Vašek's Birthday Party

On Saturday Vašek had a little birthday celebration at a friend's chata in Jundrov which is a Brno suburb about 15-20 minutes away by bus.

A chata is basically a weekend cottage used by the city folks to get away from the city and to spend some time in the countryside enjoying nature.  Not all cottages are the same.  Some are kind rustic without any electricity or running water while others can be very extravagant.  

The popularity of these weekend cottages dates back to the First Czechoslovak Republic when people first felt the need to get away from the city.  Then during communism it was almost impossible for people to travel outside of the country, except to other communist countries and even then I hear it wasn't exactly easy.  During this time, cottages were the easiest way how to spend your holidays someplace other than at home.

I believe that Czechs rank second in the world, just behind Sweden, for the number of cottages per capita.

I wrote before about the "golden Czech hands."  If I didn't believe it it before then I definitely do now.  Prior to the party starting some of the guys took a cardboard fruit box and screwed it to the ceiling so that it would hold a projector in order for us to have a screen for some karaoke.  I can't believe that it actually worked.

Vašek and Aleš were the only guys I knew.  Vašek warned me that my Czech would get a workout and it did.  I also got to speak German, some English, and even use my now rusty Spanglish.  

There were probably around 30+ people at the party.  People grilled out and there was plenty of liquid courage to enable all of the karaoke.  As this was my first time here I'll spare everyone the painful videos.

Everyone was so nice and I've already been invited back for future events.  I can't wait!