After lunch Yang had arranged for two of his students, Dong and Xiao, to take us to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is exactly what it sounds like: a summer residence for the emperor and his family. Basically it is a series of palace buildings on a hill overlooking Kunming Lake, and surrounding parkland. Our ‘guides’ insisted on paying our way and  we headed in. Since we weren’t on a tour and there wasn’t much in the way of explanatory signs, we just wandered around and looked at the scenery. Usually you can ride boats on the lake but today was particularly windy and they weren’t offering rides. After walking all the way around the lake we arrived at another one of the entrances to the palace grounds and decided to call it a day. Before we left, I got my first request to be in a photo. A Chinese girl really wanted to have her picture taken with me, so I obliged and posed with her. Her family seemed delighted.

That evening we went to a restaurant that was known for its Peking Duck, which Yang showed us how to eat. There is a particular sauce and you roll the slices in a flat dough to eat. Very tasty! In the back of the restaurant you could see the room with a giant fire-oven, where they were hanging ducks to roast. Then the chef would cut off the meat in little slices; a particularly skilled chef is supposed to be able to get 108 slices from a duck. Once again we ate too much, and another of Yang’s students, Na, agreed to take us to the grocery store to pick up some essentials. In our part of town was a multi-storied shopping center with a grocery store on the bottom, then a mall, and restaurants on top. The mall wasn’t like malls in the US; it was just an open floor with small spaces occupied by each ‘shop’. You could just wander between them all to find what you wanted and bargain for the price with the seller. We didn’t have much energy for the mall atmosphere and headed down to the grocery store (a Merry Mart). This was complete chaos. There was food everywhere and people everywhere. There were way more fruits and vegetables than we see at the market in Iowa, and I didn’t recognize most of them. Chad took lots of pictures. Mostly we just needed some bottled water (you can’t drink the tapwater in China) but we also took the opportunity to get some sample beers, candy, and exotic fruits. Way cheap.

I am here.

Props to Chad for some champion labeling. So the Mill is the actual mill where actual milling occured. The water from the pond combined with the power of gravity ran the generator for the mill. It still works. Attached to the mill is the main house, where the family lives. I am not allowed in there, for fear that I might steal the silver. The little white building to the east of the mill is the farm kitchen complete with electricity and a sink. Above that is a little room where I stayed when I first arrived. There is also a workshop with welders and saws, pumps, and an air compressor. Tonda, the handyman, makes a lot of things happen from this workshop. There are also various items stored here, as well as under the mill. This is where I found my bike.

The barn is not really used as a barn except that straw is stored there. It is where we eat lunch and there are lots of art supplies here. The vegetable gardens, flower garden, and greenhouse is where I care for corn, tomatoes, beans, peas, carrots, squash, sunflowers, turnips, radishes, onions, strawberries, cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, pumpkins, and multiple herbs. Also there is a cherry tree.

The rabbits have pens near the chickens. We had 8 chickens but now there are only 6, as a certain dog had a taste for farm-fresh chicken. The evil goat lives to the east. The horses live in the southernmost paddock, except when they escape. Then they live in the other paddock until the fence is repaired.

So Friday the 3rd I showed up, ready for my one day of film-viewing, and all the films were sold out already. The tickets offices work like this: the day before and the day of a film, you can but tickets for it. When they are gone, they are gone. Except for a certain number of press tickets. Press people can go get tickets for free whenever, but an hour before a film starts, any press tickets that are left over go on sale to the general public. These were the only tickets available to me, and damn if it wasn´t like being on the NYSE floor after the opening bell. Everyone crowds around the ticket office, waiting until the clock strikes the correct time, then all hell breaks loose and people get pushy and try to get the attention of the box office attendant. Most of them don´t speak English, so you have to know the Czech title of the film, or you waste precious time and piss off everyone around you. My first go at this left me with no tickets, so I camped out at the bar conveniently located next to the box office and waited until the next round. I did successfully get a ticket to “Nejlepší filmy Festivalu krátkých filmů Praha” (The Best Films from the Prague Short Film Festival).

