From Kandy to Vamberk

Early morning in Vamberk. Jiří is still asleep, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to write before he gets up. Am having a great time here and the idea of going back to work next week
is, strangely enough, not very appealing. Another week off would be great - would love to visit Budapest.

The journey from Kandy to Vamberk was long, but not too bad, although at one point I was worried that I might not make it to the airport as the driver fell asleep at the wheel and I had to grab the steering wheel to stop the car from veering on to the other side of the road. Luckily there's not much traffic on the road between the airport and the main Kandy-Colombo road, so there were no vehicles coming in the other direction though, but I was on edge for the rest of the journey.

I managed to get some sleep on both flights, which is very unusual as I normally don't sleep very well on planes. Strangely enough, I was fast asleep within minutes of the plane taking off from Colombo - the next thing I knew was that a flight attendant was waking me up to give me my meal! Had no idea what time it was or how long I'd been asleep, but I manged to eat what had been put in front of me before going straight back to sleep!

I was a little worried that I might not recognise Jiří, but we both recognised each other straight away. It's a 3-hour drive from Wien to Vamberk and I thought that I might fall asleep in the car. I managed to stay awake the whole way though, and actually managed to stay up until after 9pm! Tomáš came over later in the evening - looking a little tired as Linda isn't sleeping so well.

On Tuesday we went hiking in the mountains bordering Poland. It's actually been unseasonably warm, so the last thing we were expecting was snow, but we ended up walking through snow for the whole hike and when we got back to the car our boots and socks were soaked through! We also went hiking yesterday - went to a place called Adršpach (about 70km north of Vamberk) which is famous for it's strange rock formations. There was a little bit of snow in places, but nothing like where we went on Tuesday.

Am picking up a little Czech, but Jiří wants to improve his English, so I'm not planning on learning lots of Czech. Last night we had dinner at his neighbours place, so I was quite lost at times. I managed to catch part of the coversation though and both Jiří and Tomáš made sure I had some idea of what was going on - most of the time!

Have no idea what are plans are for today, although after 2 days of hiking I think we're planning on doing something a little less strenuous today! Jiří was complaining yesterday that his legs were sore... Jiří has just got up, so I think it might be time for breakfast.

The photo I've posted is of the church in Potštejn - about 5km from Vamberk and where Jiři's parents live. There's a famous castle there as well, so we're hoping it visit it at some point.