My Wedding Weekend in Vestec
This past weekend, I traveled down to the small farm/village of Vestec. I'm still not really sure where it is, but it's somewhere in southeastern Bohemia. Maybe I should look on a map or google it to find out where I was this past weekend. I was to travel there for the wedding of my good friend, Hana. Hana was one of the first people I befriended in Czech Republic more than four years ago and she was my first teacher of Czech. We traded off language lessons for 2 years before she moved away from Kralupy, but we have kept in touch and have been able to hang out every so often.
So the wedding was last Saturday. But quite far from Kralupy, but luckily, I had an option to hitch a ride with some friends. Otherwise it probably would have been quite near impossible to get to this small town in the middle of nowhere on a weekend. But there was one condition. I had to help my friends in the morning with building a playground and reconstructing some things in their village with grant money they had applied for and won. The whole village was there at 830am and we went to work. It was quite an interesting thing to see, but I quite liked it. So I was filling up a sandbox and then pulling out weeds and stuff most of the morning. The next morning, after the wedding, I couldn't remember why I was so sore, but probably manual labor for several hours would do the trick.
We finally left about noon or so and got to Vestec at about 130 or so. The wedding was at 2. It was cold, windy, but not rainy, just seemed as though it would any moment. It looked like it'd be a nice wedding. It was at a "mill" or I don't know if you can call it that, but that's what they did, and it was really nice inside and had a few garages and the wedding was outside. The wedding started and it was really cool. After the wedding was a great big feast and really tasty everything. Afterwards, I didn't really know many people there and the few people I did know knew lots of people and I would have felt bad to just kind of latch on or something. So I took a few walks in the fields and stuff. There are some really famous hills near this place which are the origins of one Czech legend. So it was a really nice walk I think.
I came back and was bored for a bit longer, but then it started getting later and everyone started to get happier. We ate some came and people started talking to me and it was more and more fun. Then the Jewish band came and started singing and everyone started dancing and having a good time. I'm pretty sure that by the end of the night I knew everyone and it was definitely an overall good experience.
In the morning, we woke up and I was talking to several people and then we decided to finally head back home. I rode with this guy who was going back to Kralupy. He was a really nice guy and friendly. But we stopped to get gas for his car and we were with his wife and daughter, who was terrified of me :), and he came to me and told me that we have a serious problem. He just came back from pumping the gas and he had accidentally filled up his car completely to the hilt with diesel. It was kinda a problem. So we waited for the tow truck to get there and just as they got there, another of our cars pulled in and i traded cars as to get back home faster. I hope to talk to him soon to find out if it all worked out, but I think it did. Just quite bad luck I think. But I got back home about 230 and had a few hours to at least try and relax a bit. But it was an overal really great weekend and I'm quite happy that I was able to attend another wedding in the last month. :)
So the wedding was last Saturday. But quite far from Kralupy, but luckily, I had an option to hitch a ride with some friends. Otherwise it probably would have been quite near impossible to get to this small town in the middle of nowhere on a weekend. But there was one condition. I had to help my friends in the morning with building a playground and reconstructing some things in their village with grant money they had applied for and won. The whole village was there at 830am and we went to work. It was quite an interesting thing to see, but I quite liked it. So I was filling up a sandbox and then pulling out weeds and stuff most of the morning. The next morning, after the wedding, I couldn't remember why I was so sore, but probably manual labor for several hours would do the trick.
We finally left about noon or so and got to Vestec at about 130 or so. The wedding was at 2. It was cold, windy, but not rainy, just seemed as though it would any moment. It looked like it'd be a nice wedding. It was at a "mill" or I don't know if you can call it that, but that's what they did, and it was really nice inside and had a few garages and the wedding was outside. The wedding started and it was really cool. After the wedding was a great big feast and really tasty everything. Afterwards, I didn't really know many people there and the few people I did know knew lots of people and I would have felt bad to just kind of latch on or something. So I took a few walks in the fields and stuff. There are some really famous hills near this place which are the origins of one Czech legend. So it was a really nice walk I think.
I came back and was bored for a bit longer, but then it started getting later and everyone started to get happier. We ate some came and people started talking to me and it was more and more fun. Then the Jewish band came and started singing and everyone started dancing and having a good time. I'm pretty sure that by the end of the night I knew everyone and it was definitely an overall good experience.
In the morning, we woke up and I was talking to several people and then we decided to finally head back home. I rode with this guy who was going back to Kralupy. He was a really nice guy and friendly. But we stopped to get gas for his car and we were with his wife and daughter, who was terrified of me :), and he came to me and told me that we have a serious problem. He just came back from pumping the gas and he had accidentally filled up his car completely to the hilt with diesel. It was kinda a problem. So we waited for the tow truck to get there and just as they got there, another of our cars pulled in and i traded cars as to get back home faster. I hope to talk to him soon to find out if it all worked out, but I think it did. Just quite bad luck I think. But I got back home about 230 and had a few hours to at least try and relax a bit. But it was an overal really great weekend and I'm quite happy that I was able to attend another wedding in the last month. :)
posted by Zach Barnes at 5:36 AM
1 Comments:
zach, i'm interested to know, since (as i understand) the czech republic is largely un-religious, what are their wedding traditions? and who performs the ceremony? are there legal benefits to marriage? but i see there was a jewish band. is your friend hana jewish?
glad you had a good time, and made it home safely!
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