Jon's brother Nik was able to come over for the Christmas and New Year period and it has been really nice having him here. He is representing the 'Family' part of Christmas for us. Lina and Tom, our Kiwi friends who we met on our TELF course, came back to Prague to spend Christmas and New Year with us too. So our apartment is full to the brim right now and we are loving every minute of it. It is so nice to have special friends around at Christmas time.
We spent Christmas Eve running around getting the last minute things ready for Christmas; food, drinks and fireworks of course! Lina and Tom arrived in the afternoon and we spent the night catching up on what we have all been doing over the last few months. Long after the sun had gone down we decided to head out to the local park and try out some of the fireworks we bought. We were like children with new toys. It was loud, exciting and probably dangerous too, but we didn't care. Only after we were asked to move on by a local resident did we decided to call it a night. No damage done and we all still have all of our fingers so we considered it a success.
Christmas morning was full of Skype calls to family back in Australia and opening the presents that our families sent over to us. We said we didn't want any presents, but everyone knows that it's nice to have something to open on Christmas morning. We were successfully spoilt, even on the other side of the world!
We had a big 'fry up' for breakfast which consisted of croissants, eggs, bacon, baked beans and bramborak (Czech potato pancakes which we had as hash-browns). Tom and Lina had made some sloe berry gin while they were in Italy and had brought it with them as a Christmas present for us to share. Sloe berry gin is basically gin with sloe berries in it to give it a delicious berry flavour and colour. It has to steep for three months, and they had prepared it exactly three months ago. Prefect timing! So after breakfast we all shared a few glasses of gin and decided that it was one of the best things we have ever tasted.
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| Sloe Berry Gin |
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| Prague Christmas Ham |
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| Old Town Square Christmas markets at night |
Looking back, we probably shouldn't have had the ham, as we had the biggest Christmas dinner prepared and we were all feeling full already. We cooked it all up anyway; roast chicken, veggies and all the rest of the usual food. We were all so full after dinner that a quiet game of monopoly was in order. Anyone who has ever played a board game with me knows that there is not such thing as a quiet game of anything - I play for sheep stations and this game was not going to be any different. The game was made even more interesting, due to the fact that we couldn't read the "chance" or "community chest" cards! We had google translate up and running for the entire game. At least we had the chance to improve our Czech.
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| Czech Monopoly |
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| Christmas Dinner |
So now we can say we have had a European Christmas, even if we didn't have the traditional Czech meal of Carp and Potato salad for dinner. Things were different and it certainly didn't have the same 'Christmassy' feel, but it was a great day and we enjoyed spending the day with Nik, Lina and Tom.
We had also been hoping for a white Christmas but that unfortunately didn't happen. Oh well, there is always next year!
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| The 'Family' |
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| Ginger Bread House |
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