Christmas in the Czech Republic

Merry Christmas One and All!

Thanks to everyone who sent emails, annual family letters, cards, packages, or Skyped us to wish us well this holiday.  It has been an interesting one with different customs and opportunities, but touched with sadness at being so far away from old friends and family.  A long post with many, and sometimes gory, details follows, so, if this is as far as you get...we love you...Happy New Year!

The flu plague visited our abode this past week and thrusted deep its sickle.  It started with Caleb a week and half ago.  Then Silas vomiting through the day on Sunday.  Lucy came home early from church looking pale, she proceeded to sleep for most of the next 24 hours.  By Monday morning I had a fever and cough.  Even Kristine got hit with a chest cold. We're still kind of limping along, but generally on the mend.

Lucy gave a talk in church last week - in Czech.  The tough thing about giving a talk in Czech is that, even though you can write out all the words, pronouncing them is difficult and slow, so people have a very difficult time understanding.  Well, Kristine, Caleb, and the Branch President all reported that Lucy did an excellent job.  Aubrey and Caleb joined in the program at church playing a Czech carol on the cello and violin.  It being the Sabbath we didn't go shopping, but had it been any other day I would have been tempted to pick up a wild boar they were selling at a the Christmas market in the street.

On Tuesday, Kristine and I attended a performance by the Southern Bohemian Philharmonic Orchestra of the Czech Christmas Mass by Jakub Jan Ryba.  It's the Czech equivalent of going to Handel's Messiah.  It was nice.  I have to admit, though, that I preferred the opening act where a really strong children's choir sang Czech carols with the orchestra playing.  Czech Christmas carols are so cute.  Speaking of which, we did not go out caroling because we sounded like heck, but here are some of my favorites Narodil se Kristus Pan and Nesem Vam Noviny and Pujdem spolu do Betlema.  


Wednesday was the big day...Silas, Aubrey, Caleb and I walked to a fish market to buy our carp.  You may recall that in October we went to the destocking of a carp pond by Třeboň.  In the week before Christmas, those same fish are living in plastic tubs in the city streets.  I approached the fish monger (by so calling him I fail to properly credit the seriousness with which the fisheries people take their profession here) and said I needed two carp each between two and three kilos (4.4 to 6.6 pounds).  He looked around in the tank to find some little ones then reached in and produced a beauty of a fish.  He weighed in at 4.5 kilos (9.9 pounds).  The next one was only a bit over three kilos (just under seven pounds). 

Then comes the big question...alive or dead.  If you choose dead they beat it on the head rapidly with a baton and its all over.  The sidewalk had little pools of blood and everybody that I saw was having theirs killed.  Some places will even clean it for you on the spot.  But the most traditional is to take it home and do it yourself.  So, we walked home with two gasping carp in a big plastic bag.

 
The carp took up residence in our bathtub.  Silas fed them cornflakes and gave them some toys.  They were named Barli and Schwanli after the Alm Uncle's goats in the book Heidi (which we are reading aloud as a family).  Silas wanted to butcher them right away, but we told him it would be after his nap.



We set up the Christmas tree.  This was a challenge.  We borrowed a stand, but the opening on it was less than two inches across.  We carved the base of the trunk down to a nub, stuck it in the stand, and it immediately cracked off.  In the end we stuffed it in a planting pot, weighted it down with rocks and decorated it.  The standard Czech tradition is to decorate on Christmas Eve, but we needed something to do.  Decorations included ceramic ornaments that Lucy made and a paper star Caleb made at school. 

At about 4:30 I heard a ruckus from the bedroom.  Then Silas came flying out saying, "I'm awake from my nap, time to kill the fish!"  Well, it was too close to dinner to start the process.  We made strawberry dumplings.  Yum.  Then we cleaned up the kitchen and went to work.

We set plastic on the table and a cutting board on that.  Knives ready.  Hammer ready.  We retrieved Barli.  I set him on the cutting board, took the hammer, whap - didn't even faze him.  Whap - barely a scratch.  WHAP - the hammer penetrated his skull and buried itself deeply in his brain.  Needing somewhere to go, that displaced gray matter found a home on our refrigerator, wall, and ceiling.  Caleb scaled it, removed the head and fins, and gutted it.  Then I cut it into steaks.


