Hedgehogs, castles, and tlačenka

We have finished our first week of classes, and all in all Jeremy and I both feel good about them. There are things we will need to work on or change, but for our first week, it went well. I will need to find helpers for a few of my youngest classes, since we had trouble understanding one another. Jeremy seemed pleased with his classes, and I know he is going to make it fun and challenging for his students!


Anyway, on Thursday we were riding back to our appartment and we saw this little ball moving around in the grass, so naturally we stop to check it out. Turns out it was a hedgehog! Who knew that there were hedgehogs in the Czech Republic?! We also never knew that they were nocturnal...and they play dead. No joke, they do! We got super close to it and I look a picture with a flash and it didn't move a muscle until after we got back on our bikes and started to ride away. Good times.

Today (Sunday) we went to Svojanov with Bartošoví, which is a beautiful little place where Přemek's dad grew up. The entire day was great, from lunch at their house, which was amazing, to visiting Svohanov, a castle and then having dinner at a little resturant and meeting a woman who makes lace. Anyway, we went and saw the Castle of Svohanov, which was fun. It is a old little castle, which was still in pretty good shape seeing it was built in the 13th century. We took some fun pictures, drank some Kofola (pop) and then walked back to the house.


I think the most challenging thing about our Sunday adventure was eating at the small mill resturant and having tlačenka, which you can see to the right. We had our choice of three different foods, something made out of cheese, grilled chicken, and tlačenka. I choose the grilled chicken and Jeremy got tlačenka, after agreeing with me that we would split our meals. I am not going to lie, when it came out, I almost backed out on sharing my meal! There where two slices of it with onions and bread, and at first sight there is nothing that makes a foreigner want to eat it, because you can't help but wonder, "what is it?". The first bite was also a little difficult, because the texture is a mixture of hard and squishy, since it is made of pork meat and natural gelitin. The taste however, is not bad: it tasted like vinegar and onions. We were told later that homemade tlačenka is much better, but I think eating it once was enough for both of us.