Tábor

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November 11th 2010

Published: November 11th 2010

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mgreene10

Tabor

The street outside Emily's apartment.

Čau!

Here’s just a quick little update about last weekend’s adventure. Last Wednesday was Emily’s, one of the Fulbright exchange teachers from Washington state, birthday, so over the weekend, I went to the city she’s living in, Tábor, to visit, celebrate, and see another Bohemian city. It was an absolutely beautiful city and a fun weekend overall.

On Friday, I set out on my crazy train journey to Tábor, which is Czech for “camp,” since it was originally an army campsite. If I were simply to drive there, it would take me about an hour. However, the train connection between Havlíčkův Brod and Tábor isn’t exactly the greatest, and so it took me about four hours. I first went from Havlíčkův Brod to Jihlava, then from Jihlava to Horní Cerekev, and from Horní Cerekev to Tábor. As my trip continued, my trains got progressively smaller, until I was sitting in a one-car train like the one I take to get to Linhartice, Libor’s village. As the trip continued, as well, the trains got more and more crowded. On my last train from Horní Cerekev to Tábor, I ended up sitting with a ton of high school kids going to

Tabor

Some of the cool buildings.

a ball. In other words, I was suffocating from the serious amount of cologne that was contained in one small wagon.

I arrived in Tábor at a little before seven in the evening, and was met at the train station by Emily and Brock, also an exchange teacher from Ohio. We headed back to Emily’s apartment, where we hung out for a little and waited for Calan to arrive. Emily’s apartment was amazing! Given that she’s an exchange teacher, she’s now living in the apartment of the Czech teacher who’s in the US. This teacher and her mother bought an old, run-down building and fixed it up. Now, on the first floor there’s a pizzeria, the mother lives on the second floor part-time, and Emily’s apartment is where the old attic used to be. It's a wide, open area, has skylights, and looks all-around brand-spankin’ new. Basically, Emily won the jackpot for Fulbright.

With hunger getting the better of Brock and me, we decided to try to go to the pizzeria beneath Emily’s place to wait for Calan. When we were told that it was full, we ended up walking up to the main square (a roughly 30

Maple

The Canadian store.

second walk) and went to the Indian restaurant there. That’s right, the Indian restaurant. Tábor actually has restaurants of other types of food than Czech, which was a real surprise. This isn’t to say I don’t like Czech food, on the contrary I think it’s typically pretty good, but it was nice to have a change. After perusing the menu, I saw they had Keema Mattar, and yes, Hillary, you can bet I ordered it (and it was some of the best Indian food I’ve ever had). The restaurant was actually run by Indians, too, which was a new experience speaking to Indians in Czech. Anyways, Calan arrived, we ate and all chatted, and then ended up walking across the square to a little pub called Havana, where we grabbed a drink. We decided to call it an early night, though, and just headed back to Emily’s and hung out.

On Saturday morning, we set out to explore the city. Brock and Calan had visited before, but it was my first time in Tábor, so Emily wanted to show me the sites. We first stopped at a store called Maple (I’m on the hunt for a new pair of

Cool Design

pants), which was actually a Canadian store (if the name didn’t give it away). Although unsuccessful, it was funny to see North American clothes for sale, rather than your typical European clothes. We then continued and walked across the main square in the day, which was massive and beautiful. The buildings all over Tábor were really nice and architecturally interesting (though Emily said most were destroyed in the Wars and thus rebuilt). We walked down to the city’s castle, which was later converted into a prison and is now a brewery, and then made an interesting detour. After the Revolution in 1989, two Americans living in the Czech Republic purchased a house called Cesta (which means “Path” in Czech) for 20Kč (roughly $1). The catch is that they actually have to look after the whole park that surrounds the house, and the house itself is pretty big and still looks rather shabby, but hey, a house for $1? I’ll take it.

After seeing Cesta, we walked back up by the castle, and Emily brought us into a park from which we could see the “suburbs” of Tábor, ie some of the villages outside. We found a little playground, and

Main Square

The tall building is the Old Town Hall.

after trying our hand at some gymnastics on the bars, we continued along our way. Brock had to catch the train back to Olomouc, the city he’s living and teaching in, so we grabbed his stuff from Emily’s and headed for the train station. To get to the train station, we had to go back across the city, so I got to see the way we’d come the night before, but in the daylight this time. It was incredible just how different Tábor was from Havlíčkův Brod. Not only is it a bigger city with more people, but there are a lot more stores, both clothing and food. There was overall a lot more going on for a Saturday than in Havlíčkův Brod. We dropped Brock off, though, and then Emily, Calan and I set out on our next adventure.

