Down by the River Vltava

On Tuesday April 26th I had a free day.
What that means is I had no pressing meetings, tours or travels planned.
I had home work to do!
Over 200 pictures to review, re name, re orient and a bunch of blogging to do.
This day the weather had finally turned from early summer weather to typical Prague spring.
Cloudy, passing shower and a little breezy.
I worked away all morning and due to the technology that everyone seems to possess here I was tracked by Vlasta and Mirek via Skype! Vlasta saw that I was on line when she was a work and began to worry that I wasn't going out touring! I told her I has so much work to do! We had fun chatting away for a bit then I realized I had to go out for a bit!

I have made a short list of thing "still to do while in Prague" and one of them was to go to the river (about a kilometre walk from the apartment) and just sit and watch the wild life, the rowers and life around me. So, I did!
Camera strapped over me and bus pass in hand (it's a steep walk back up, I'm finding the hills challenging sometimes when the weather is bad) I set off to see what I would see.
After a brief shower I found a nice spot in front of the rowing club and watched the folks be put through their paces. It was fascinating! All forms of rowing was being trained this afternoon. The sun was out and between the barking of the coaches to their charges it was lovely! Single sculls, doubles, kayakers, canoists, double canoists were doing their best to match the desires of their coaches. The coaches were in little motor boats following beside them giving corrections or even one was on the shore near me speaking into a walky-talky to the two ladies rowing away in the water. I enjoyed it a lot.

I left there and walked along the river bank closer to Prague centre and past the Prague Yacht club which looked like any other club in the world. There was an instructor preparing young teen agers to sail in these little tiny sail boats. They were about half the size of a Lazer type boat that we have in Ontario. They were perfect for the river and so cute to watch.

With time elapsing I jumped on a tram then took a bus up the hill to the apartment. As I arrived Vlasta was arriving home from work. I called to her and she was looking all around to try and find where her name was coming from! I had a great walk and look about. One more thing off my list to do.

Mirek and I went shopping after he came home from work. Grocery stores have always intrigued me (guess it's genetic) and I loved wandering around looking at what was new and different and what was the same as in Canada. Due to the diet of the Czech people the busiest aisles were the meat the cheese sections. I have never seen so many different types of dairy products in my life. You name it it's there. With different flavours to go with any palate. The meet aisle was no less different. I had to ask Mirek what some of it was as I had NO idea what kind of meat it was. Nearly all smoked meat of various divisions. Not surprisingly there was little in the "snack" aisle. Seems that's not a big thing here. Sure there are chips and things but nothing like what we have in Canada. Interesting! I did find my Tycinky! 4 different flavours. These are like little thin pretzels or bread sticks and I'm addicted to them. Hmmm maybe I'll be able to fit them into my luggage going home. At all grocery stores you can get EVERYTHING. There is no running to other stores to get something you've missed. One stop shopping. Prices are quite comparable to Canada, especially when it comes to cheese and meat. Oh yes and there is every type of dumpling known to man that you can buy! Yum!!!

After a lovely dinner I began to think of packing the most delicate things I have purchased, namely my Czech easter eggs. So I filled one beer glass with one with lots of packing and put 2 others in one of my hiking boots, all wrapped in bubble wrap and another in a mug I received in Semily. There! Done! The other fragile things are packed already by the place that I bought them in and I don't think there will be much problem. If there is, there is. I can only try. I don't know how the things I have will fit in but I know I'll give it a try! I still have some more shopping to do!

So, that was my quiet day.
Tomorrow it's out and about again.  I believe it will be a visit to a Military Institute to visit with the curator and then in the afternoon back down to St. Wenceslas square!