Singing in Olomouc

Olomouc. There was an annual international choir competition, Festival of Songs Olomouc. There were 106 choirs with 2856 participants from all over the world. The furthermost country to participate was the Pacific Island of Guam. My choir also went there.

We went to Olomouc to have fun, not to compete very seriously, but we got pretty good points, which was cool. The winner of the whole contest was Hwa Chong choir from Singapore. And they were soo good. In the final concert where the five choirs with the highest points competed, all of them were technically good of course. But the way Hwa Chong choir performed, the way every single one of the singers expressed the music they were singing, I got thrills!

Olomouc was beautiful. We performed with our ICP Chamber Choir, and the full International Choir of Prague. We had fun singing. And altogether we had really good team spirit! :) The weather was lovely.

ICP Chamber Choir.

Black and red.

Waiting for our turn.

Waiting for our turn.

The hall where we sang.

So, the rest of the time in Olomouc we were just enjoying the company and having a good time. We were having local beer and ice cream, we were joking around and singing for fun. Some of our audience, fellow beer drinkers were quite surprised by us singing in parts. I tried Olomoucké syrečky, this local cheese that is known for its distinctive smell, which could be described as horse shit. Everyone was hyping it up and telling me how gross it was gonna be, but it wasn’t that bad. A bit more creepy dish I tried was tatarský biftek which is raw beef. Mm.

The town square where they announced the results.

Waiting to hear our score.

Yippeeh!

Hanging out together.

Hanging out together.

Hanging out together.

Many songs later...

We continued our night into a bar which has been nominated for the worst bar in the Czech Republic. It’s that kind of a place where they run out of drinks. They ran out of both Slivovice and Becherovka. Outrageous!

It was an airplane. A completely stinky and disgustingly dirty one. I don’t know the reason for its existence. But we had an awesome time there! :)

There were bars in front of the door, but according to the sign showing that the opening hours were from 9 pm to 7 am, it was supposed to be open. So we rang the door bell, and a woman came to unlock the bars. She was like completely pissed off by the fact that there were customers coming to ruin her evening. Like what the hell was she supposed to do anyways, just hang out minding her own business in a stinky fucking airplane? Yaah...

In the cockpit there was a DJ and a small dance floor. People were just going crazy on the dance floor, and the whole airplane was shaking a bit when people were jumping in the front. When you entered the plane you could smell piss from the toilets, the middle part was full of smoke, and in the front where the dance floor was, there was like no fresh air and people were just sweating. Wonderful, isn’t it! :)

Airplane.

On the dance floor.

On the dance floor.

Anyways, we had lots of fun accompanied by some late night randomness. ICP!! :D

 Classy!

Wine...

We went to a wine tasting. A company made a leisure/team-building/whatever-having-fun trip to a vineyard, and one of its employees was a language student of a friend of mine, so they decided to do a joint venture and take over the wine cellars together. And ask some friends to come along, too. So I went :)

It took place in the Eastern Czech Republic, Moravia. The nature was beautiful, and the village life seemed tranquil. We stayed in a pension in the village center. There was a pub. After a day of work, a farmer parked his horse carriage to the town square and went to have a beer. Simple life. We played some Frisbee and tennis. And then we walked up the hill to the wine cellars.

Straight away we were offered some wine, and this bread with cheese and ham baked into it.

Cheese in the bread, what a great invention!

For some reason, they had decided that we would do the wine tasting first and have dinner after that. And that was a very bad idea. Especially since we hadn't had lunch either.

We were trying to be sophisticated and do the tasting properly. Rolling the glass, smelling the wine, trying to get the finest essence of the noble product. The first one was applely. The second one had some forest fruit in it. The third one was light and dry, and the fourth one even dryer. I made it to wine number 10. I think it was red.

In the cellar.

Wine number 8. Count the fingers ;)

After having way too much wine, we got the dinner. It was very rural, lots of meat, pickles, and some Moravian cake.

An eating man.

Dinner table.

To sum it up, it was a totally mediocre weekend ;D thanks guys for the great time!

English tea

Nina and Ross, two people from England threw an English tea party. They served English foods and wine. However, the foods were kind of international (e.g. couscous). When the guests were wondering if they can really be called 'English', the host just went: "Well, we owned every single country at some point, so we can perfectly legitimately call these foods English!" continuing: "The only country we didn't own was the Czech Republic and that was only because we didn't want it.". :)

I just wanted to post some pictures, so here we go!

'English' food: sandwiches, samosas, couscous...

A copy-paste mistake that turned out quite cool :)

The hostess.

Scones!

The host with the trifle he had made.

It was good!

A little entertainment...

The end.

Countryside

Last weekend was awesome. Let me tell you about it.

So. Last week. I receive an e-mail from a person I have seen like only two times before, and the title of the mail is "Crazy weekend in the countryside". The e-mail is sent to many people and it goes something like this: "Rory has a guesthouse and he invited us there for the weekend. It's a great place near a lake and it should be lots of fun. RSVP as soon as possible. Bring a sleeping bag!".

It seems like a cool thing to do, so I decide to go. I try to ask more about the whole thing, but don't really get a picture of what we're gonna do or where we're even going.

So Friday comes and we meet at the train station. There are eight of us. Most of the people I have seen a couple of times before at some parties. We go into the train. We sit into one cabin. The train starts moving.

As we speak it turns out that none of us really knows this Rory.

So there we are, sitting in a cabin of a train while it's getting darker outside, eight of us, not really knowing where we're going, and not really knowing each other either. The Italian guy opens a bottle of red wine and we drink it from colorful mugs while laughing at how our situation could be straight out of a horror movie!