Kristine was a bit distraught over the condition of the kitchen.  She thought I should kill the next one in a room that would clean up easier (who over heard of painting the walls and ceiling of a kitchen with flat, i.e. non washable, paint).  So, I waited till she left for choir practice to do the next one.  I tried cleaning up the walls a bit before starting on the 2nd.  There was this spot, if I just stretched a little more...the chair I was on tipped and I came crashing down in a heap.  That hurt.  This carp thing was looking pretty questionable at this point.



This time I used the flat of the hammer and had Caleb hold up the plastic bag so any splatterings would be caught.  Well, I beat him and thought he was dead (by they way, I call them he but they were both females, it's just that the notion of violence to females is so odious).  But I was mistaken.  Suddenly, he is flopping about in a pool of his own blood.  Caleb was still shielding any splatterings - at the head end.  So, one wall has brains, the other has blood.  Eventually he died.  This one I filleted.


We delivered the fish to the Tučkovi because they wanted to marinate them in yogurt sauce over night and we set about cleaning up the place.  We threw the heads, tails, gutted bodies and egg sacs into a pot with garlic and onion to make some fish soup.


On Christmas Eve some Czechs fast until dinner to be more spiritually prepared to receive the coming of Jesus or to see a golden pig (we have heard both reasons).  Those in our household who fasted didn't see any golden pigs (I carried the camera around just in case), but then, we broke our fast at noon to eat golden fish soup.  'Twas good.

From Christmas

We went to the Tučkovi for a proper Christmas Eve feast.  They had their best china out.  We had a simple beef broth soup, followed by deep fried carp and potato salad with a rose non-alcoholic wine.  Afterward, we snacked on Christmas cookies while Aubrey, Caleb, and Lucinka Tučkova (on the recorder) played carols. While waiting to hear the anticipated bell, the kids played with sparklers out in the garden.  The bell was heard and the parade home began.  Here the presents are brought by the Baby Jesus on Christmas Eve.  A bell rings telling you he just left and then the kids can go at the presents.  We opened ours and then spent the remainder of the evening playing.



On Christmas morning we went to church.  The congregation has a little meeting filled with song and scripture.  Kristine played piano for the carols.  Aubrey and Caleb played the Overture from Handel's Messiah really nicely.  A choir consisting of the missionaries, Branch President, Aubrey and Kristine sang an incredible arrangement of Angels We Have Heard on High.  In my opinion, it was the best choral piece I have ever heard at church, and that's saying something.  


After the service, we went to the river and threw bread to the ducks and swans.  In the tradition of Saint Francis of Assisi we like to get out on Christmas and share some of our bounty with the beasts.  It warmed our hearts to get a note from our friends the Shanafelt's assuring us that the birds at Williams Nature Center in Mankato would find food despite the snowstorms this Christmas.


We had no snow, it melted earlier in the week.  The weather on Christmas was balmy.  Caleb was going stir-crazy, so he, Aubrey, and I took a bus to Dobra Voda (a suburb/village) and went hiking in the hills.  It was beautiful.  I think we all really missed the exceedingly white Christmas you received back home, but, if it's gonna not be white, it was a least nice that it was warm.


One more tradition...early in the month we bought some branches snipped from a cherry tree.  The lore is that if you put them in water and they blossom by Christmas Eve, an unmarried female in the household will tie the knot within a year.  Lucy assures us that she is not eligible, so we hope Brother and Sister Benson are quite prepared for their daughter to get hitched this year.


Those were our Christmas activities.  Underlying it all, though, was the same spirit of goodwill and appreciation for our Savior that makes us cherish this time of year.  We hope your Christmas was lovely and uplifting.


Peter



P.S. Strange thing happened on the way home Saturday night.  We saw this light in the sky, kind of like a candle floating in the air about five stories up.  It passed over our apartment, moved northward over our heads and continued toward downtown.  We thought at first it might be some kind of fireworks or a flying saucer or a hot air balloon.  Then, we settled on the golden pig, flying.  We continued southward and a guy passed us going north.  He was dressed in camo and carried what looked like a ski pole over his shoulder in soldier marching with gun style.  Probably a ray gun. It was creepy.

