

2.  No one should be able to grab the back of your chair and pull it backwards by 90 degrees simply because they can't get their ass out of their own chair without this support.

3.  Every passenger should have the right to switch places with the parent of that child who won't stop kicking your chair - despite staring rudely and outright asking them to stop.

4.  Mandatory shower and teeth brushing sessions for all passengers who I decide need it.

5.  You are not allowed to be rude to the airline people. Yelling and screaming at the person behind the counter because the flight is late is NOT their fault and they should not bear the brunt of your anger.  And it makes me crazy.  

6.  Don't stand in the aisle with your crotch or your ass in my face.  I don't like it.

7.  I will decide who can and cannot take their shoes off inflight.

8.  Do not ever assume that just because the lady cleans up after you in the Hilton lounge she is stupid and cannot speak English.  Over heard in the lounge in Bucharest recently....

(Remember it has to be in your loudest voice (dressed in your loudest clothes) so everyone eating breakfast can hear you)

"Phil, do you know how to work the Espresso machine" 
Phil doesn't know so of course you turn to the lady in the lounge and in your bestest loudest voice you ask ' DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH'

And since you are in Bucharest where everyone learns English, she replies very quietly, 'please don't yell and how can I help you'.     And then rude lady yells back at Phil... "Hey Phil, she speaks English".  SHE should not EVER TRAVEL.

Oi!!!! 
     

A visit to the MUNICIPAL LIBRARY – MĚSTSKÁ KNIHOVNA

Lynn and Paul are our Canadian/Czech neighbours who left the confines of Etobicoke many years ago to run their own business in Prague.  Paul was born in CZ but his family left for Canada when he was 5.  The idea that they have lived here for many years coupled with the fact that Paul speaks fluent Czech has left us giddy with all the questions we can get answered and the help we can receive.  For example, up until 2 weeks ago we were still untangling ourselves from the 'Martin owns our car' mess as we finally received everything we needed to register the car in our name.  Paul was brave  generous enough to accompany Stu on this little errand.  One complete afternoon later and voila, we own the car.  Which would never have happened if it was just Stu trying to do this. 

Many things boil down to the fact that If you do not have knowledge of the Czech system or the language, then you are simply in for a world of hurt.  The Czech people can be just plain suspicious of foreigners and are not willing to help, but bring along your Czech speaking buddy and things miraculously open up for you.  So having Paul and Lynn for friends is a very good thing for us.  I am not sure if that there is any value in it for them, but you know we've not really given them any choice in the matter and quite frankly we will not let them out of our sites.   

Fast forward to this particular Saturday and Stu and I and Bailey the Dog are on a walk with Lynn and Paul and their puppy Roxy.  While we enjoy walking with our other friends and their dogs, Lynn and Paul offer the additional benefit of being able to communicate in Canadianese:  RCMP, Muskoka, Timmies, The Leafs, Peter Mansbridge, CBC, HNIC... the list of Canadianisms is endless and they get them.  There isn't anyone else that we can communicate with like this.  Mention Muskoka to someone else and you are just as likely to get slapped. 

After the walk, Lynn has decided to take their daughter Sam into the MĚSTSKÁ NIHOVNA which is the Prague library and I, in my very subtle fashion, invite myself and Caroline along for the ride.  According to the library's website, they have an 'extensive collection'  of English language books.  I have been searching for a solution to the amount of money I am providing to Amazon to have them deliver English language books and perhaps this is it. 

In to town we go and (except for the detour for frozen yogourt) we have no trouble finding the library.  It is a beautiful old building right in the heart of the old town with some parts of it dating from the 11th century.  The first place we visit is actually The Clementinum or the National Library of the Czech Republic which was founded in 1781.  But even earlier than that, say around 1622, the Jesuits were using this building as part of the library for Charles University.  Sam is acting as our interpreter and after a couple of false starts we end up in the area where they 'collect' their English books.  The first book I find is a 1970's cast off from the Scarborough Public Library called Stories from Ontario.  Surprisingly, neither girl seems interested in this one so we continue our tour.  After about 5 seconds we figure out that there are no books for tweens in English in this building.  In fact, in the past 4 weeks, we've purchased more books from Amazon than this collection holds, so we need to move the tour next door to the mestska nihovna.  And since the municipal library of Prague was the one actually advertising its extensive collection of English books, we are feeling more confident.

Sillies.  Turns out that extensive in Czech means 3; with 1 being a dictionary.  Even the dictionary isn't really a dictionary but rather a book of colloquialisms of English for people new to the language.  Lynn opens the book to a page where they discuss what 'flying fu**' means and we quickly decide the girls won't want that book either.

Libraries 2, us Nil. 

So off we trot to the bagel store and the bakery in Old town instead. At least here we know that the collection of cookies is extensive and there will be more than 3.  And we can read the menu in English.  All's well that ends well.