War in Georgia and American radar in the Czech Republic

I haven't paid much attention to discussions about the US radar that's supposed to be in the Czech Republic. The only thing that worried me a little was that it was possible for the American soldiers to be placed here not to be forced to behave according to the Czech law. Otherwise, I didn't care as I thought that all the referendum talks and all that was political bulls*it and nothing more, as always (the elections are coming).
I didn't care until now. Now I do get angry at all those people saying that we don't need radar here, that there's no danger, that they just want to build the radar to make Russia angry, that it's going to be against Russia and not Iran as they say... bla bla bla and so on. Well, dear anti-Americans, anti-whatever-the-reason-for-you-is, I believed it didn't matter whether we have the radar here or have not, I don't think so any more. Why? Because Russia, that poor country that everybody's against and that we are going to hurt if we build the radar, that country just attacked Georgia because... because that's what they do since they know nobody is going to stop them! I don't remember 1968, of course, but I know what happened. How different is that? And the world is letting them do that because it's the Olympic Games time and it's more important... because Russia is big, the mentality of the ruling class is the same it was 40 years ago and that's it. Now - tell me about the "no-threat" from Russia.

Sorry, Croatia!

In my mind, Croatia had been one of those countries full of tourists lying on crowded beaches with nothing more to offer. How wrong was I! Seriously, I am sorry, Croatia, that I had thought of you as such a country as the opposite is true.

This was the first time for me in Croatia, which all the people who were there with us found funny... Anyway - I went with my parents, my nieces and 11 other people, mostly my parents' friends from university. We spent a week at Vir, a nice island with perfectly clean (and incredibly salty) sea. I admit I didn't do much (but I enjoyed doing that :)) but still... just swimming a little farther offered a wonderful view of the mountains of the island Pag. And driving through the continental part of Croatia offered lots of beautiful views as well.

The water was salty and the weather was warm and sunny, which, of course, had to have some effects on my skin that is very allergy-prone. I still enjoyed it, though. I had lots of fun watching Marketka jumping into the sea and swimming like crazy (she's the happiest child in the world when in water), trying to make Lucka swim (she's afraid of water still), sending them both for ice-cream (yes, they are able to buy ice-cream in Croatia by themselves, Lucka can even say thanks in Croatian :)) when we found out that the scoops are much bigger when a kid is the buyer. :) We also had fun watching Croatian and other tourist lying on the pier from which Marketka was jumping into the sea... Imagine - there's a tiny little child in an orange lifejacket running across the pier without even slowing down and jumping into the sea. With no adults around. There was always a tourist of various nationality looking puzzled, obviously thinking if he/she should jump into the sea and save the child. Then Marketka got out of the water and jumped again. What followed was always a relieved laughter of the tourist. And our amused laughter.

Also - Croatian ice-cream is great and although it's more expensive than here, it's worth it as they don't care how much they give you. They simply give you as much as they can. On the other hand, Croatian shop assistants are about 100% worse than the Czech ones. They probably never heard of the little nice thing called smile. But that's ok, I can forgive them, I was on holidays and didn't care. :)

To sum up - go to Croatia, if you can. Try to avoid the too crowded areas. The part of Vir where we stayed was great - the house we all occupied was right next to the beach so we didn't have to take anything with us when we went for a swim as we had a huge terrace just for us, what a luxury! Also, "our" sea was usually really "ours" as people tended not to stay there, although it was probably the cleanest part. I did like the place a lot. :) (Picture will come soon.)

I'd love to go to Croatia to travel around a little to see more of the beauties of this diverse (naturally) country. And please, don't underestimate the country as I did! :)

PS: Croatians did a wonderful job with their new highway, it's seriously amazing.

Canoeing on the Vltava river

Canoeing is a very popular sport in the Czech Republic during the summer. I believe that nowhere in the world is canoeing so popular as here from June to August. :) It isn't because Czechs are so good at it (some are, of course :)), but because it's more of a social event than a sport.

Just a couple of days ago, I came back from one of these social events. I spent 5 days with a group of people canoeing from Vyšší Brod to Boršov nad Vltavou, with stops in Rožmberk, Český Krumlov and somewhere around Zlatá Koruna (closer to Boršov), sleeping at campsites by the river. The weather wasn't the greatest this year, especially the first day when it was raining (it's much less fun this way), but it was fun, and lots of fun... Only when I got back I found out who was one of the people canoeing with us. Quite an important person at my university and also the funniest guy on the river. :)

What does it look like when Czechs go canoeing? :) We take it easy. No hurry, lots of wine (you need a plastic bottle and a string to attach the bottle to the canoe so that it's kept cold and you don't lose it :)), lots of stops at various campsites and "pubs" by the river, lots of alcohol, but not just to get drunk, it's somehow part of it, and nobody is forcing anyone. Anyway, we agreed that nowhere in the country is so many drunk people for a square kilometer. :) Most of them are fun, though. One guy took a picture with me so that he could tell his mum that he has a girlfriend so that she wouldn't bother him with silly questions. :) He didn't even know my name... :)

What was new to me was a "drive-in" pizza place. You simply don't have to leave your canoe to get a delicious pizza (and also a drink, we had mojitos :)). Which reminds me that canoeing is also lots of unhealthy food.