Aubrey Arrived

From 2009-12

It's with great relief that I report the arrival of Aubrey Rose Benson to the Czech Republic.

For months now we, especially Lucy, have been looking forward to Aubrey spending Christmas break with us.  She grew up in the Mankato area and we know her from church.  Now, she studies cello at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.

On Wednesday she boarded a Swiss Airlines plane in Manchester to fly to Zurich.  From Zurich she would go to Prague, where Kristine would be waiting to take her and her cello to a hotel.  After stowing their gear, they would go see a performance of the Talich (String) Quartet  at the Rudolfinium in Prague.  The next day, after roaming around Prague in the morning, they would take the train to České Budejovice.

Well, so much for plans.  It seems the Swiss have trouble telling time.  Her flight to Zurich was 40 minutes late.  So she missed the flight to Prague.

When the very last passengers off the 2:00 flight from Zurich had disembarked, Kristine got worried.  She looked all over the place, but there was no sign of her.  Kristine asked at the Swiss Air desk if Aubrey was on the flight, but they would not say.

She called me to see if I had heard anything.  Nope.

What followed was a wonder of technology.

Using our computer and Skype, I called Aubrey's mother in Minnesota to get her cell phone number in England.  She gave it to me, I called Kristine, Kristine called Aubrey.  Unfortunately, a message said that the number was no longer valid because of renumbering.

I called her mom again to see if there was another number.  She had left home already.  So, I put out an APB on Facebook and sent Aubrey an email with Yahoo Mail.  I then went online to Google and Switchboard.com to find phone numbers for her sisters in Utah.  No luck there, maybe they have cell phones.  Maybe somebody from our congregation in Mankato would have her sisters' numbers.  I was having trouble finding any numbers online.

Kristine and I talked again, she remembered our Bishop's home phone number (she used to be Relief Society President and had him on mental speed dial).  I called there.  So, while I was using my computer to talk to their land line, Sister Cragun was calling people on her cell phone to get the numbers.  Finally, she got them.

So, I called Aubrey's sisters.  Both had the same number that her mom had given me.  I tried calling her from Skype.  I got the same message.  Then I tried again, telling Skype the country not dialing the country code.  I got through...to an answering machine.

Meanwhile, Kristine travels around Prague.  At one intersection, when the walk sign came up everybody started walking.  Problem was that someone in a big SUV wanted to go through that intersection.  They barreled through, missing the lead ped by six inches.  Later, at the same intersection, there was a man standing by a car yelling at the occupant.  He started pounding on the passenger door until he busted out the window.  He turned and ran to a parked car and took off.  Kristine's feeling a bit frazzled at this point.

It's now 5:45 p.m. The next flight from Zurich comes in at 6:45.  Kristine needs to take a bus at 6:00 to get to the airport.  If she goes and Aubrey's not on that flight, she'll have missed the first half of the concert needlessly.  If she doesn't go and Aubrey is on the 6:45, she'd be sitting for a long time. 

So, I make a call to Swiss Airlines HQ in Zurich.  I was a little slow in pressing three for English, so a nice woman said hello in German.  I could understand her and, although I should have been able to get the point across, all I could think of were the Czech words.  Finally, she asked if I spoke English.  I told her our sad story and how my wife doesn't know if she should make the trip to the airport again and is there any way we can know if she is on that flight.  She looked it up.  Yep, she's on the 6:45 flight. Kristine has hope that they can take the 25 minute taxi ride and still make it nip and tuck for the concert.

I called Kristine, she took the bus, and promised to call when she had Aubrey safely in a taxi.  A little before 7:00 I got a text, flight 20 minutes late.  At about 7:20 she called.  I heard Aubrey's Minnesota accent with a British lilt in the background.

They missed the Mendelssohn and the Golijov, but made it to the Shostakovich after intermission.

I then proceeded to send emails, make phone calls, and post Facebook messages to alleviate the worry I had been causing.

Thursday they took the train to České Budejovice and is safe and sound here in our little home.

She received the unofficial calling of Branch Cellist - our Branch President (the leader of our congregation) asked if she would play at church each Sunday and on Christmas.  Right now, she and Caleb are practicing the piece they will play tomorrow.

