MAY

May has been BUSY.. first week was moms visit, then it headed into crazy :) which was tons of fun. The day my mom went home, Vítek and I hopped on a train back to ours, later i met up with a few friends and we went to Myalis, a huge multi school party/concert. FANTASTIC! The next day I met up with Jarka and Vanessa for a coffee and some lunch, later headed out with vanessa for some window shopping, i just made it home when i got the invite for a spot of tea with Jarka, Vítek, Hanka and Ria. OF COURSE! SO perfect day :) Next day was my host cousins 18th bday, so it was a family lunch, I later discovered online documentaries!! YAY!! Havent slept as much since I swear :) I love them, they help me feel better connected with the world around and make me think.. and since school here is not really working my mind it feels fantastic to think through some.

I also have started to make fruit flans since the fruit season is apon us :) yummy!! Host bro hosted a big neighborhood bonfire one night, super way to meet some of the many neighbors i didnt even know we had. Awesome. haha and then Mark, the canadian that was here last year came to town. He is here for a month long visit and is living with us for the majority of it, so thats been a lot of fun. I also headed out on a school trip for a few days.

I was a little nervous actually, i went with a few class' that I knew no one from and we were going hiking.. not one of my known talents :) But it turned out so perfect. Really!! We hiked during the day up in Liberec, then had bonfires and random field sports in the evenings. On our last day instead of hiking we went to this huge entertainment park in liberec. We were in the IQ park (kinda like science world) for a bit then we all split up and did wat we wanted.. the had LASER TAG! So obviously i grabbed a group and we ran to! soo much fun.. and not that im bragging..but i came 2nd and 3rd :) (we played twice) hahahaha out of the 5 of us! lol.. and it was the first time they had ever played.. haha, but not important :) SO MUCH FUN

I came home and it was Verčas birthday party the next day, we had a gals get together at her place with way to much food and a toast.

I met up with ono of the neighbors that i was introduced to at the bonfire and hung out with him one day and found out he was in scottland working for two months picking strawberries (thats a lot of strawberries!!) but the point is.. like a month after he left that farm, officials came in and busted the farms owner for work conditions that didnt quite meet legal standard.. and it made front page news there... he showed me the paper (he kept a copy) and his dirty laundry is literally airing on its cover ...

Allie, a rotary exchange student staying on the othe other side of CzR came for a few day visit beofre her Vanessa and I went to our Rotary weekend in Košice (Slovakia). It was nice, we went to a ballet and a classical music concert which were beautiful, and did a presentation to all the rotary members at the Hilton (scary), but it was the last time we were able to hang out with the Slovak students before we all head our own ways :( its kinda silly actually for our districts to still be connected, i mean the countries are seperate in every other way.. and we only get to see them twice in our exchange.. any way i think its silly.. but it was a teary goodbye :( it was sad to see them go. then it was just a hop skip and a jump till our second rotary weekend in Česky Krumlov paired with the inbound+rotex canoe trip. That one was a bit more stressful.

We had to prepare a speech, in czech, about ourselves, where we were from, a goal we acomplished and a word of advicee... oy. my czech isnt great, but with the help of friends I got it done no problem.. In the end it was no big deal, we only had to present our little speech infront of the outbounds. It was our first time meeting them, so that was fantastic! There are some really great ones getting shipped out thats for sure. Theres a cutie coming to our ditrict, down in Olivia Holmes' town. Shucks.... haha and there the other guy going to canada from CzR is headed to Yellowknife... YELLOWKNIFE!!! i had no idea they did exchanges up there.. i hope all goes well for him, i gave him my number and my facebook and told him to contact me if he had any questions... but honestly..... can you say cold! So we toured the town and and hung out the majority of the time, then we boogied down one night to tunes put together by none other than your star exchange student, moi :) hahaha my first time dj-ing was a grand success if i do say so myself :) but after our night of gettin jiggy with it came the bad news.. due to rotten weather the canoe trip was a no go :(
We were all really upset, since it was to be our last time together before the big spit.. so we stayed up all night talking and trying to avoid thinking about goodbyes. On our last day, we organised our own get together in a little town that none of us had been to yet that was smack dab in the middle of all of us, so our goodbyes werent quite so sorrowful. There were still a few tears and the weekend (and the month) came to a close with train rides home....

.. for most..


And then it was June

MOM :)

K so my mom flew over for a visit on the 22 and after our own little euro trip headed home on back penticton way on May 6th. What a lovely visit. It started out with a hollywood worthy airport greeting involving the essentials: a sign, tears, running towards eachother, dropping the bags, ending in embrace and ended with tears and a quick goodbye. The middle was where it got good. We had a great time traveling together (despite me stressin over the details...) as well as just chilling out cuddling into a few movies.

The TRAVELING, we stopped in Bratislava, Budapest, and Prague (on the last we were accompanied by a friend of mine, Vítek) for a few days each. Just long enough visit the tourist hot spots and discover a few places of our own. Some of the highlights included our fine dining dinner on the top of New Bridge in Bratsilava, visiting the ZOO in Budapest, hoofing it up the 299 steps for the perfect view in Prague and having a mother daughter get together with a few friends and their mommies back home in Ostrava.
The CHILLING: though we did some traveling it was nice to have some down time. firstly because I was able to show my mom my town, friends and families and secondly because downtime was definitely needed between coming home from the Brat+Buda trip and heading out for Prague. One of moms first evening my host family and I hosted a family dinner with all of my host familes and mom, so perfect. I loved being able to show my mom some of the people ive come to love here and vice versa :) I played tour guide for a few days as well, showing my mom the "it" spots in ostrava and a few of the places I like to go exploring in the near forests.

I think above all I liked being able to say goodnight knowing that the next morning I would wake up knowing she would be here with me.

So this leads us into may..


PS. I just want to put in a little love note to my grandparents. I love you very very much and I cant wait to see you and give you hugs when I get back. Stay strong Grandma. I love you.