Emily wanted to bring us to this place she’d been before named Harachovka. However, we ended up getting a little lost, and so took a detour through the woods, past the Cesta house, up a huge hill, and ended up at a monastery outside of the city. We walked around the monastery a little bit, and peeked into the

The Church

cemetery. Since November 1st and 2nd are All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, the cemetery was covered in flowers and candles, which was cool to see. We then set off down a different path, and after asking a local for directions, found our way back to the city’s river, Luznice, which we followed. We walked for a while along the river, came across an outdoor rock museum, which displayed all the types of rocks found in the Czech Republic, and the girls decided we had to take a lot of pictures. I climbed up on top of the biggest rock and just sat there, and they chose new angles, etc. We then continued on our way and came to the restaurant Emily knew, and there we had a great lunch before setting out on our journey back. After lounging around Emily’s apartment, we ended up going out and meeting her friend Jára at a tea house. There I thought I’d try some Japanese tea, and it ended up being some milk concoction. I ended up just ordering some Turkish tea that tasted like Juicy Fruit gum since the Japanese “tea” was so gross.

On Sunday morning, Calan and I

The Main Square

Looking towards the Indian restaurant.

set out for the train station, and each boarded to head in opposition directions. It took me about 5 hours to travel 78 miles, and I had to go from Tábor to Pelhřimov to Horní Cerekev to finally Havlíčkův Brod, but I made it back. This week has otherwise been pretty good. I’ve had lots of work to do and am starting to learn the names of my new students at the Gymnázium, and even impressed some of them by saying one of the hardest Czech tongue twisters: třistatřicettři stříbrných stříkaček stříkalo přes třistatřicettři stříbrných střech. It’s a lot of times saying the ř sound, which is almost impossible for foreigners, but I did it! After one of my classes on Tuesday, all my students stood up again, meaning they really enjoyed the class, so I was happy about that. Now I’m just on one of my longer breaks waiting for my final class of the day/week. Last night was parent-teacher conferences (I didn’t have to go, though), and then afterwards some of the teachers from the Gymnázium went out to dinner/for a drink. They invited me along, so I met them for a beer before spinning, and after spinning

The Church

With a cool statue of a soldier in front of it (remember: Tabor means "camp").

I went back and met them for another. One of the geography teachers from the Gymnázium, Hana, invited me to this thing tonight that’s basically called a Game Dinner or something like that (Zvěřina in Czech). Don’t confuse it with a game you play, I’m talking more about wild game that you shoot when you hunt. I nervously accepted the invitation, so tonight I’m going to go with her and some of her friends to this dinner a few miles outside of Havlíčkův Brod and try some game...or maybe just have a drink and then cook dinner for myself afterwards. I’m excited for tomorrow night, too, because one of my classes at the medical school invited me out to a ceremony they have. To graduate from all levels of school in the Czech Republic, you have to take governmental exams. This class that invited me is of seniors, and so they’ll be taking their exams in the spring. It’s tradition in the fall to have a ceremony where you get a pin that you’re supposed to wear to show the people of the city that you’re one of the kids who’s going to take the “maturita,” the exam. It’ll be

Old Town Hall

I love Czech architecture.

a nice dinner tomorrow night at a restaurant/pub, and they only invite certain teachers. They told me I was one of the first on the list, but the German students preferred having just the teachers who are giving the maturita, but my English students fought for me and so now I’m invited and am going. It should be fun! On Saturday, as well, I have to wake up at the crack of dawn to catch the train to Prague, since Saturday midday I’m flying to Kraków, Poland, until Wednesday for a Fulbright conference—thank you, American and Czech taxpayers!

That’s about it for now, here are some pictures of Tábor, as well, and I’ll post pictures from the ceremony and of course Poland once I get back. I guess I shouldn’t say čau, I should say it instead in Polish, so cześć!

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