In other quick news...Caleb has the flu.  Where once it was just an illness, it now seems the equivalent of announcing that he has the plague. 

We had our church Christmas party on Friday.  We ate pizza, sang the 12 Days of Christmas in English, and played the White Elephant (Bily Slon) gift game.  Weather has been chilly with some snow.  It's beautiful, but likely to melt.  We got a package in the mail from some folks back home.  Instead of packing peanuts or bubble wrap, they put Coco Pebbles and Cheese Puffs in ziplocs.  Ingenious.  Tasty.

Looking forward to Christmas carp.

Peter

Reflections on Aging

From 2009-12

Winter came to České Budejovice this last week.  Snow and finally a killing frost.  Here are some highlights.

After dropping out of potty-training a month or so ago without so much as a single success, Silas started up again last week and graduated.  He got so good, in fact, that he would only pee little small amounts at a time because every time he successfully deposited pee in the potty chair he got a treat.  He went from wetting his diaper four times a day to using the potty eight times.

Lucy and Caleb had the week off from school.  Frankly, that's usually not pleasant.  People get bored, they bug each other, they fight.  Monday was bad, but then everyone settled into a routine, doing some homeschooling in the morning, completing chores each day, and generally staying pleasant.

Caleb had a concert on Friday.  Due to illness, he was the concert master.  They played nicely, much sharper even than their concert a couple weeks ago.

Caleb and I participated in a little informal fencing tournament yesterday.  Real swords, mask, pads.  They put me against this big kid for my first one.  It was tough to get used to the limited vision, the flex of the sword, the ill-fitting pads.  I beat him.  Then Caleb went against a guy about my age and beat him soundly.  In both of our matches, the form wasn't there, there was an awkwardness, poor lunging, poor parrying.

Then Caleb challenged me.  This was fun.  I tried my move of whacking his blade out of the way before lunging.  He did his favorite, the disengage.  I got a touch.  More battling, I got another touch.  All I needed was one more, so I took a more defensive role to wait for an opening.  Then, Caleb swung his sword around and whacked me upside the head.  That drew cheers from the crowd cuz it was so unexpected.  Fighting again, another touch for Caleb.  By now I am breathing hard.  I had some nice parries, looking to do a parry of prima and counter attack.  A couple of my lunges were over extended.  Then, another rounding blow from Caleb glanced off my shoulder and hit my head.  He won.

I celebrated my 40th birthday yesterday which caused me to contemplate what I'm making of my life.

I set the next year's goals on my birthday.  I'm a big believer in goals.  We set a goal to come to the Czech Republic to live - boom, we're here.  Lucy set a goal last year to be able to pass each of the arithmetic timed tests (add, subtract, multiply, divide, 100 problems, five minutes, no errors) - zing, two weeks later, she'd passed them all.  Caleb made a goal to do eight pull-ups - whoosh, he's hit his goal and got six pack abs in the bargain (a dream that slips farther and farther from my grasp with each passing bowl of ice cream).

So I reviewed last year's...
- Move to the Czech Republic - done
- Learn Czech - nope
- Get Hwy. 169 pre-design wrapped up - done, and then some
- Get decision on location for Hwy. 14 New Ulm to Mankato - done
- Establish daily writing habit - got it
- Write something good - still working on it.

Then asked Kristine and the kids what my biggest character flaws are.  No, not a complete list, just the biggest.  Okay, never mind.

And set this year's goal...
- Learn Czech
- Finish writing book
- Bike to Alps
- Get touch on fencing instructor (we didn't have time to fight last night)
- some other personal ones too.

Then I spend some time wondering if I'm in the right job.

Then, I think about getting older.  I've got some nice role models for how I want to age...
- When I'm 50 I want to be like our friend Wes.  He's always learning new things, stays fit, seems like he's just bumping up against 40 really.
- At about 60 I want to be like Marc at work.  He is a mentor for the young engineers and student workers.  He shares his experience with them and seems to get energy and different ways of looking at problems from them.
- At about 70 I want to be like my parents.  They still have jobs and so are keeping active physically and mentally.  I may not be at Mn/DOT anymore, but I would hope to be serving a mission with Kristine somewhere.
- At about 80 I want to be somewhat like Brother Christopherson (before he died).  He rode a three wheeled bike all over town, including up Madison hill.  He was on a first name basis with our friend Ross in the emergency room.  Stay active or die trying.

