Driving in the Czech republic is not for faint hearted. Most of the Czech drives think they drive Masserattis, that all roads are one way (in their direction) and speed limits are no more than randomly posted numbers without any meaning to them. That delusion seems to increase with the age of the car they are driving and is most prevalent with truck drivers.

I do not drive all that much but I did drive today about 300 km on all grades of roads and had to break hard several times not to be over run by a car passing someone in the oncoming traffic. Czech drivers wait for a really sharp curve or a steep hill before the passing exercise is really worth it for them.

They also tail you in very intimate distances, so from time to time, having no other choice, I must accelerate to get some breathing space. This is, of course, unwise as it awakens very combative instincts in the chasing driver, who gets insulted by a 6 cylinder, 2.8L turbo 275HP Saab challenging the superiority of his Škoda. RIsking total destruction of their engine, they will catch up, no matter what.

At the first opportunity I get back into the right lane and let them victoriously pass.

Fortunately for us, there is a few people who have also moved back here from there. There is my oldest friend who spends summer in Chilko Lake (in the Bear blog below) and winters in a village near Nymburk, there is my banjo friend with whom I played in a band in Toronto and there are others.

Last weekend we went to see my luthier friend and his family. They live in a small place near the Slovak borders at the edge of White Carpathian mountains. The area is beautiful and, as with many places in the former Czechoslovakia, so different from anything else you can find in the world.

There is a place above my friend's house where you can go early in the morning and see your shadow in the meadows bellow you, stretching tens of meters to the west. There is a local school here, which has plants with lemons on them and no one vandalizes them. The same school has a permanent exposition concerning an event of the WWII when 6 US bombers were shot down in the area and some of the crew was saved from Germans by the locals. The last surviving soldier has visited recently; he and the family who saved him have communicated frequently over the past years.

Also in the school is an exhibition by a local lady painter. You would think that it was some folklore art, wouldn't you? The lady is an incredible artist. With no formal education and no theoretical know-how, she paints master pieces and can't even explain how she comes up with the colours, the technique or the content. She rarely sells anything, she gives it away. Not being even close to well off, she sometimes does not have anything to paint on. So, recently, she painted on some old pieces of parquet floor. Standing single flowers look actually exquisite. A professor of Arts from Prague has studied her work and in his comments excitingly complimentary. After a lot of convincing she did sell us a painting for about a hundred bucks.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, spent with friends with whom we share similar experiences. We drove home more then four hours but it was very much worth it.