of Cottages and Mountains

Petra has told me often about the "cottage" in the mountains that her group of friends spends every New Year's Eve at. Their parents are about 300m away at Mat'y's parents'cabin, and the two generations gather at midnight for toasts and songs in the yard. In the summer, the cottage is a favorite retreat. So when Petra suggested we spend a day or two there, I was all for it!

We stopped on the way out of town to pick up Petra, (Pet'a, sounds like "Petchya," so I don't confuse them!), Lucie's younger sister and one of Petra's best friends. An hour later we were in the gentle Beskydy mountains. Just as the landscape was getting really beautiful, we turned onto a gravel road and came to a stop in front of an adorable cottage. We would probably call it a cabin. Single room, wood stove downstairs with a bunk room upstairs.
That evening Mat'y ("Mattschye," Petra's boyfriend and also part of the group of friends) came over for toasting sausages around the campfire and cards. Pet'a trounced us all soundly at Come Mierda.
In the morning I made a batch of American Pancakes that we ate with butter and maple syrup.

Aftermath.

We were going to go on a walk, but that meant first dropping off apples at Mat'y's grandparents' cabin. They are a hoot! Of course we were invited in for just a short visit. Two and a half hours, 1.5 rounds of schnapps, a piece of cake, a small sampling of a local lager, and countless stories (building the cabin during the communist era, etc.) later we walked back home under borrowed umbrellas.

The original cabin, belonging to Mat'y's family.

It was late when we had lunch, and still later when we went outside to pick mushrooms. A forest at the end of the street is virtually infested with different varieties of fungus. With my two experts there to make sure I only took the good ones, it was great fun to skip through the woods in search of deliciousness! We must have been quite a sight, in our rain boots and umbrellas. We walked home when it was too dark to tell tree root from treasure. Petra and Pet'a prepared our haul for dinner with eggs and grainy bread. Yum.

That evening we played a Czech horse monopoly that the girls had played since they were little.
Our last morning at the cabin was a little more regular. Bread with butter and cheese for breakfast, then a walk up their mountain. Hiking in the Czech is like Austria, but a little less extreme. There's good food wherever you end up! We stopped at a pub that had lots of large wood carvings, excellent garlic soup, and amazingly delicious blueberry dumplings. We we happy hikers as we came back down the hill, packed up the cabin, and returned to Ostrava.

Climber carving!

My camera battery was dead, so I don't have any pictures from the rest of Ostrava. We spelling an entire evening with Zuze, Aleš, Lucie, Mat'e, Pet'a, and Petra's brother and his girlfriend at a café in the center of town. It was soooo good to see them all again! Aleš and Lucie got married last month, and they shared pictures from the bash. We toasted everyone's new beginnings with a hearty "Na Zdraví!"
The next morning 6 of us walked up to the highest point inside the city, a hill made from mining refuse. It is reacting on the inside and does not have snow in the winter. Then we said our final goodbyes to Pet'a, Aleš, and Lucie at the tram stop. They have me a book they'd signed with photos from Ostrava as they would want it remembered. It's going on my coffee table! After lunch in the park I said my goodbyes to the Vitasek family. What an amazing week it was.