Organization and Contents of the Blog

The blog has been reorganized so that the daily posts written during the trip are at the beginning in chronological order, followed by:

detailed information on South Bohemia,
          including the visits to ancestral villages;
additional photos of Prague;
additional photos from the outings in August
          while at Dobruška;
and finally the background information on family history.

The links below will take you directly to those pages, which are also accessible through the links on the left side of each blog page. Within the daily posts are links to any sections with additional photos or information about that location.

The Daily Posts Written While I Was Traveling, with a few pictures:

Prague and South Bohemia:

July 27, 2009 - Spelled right!
July 27, 2009 - Swimming in Languages
July 27, 2009 - Bagpipes and a family recipe?
July 28, 2009 - OLD pipe organ!!!
July 29, 2009 - Distant cousin confirmed
          and "Strakonice Dudak"
July 31, 2009 - Under the South Bohemian Sun

Dobruška:

Week One:
August 1, 2009 - Festival Times
August 2, 2009 - To Be or Not To Be; Concert on the Square
August 3, 2009 - Rhythmic Counting in Czech
August 4, 2009 - Fruits, Vegetables, Colors and Folksongs
August 5, 2009 - Grandmother's Valley
August 6, 2009 - Bridge of the Generations?
August 7, 2009 - Czech TV stars and a weekend!

Week Two:
August 8, 2009 - Contrasts: Foam Party & Renaissance Castle
August 9, 2009 - Olympics and Castle performance
August 10, 2009 - Link to Czech TV appearance
August 10, 2009 - Tongue Twisters, Street Dancing
          & an old movie
August 11, 2009 - Grammar Marathon
August 12, 2009 - Prague: Senate and shopping
August 13, 2009 - Polka, Mazurka, Song and Dance
August 14, 2009 - Night Language Games and Outdoor Disco

Week Three:
August 15, 2009 - Bunkers in the mountains
August 16, 2009 - Podbřezi: Brass Band and
          Old Jewish Cemetery
August 17, 2009 - Czech Political System and
          Dance Competition
August 18, 2009 - Military maps and fresh strawberries
August 19, 2009 - International Folklore Festival
August 20, 2009 - Firefighter Fantasy
August 21, 2009 - E-learning and Firefighters' Party

Week Four:
August 22, 2009 - Bethlehem Museum and Hradec Králové
August 23, 2009 - Upcoming performances and Opočno Castle
August 24, 2009 - Primator Brewery
August 25, 2009 - "Language Independence" Day
          as well as North & South American "Evening of Nations"
August 26, 2009 - Final Classes, Final Party
August 27, 2009 - Last day events
August 28, 2009 - Final afternoon in Prague
August 29, 2009 - Back in Minneapolis

South Bohemia in more detail:

The Trnka and Malecha Villages
          (Great-Grandfather's Family)
Malecha Family Photos
          from Jitka (Nestávalová) Ševčíková
The Hanzl and Toman Villages
          (Great-Grandmother's Family)
České Budějovice
Strakonice - the town of bagpipes
Bagpipe Exhibit in Museum at Strakonice Castle
Blata Kroje (Folk costumes from Blata region)
Czech cabinetmaking

Prague in more detail (mostly photos):

Praha - Hradčany (The Castle District)
Pražský hrad (Prague Castle)
Katedrála Svatého Víta (Saint Vitus Cathedral)
Praha – Malá Strana (Lesser Town)
Valdštejnský palác (Wallenstein Palace),
          now the Czech Senate building
Praha – Karlův most (Charles Bridge)
Praha – Staré Město (Old Town)
Praha – Nové Město (New Town)
Praha – Vyšehrad
Praha (Prague) – Miscellaneous Photos

Dobruška outings in more detail (mostly photos):

Aug. 1 - Deštné - glass blowing
Aug. 1 - Opočno Festival
Aug. 5 - Babiččině údolí (Grandmother's Valley)
Aug. 8 - Vamberk Bobbin Lace Museum
Aug. 8 - Litomyšl
Aug. 9 - Nové Město nad Metují
Aug. 14 - Night Language Games in Opočno
Aug. 15 - Eagle Mountains - Military Bunkers and Poland
Aug. 16 - Podbřezi: Brass Band and Old Jewish Cemetery
Aug. 18 - Military Cartography Center in Dobruška
Aug. 19 - Červeny Kostelec - International Folklore Festival
Aug. 20 - Dobruška Firefighters
Aug. 21 - Běstviny Firefighters' Party
Aug. 22 - Bethlehem Museum, Třebechovice
Aug, 22 - Hradec Králové
Aug. 23 - Opočno Castle
Aug. 24 - Nachod - Primator Brewery Tour
Aug. 25 - Language Independence Day
Aug. 26 - Final Party
Aug. 27 - Final Program
Misc. Dobruška:
Dobruška Class and Group Photos
From "Evenings of Nations" Presentations
Dobruška - the town
Czech Advertising

Background Information:

Old Family Photos
Family gravesites in St. Wenceslaus Cemetery,
          New Prague, MN, 09.19.09
Family gravesites in Calvary Cemetery,
          St. Paul, MN, Sept./Oct.09
Gathering the Background Materials

July 27, 2009 - Spelled right!

