Moravian Karst

Romana and I went on a trip to the Moravian Karst region, which is about an hour and a half away. We planned to make it a day trip but the main cave requires a reservation and Sunday morning was all that was available, so we stayed in an airbnb Saturday night instead.

On our way there were stopped off at a much smaller cave but couldn't go in as there was a wedding on. I don't know why they were getting married in a cave. Maybe they were vampires.

Instead of sitting around waiting, risking possible vampire attack, we went to a nearby town for food. The penzion we stopped at kind of wasn't open, but the guy offered to cook for us anyway. I think he was trying to impress me because I'm Australian, and he succeeded. He cooked the best meal I've had so far in Czech. It was just pork steak and stuffed potatoes but it was very very good.


We went back to the cave and joined the tour. It was in Czech so they gave me an English translation. They showed us around and we all eagerly snapped photos of stalagmites and stalactites and stalagnates that we'll never look at again. The cave was discovered when a bloke noticed snow had melted around a crack in the ground. The temperature in the cave stays 7-9 degrees all year round and the air had been venting through this natural chimney. Over the years he climbed down and explored more and more of the cave. Eventually he found the current entrance and quite frankly I don't know how he'd missed it. It's pretty big. And had a car park and stairs leading to it. Unless...





We stayed in a nearby town called Jedovnice, which is on a nice lake. The people we stayed with were apparently very nice. They didn't speak English though so I'll have to take Romana's word for it. We walked through a wheat field down to the lake and went on an impromptu pub crawl around the lake. Unfortunately we forgot to have dinner.

The next day we went to the Punkva cave. It's the main event. It was formed by the Punkva River, which flows underground. The highlight was coming out at the bottom of the abyss. In years gone by part of the cave collapsed forming a 148m deep hole. They played music when we got to the bottom to show the great acoustics.




We continued along and hopped into boats for a 440 metre boat cruise through the remainder of the cave. It was very narrow and the boat pilot man was very good navigating through some sharp bends.

After that we took a chairlift up to the top of the abyss. There wasn't much up there except a viewing platform, which gave me vertigo.

On the way home we stopped at Boskovice castle. It is an old ruined castle on the top of a hill. It shares an origin story I'm sure I've heard for other castles. The lord was lost in the woods and a peasant (a bird catcher, in this case) helped him without knowing who he was. The lord was thankful and gave him a castle.

It's naming story is brilliant. The bird catcher was enjoying his new castle but couldn't think of a name. When he stubbed his toe he had a sudden flash of insight. So he decided to name it Boskovice, which apparently translates to "I won't walk around barefoot in this castle anymore". I'm not even making that up. Legend has it that he never stubbed his toe again.

The view from the castle was probably the highlight. Here is a picture of Romana sneering at the peasants below. You can't really make out the sneer, but I'm sure it's there.



The other cool thing was this contraption:


It is a hamster wheel for people. You get in and run to turn the wheel which turns the crank and brings water up from the well. It seems like an incredibly convoluted method of drawing water which I think is why I love it.

We also visited the Jewish cemetery. We didn't spend too long there as it was very lively.


In other news, I've recieved my letter to go for an interview for Czech residency. It's on August 15th. They're going to try and sus out if Romana and I are a couple. I have to hire a translator for the interview. I just tried to do that but I couldn't because the website they gave me is in Czech.

I also finally went to drop my CV off at some schools. I got off to a cracking start when the first school was a welding school. Strangely, they were very nice and accepted my CV because they sometimes need English speakers. Most of the other schools were either closed for summer or didn't exist. I did manage to find one that was open and the guy gave me a job. He's going to email me about starting next week. I don't really know anything about salary or hours so I'm just waiting on this email. I also should probably learn how to teach English.

Summer in UH

Not much to report from here. I went to get residency in Zlin at the immigration office. The office was curiously located in a block of flats. The lady doesn't think I'll get residency as we didn't have very much evidence that we're in a relationship. Unlike other countries (looking at you United Kingdom) they don't reject the visa outright. Instead they'll ask for additional evidence. The photos I provided weren't up to scratch either (they were taken by a 10 year old boy in the back of restaurant in Cambodia, so no surprises there) so they said to get some proper ones and mail them in. They also sent the immigration police around on Saturday morning to check I'm really living here. I thought that was pretty good.

There has been a kind of free music festival thing in the main square each day this week. Romana and I have been going to that. I don't particularly enjoy concerts but it has been good, despite not understanding what the bands have been singing about. They have a beer hall set up and a beach soccer/volleyball court (so, they put sand in the square). One night during the break it was a bit boring so Romana and I went off to the side to play (Australian) handball. One of the drunk locals came over to watch and ended up buying me a hotdog because I'm Australian.





That first photo is from last year and I should probably credit the Facebook page I took it from but it is too long and the letters have lines above them.

Today is a bank holiday for some pilgrimage in Velehrad, which is about 8km from here. Judging from what I've heard Czech people have fairly sticky fingers so they probably need to atone. I'll point out that I have seen no evidence whatsoever that Czech people are thieves, but I've been told by virtually all the English speaking Czech people I've met that this is the case. Romana is reading this and has now backtracked to say only some of them are thieves. Again, I don't think any are. This would have to be one of the safest, crime free towns I've been in.

OK, so now Romana has told me that the thieving myth comes from the communist times, when you were expected to steal from your workplace to support your family.

Generally the people here are nice but I feel lost in translation. Romana says that they are afraid to speak English and when I try to speak Czech the pronunciation has to be exact or they don't understand. It sometimes seems like they are quite rude. I've said dobry den (a semi formal way to say hello, literally translates as good day) to some people in the apartment block and they've turned their noses up at me but others have been nice and tried to have a conversation.

I'm going to say that I like how they have bicycle paths everywhere and the phone boxes are full of books that you can take as you please. They also have the best beer and sausages and the landscape is spectacular. I'm mostly saying that so I don't seem negative when I complain that they don't know how to make a decent milkshake. I got a chocolate one and it had banana in it! Again, the beer is excellent.