Zámky, Hrady

First off, digression. That's the word I was searching for two posts back. It came to me two days ago.

I need to talk about my host family's animals at some point, and since this is going to be a completely random post anyhow (what happens when you cruelly neglect your blog during a busy period), now's a good time. We have 4 dogs at home: 2 Tosa-Inus (big dogs) and 2 little fluffy dogs.  Here's Maggie, love of my life:

My favorite pet, though, is far and away Merlin the Parrot.  He talks and whistles and screams (yes, I swear he does).  He's a bilingual parrot, in fact.  He can greet you with a "Good morning".  Usually, though, he just shrieks and shrills.  Somehow, it's lovable. 

I also have a babička now, I just realized!  Not quite as fantastic as having a babushka would be, but I'll take it.  She's the grandmother I told you about before, and she stills feeds me too much and talks at me in Czech as if I understand.  I shot myself in the foot a few days ago with her.  She had made the sweet knedlíky again (these things are going to kill me - literally, too) and I made a huge fuss over them - "Ohhhhh knedlíiky yum yum YUM wow, those were delicious!" - because I felt bad about never being able to finish the meals she makes and also never understanding what she's saying, you know.  But now she thinks I like them, and I see long nights of knedlíky-eating as the clock ticks like it's 2000 and I'm staking out over cold broccoli.  I screwed myself over food-wise again that night at dinner.  We were having these kebabs and it was dark out (we eat on their patio often) and as I was about to put food into my mouth, Martina went, "You know, you don't have to eat that." I was all, "Lolz it's just a larger-than-usual mushroom no biggie I got this." "...."  "What is it, exactly? It's some sort of mushroom, right?  It's good, I like it (not true, I get grossed out by mushrooms as it is and this was SO BIG)."  After dinner they told me they were happy I liked it, most people don't like chicken livers.  Shivers.  My family loves to be accommodating and purchase things that I like, so the next day, at the grocery store (wherein we abandoned our shopping cart once again) (Omg how many parentheses can I use in one post), we bought 2 packages of chicken livers. 
Friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick
Ah blogs shouldn't be easily available to anyone with a computer or else you get non-entries like this one.
Now for some updating on what I've been doing.  I'm going to cover school and the Simple Plan concert in another post since there's no way you have the optical stamina for all of it at once.

A week or so ago we went to Červená Lhota, a castle-chateau-manor place an hour or so away.  The word in Czech for those old houses that aren't King Arthur castles but are too old to be called just mansions is zámky.  King Arthur castles are hrady. CZE doesn't really have  too many hrady (or what I would deem to be hrady), since they're into colorfully painted establishments and not gray stone fortresses.  Anyway, this home was so neat - all red.  Czechs loooove the color red.  Red roofs are super common here.  I'll stop talking and just post up pictures.  There aren't any of the inside, unfortunately, since photography wasn't allowed.  If it were, I would certainly have taken a picture of the giant, woolen dust bunnies we had to wear on our feet for the tour.  Czechs and their slippers.

 Most of the castle was built in the 1500s and 1600s.

 It's nestled in something of an island atop this river.

A couple days later, Valí and I went to the castle in our town.  It's the JH "zámek a hrad".  If you can't decide, why not just call it both, right?  We didn't take a tour, just strolled about in the two courtyards. 

 The stones here are fake - it's just gray paint.  Czechs and their paint.
Czechs and their lots-of-things.

 Gorgeous dome over the well. Way to keep it classy.

 The gold'-leafed auditorium of sorts.  I guess the balls actually took place just below this room.  There's a man-hole in the floor  so the sound can travel through.

 Courtyard no. two

 Rondel- the rotunda

 Oh, hey.  Behind me is the pond\small lake Vajgar.

Reverse side of the rotunda.

 River behind the castle.

We biked around a bit of my town afterwards so I could take some pictures for you.

 My town, on the edge of Vajgar.  Further "in" is my school and the main area with all the shops, but there's some stuff behind (that river, which flows into Vajgar), to the left (the castle) and to the right (the hospital, apartments, some shops and restaurants, a pizza parlor called Pizza Herb)

 The town's main square.  It's not actually as big as it seems here.

 I love all the differently-colored buildings in this country.

 Main Street, sort of.  It leads to the "up" square.

 Yep, we've got our own board shop. 

 Dahaha when the properties of reflection escape you. 

 Some more of the main street

The smaller square, aka Down Square.

Someday soon I'll take a picture of my school. 

Like I said, I'll post again in a few days.  I've got to go to bed now, since I have to get up early for tomorrowś spur-of-the-moment day trip to Vienna with Martina and Valí. 

XOXO Čau