February is almost finished and our travels continued. The trip to Czech Republic was quite successful (or I hope) and all papers and documents were submitted. Of course it didn't help the mood when I went early in the morning to the town- hall and saw a paper on the door - Today closed! (Every last Friday in a month the office is closed). Well lucky me, that they were open on Saturday morning. Some of you might know that the town of Liberec, will be hosting next week the world championship of skiing and ski jumping, which is great for all the tourists, but will be very complicated for all the inhabitants of this town (let's say that the road structure should have gone through some construction prior to this event). Well I will tell you little bit more about it once I return next week hopefully with my new documents and new identity - I am slowly getting there :)
That is why it is great that we have lots of snow and temperature below zero, for this important event (and it is great that I am writing this blog entry from a sunny Lisbon, where we currently have 16 degrees - well, life is beautiful)
While we were visiting Czech at the end of January, my great friends (Kacenka and Pavel) took us for the first time (to a big excitment of Pedro) to the ice hockey game. This sport is quite popular in Czech and I must say that we are (or at least we were quite a good in it). Great sport, especially if you are watching it from a VIP floor (thank you Kacenka for finding the tickets) with food, champagne, beer, popcorn... hmmm shame that the game is so short (3x20mins with 2 breaks in between the thirds). Well, we had fun! (and Pedro enjoyed not just the ice hockey players dressed as White Tigers - name of the club - but as well plenty of cheerleaders in the stadium)
From there I took a crazy plane to US and spent 4 days in West Chester near Philadephia in a meeting and realised again how this kind of travel is different. Just travelling with business people is not such a fun as most of them open laptops in a second the plane is in the air, starting preparing presentations and at the airport waiting impatiently and silently for the luggage. Then you look to the luggage belt beside you and you see many people from some charter plane returning from the holidays, chatting, laughting, being loud and us in the "business area" jeallously looking at them and almost "shushing" them as they are destroying our great professional environment. :) Well it was fun, as always when I go to US something happens to the weather and there is the constant thread if I am going to leave this country on time. (eg. some hurricane approaching Philadephia and due to the strong winds flights were cancelled and some of my colleagues had couple of hours to rebook, reschedule, or buy new flights - well again, this is much easier if you are travelling on business)
And as I have mentioned already before, now I am sitting in Portugal Lisbon, enjoying the sun and the warm weather ( had to do already some spring shopping due to the unexpected sun:) We came to celebrate Pedro's birthday (not mentioning his age - even though 31 is really not a lot:)
It is great to dine with his family (extended) as it is a habit in Portugal and you almost feel that you are in a different world. Loud music, 10 people talking in the same time, and they are not talking, they are very loudly exchanging opinions on politics, music, films, next holidays, Pedro is trying to translate and for me it is like a movie and I am watching it from my sofa and eating popcorn. It is great, they are great and all the fun, great atmosphere and they genuine feeling of love and being loved sucks you into the environment and you have to participate. You don't have to, you want to as it is extraordinary how happy they are, seeing not just Pedro but as well me, the alien who doesn't speak the language and comes from this cold culture and family where we never raise the voice :) Well, you have to love it!
I am going to say good-bye tomorrow, leaving my hubby behind as he will go to UK (again) and spend another weekend in Portugal and me returning to Czech to collect my passport.
Well - 3 weeks, 3 countries... and there will be more. Next trip planned is to Chicago (beginning of March) where I will participate in a training course for a week....
Until then - hopefully we will spend couple of days together in Strasbourg!
