Today we had the entire day off - no meetings or skating. We all had breakfast around 9:00, then we took a bus to the shopping center in Zlin. The bus ride was kind of interesting. Zlin is a very industrial town with lots of cement buildings and factories. It really fits the stereotype of the old communist Soviet Union. The bus was pretty crowded so we all split up and grabbed seats where we could. I had an older gentleman sit next to me and he started to try to have a conversation with me. After he stopped talking I tried to politely tell him I only speak English. I don't know that he heard me because he continued to try to speak to me here in Czech! Speaking of Czech, my knowledge of this language is slowly improving. I now know exactly 4 words of Czech. Those words include please, thank you, hello and ketchup. The only reason I know the word ketchup is we asked one of the Czech girls to ask the waiter at dinner the one night for ketchup and she gave us a funny look and said the word for ketchup is ketchup. I guess it is a universal word!
After we walked around the mall for a bit we grabbed lunch at a little restaurant. Think Panera style only with Chinese food. As you can imagine, the ordering process for 17 people when only 4 know Czech was a little crazy. Somehow, we all ended up with food similar to what we thought we were getting. We then took the bus back and walked to the "downtown square" of Zlin. While it was pretty, I must admit it didn't compare to any of the squares I've seen in other European cities. The Czech girls told us that Zlin is a newer town without much history and given what we saw I believe them. After our little walking tour we went to this small cafe on the edge of the square and had coffee and gelato. The chocolate gelato was fantastic! We also had a lot of laughs at one of the desserts one of the girls got - let's just say that it looked a lot like a male body part. We are a very mature group, haha!
We ended up skipping the bowling and just came back here for dinner. We all hung out for a bit then retreated to our rooms pretty early. I wanted to try to watch a bit of the winter classic so after a little help from a friend I was able to stream it from NHL.com. That said, the internet connection is pretty bad here - it cuts out all of the time so it has been a bit frustrating but at least I'm able to see some of it. Some of the other girls are watching it with me, it is fun to show them my hometown when they do aeriel shots.
Alright time for me to crash, I've got another long day tomorrow. Skating tests in the morning, then I am standby for the first game in Prerov, Switzerland vs Germany. I am working the second game, Canada vs Finland with Ludmila and Barbora, both from Czech. Goodnight all!
No comments:
Post a Comment