More ramblings

I've realized I like Multiply. You can have your blog, vids, pics, friends, all in one, so I decided to create my own virtual hangout there. If I wouldn't be writing much here, it's because I'm happily stuck somewhere.

No worries, I wont foresake this blog. This is my first, my oldest and I wrote a lot of memorable experiences here. I'll still be updating this now and then.

Speaking of updates, the universe probably heard my plea for the weather to be warm in Prague. It's been really summery here since the other day. Hope it will last for long, until I get back to work at least. It's not so much to ask for, universe, is it? Keeping my fingers crossed.

Yesterday we went northeast to marvel at the amazing, overwhelming sandstone rock formations in Adršpach. It's about 160 km from Prague. I can't believe at why I haven't heard of this place before when I'm still virtually a tourist in this country. The sights that met me there are totally spectacular. I'll post about the trip when I'm not feeling lethargic anymore, but of course you can view the pics in my multiply.

Oh, why am I lethargic? I'm a bit drugged, I guess. The annoying cyst on my neck got inflamed that it had to be removed this morning. Yay, finally. I mean, it had to be inflamed before I would have the drive and the courage to have it incised. Tsk tsk.

Hormonal

I am very hormonal these days. Prague's shi**y weather isn't helping. It has been cold and rainy since the start of July so it's not doing any good to my sour mood. I have been dreaming of sun and sea since last year but I guess I have to put this dream on hold.

It's the perfect time for sun and fun, at least somewhere far from Prague. I still have one month of holiday left. The beaches are just at our fingertips, but something in the family came up that going to indulge ourselves in a well-deserved holiday by the sea seems wrong.

What am I going to do for a month in this horrible weather? This, among some other things, is what makes me very hor-mo-nal.

Bratislava

It's the capital city of the Slovak Republic. We were there last Sunday. It's small, it looked smaller than Brno, CZ's second largest city.

Here's a vid taken at "Obchodna Ulica" (rough translation: Business St.). I was surprised at how quiet it was, how only a few shops were open and only a few people were around. It really gave a Sunday feeling-- you know, lazy and quiet-- something you'll never experience in Prague's center.



Ooops, sorry for the shaking effect. I was walking when I took the vid. Not a very smart idea.

Another vid taken at the city's main square.


I wish Prague was as quiet, not teeming with tourists all year round. But Prague is beautiful, and beauty is almost always meant to be shared.

Few days in Paradise

They call it "Slovenský Raj" or Slovak Paradise. It is a mountain range in the Slovak Republic known for its waterfalls, deep ravines and a huge, very impressive ice cave. It is wild, untamed-- a perfect place to commune with nature.

The road to Paradise is long and winding. It is a back-aching, gas-spending 9-hour drive from Prague.

When I asked A why it's called such, his answer made sense; It's maybe because it's the closest a place could get to the paradise Adam and Eve once inhabited-- natural, unspoiled, simply beautiful.

A few days there made me experience not just the hits but also the misses. Nothing is perfect, not even in Paradise. Let's start with the hits:

1. The place itself. It's awesome. The ravines, the crisp fresh air, the clear clear streams, everything is awesome. Make sure your boots are made for walking as you will surely walk a lot. Not just walk but climb those steep hills and rocky mountains. The view from the top of those rocky mountains will surely give you a feeling of natural high.

It was raining hard the day we arrived so the next day the trails were slippery. Thank goodness my Adidas, though made for tennis, held on.

Tourists I saw were mostly from neighboring countries. How it stayed under the Western radar is beyond me.

2. The Dobšinská Ladová Jaskyňa (Dobsinska Ice Cave) is exceptional. Whatever I'll say about it may not give justification to the place so I'll leave it to your imagination. I'll just say it's certainly worth a visit and that I have never seen anything like it. However, how tourism there is handled is for me not a hit but a clear miss.

MISSED ME

I'm not a fussy traveler. I get easily pleased, but this time I just can't help being irked at some things I experienced there.

1. The hotel service. It wasn't the Ritz so of course I wasn't expecting top-notch service. We stayed in Cingov Hotel which charged us 1,500sk/night. Not high-end but not low-class, either. Then there was this 90sk parking fee per day, 150sk if you eat breakfast and surprise surprise, when we received the bill we realized we got charged an extra 30sk for "bathroom tax."

Okay, let's get this straight. Shouldn't hotels provide free parking for their customers? What happend to good ol' customer service?

