Konopiste and Folkovy Kvitek

I think as humans, we strive to not be average. I think it's important to a lot of people to be good at one thing, even if it's something quite some and insignificant, or something one might not be too proud of having a talent in.

For example, there was a time when I was great at French (then I tried it again in College). A time when I was quite skilled at the piano (then I heard other people play). A time when I had fantastic ability to negotiate in Human Rights courses, write last minute Music History papers and sing the heck out of an aria . . . but alas, that was college. I can type fast, though I make lots of mistakes. I was great at customer service, and then I got Lyme disease and also realized customer service makes you hate yourself. I was never very good at working at the bank.

I've come to realize that my highest talents lie in the less traditional skill sets. For example, I can fall down and do "almost no" to "quite ouchy" damage to myself. I can drop things, I'm fantastic at sleeping in and being the opposit of a morning person, I'm great at running into the wall. Oh and for some uncanny reason, I can sunburn like it's nobody's business.

This past weekend was another lovely one, weather-wise, in Prague. It rained a bit on Friday, so I went to see Star Trek (umm, Czech movie theaters are complicated!). And Saturday Marcela, Kate and I headed to Konopiste (near Benesov) to see a folk music festival called "Folkovy Kvitek" which means "folk blossom" according to an online dictionary.

The festival was on the grounds of a castle called Konopiste. It has been around since the 13th century, and was converted to its' current style by Archduke Franz Ferdinand. That's right, Archduke "I'm going go get myself assassinated in Sarajevo by the Black Hand and start World War I" Franz Ferdinand. It's now a museum, and though we didn't go inside, the outside is beautiful, has a bear in the moat (actually so do lots of Czech castles and my googling wouldn't tell me why) and some killer peacocks.

After we explored the castle we grabbed some bench space and sat down to enjoy some great Czech Folk music. Now this wasn't traditional Bohemian or Slavic Folk music, but folk, country, bluegrass etc. It was lovely! Very few songs were sung in English, but that's alright because we were able sing along to the melodies of some familiar songs (like The Rose) and hear some others that were really familiar but we couldn't quite figure out. The musicians were amazing, and there was a contest for kids, the 12 finalists played.

The festival provided me with ample time to pick up on a few Czech words that I know; and another thing I'm excellent at, people-watching.

Later, when Kate and I decided to head home, (Marcela, the awesome lady, stayed until 2 am!) we took a 2-3 km jaunt through the countryside (complete with fields of yellow flowers, not dandelions) and enjoyed a nice train ride home with a lovely view of Bohemia.

The sunburn comes into play with the deceptively scorching May rays, and me not taking Marcela's advice and using some of her sunscreen. Now I have raccoon eyes and some extremely strange tan lines on my back . . . like I said, I've got skills!

Check out these pictures and tons more that I just posted on my picas page, linked over there ----->

Gosh I'm a dork.