Lucy made a little ceramic mug the size of a shot glass for me.  I drank my plum flavored non-alcoholic beer in it at dinner last night.

So, Caleb asked if I had a nice birthday.  I told him that when you have a life like mine, surrounded by family and good friends with opportunities for learning and adventure, every day is nice.

Peter

Ceramics

Keramika is the Czech word for ceramics. I go to ceramics every Monday. I really enjoy it!!!  I am hoping that my parents will buy ceramic equipment for one of my birthdays.My mom says I have to earn the money for half of it. I agreed. I think earning the money will be easy peesy lemon squeezy.  So, maybe, in a few years, I will make bowls, cups, pots, vases,etc. for you.

I LOVE my  teacher, Jana Tuckova. Jana is sweet and kind. She is also a VERY good cook.

From 2009-12

From 2009-1

This is me with my finished M+M jar. Cool isn't it?

From 2009-12

Jana let my dad take these pictures. Also, she let him make this chess set. 
 

From 2009-12

 This is also my M+M jar. Also right in front of it, there is a clay printer. You probably don't know what it is. It is very easy to make. You just make a sphere of clay, press your thumb and pointer about 1/4 in, squish the bottom flat, and make a design on the bottom. You also have to fire it on a kiln. 

From 2009-12

This is me deciding what to make.

From 2009-12

This is the workshop. Pretty cool isn't it?


These are ONLY A COUPLE of the things that I have made.

1. Bells
2. Christmas tree decorations
3. Little house
4. Garden gnome
5. Earrings
6. M+M jar
7. Clay printers
8. Beads
9. Pots
10. Cups
    

- Lucy

Saint Nicholas

Christmas season is in full gear here in the Czech Republic.  Saturday, December 5th was Svati Mikulaš (St. Nicholas) day - a day of fun and fright for kids all across the country.

We went with our friends the Tučkovi and bought ourselves a Christmas tree.  It's sitting on our porch waiting for December 24th.  That's the traditional day to set it up.  It then stays up until January 6th.  Here is Jan trying to decide between two trees...

From 2009-12

On Svati Mikulaš the tradition is that St. Nick (dressed as a Catholic Bishop - or some similar high office) goes around with an angel, who carries a basket of presents, and Chert, this minor devil character that shows up all over in Czech folktalkes, who carries a switch to whack kids and hands out coal.  So groups of people dress up and go around and mess with people.  They ride the buses, they stroll the streets.  Our friend Jan says that he used to be so scared to go out on Svati Mikulaš.

From 2009-12

In the evening we, and all the rest of České Budejovice, went downtown.  There, with thousands of other people, we watched a guy dressed like an angel descend on a zip line from the Black Tower to the opposite side of the square.  He had a little trouble getting going and moved very slowly at first, but suddenly zinged right along.  Everybody cheered. Then, with loud creepy music playing from huge speakers, a giant angel paraded around the square. Here's a short clip (notice the size relative to the three story buildings)...

From 2009-12

Svati Mikulaš brought a present for Caleb and Lucy...no school all week.  There were so many sick kids and fear over flu that classes were canceled for the whole week.  Pray for us.

Peter 

The Unifying Theory of Some Stuff

I'm writing a book, see.  It's about this girl and this boy and I don't want to reveal too much, so I'll leave it at that.  By the way, I sure hope the one minute version of Harry Potter got as many okay-that-sounds-stupid looks as I have gotten when I have given a more complete synopsis.  Things are coming nicely - I'm about 40% through the first draft - largely due to a chapter in the book How to Write a Lot by Paul J. Silvia that was shared with me by our friend and composition professor at Mankato State University, Heather Camp.  The gist of it is to schedule time to write.  For me that means get up early and write until 6:00 or 6:30 depending on whether Caleb wants to play World of Warcraft while people in the U.S.A. are still populating the servers.

