russia, flu shots and toast = happy thanksgiving

after 22 years of thanksgiving meals at home - family, friends, food and much festivity - i experience my first thanksgiving on my own. it was a sorry end to a good weekend. i had toast. the bright spot of the evening was jackie's homemade apple crisp. it was a little taste of home. and i can't say i've ever had that food pairing before. things are always interesting here!

this weekend saw us win our side of the quarterfinals for the european cup. as great as that sounds, don't fear you missed anything too exciting - we won the second game 10-0 and the third 19-0. i almost felt bad for the romanian team we beat by the latter score. then i thought of the teams romania had to beat to be champions of their country - and i felt sorry for how terrible those teams must be! yikes. i'm thankful the czech republic has progressed beyond that level, byfar.

in preparation for our little jaunt to russia in november, we had flu shots after practice yesterday. it went something like this: practice, stretching, shower, flu shot. all right there in the dressing room. kinda crazy. at home we'd probably go to the clinic, but apparently they bring the clinic to you over here. or maybe that's an example of how things roll at slavia - we've kind of got the connections (or is it money?). i'm not sure - probably both.

this morning, i went to the doctor. in our little sauna episode of last week i seemed to get a little bit of water in my inner ear. it persisted in calling my ear home and over the past 7 days has caused me a substantial amount of grief. a teammate accompanied me to the ear specialist today and i discovered that i just might not have the medical coverage i thought. when the doctor went to write my prescription (i don't have an infection, just a bad headcold and my ear is inflammed), she wrote down my teammate's medical and personal information so that it would be covered by the czech health care system. this is a bit of a worry and something we will be talking to our agent about very quickly. we want to ensure we are covered on any occasion here.

we have a night off tonite and i think we'll take in a film. thankfully the flicks here are in english, with czech subtitles, so we can enjoy it without it becoming too cerebrally taxing. alas, i say farewell for now. happy belated thanksgiving!