How to express the deep feeling of homecoming when the person checking passports at the airport in Prague, who had just had a fluent conversation in English with a couple from Australia ahead of me, looked at my passport, gave me a big smile, said my name correctly out loud, and greeted me in Czech. This after a youth and young adulthood spent with people routinely questionning whether I, in fact, knew how to spell my name.

July 27, 2009 - Swimming in Languages

The woman sitting next to me on the flight from Chicago to London was from Bangladesh. She had been visiting her daughter in Altanta. Her English made it clear that she only understood the most basic things I might say to her, but with smiles and nods we got along pretty well. She was writing a journal in an alphabet I had never seen before.

At dinner last night in Prague, two table groups who could communicate with each other were speaking a Germanic sounding language I couldn't identify - it wasn't German, Norwegian or Swedish - might have been Dutch or Danish? English was the language they used to communicate with the Czech waiter. I choose not to ask them what they were speaking.

I "passed" at breakfast this morning. A couple sitting at my table at breakfast included me in their German conversation as if I could understand everything. When they left, another family group sat down and again addressed me in German.

In the lobby after breakfast, a woman got off the elevator and addressed her friends waiting there with "Kali mera." It threw me for a bit, but I knew I "knew" was that phrase was. Finally it dawned on me that her group was Greek and she has said simply "Good morning."

The "common wisdom" that English was not known much outside of Prague became clear today on the train from Pague to Ceske Budejovice. I shared a compartment (like in Harry Potter) with an elderly man and a middle-aged woman and her teenaged son. After telling them in Czech that "I only speak a little Czech," I was hoping that the teenager would volunteer to translate for me. No luck - no response from any of them, though the woman did make an effort to make sure I knew which stop was mine.

Entering the pension reserved for me by the guide company I'd hired, there was a bit of panic until we figured out we could communicate with writing and some basic German. The place seems newly renovated, so I'm guessing there hasn't been time to learn the basic English phrases needed to check someone in!

At the internet cafe where I'm writing this, a customer and attendant are using a mixture of English, German and French to communicate! No wonder the Tower of Babel story got created!

It will be a relief to have a translator with me for the next two days. I'm building up a stock of helpful phrases that I wish I knew already in Czech!

July 27, 2009 - Bagpipes and a family recipe?

Had the first of the seven "must try" Budvar beer varieties not available in the U.S. at dinner tonight - an incredibly smooth "yeast beer" - yummm! Had a traditional "pickled sausage" as an appetizer, followed by a really tender quarter duck with red cabbage and BOTH potato and bread dumplings! I had never seen potato dumplings outside of the recipe my father brought with him into his marriage to my mother, which we called simply "Trnka dumplings." This was another cultural bridge that brought back lots of memories. It appears I will be eating a lot of cabbage in the next weeks!

One big bummer tonight was that earlier I walked by the tourist office in České Budějovice at 6:45 and there was a sign out front saying that the Strakonice bagpipe band was performing in town at 6:00 at a location I couldn't identify. The tourist office was also closed! Strakonice is the "bagpipe town" where I will be staying in two nights. I was hoping to find a concert there, but was not expecting one might just fall in my lap in this town! But, not having had lunch today and with the language barrier, I decided to go have dinner (assuming the concert would be over before I found it) and wait until I have a guide to look more into bagpipe possibilities.

More on České Budějovice

July 28, 2009 - OLD pipe organ!!!

Okay, so I should have brought some organ music along - one of the things I decided to skip to save luggage space! Today I had the opportunity to play the ancient pipe organ in the church where my great-great-grandparents were married in 1835 - flat pedal board and all. No one knows for sure exactly how old it is and I couldn't find a date anywhere on it.

Frank playing the organ in Veseli nad Luznici

Also met an 80+ year old woman who seems to be a distant relative on the Malecha side. I'm comparing documents with her son tomorrow morning to see if the lines interlink, but she and I a pretty sure that they do.

Marie (Malecha) Nestával, a Malecha relative

This is my second day in a row without lunch - though the elderly Malecha relative broke out a bottle of Becherovka liqueur - which I had only heard about but never tasted. I liked it, even on an empty stomach! Today was non-stop with the guide and the village chronicler from Sviny (the Trnka and Malecha village). The chronicler had been maintaining the village records for 45 years including having to submit everything he wanted to include to the communist censors before he could enter an item in the chronicle - basically a news and events record of the village.