Anyway, instead of lying in bed resting from a 22 mile bike ride with Caleb like I should be (it's 12:45 a.m. here), and instead of describing how this girl turned princess now feels the need to learn to fight with a sword to defend herself, I am sitting up thinking about a half wit Unifying Theory of Some Stuff.

I've always been a fan of great unifying theories.  It seems to me that God put together a complex universe that resolves down to some basic truths and the more we learn about science, philosophy, and our Creator, the more clearly we will see these truths and apply them to the problems of life.

Tonight's theory involves fencing, music, storytelling, and Czech.  Unfortunately, in writing the intro, I have forgotten how they all fit together.  This reminds me of the time that I was momentarily able to comprehend how the dimension of time fits with the three spatial dimensions, but afterwards the understanding faded and all I had was a mental sketch of a gleaming, blue corkscrew curve projecting from the origin of a three dimensional cartesian coordinate system.  Or, even worse, the time when I had life all figured out and, when I later tried to describe it, all I could come up with is that it is like a bowl of crushed Wheaties (when I wrote this last night, I erroneously said Corn Flakes - my apologies if anyone spent time contemplating the solemnities of Corn Flakes).

Shoot, well some things that have happened in our lives over the past few days...

Caleb had a concert on Thursday.  His music school orchestra played a piece that may have been the Children's Symphony (or the toy symphony - I'd don't know if they are the same) by Leopold Mozart (don't blame me if I'm confused, they used to tell us that this was composed by one of the Hadyn's).  Caleb then played a nice, solid solo.

On Friday evening, when buddies on two continents were hanging out with friends, Caleb went with Lucy, Silas and me to the grocery store.  On the way back we crossed paths with a bunch of girls and some guys from his class.  I kind of felt for the boy as all he could do was say hi and continue walking, laden down with bags full of milk for his whining toddler brother and beer (non-alcoholic) for his unemployed old man.

Czech continues to be a struggle.  We got the basic mechanics down.  Now it's just a matter of stringing things together quickly enough that people will pay attention to a whole thought.  In fact most of my conversations go one of four ways (english equivalent of czech words given in italics)...

1.  I....like would (the person corrects my word order)...to read (the person corrects my pronunciation of the letter 'i')...a book (the person corrects the ending I used on the word book)...about (the person has started a conversation somebody else).

2.  Peter - I speak a little Czech
     Other Person - I speak a little English
     Peter - simple Czech words for which the Other Person knows the English equivalent and "uhs" for all the rest.
     Other Person - simple English words for which Peter knows the Czech equivalent and "ers" for all the rest.

3.  I think that you...should...try...how do you say X?  Oh, heck, (and speak english from there on).

4.  I don't speak Czech.

I didn't understand a lot at fencing on Monday, but it became clear to me that it is realistic for a very talent fencer to defeat a whole bunch of unskilled swordsmen (like they always do in the movies).  So after class I asked the teacher if he could take on the whole class and win.  He said no, but there will be a tournament at the end of the year, and, while it will be disgraceful if he loses to me, it would be more disgraceful to not accept my challenge, so we are on.

We have started getting packages from people and requests for our mailing address.  Let me say, I think folks are crazy to spend the kind of money that it takes to mail a package here.  With that said, we really appreciate the consideration and sacrifice.  Thank you.

Finally, we did celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday.  We had turkey, gravy, stuffing, potatoes, corn, lingonberries, bread, and the biggest pumpkin pie I have ever seen for dessert.  We had the pleasure of the company of the four missionaries here in Česke Budejovice.

The missionaries are...

Elder Hill - an excellent singer and, we learned Sunday, a Guitar Hero hero, nearing the end of his mission.

Elder Pearson - came to the Czech Republic about two weeks before us and, in Kristine's words, has left me in the dust in terms of learning Czech.  His dad is a General Authority (Elder Pearson of the Seventy) so we are always asking him what it's like to grow up in such a household.

Elder Vivona - has only been out for about a month.  He's coming along nicely with the language too.

Elder Nowland - I'm no Czech, but it sure sounds to me like this elder has it down.  He even draws out the letters with accent marks, he even speaks with the same kind of cadence as Czechs.  He too is nearing the end.

It's now 2:00 a.m. and there is no sleep in sight.  I think I'll try warm milk and counting Czech noun endings.

Peter