Bathroom tax? I haven't heard anything this ridiculous before. Is this an EU/Schengen shenanigan or is it simply a Slovakian thing? Yes, it's just 30sk but the whole idea makes me silently scream WTF. (What's The Fuss, children. I'm a preschool teacher here.)

2. At the Ice Cave, the entrance fee is 200sk per person. It was A who bought the tickets so I didn't know they charge another 300sk extra for taking pictures inside. A also said he wasn't asked or told about it. I snapped one and was immediately asked by the guide if I had the ticket for it. Boy, was I pissed to death. No, make it livid. One from not knowing I had to pay extra and two for the fact that you had to pay extra. I mean 200sk is not cheap for a 20-minute tour. On top of that, the guide spoke Slovak so I didn't understand one darn thing.

Of course it's their language and whenever they want to use it is their prerogative. Point is, shouldn't you be given the choice if you wanted an English tour or not? Shouldn't you be asked or told at least? Nobody said anything at the ticket counter. The guide fired away in ratatatatat Slovak and most of us, the Germans, the Polish, the Hungarians, and of course, one livid Filipina that is me, were lost in our own translations.

That's not the end of it all. I was badly in need for a toilet but boy oh boy, the toilet available was one hell of a kind, pun intended. It definitely deserves a separate post in this blog.

3. The road directions. Or simply the absence of them in some parts of the country. Take this as an example; you see a crossroad ahead and you don't see a single sign where the roads will lead. You cross your fingers and turn left and voila, 100 meters later you will see the sign. Lucky you if you wanted to go that way. What if not? Then you would cuss and swear, cuss and swear. I swore so much there that I was afraid the ground would open and swallow me whole. If you're a Catholic, I'm sure you'd get my drift...

Another problem wasn't the absence of sign but its presence. On our way to Stratena from Cingov, there was a fork which said Stratena to the left and Poprad to the right. We went left only to find out 15 minutes later a NO ENTRY sign for motor vehicles. Bummer.

That's not all. I'll rant some more. Sometimes you would find a fork which has a sign to the left but not to the right. The greatest mystery of all was our map indicated there should be a big road to the left before Dobsina from the cave that would lead us to Spisska Nova Ves then back to Cingov. Nada. There was only one small road and the sign said a name of a small village's. Either the road directions malfunctioned again or the publishers just made up the road and the towns along it.

"Hala, posing Inday kay panagsa ra ni..." At Tomasovsky Vyhlad after an hour of walking and climbing the slippery trail. Of course I struck a pose as a way of proclaiming "Heya all! I came, I slipped, I conquered!"

For more pictures of this trip, please click HERE.

Each travel experience gives you something to cherish or to forget. The Slovakian trip gave me one thing I'll keep-- the picture of Paradise in my mind. I'll even cherish the experiences I just ranted above because I realized I can really laugh at my own misfortunes and misadventures, and that alone made the Slovakian trip quite unique.

Fruit dumplings

When you say dumplings, the first thing that comes up your mind is those small rolls of meat wrapped in super thin dough, served dim-sum style-- that is, if you're Asian like me. Certainly dumplings in Asia aren't sweet and they are usually steamed, not boiled. Well, not in CZ. Here, dumplings can be sweet and yes, they are boiled-- and the filling is not of meat but of fruits.

They call it "ovocné knedlíky" or fruit dumplings. They usually make this in summer when the fruits are aplenty. That's exactly what I did after coming home with baskets of them from my in-laws' garden a few weekends ago. I used raspberries and strawberries for the filling.

OVOCNÉ KNEDLÍKY

Dough:

1/2 kg. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
3/4 sachet dry yeast ( 3/4 small fresh yeast)
a handful of crystal sugar
250 ml milk

- Mix everything with a wooden spoon. Add flour if too sticky. Let stand for 45 minutes.
- Knead and let stand for another 45 minutes.

Punch dough and knead for a few minutes. Flatten a small amount and put about 5 raspberries ( about 2 sliced big strawberries) in the middle. Sprinkle fruits with powdered sugar before wrapping them with the dough.

You can wrap them in a way that would make them look nicer than the ones in the pic above. I was just in a hurry to finish making them. Excuses, excuses. :)

Next step is to boil a pot half- full of water. Put dumplings in boiling water for 3 minutes then turn them over and boil for another 3 minutes.

Your dumplings are now ready for eating! For toppings, Czechs usually shred ginger cake and mix them with powdered sugar. Melted butter is almost always present in every meal, including this one. Yes my dears, this is considered a meal here, not a snack.