It's now 8 p.m. and I decided to get my 400 photos transferred to CD before dinner tonight, so I don't have time for the whole day's story. Had a chance to go into the courtyard and outer buildings of the Trnka homestead which is being renovated by a young couple, but which right now is about like it was in 1850!

This was really an unbelievable day and tomorrow we'll be meeting with the son of the woman I met today, then on to the Hanzel villages (great-grandmother's side of the family) and to Strakonice for the night and the bagpipe museum!

July 29, 2009 - Distant cousin confirmed and "Strakonice Dudak"

Today met with the son of the woman I met yesterday. We compared our genealogy information from the Trebon archives and confirmed that we are in fact related.

František Nestával, a Malecha relative

He added two earlier generations to the Malecha information I had (going back now to a generation before 1720) and I added many branches to the direct line he had been tracing. In their free time, he and his four sons are gradually restoring the ruins of the family homestead in Sviny retrieved from the Communists in an 11 year struggle after the Velvet Revolution. The Communists had given the barn on the property to the village to use as a fire hall, and the community was reluctant to give it back, but they finally sold it back to him for one crown (5 cents). I have a standing invitation to come back in 3 or 4 years after the renovation is completed to stay with his family on the family homestead, with anyone I choose to bring along. He and his parents were evicted from the property when he was 5 years old, and he has promised his 80+ year old mother that she can sleep there "one more time."
(P.S. Both he and his mother were thrilled to get albums of old family photos from Minnesota!)

More on the Trnka and Malecha Villages

Link to Malecha Family Photos from Jitka (Nestávalová) Ševčíková

My guide and I visited four more villages today after this meeting. Much more information and photos of locations in family history, but no new living relatives in the other lines.

More on the Hanzl and Toman Villages

Got to Strakonice at 5:30. Took a walk to orient myself to the town and find the bus station for tomorrow's trip back to Prague. This is the most immersed I've been yet in the Czech language. There are no accomodations for English or German speakers anywhere I've seen (except one restaurant menu at the musuem). Was glad to have checked out the lay of the land before doing this trip with all my luggage tomorrow. Called the woman with the newborn, who is a bagpipe player, and arranged to meet tomorrow morning at the castle museum on her way to a doctor's appointment.

Strakonice has its own brewery and my beer guidebook had some recommendations. The signature brew is called "Strakonice Dudak", named after the Czech word for bagpiper, so I for sure had to try that one. A page from another travel guide listed the best place to experience this local brew, a "rough and ready pub". I was wondering how difficult it would be to find and realized that it was actually the place I'm staying in!!! (All the Czech names start to look the same after a long day.) So, I figured this would be a handy place to have dinner. Sat down, ordered a "Dudak" and realized that not only had I forgotten to review my list of "bar food" I might order, but that no one else in the place had any food! It seemed I was destined to have a liquid, vegan diet (with no dumplings) for the first time since I've arrived. After the second of the three recommended varieties, it became clear that I had better not try the third one and that it was a good thing I only had to find my way back upstairs! Used my notepad to write "Kolik?" (Costs?) and the waiter wrote the amount of my tab, so we both completed the transaction happily.



The internet station in the pension was open after "dinner", and now that I know that I need to switch from a Czech to an English keyboard set up for my passwords to be recognized, was able to sign on and try my typing skills while happily buzzed.

More on Strakonice

The Bagpipe Exhibit in Strakonice

Blata Kroje (Folk costumes from Blata region)

Czech cabinetmaking

July 31, 2009 - Under the South Bohemian Sun

In Zimutice, the village of my great-grandmother, which she left with her family when she was 4, the mayor's assistant who showed us around the village made it quite clear that I could be given some land and buildings by the village if I was willing to restore them. Many of the villages are having difficulty finding young people who are willing to live in the villages. So the possibility of experiencing "Under the Tuscan Sun" in the Czech Republic is quite possible right now. There is restoration going on everywhere. Even with free land, this, of course, would still be a very expensive endeavor, as the buildings are in need of much repair.

Building Available for Renovation

The Trnka homestead in Sviny does have a young couple restoring it, and the Malecha homestead in Sviny is being restored by the relatives I met.

Installed at Dobruska as of last night, we did our introductions to the group and questions and response in front of all the teachers and attendees to get placed in our classes - a bit like the "sorting hat" in Harry Potter. I did "Good evening, my name is Frank Trnka" in Czech and the rest in English, so I assume I will in fact be in the beginner class. There are 79 of us from 36 countries.

Will not be posting any more photos to this blog unless I can find something other than the computers available to us here, which are dial-up.