Stag Night

The other day Ján surprised the guys at work by us know that he and his girlfriend, Markéta, are getting married at the weekend.  Just a small ceremony with their families.

Well there's no way that the boys were going to let him off that easy.  You can't get married without a stag night.  So after a couple of hours they pulled together an impromptu sendoff.  Ján was told to show up and to be sure to have a helmet.

Ján and his helmet

The first event was to show up at the Starobrno brewery to ride the beer tram.

The Starobrno Brewery is the successor to brewery founded in 1325.  In the later 19th century is was remanded Starobrno, which means "old Brno".  In 2009 it became a part of Heineken.

The beer tram is exactly what it sounds like - a pub inside of a tram.  The trams sits 38 people, another 17 can stand, there are plenty of cup holders, a bar, music, Wi-Fi, and there's even a loo on board.

The tram can follow any of the tracks in Brno so you just tell the driver what part of town you want to ride in.  We booked the tram for an hour.

My first Czech stag night.  11 chaps, 30 litres of beer, and 1 hour.  Challenge accepted!

After the ride, and those 30 litres of beer, we had dinner at the brewery.  It was later followed by more traditional stag night activities, also known as going to a strip bar.  Sorry, no photos from the strip bar.

Eiko & Tommi's Wedding

On Saturday we were in Finland to watch Eiko and Tommi get married.  It was great to be able to join in on all of the festivities.

When we were in Helsinki in 2014 we visited St. John's Church which is the country's largest stone church.  Who would have thought then that this is where Eiko would tie the knot?

This is actually their second of three weddings.  They had a civil service in Stockholm and this was the full blown European wedding in Helsinki with Tommi's family.  In January they will have a Japanese wedding with her family in Tokyo.


Eiko is Japanese and Tommi is Finnish.  They met in graduate school in Spain and now live in Sweden.  So of course they were going to have an international wedding and their guests represent 16 different nationalities.

The reception was a great blend of traditions from across the globe.  One Swedish tradition is that when the bride leaves the room, all of the men cling their glasses while all of the women line up to kiss the groom.  When the groom leaves, the women all cling glasses and the men line up to kiss the bride.  



It was also a great chance to catch up with Liz and James after their wedding.  The midnight sun for sure helped make for some great photos.  It was a beautiful wedding and a wonderful weekend.  We're so happy that we could join in and share it with everyone.

Midnight Sun

We're in Helsinki this weekend for Eiko and Tommi's wedding tomorrow.  It feels like we were just at Liz and Jame's wedding and now it's time for Eiko to walk down the aisle.

One interesting thing going on, besides this also being Helsinki's Pride weekend, is the midnight sun.  Also called "white nights", this is when sunsets are late, sunrises are early, and it never really gets completely dark.  While the sun sets for a while, light can be seen on the horizon.

Around the summer solstice the sun is visible for 24 hours but this is way up north closer at the Artic Circle.  Most of Scandinavia experiences these white nights, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, plus Greenland, Russia, Alaska, and parts of Canada.

This photo was taken at 11 PM and as you can see it is still very much light outside.  The night sky is defiantly more blue than black.

Our hotel has blackout curtains so I don't think it will be a problem getting a solid night's sleep before all of the festivities begin tomorrow.

Liz & James' Wedding

On Saturday was Liz and James' wedding in South West England.  They got married at the Church of the Annunciation at Woodchester Priory in Stroud.  It was a Roman Catholic church that opened in 1849.

It was a lovely ceremony and afterwards we all proceeded to Westonbirt where the reception was held.

James was in charge of organising the reception and boy did he deliver.  The reception was at the Westonbirt School which is an all-girls boarding school on over 200 acres.  The place was fantastic!  It looked like something right out of Harry Potter.  

It was great to join in on their special day and to catch up with several people from the Bratislava days.  Marcus even flew in from Atlanta.

Eiko and I got caught up now because there won't be time when the next time we see each other at her wedding in July.

It's tough on the bride and groom at the reception because they feel like they have to balance their time with all of the guests.

I told Liz not to worry about it.  It's her day and we'll have time to catch up at Eiko and Tommi's celebration in Helsinki.  It was such a beautiful day and we were so honoured to be included.  #jamesandlillywedding

Off to a Wedding

It's finally time to head off to England for the first of two weddings this year.  Liz and James are getting married this weekend and in July Eiko and Tommi are getting married in Helsinki.



Lenka, Féro, and I are on a Ryanair flight from Brno to London Stansted.  Then it's just over a two-hour drive to near Stroud where the wedding is.

The Shiner

So everyone wants to know the story about the shiner that I've been sporting for a week since Tomáš and Annie's wedding.  Well, it really isn't that exciting.  I was leaving the restroom, I slipped, I fell, and my face scrapped the side of a concrete step.  Not very graceful but I was really lucky because I could have done some serious damage. 