And sure, lots of water, too. What you get on the Vltava river that you probably don't get autanywhere else is the history of the places you go through. It's beautiful. I especially like arriving in Rožmberk since the castle is amazing.


Český Krumlov is registered at the UNESCO heritage list. I think it't much more beautiful from the river than from the city center. It seems it's more taken care of for those on canoes, kayaks and rafts.

And the nature... Going through a forest with no cars around, just you, your canoe and the water... and well, sometimes some other people, but all of them very nice and friendly. Who wouldn't like that?

I miss the river already, although I believe that 5 days are just enough (also because sleeping in a tent in summer is not the best thing, sometimes... It can get cold at night, so you want to have your sleeping bag and your tent closed, but it gets warm in the morning really fast... and inside the tent, it gets even warmer even faster, so you jump out of the tent to save your life because it's so hot that you think you wouldn't survive staying there for another minute... that was my last morning there :))

English language and wife beater

I bought a great book in San Francisco, its name is I just want my pants back, it's written by David J. Rosen and it's very funny and smart at the same time. Anyway, in this book - and it wasn't the first time - I encountered, once again, the word "wife beater"... She was wearing a wife beater, that's the typical sentence... I never really needed to know what exactly she (be it any female character in any of the books I read) was wearing and that's why I never looked the word up in a dictionary. I guess it might have been the fact that I was reading the book on a plane (and the plane's air :)), or whatever, I really wanted to know what piece of clothes can have such a weird name. So I looked it up, finally. My dictionary - Macmillan - doesn't know the word, neither does Longman Online Dictionary. So I tried to google it first to see what it looks like. I was a little surprised, I must say, as I expected it to be something different (for those ignorant as myself, wife beater is sleeveless shirt. Anyway, does this information gratify your curiosity? It didn't work with me, I still wanted to know why on earth would someone call it this.
So I tried Wikipedia. :) And here we go: "The nickname wifebeater originates from its association with aggressive, underclass males, usually living in poor conditions, such as a dilapidated trailer, especially as frequently depicted in television shows and movies." Seriously... Wanna a graphic version?


What can I say... I'm for equality and all that but I strongly believe that men shouldn't wear anything like that. :) Then it should be stopped called a "wife beater" since it's a little weird that a girl is wearing a wife beater. Isn't it? :)

Ok, that was a very serious post. One more thing about how I acquire a new word every day. I just found out that I never knew how to say "Vídeň" (the capital of Austria) in English. I thought I knew but I didn'd. I believed that it's Wien in English, but it's Vienna, could you believe that? I had a BA in English Language. What a joke. :)

The place where we spent more days than anywhere else during the trip - Boulder, CO

We arrived in Denver in the morning pretty tired because it was really cold on the train and thus we couldn't sleep. We left Denver immediately and using the public transport system, we got to Boulder. We had some troubles trying to find the hostel, but after a-little-longer-than-necessary walk, we found it, checked in, took a shower and then Jirka went to bed and I was doing some school work for a while.

Our plan for the first day was to realx and so we did. Later, we visited the Information Center, got some maps and tips, went for dinner and walked through the Pearl Street Mall which was really nice.

Some negative things... I think I had expected Boulder to be something like Banff so I was a little disappointed, although it's definitely a nice place. Not as beautiful as Banff, though. Also, the people there are a little weird. They don't smile much and some are scary weird, which made me believe that I wouldn't like to live there (although I thought it's a pretty cool college town :)).
And the hostel... Probably the worst one I've ever seen. Boulder International Hostel, definitely the cheapest place in town, but - does it mean that I want to live like a pig when I don't want to spend a fortune on accommodation? Seriously, it was very very dirty. In the ladies' bathroom, there were four toilets. Three out of them didn't have doors, just shower curtains (I heard about public toilets without doors in Russia, but in the US, I didn't expect that :)), one of them didn't even have proper walls. The showers were disgusting, the first time I used them I was a little afraid that I'd be more dirty after using them than before... If you go there, you definitely have to have flip flops... The mattress wasn't the cleanest either and there was often no hot water in the kitchen which made it a little hard to wash the dishes...

