night at the novaks... better than TV

last night we went over to a teammate's house for supper. Sonja joined our team a few weeks ago... her parents are Czech/American and Sonja is also half and half. So hanging out at their house was a great blend of both cultures, though in English... much appreciated. it was amazing to have a homecooked meal made by a MOM (though Sonj did a lot of the cooking!) and to sit around the table, eat together and enjoy conversation.

Sonja's dad is a famous writing, with articles, books and journals published everywhere from the New York Times, to Men's Journal to non-fiction works in Czech on things that have happened in the history here. needless to say, Mr. Novak was an amazing story teller and we had our fill of laughter and entertainment. on the walk home we all remarked that we could have sat there and listened to him talk for hours. we were there for quite some time though, and managed to get the inside scoop on the latest assassination here in prague (just last week) within two mafia circles, to hear about the bbq mr. and mrs. novak went to in chicago to celebrate the movie "a league of their own" with some noteable names... Madonna, Tom Hanks, Gina Davies... etc. not to mention when he pulled out a story about Dominik Hasek, a friend of his (do we know him... he plays in the NHL...? to which we replied... we're CANADIAN! of course we know who he is!). so he told us a story Hasek told him about one of the olypmic games he played in with the Czech Republic.

it was a great night, very imformative. we discussed our team, czech culture - the things that are awesome and those that more like drive us crazy, the first time mr. novak saw a man die ("his face looked like hamburger", according to our descriptive storyteller... i guess that's what you get with a writer!)

much appreciated evening and a ton of fun!