So there wasn't a brawl at the wedding or anything.  I'm glad that it happened towards the end of the evening so it didn't detract from any of the festivities.  And while I wasn't falling down drunk, thank goodness I was buzzed enough that it didn't hurt as bad as it would have if I had been sober.  But it sure hurt like hell on Sunday evening.

Here's a photo that was taken the following morning, about 6 hours afterwards.  At least I was in good spirits and could laugh at the whole thing.  As bad as it looked in the photo, it was worse on Monday when the side of my face scabbed up.  But I was still a trooper and went in to the office Monday morning and then gave a presentation to 100 people on Tuesday.  Let's hope that it clears up soon though.  I've got less than three weeks before I visit the USA for the first time in three years. 

I did go to the ophthalmologist this morning just to make sure that everything was OK.  My vision was fine but as a precaution I was sent to the hospital for some x-rays, but not until after my eyes had been dilated.  That was fun.  Trying to find the radiology department, in Czech, and not being able to read the hospital directory because I could not focus on the letters.  With some help from a couple of nice orderlies, I eventually made it to where I needed to be and all is fine.  The best part was that the doctor's visit, 3 sets of tests and x-rays only cost me 30 Kč (~$1.50).  Got to love the Czech health care system.

Third Wedding of the Year

This past Saturday was the third wedding of the year that I was invited to.  Weddings in Europe, at least in Central Europe, are different from the "normal" weddings I was used to in the USA.  However, the most important thing is that you've got two people who love each other and want to make a commitment to marriage.  And that part is the same.

Tomáš and Annička had their ceremony in the Kroměříž chateau.  I was told that it would be a civil ceremony performed by the town's mayor.  As far as a justice of the peace wedding goes, this one was awesome.

And if you are going to get married in a government building then you can't go wrong if it just happens to inside of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The location was fabulous!!  This has got to have been the coolest "town hall" wedding ever.

After the ceremony, there were all of the usual traditions that I saw at Alex and Ondra's wedding and at the village wedding...breaking plates, doing shots of slivovice, etc.  After the ceremony and photos we all headed over to lunch at the reception in their village of  Litenčice. 

This turned out to be one heck of a great party that lasted well in to the early hours of the morning.  Lots of food, drinks and dancing.  It was definitely one heck of a party and I had a great time.  The only downside was the shiner that I'm now sporting.

Meet the New Spouse Party

This must be wedding season.  On my largest team alone, I have three different people all getting married.  Not to each other but to other people.  So last night we had a little get together at a local pizza place for everyone on the team to meet the new new & future spouses.

David has grown since we "wet his head"

It was a lot of fun.  I think that everyone enjoyed being able to just relax after a long week.  And it is always nice to get to know people outside of the office.  Some people even brought wives or boyfriends and we had a couple of kids.


Alexandra and Ondřej just recently got married.  This was my first Euroland wedding. 

Kasia and Radek are both Polish and have already had their civil ceremony.  Now they will go back to Poland for the big village wedding.

Tomáš and Annie have their wedding in in about a month.  I'm sure that it will be one big party.

After a while, we pulled all three couples outside and congratulated everyone.  There were the traditional flowers, handshakes and the European double kisses.

First Village Wedding

Yesterday was my second wedding of the year but it was my first Czech village wedding.  Katka needed a date for her cousin's wedding so I was her "plus one".  The wedding was held in Nedašov which is around 200 km southeast of Brno, about 4 km from the Slovak border.  It took around 3.5 hours to get there on Friday night using the regional train because it stopped at almost every little village along the way.  No joke, at one point, the train stopped three times in a five minute period.  

Like the last wedding there were lots of things which were different from a traditional American wedding.  And even more this time since it was a small village wedding.  On Saturday morning, we had to be at the local community center by 9 AM for goulash soup.  The groom's side of the family was upstairs and the bride's side of the family was downstairs.  Maybe all Czech wedding festivities start this early but goulash soup for breakfast was a little unusual.  It did give me a chance to meet some of the bride's family before the actual ceremony.  Especially when by 9:15 they were passing out the first shots of slivovice followed by half-liters of beer.  Goulash soup, slivovice and beer all by 9:30 in the morning...I just knew that this was going to be a long day.

The Wedding Slivovice

Around 10:30, we all walked up to the Catholic church for the ceremony.  I helped with a couple of errands.  Most importantly we delivered boxes of sweets and bottles of slivovice to the priest and to the members of the orchestra.

Before the wedding started, we all went in to the church but didn't sit down.  We lined the pews so that everyone got to see the bride as she entered.  Then we sat down in the pews for the ceremony.  Again, no bridesmaids or groomsmen; just two witnesses.  There were four chairs up at the front.  Two for the bride and groom to use during the ceremony and two chairs behind them for their witnesses.  Mass took about an hour.  We then lined up down the aisle again before the married couple could exit the church.  Then as everyone exited the church, we congratulated the couple.  While everyone was in queue to wish Maruška and Kamil well, the family started passing out sweets and more shots of slivovice.  