But enough about the hostel, I don't want to think about it anymore. :) The surrounding area was really nice and is great for biking as there are real bike paths (not like in San Francisco, for example, where you can meet a bus on a bike path :)). So we spent the second day on bikes which was quite hard, with all the mountains and the wind, but it was really nice. Jirka got completely sunburnt, though.

The second day, we decided to go for breakfast to Lucile's where you have to wait for at least 20 minutes to get in. It's worth it, though, it was a great breakfast, although quite pricy, too. After that we decided to stay in the hostel for a while and wait until it gets a little less hot to go for a hike. We went in the afternoon to the ARCH, which was a little harder than we had thought. It was a nice hike and we met some nice people on our way back.

Our last day in Boulder wasn't the nicest... We had to cancel our hiking plans as it was raining heavily and went to the movies instead because we didn't want to stay at the hostel the whole day. We watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall which is a really funny comedy, and the last Indiana Jones which, in my opinion, isn't that good. Also, we had to walk all the way there because the buses weren't running due to a festival going on... We really trusted what it said at the bus stop, though, and thus believed that there was a bus going from the mall back to downtown. There wasn't. Don't trust the American public transport! :) Well, at some places, anyway.

And that would be it 'cause we left Boulder the next morning.

"Exploring" Omaha

I told you about Chicago and then had no time to tell you the rest. And now it's over, and so is my stay in the US. I'm going to tell you a little about the rest of our trip, if you want to. If you don't, just stop reading now. :)

So we made it to Omaha and it wasn't a very pleasant morning... It was raining, the Greyhound station was too small to have a lugguge storage area. That was to start with. We decided to walk to the Amtrak station, from which we were leaving the same night, but it seemed that nobody really knew where it was. And then we found out it is closed until about 9 pm, which is about an hour before the train leaves. What a lovely town! :)
We were lucky and found a hotel where we could leave our backpacks. Then we found a place for brunch, which wasn't anything particularly special, but it was good enough. Plus - we were soaking wet so it was nice to sit inside. :)

Then, after some time, it stopped raining, we walked a little around the Old Market, which is probably the only area interesting for tourists :), and then went to the library where we spent a couple of hours reading books. Being tired, though, it didn't work that well, so we went for a walk when the sun finally turned its nice face to Omaha. :)

I'm going to make it short - we walked around, waited and it seemed that we had too much time, all the time we needed in Chicago and didn't have, we had here and didn't know what to do with it. When the right time came, we went to the train station. The train was late, of course. :) But it wasn't that bad and the conductor was a really nice guy. And we left Omaha at aroun 11:30 pm and agreed that we wouldn't miss it at all.

Chicago is a wonderful place!

Stop number 2: Chicago. Well, Jill was telling us how awesome it is but I was rather skeptical since I am not much of a cities fan. I must admit, however, that I loved Chicago. It's true... I love that city. :)

We stayed at a hostel called Arlington House. It wasn't bad, but given the fact that we stayed at hostels in South Africa and camps in Southern Africa, I simply wasn't impressed. It smelled kind of weird, but nothing that an open window wouldn't solve. There was no hot water the first night. It seemed quite clean, though and good enough to sleep at. :)

We spent our first day walking around, starting with a breakfast at Nobel Tree (which was ok, amazing apple pie, not so amazing sandwiches).
We started at Lincoln Park, through which we walked to Lake Michigan. Then we walked alongside the shore until it was time to get back to downtown. We had lots of fun at Millennium Park, especially with the Cloud Gate (aka 'The Bean') where we were trying to take some good pictures of ourselves jumping... When you see the photos, you'll understand. :)

Our next stop was to be John Hancock Center which didn't happen as easily as we thought. We walked to Sears Tower (the the USA's tallest building... but we just don't go to the tallest ones :)) to realize that John Hancock Center is on the other side of downtown. Only a little disappointed, we ended up at Pizzeria Uno having Chicago's famous deep-dish pizza. I liked that place.
We found John Hancock Center eventually and went up to the 94th floor (only later we realized that we could have got to the 96th for free if we bought drinks up there). The view was amazing, with only one little flaw - a bunch of high-school kids being there at the same time as us on a school trip. :)

When we were done there, we decided to go back to the hostel and rest a little. And that was the first time we used the public transport which, I must say, was one of the reasons I liked Chicago so much. I was impressed by the public transport system (you know, I'm usually very skeptical about public transport in the US :)) and I loved the trains!