Me? I call it a snack. And since I'm just getting Czeched, I don't follow the usual way of eating it with shredded ginger cake. I usually eat it with cottage cheese. It's actually up to you what you want for toppings. Let me know if you come up with something really yummy.

Tak, dobrou chut!

Note: Makes about 10-12 dumplings. Thanks to Mamka for the recipe.

The cook and I

Přichovice is where I was last week. It's up in the highlands of CZ very near the Polish border. What was I doing there, having sun and fun? Far from it. I was there as one of the teachers/nannies/mothers of 21 kids ages 4-10 for our school's annual summer camp. How I retained my sanity is beyond me.

Actually, it wasn't so bad. Kids can be really hilarious. What's more, they don't know that they are. Everything they do is purely innocent or spontaneous, without any intention to hurt or to deceive someone. In a world of wasted lives, being with them is very refreshing.

DRUNK COOK

On our fourth night there, the cook got drunk. He was this sixty-ish man who had been giving me odd looks since the first meal was over. That night his tongue got loose and my suspicion was confirmed. He came upstairs giving a speech on how he was annoyed at me for not eating much of the food he prepared. He was very unhappy that I didn't like his cooking, and that not eating well is not good for the body.

I had to grope for words in Czech to explain to him I love the meals but the portions were just too big for me to finish. "Jsem malá, mám malý žaludek ," ( I'm small, I have a small stomach.) was my plea for a truce. He was having none of it.

Fine. There's just no instant remedy for bruised egos.

Then he changed tactics. From lecturing, he was now on to cajoling. He was like-- "What do you want me to cook tomorrow? Do you want rice? I'll cook something special for you just so you would eat everything." I said I'm eating, I love the food here, just give me smaller portions, but he was in la-la land that there was just no way of hitting the point.

The next day he was back at giving me odd looks. I have no doubt he was glad to see me board the bus this afternoon. Finally we can both get on with our lives.

Macro mania

I have this thing for macro photography. I like it when a subject is captured in details. Whenever I have our digicam with me, I'm like a woman possessed, snapping away randomly. When it's time to upload the pics, of course you'll find several of them in macro shots.

Here are some taken last weekend:

The cherries were all ripe at my in-laws' garden. I'm not so crazy about cherries but the ones above were very succulent, thus very irresistible, even for me.

Of course, the strawberries were ripe as well, not to mention the raspberries and currants and blueberries. Last weekend was like a smorgasbord of summer fruits for me. I stuffed myself with strawberries after strawberries that I ended up having a bloated stomach full of water and gas. Ugh, the gas. You just touch my stomach and some place down there would right away go pffffttt...

Yey, my calamansi is resurrected from the dead! It appeared hopeless for several months that I was actually contemplating euthanasia. This shot was taken by A. Guess I'm not the only one afflicted with macro fever.

Another one of A's macro shots. I really love this one, the colors and the details. This is one of the flowers I received from my students. A took several pics of the flowers but this is my most favorite.

Ok, this is it for now. I'm hungry looking at those strawberries. Oh yeah, we still have a lot of them in the fridge so I better fix myself some smoothies. Yum!

Thin is in?

Two years ago I chatted with my friends from PI. I think there were five of them scattered around the islands. We were on conference. They haven't seen me for over a year at the time so naturally they asked me to send them a latest picture of myself. So I did.

Two of them said I gained a lot of weight. Translation: I was fat. I said it couldn't be so bad since I think I only gained a kilo. They insisted I gained a lot, that my cheeks made me look like a blowfish, that I was no longer as slim as they remembered.

I'm 156 cm and at that time weighing 46 kilos. How can I be fat?

And how can we women be so paranoid about our weight, myself included? That chat made me literally run for a weighing scale. It made me change my diet and lost three kilos. Now on hindsight, I couldn't believe at myself for falling prey to society's wiles.

Who started this idea that to be beautiful is to be thin? Years and years ago all the images of gods and goddesses were fat, so when did society start dictating that thin is aesthetically better than otherwise? Beauty is always subjective yet for most women, thin is in.

I'm surrounded with women who are eternally dieting. I mean, it's their business, it's their body, but when do you draw the line? I think it's when you stop eating what and when you should, and when you constantly berate yourself for eating what you think you shouldn't.

From the words of Paulo Coelho with minor modification, " Forget about getting thin. You can do all the exercise you want, punish yourself as much as you want, but you will still have only two choices-- either stop living or get fat."

Me? I think I'll live.