For viewing, we all packed into one of five theaters running during the festival, and there was no air conditioning of any sort. Additionally, the theaer I was in was one of the temporary theaters, which was actually an inflatable room made from the same material as those bouncy castles. If you can imagine a bouncy castle with walls, no ventilation, and 100 sweaty people, these were my viewing conditions. However, the film was great. There was one Australian film, one Belgian film, one Czech, one Icelandic, and one from New Zealand. They all had Czech and/or English subtitles. I loved them all! Here is a synopsis for each: http://www.kviff.com/en/program/115/

After that film I wandered around some more, got hydrated, ate some oplatký and caught the bus back to Plzeň. I really wanted to stay another day and worship Miloš Foreman at the red carpet, but I had to be back at the farm for chores. Such is the life of a working girl.

 I have a limited wardrobe here and I’ve found it difficult to find the proper cycling uniform. Shirts are no problem, but all my pants and shorts are denim, and since it rains here daily in the evening, I’m consistently biking around in wet shorts. Very uncomfortable. I do have one pair of nice poly capris that seemed perfect for the task. I tried these out on yet another ride to Susice. Despite my attempts to discern a route both short and hill-free, there are some strenuous stretches on the way, especially after Čejkový. I bought these capris early in college and lately I’ve found they don’t fit as they used to. Due to some ill-thought design, the capris close with a bit of Velcro and those little square plastic snaps often found on the two-dollar ponchos that can be purchased outside Kinnick Stadium (Cyclone fans always bring their own respectable rainwear). With these snaps, the poor fit and my straining to ascend hills, I found myself halfway up a hill and losing my pants. The Velcro and three of the snaps had undone themselves and my blue underwear was exposed for all to see. Fortunately few motorists use these roads and I was wearing an extra-long tank top so I managed to pull it down to cover my derierre. It was Sunday, after all.  At the top of the hill I came upon yet another Holy Mary with bulging eyes, looking as if she disapproved. I made a sign of the cross just in case and I’ve since returned to biking with wet shorts.

This bicycle is allowing me a certain amount of freedom I didn’t have before. The buses here run at times that are inconvenient for me, the working girl. I have no car. And as previously stated, I’m through with this walking thing. So I have been cruising around all the small towns on my way to the nearest big town, Sušice. Towns here are really just collections of houses for the 100-odd residents. However, every town, no matter how small, has a bus stop and a recycling center, and most have a payphone.

The roads here are just screaming for some mad bike touring. The Czech Republic has a well-established trail system, both for hikers and bikers. The bike trails vary in quality; some a mountain-bike only and others, while labeled as road bike-worthy, are in desparate need of repair (a little jaw-rattling). Mostly they are nice asphalt though, and there is little to no traffic. It does make me a little nervous when there is a car though, as there are never any shoulders and roads don’t seem to be quite wide enough for two cars. But there are rarely two cars, and motorists are pretty respectful of bikers here. I am always given a wide berth.

The region I am in is just north of Šumava, a large national park in the Czech Republic. Sušice is called “the gateway to Šumava”. So it is gorgeous here. Lots of rolling hills and countryside. Being here is really like a throwback to 1938. Although this is all farmland, you rarely see tractors and when you do, they are all small. Some of the hay is baled, but it is common to see groups of ten people making haystacks out in the fields. There is a wide variety of crops and animals here. Since the Czech Republic was behind the Iron Curtain during the agri-business boom of the 80′s in America, farms here are still small operations and you don’t see monoculture. I ride by barley, wheat, corn, potatoes, beans, canola, dairy cattle, beef cattle, sheep, and horses. It is a beautiful sight.

One of my favorite things to see is the deer springing though the fields. They are smaller here. The rabbits are huge (think large turkey-sized) and so are the snails (size of my pinky with a golf ball-sized shell). I usually pass lots of fish ponds with ducks and frogs. I’ve seen a dead mole. When I go through towns, there are always chickens all over the place. I also get shouted at by old men whenever I go though Tedražice. The last time I went came around the corner in Zybnice, I happened across two dogs happily attached to one another. So really I came for the wildlife.

If you are interested, my typical biking route is Miřenice, Otěšin, Sedlečko, Čejkovy, Tedražice, to Sušice. Check it out on Google Maps/Earth.

I know you were thinking about mailing me something . . .

However, I will be traveling around at the end of the month, so make sure you send things by July 10th or I won’t get it.

Also, don’t send me a package as customs here are a huge pain in the ass.