"KONNICHIWA!"
I turned around quickly. Who had said this to me? He was a little boy, about 7 years old. His friend giggled and rushed to hide behind a fence. Were these kids teasing me?
I paused to look at him and said, "Oh yeah? What does that mean?" I wasn't sure what it meant.
I began to see he wasn't teasing. He was trying to make conversation. Obviously, we couldn't. The only words I could understand, besides the words he would repeat after me, were "school" since we were standing next to two schools and "Cesky Krumlov". I will never forget how he said the name of his town and pointed to himself.
"Cessssky Krummmmlov."
It was very cute. I'll always wonder what he talked about those few minutes. The look on his face and eyes as he was thinking about more things to share was somewhat endearing. To me, it was a welcome to his little town of Cesky. (an adjective meaning, Czech)
Big bears at the castle, freshly rolled sweet pastries, the yummy goulash and bread dumplings (potato dumplings too), rafting down the Vtlava River for five hours, beginning HP 4 - The Goblet of Fire, the Australian, Canadian, American, Japanese, and Indonesian friends I met in Hostel Merlin. Mariel, from Perth, and our similar "nun" youths and talks on eastern spirituality, her brillant 5 yr old daughter playing chess against daddy, and Maiko, a cute Japanese girl who had same but maybe worse 'work horror' stories.
People have asked me what my favorite place has been. After I came here, I decided to say this was it...for now.
Left out lots of details...a work in progress, remember?