We arrive to the middle of nowhere. Well that's what it seems like in the dark. At the train station there is a woman waiting for us with a car. Girls hop on and guys go to a pub to wait for their ride. We are taken to the guesthouse where we finally meet our host Rory, a jolly lad from Scotland.

Train station.

Rory tells us to get ourselves beer or wine from the bar and to sit down to wait for the soup he had made.

We drink beer and wine, and eat delicious soup, while not being able to think about anything else but where are we, who are these people and what is going on!

Supper.

Then boys start to play guitars and french horn, and we sing. A girl and a boy dance to the music and I have a moment: "We are in the middle of Moravian countryside in a tavern, beer is flowing and guitar is playing... Did we travel in time or is this real?" Hahaha... :)

Saturday is beautiful. The air is calm, the sun is shining. After breakfast we go for a walk into the nature.

The village Nekoř.

Blue car.

We walk to the lake and decide to have guláš and ice cream. We find a grass field and start to play Frisbee. We throw the Frisbee around for a while and decide to divide into two teams and play ultimate Frisbee. The game turns out to be great fun!

Half-time.

We come across many old cars and I wanna have a picture taken with one.

We take a different path back and come to this paradise-looking small grass terrace by the river. It is just so perfectly beautiful: green grass, little stream flowing, rays of sunlight shining from between the trees, the river glistening...

We sit down and the Italian takes out the food he had brought for lunch: cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, prosciutto, brie... We are amazed by the picnic we're having. He even lights a candle!

Small bridge.

Green grass.

Chillin.

We arrive back to the guesthouse where there's barbecue waiting for us. We lie down on the grass, drink beer, eat salad and barbecued meat in the gloomy evening sun... I think I'm a romantic! :D

Tractor.

Enjoying life.

As we continue the party inside, we get into games such as "never have I ever" and "truth or dare", and it turns out that we have some pretty cool people in our group. ;)

When most of the people are gone to bed and the party is in its end, Rory asks us if we're hungry. We go to the kitchen and there are chickens in the oven. We break some chicken wings and after eating Rory puts the chickens back saying "let's just tell my wife that one of the chickens was cripple, and she'll never know what we did". :)

Sunday again is beautiful. We play table tennis and badminton on the yard, and try to figure out what we're gonna do. We end up just relaxing at the guesthouse, and having lunch there. We eat the chickens (of which one is a cripple...) outside on the terrace.

Lovely lunch.

We have a train to catch, so we head back to the town, Letohrad. While we have a bit of time to spare, we get pieces of this Czech cake, medovník. Mmm...

A piece of medovník to go.

We take the train back to Prague, feeling tired and slightly sunburned, but definitely happy! :)

The weekend was great... Activities, nature, awesome people and lots of food! :) I was thinking, there are not many people who take you into their home, feed you and throw a party for you. But there are some. Rory and Maria are good people. If you want to have a great time, go to their pension A-Bonet.

Cookies!

Last weekend I got a new flatmate from the United States. And with him he brought cookies - loads of sweet, delicious, American cookies. Big, fat chocolate chip oat flake cookies, peanut butter and mint chocolate Girl Scout cookies... There is a huge pile of chocolate and cookies in our kitchen, and boy, have we been eating them! For breakfast, snack, snack, snack, after lunch, snack...

But it was Easter. So you're allowed to spoil yourself. Just for a weekend.

Last weekend we also had an Easter lunch with a bunch of really nice people. It was a pot-luck: everyone brought something to eat. So we ended up having a table full of tasty food, Easter eggs, and chocolate. We talked, ate, ate some more, played games, and ate a lot of chocolate. It was fun! :)

Let the egg battle begin!

Food and toys...

Needless to say, it's time for less cookies, and some serious yoga.

Spring, Easter and stuff

This heading definitely ranks one of the worst ones ever... But anyway :)

It's spring. Not as warm as I would like it to be. The sun is peeking but still hiding behind the clouds. I'm sleeping too late every morning because of changing the clock. But it's spring! :D And I love it!

Today on our lunch hour we went to one of the Easter markets in Prague, on Václavské náměstí. And we had a dish traditional for Central Eastern Europe called langoš. It's basically deep-fried dough with garlic, ketchup and cheese on it. Yummy! But greasy...

Langoš!

So, now Easter is coming up. And probably the only national holiday and a day off from work during my internship. And I don't have any plans! It would have been a good chance to go somewhere... but I don't stress that much. Maybe it's just better that you don't have a tight schedule on holidays, just enjoy the free time!

They have odd Easter traditions here in the Central Eastern Europe. Here in the Czech Republic they have these wooden sticks, especially made and decorated with colorful ribbons for this occasion, and on Easter they hit girls with them! And in Slovakia they go even further, they throw buckets of cold water on girls! Easter is a seriously kinky holiday here: spanking and a wet t-shirt party! :)

I bought this Easter-stick as a souvenir for myself. Maybe I'll get hit with it. In the name of cultural experience!

I wish you all a great weekend, lots of sun and a good time! :)

Easter

On Easter Sunday we wanted to do something special. Since we always eat Korean food here we decided to have European food to make it a bit more special. We started the day by having western brunch on the terrace of a cafe/bar called Comfort Zone near our dorm.

Chicken salad and a cafe latte, please.

Rene was soo happy to get bacon and eggs :)

In the evening we went to Itaewon which is a "foreign area" in Seoul. Korean restaurants and people are quite a ratity there. You can have a culinary trip around the world when visiting the restaurants there. We went to a Bulgarian restaurant called Zelen that my roommate had recommended and the food there was goood...

I had never eaten Bulgarian food before but it was actually quite close to Estonian food which is of course close to my heart. So I really liked the restaurant!

The restaurant.

We had chicken and salmon.

After the dinner in the Bulgarian restaurant we went to an Italian restaurant to have dessert.

The cheesecake was mm-so-good!