Later that night we went back to Millennium Park to watch the Buckingham Fountain. The Lonely Planet guide claims that it "squirts on the hour" - which is true - and that it is "accompanied by at night by multicolored lights and music" which is not true. It was just red and with no music, but it was nice anyway.

On day 2, we had breakfast at an amazing Algerian cafe called Crepes and Coffee Palace, then we went to the Greyhound station to get the tickets to Omaha, left our luggage there and went to Museum of Science and Industry. Unfortunately we got there quite late - at about 2 pm - and since it was closing at 4 pm we didn't have time to see everything. I had fun, though, we saw a German submarine from WWII, Jirka tried snowboarding, we saw the Earth :) and also went to see a special exhibit called Smart Home which was fun mainly because there was a bunch of school kids taking notes about everything the guide (who was really nice) said. I took a picture of them, although it wasn't allowed to take pictures in there (I didn't know that :)).

We wanted to go to Adler Planetarium next, but had no time to do that. So we went to Giordano's for lunch-dinner instead, having deep-dish pizza again. Their portions are so huge that we ended up taking more than a half of the pizza with us.

Having some time still, we walked to Navy Pier which was quite touristy, but that's just the way it is with places like that.

Our bus was leaving at 21:45. We had reserved our seats so we didn't have to be there an hour earlier which was good. Well, the fun part was to come. We left Chicago late (which didn't surprise us - it's Greyhound :)). We had the weirdest guy sitting in the seat in front of us (first, he asked Jirka if I was his girlfriend or sister... then he asked me if my glasses were brown or red... just like that... out of nowhere... :)). And then, after about two hours, the bus broke down. Our driver was a funny guy, too, a little like a strict school teacher. It took about 1,5 hour before another bus arrived and by that time, I felt as if on a school trip. You know, people who travel by Greyhound are kind of funny... :)

Back on the road...

A year has passed (almost) and we're on the road again. It is not going to be such a marvelous trip like last year in Africa but we're hoping that it's going to be amazing and great and wonderful anyway. :)

Right now, we're at our first stop - Cleveland - where we attended Jill's graduation. It looks much more fun in the movies, my dear European friends who haven't experienced this yet. :) Anyway, it's good to see Jill and her family again so we're happy to be here.

The next stop is Chicago. We're going to get there tomorrow evening (after an 8-hour bus drive... I hate Greyhound, but I guess I've already told you that :)). We spend two nights in Chicago and then move west to Omaha. Now, you might be asking what's in Omaha? Nobody knows and that's why we're going there to explore it a little bit. But don't worry, we're going to be there just for a day, we aren't even spending a night there... Although we might regret it later... Probably not. :)

That was the Greyhound part of our trip. The Amtrak part starts in Omaha where we get on a train to Denver. We leave Denver as soon as we get there to spend about five days in Boulder and here comes the fun and my favorite part - the Rockies!!! Yay!!! :) But later on, we're going to spend two days in Denver, too.

After Denver? There's not much time left. We get on the train again and go directly to San Francisco (which is, in the ideal world, about 30-hour ride... in the real world, it's probably going to last longer due to all the delays and stuff). Jirka is attending some Fulbright event there and I'll just do my best to entertain myself, possibly go on a hike with Sam. I'll enjoy it anyhow as I plan to go play kickball again in the Golden Gate Park. I like the San Francisco people, too. :)

Besides that, we have no exact plans fr what to do and what to see. We have one plan and that's enough - we're going to have fun and enjoy it as much as we can! :)

Mammoni... wanna marry one? :)

My friend sent me this link and I must say it's hilarious. Well, it's also sad but since I don't have to live there andlook for a normal guy among these, it's just hilarious... Enjoy the videos:

Mammoni

How paranoid am I?

Seriously, guys... I don't know what to believe anymore. I think I'm getting to the point where I'll just doubt everything. About four days ago, we watched Clerks 2 (which is, by the way, hilarious, I love Jay and Silent Bob, you have to watch it!)... The two main characters - Dante and Randal (who worked at a Quick Stop in Clerks 1) - work at a fast food called Mooby's and the movie begins with them coming to work and getting all the "food" ready. And here happens something that just made me wonder about where things come from for a couple of days... There was something that was supposed to be served as an egg in all those burgers they sell. I was staring at the screen with my mouth open in disbelief. What the hell was that??!!! My boyfriend looked at me, in disbelief, too, saying "that's what they use instead of real eggs" - ok, how am I supposed to know that? I've never seen anything like that before, it was very disgusting... The truth is, my boyfriend worked, many years ago, in a fast food in the US, so he probably had the chance... But for me, it was just shocking. So this, alongside with all the environmental articles and all that stuff, just makes me wonder what is real and what isn't all the time.
So I read an article about anything... And instead of thinking "this is intersting", or "this is boring", I think "well, and how do I know that it's true, who's the author? who is he working for?"