Then we all followed the newlyweds back to the community center for more traditions.  The bride and groom had a few responsibilities to take care of before we could enter.  First they both had to take a shot of slivovice.  Then the plate was broken and they had to gather all of the pieces with a dustpan and a hand broom.  Apparently the in-laws didn't think it was difficult enough so pieces were broken in to even smaller pieces.  Then after Kamil chopped some wood we all went in to the hall for lunch.

I lucked out because we were sat at the main family table so I got a great view of all of the festivities.  Everyone was given a glass of martini.  (I'll explain the martini thing later).  There was a toast made to the happy couple and then lunch was served.  First we had vývar which is a broth soup with thin noodles.  It's basically chicken noodle soup with liver ball dumplings.  The couple were draped in a sheet and had to feed each other soup.  At the last wedding the soup spoon had a hole in it; not this time.  Then out came platters of roast turkey, cabbage and knedliky (Czech dumplings).  Followed by more sweets and coffee.  On every table were bottles of slivovice so everyone helped themselves to additional shots.

After lunch the party started.  Lots of traditional dancing and a few skits followed by even more dancing.  Later on, a second wave of food was brought out as a buffet.  I have never seen so much food in my life.  I would have thought I was on a cruise ship.  There was all kinds of roast pork, chicken, turkey, schnitzel and every possible salad you could think of.

There were only a few people at the wedding who could speak English plus two or three people with bad German but I pretty well managed with my bad Czech.  It's always amazing to me that it doesn't really matter who speaks what language, after a few shots of slivovice everyone can speak every language fluently.  I had a great time getting to know all of the bride's uncles.  I'm not sure if it was because of me being an American from Brno who spoke Czech or if they were trying to figure out if I was just Katka's date for the wedding or if there was more to it.  Maybe a combination.  Regardless, it was for sure a great time.  We left around midnight which quite a long day for me.  But I believe that the partying continued well in to the next morning.

First Euroland Wedding

Yesterday was my first wedding here in Euroland.  Not mine, but rather the first wedding I've been invited to.  Actually the first of three weddings I'm going to this summer.  I guess after three years, I'm starting to fit in over here or something.  The wedding was beautiful and it was interesting to see all of the little cultural differences between a European wedding and an American wedding.

Alexandra is from Romania and Ondřej is Moravian (Czech) so things were somewhat blended.  But from what I gather many of the wedding traditions are pretty similar.  The ceremony was at a hillside chapel in Rudice, about an hour from Brno and since the ceremony was at noon, I had to be ready for my ride around 10:30 AM.

The ceremony was in Czech.  I didn't understand everything but I was more or less able to follow along.  There weren't any bridesmaids and groomsmen.  Just two witnesses which stood by the couple as they made their vows.  As part of the ceremony, the bride, groom and witnesses all had to sign the registry to make everything legal.

After the ceremony was finished, we all exited the chapel and congratulated the newlyweds.  While they took pictures for about an hour the two moms went around giving everyone sweets.  The fathers went around giving everyone shots of slivovice and pálinka (Romanian slivovice).

The wedding lunch took place at a Golf course in Kuřim.  All of the wedding speeches were in Czech, Romanian and English.  The couple were presented with two glasses.  One was water and one was slivovice.  Alexandra seemed quite relived to have chosen the water.  A plate was then broken on the ground and the two of them had to work together to sweep up the pieces with a brush and dustpan.  I think that they are supposed to have as many happy years as there were pieces of broken plate.  Or something to that effect.

During the first course, the newlyweds were wrapped in a sheet, like a giant bib and had to feed each other soup.  The object is that the couple will have to communicate and work together.  Of course the kicker here was that the soup spoon had a big hole in it so this took a while.

The party lasted well in to the evening and there was lots of dancing.  There was also lots of drinking.  And the ongoing debate about which is better slivovice or pálinka.  Not to mention the differences between Moravian wine and Romanian wine.  My diplomatic answer was that I preferred pálinka with Moravian wine but slivovice with Romanian wine.  Pretty noncommittal but it seemed to appease people. 

Everything was great!  It was an awesome day and I was so honored to have been invited.  I think that these two have a lot of good times ahead of them.

Here's one thing that was odd for me.  In Europe, people don't register for gifts like we do in the USA.  It would have been so easy to just go to a store, find out what they registered for, make my selection and the item would have been removed from the list.  Yeah, they don't do that over here.  Not for weddings or baby showers.  Instead, here someone is in charge of a gift list.  This time there were two lists, one for the Czech speakers and one for the Romanian or English speakers.  You call the person who is in charge of the list and he or she tells you want the couple wants.  Maybe it is a bit less personal in the USA but our registries are way more efficient.