So - how do I know who's right - those who say that global warming (what kind of term is that, anyway? There's nothing such as global warming, it's just that the media like to use it... it's global climate change! :)) is going to kill us, or those who say it is not? Al Gore who made a nice movie, got a Nobel prize (one of the best jokes of last year, I'd say) and tells us how the US Republican government is destroying the environment and that we (or probably the Americans) have to do something about now? That Al Gore who did nothing about it when he actually had some power to do something as the US vice-president?


Please, tell me - are we ever going to know the truth about things? I just hope I won't end up not believing what I said myself... Who am I working for? Who's paying me to write this? :)))

The paradox of choice

How lives in the developed world can be difficult. No kidding... I'm sure you'll know what Barry Schwartz is talking about. It's a very intereting talk and I also like his presenting skills. Enjoy!

What is important and what is less...

This guy - Bjorn Lomborg - talks (quite fast :)) about a research a group of economists did and tells us what the world should focus on. I don't think I was surprised by what they put on the top... But I can tell you that I've read way too much about our environment, climate changes, and all that this semester that I don't know anymore what to think. To every point, there's a but, believe me... Anyway, I'm still going to reuse things and recycle, eat organic food and ride a bike or walk if I can... :)

Enjoy the video!

Our sunflower

Slunečnice

(Click on the picture above and you will see how it is growing :))

The Digital Dump Official Trailer

The next movie was called "Exporting harm" and was about e-waste export to China. Both are worth watching.

E-waste - ever heard of it?

It seems that I'm becoming an eco-freak. Whatever... :) So - we just bought biodegradable laundry detergent, laundry softener and dishwasher soap. We try to buy organic food as much as we can (well, that probably wouldn't bother me that much back home, but since I found out how it is with genetically modified food in the US, it just seems much better this way). I don't use the dryer for my clothes (I never did, really, we don't have one at home, there's no eco reason for that :)). Well, there are still plenty of things that I could do and I don't do them. Perhaps it will just come gradually. And I guess that one of the reasons behind that is one of the classes that I'm taking this year. I've learned so much from the Environmental Sociology class so far! And also from other things... For example - did you know that laundry detergents often contain oil-based cleaners (or whatever it's called)? I did not. Also - my family has always recycled paper, plastic, glass... I had a hard time in South Africa where I couldn't recycle but I somehow understood that. But why is it harder to recycle here than back home?

Anyway, what I wanted to share with you today is the problem of e-waste. I don't know much about it. I just watched two documentaries yesterday about e-waste and I was shocked. In short, some developed countries just dump their e-waste, which is highly toxic and dangerous, in the developing countries, which, of course, have no facilities to deal with it. The result? Poor people work on "recycling" old computers etc. which is slowly but surely killing them and destroying their environment completely. Often, some developed countries claim it's actually help - they claim that the computers and other stuff they send to Africa or Asia is for the people to be used. Well, very often, it can't be used!
There are four international treaties that deal with that: the Basel Convention on the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes (1989) with the Basel Ban Amdendment (1995) effectively banning hazardous waste exports from OECD and Liechtenstein to all other countries; The London Convention Protocol (1996) on forbidding most forms of ocean dumping; the Rotterdam Convention (1998) requiring prior informed consent on export of certain dangerous product chemicals; and the Stockholm Convention soon to be adopted in May 2001 which will effectively move to phase-out and reduce the release of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) (you can find more about them on the Basel Action Network website). On the BAN website, you can also find out which countries signed and ratified the treaties and which have not (the list). When you look at the list and watch the videos that BAN made about this problem, you'd find out that the biggest exporter of e-waste is the US, also the only developed country that hasn't ratified any of the treaties, thus exporting safely, because it's legal, and killing people (besides that, it was found out that it's often US state governments and other state agencies that do that and thus you can actually find lots of information that should be kept confidential when you go, say, to Nigeria to one of the e-waste stores and get a computer from there).
Well, all I can say about this is that it's terrible. I wouldn't like to see my kids playing at a place like that:

Or have all this carcinogenic stuff in my neighbourhood. I guess nobody would like that, including the US government members. How can they be ok with doing this? I mean - what other countries than the developed ones should be able to deal with e-waste in the right way?

Well, so if there's a time when I need to get a new cell phone, laptop, computer because the old one isn't working anymore, I'll just make sure to dispose of it in a way that doesn't harm other people's healt and other people's environment. I guess we should all do that.