Visitors!!!

On December 28th, 2007 an unbelievable phenomenon occurred. We had visitors arrive!

Yes folks, that is correct. And not just 1...oh no, 3 brave young souls spent their hard earned cash on tickets to Europe just so they could spend New Years Eve in Prague and visit with us!

Never did we think this moment would arrive. We have received all the apparently obligatory "Oh we cannot wait to come see you!" and "Of course we'll come to Prague" statements from friends and family but it began to seem like the only way this would happen was if snowdrops began falling in that certain somewhere.

However, dreams became a reality when I received a wonderful email from my niece Sara with the simple subject line "It's Booked!" followed shortly by the actual itinerary showing purchased, non-refundable tickets to Prague :)

Her email has since been followed by two more notifications that others are going to make their way over to see this beautiful city. Our wonderful friend David and his parents are going to brave the end of the winter season in early March, and our friends Penny and Ray are going to leave the unbelievable warmth of Homestead, Florida to come see us in May!!!

I met Sara and her friend Janice at the airport and then after a short wait, the last member of this exclusive group, Elina, arrived and we were heading back to our flat. Alex was very excited at the prospect of having some new people to entertain and willingly gave up her room and bunked in Logan's room so that Sara could have a room to herself.

I have to admit, at times I think we are crazy for having one of the largest flats in Prague (compared to the norm, ours borders what locals may call excessive) - especially when it comes to cleaning it! However, it did not seem so silly once we had three extra bodies staying here.

To get an honest view of their trip, they would have to send me entries for the blog (which I hope they do) however I can state, with all honesty, that I think they enjoyed themselves. I can also report that we were jealous of a few things:

a) their unwavering energy which allowed them to keep on the go 24/7
b) their ability to come and go as they pleased with no kids to deal with
c) the fact that they have officially seen more of the tourist type attractions than we have, the nearby town of Kutna Hora, and even made it to Budapest before us

The only real time we got to spend with them and show them around was the first day they arrived and the evening before they left. The rest of the time, they were out and about experiencing Prague on their own. This was in no way the plan for their visit - Ben and I had looked forward to spending a great deal of time showing them around ourselves, however when their are kids involved plans tend to go by the wayside. On the day after their arrival, they were off seeing the Castle and we were off seeing the halls of the Hospital...Logan was really not doing well and the end result was Bronchitis, with a double ear infection and a sinus infection. He ended up with (4) prescriptions and we were off for home - what had started as a week of fun things to look forward to doing with the girls had turned into the prospect of finishing off our holiday season tending to a sick child. And as always happens in a closed household with one person ill, we l ended up coming down with it.

However Sara and her friends were not daunted by this new turn of events - and were most likely relieved to not have the two geriatric tour guides with them, slowing them down and cramping their style! They could now see the city on their own terms. With the unbelievable transportation system here, this is not hard to do however they actually enjoyed taking in the city the old fashioned way...on foot. Many miles were clocked in and they really crammed in a great amount of sights for such a short visit but they still departed with a list of "Must do's" for another time.

It was great having people here and we promise, if this entry motivates anyone else to start looking up flight prices, we will keep the communicable diseases to a bare minimum :) (More pictures of Kids and January Stuff)

Reaching us by Phone

We can be reached by phone through our Skype number: (781) 328-2742

This appears to confuse most people so here is a not-so-short comment on the subject:

We have a Skype account and obtained a Massachusetts based number to make it easier and cheaper for all those still in America to continue to call us. If you can make a call to Massachusetts, you can call us. There is no secret or magic involved - pick up the phone, dial the number as you would anyone else's, and voila! if we are available, we will pick up. If not, we have voicemail.

The only things that you need to worry about are these:

a) The Time - keep in mind that we are 6 hours ahead of the Eastern Seaboard so any calls after 4pm EST will go directly to voicemail as I have had to turn on the Do Not Disturb function to stop the 1-3am wake up calls.

b) Skype is a computer based phone system so the best connections are with those who also download Skype to their computer and get a cheap Radio Shack headset or the more costly USB handsets. A standard land-line to computer call will have some issues like drop out and echo, all of which will be made worse as the number of users online goes up. So far, the best reception I have had is with calls made from the States or made by me anywhere in the 7pm - 7am EST range. What does this mean? It means you should all download Skype immediately and at least enjoy the Chat function if a headset purchase is not in the near future :)

This is our only tool for live communications and it would be great if more people would utilize this. Not only is it great to hear a familiar voice - even if only a short voicemail - but the chat sessions are like live IMing that you can keep a running history of (if you so wish) and is the easiest method of getting a hold of us since Skype runs 24/7 on the set up in the living room...unlike email which is on the computer in the study, a room I rarely get to see lately. If you write a chat entry, we get an instant notification that there is a new even awaiting our attention. The beauty of this function is also, of course, the obvious fact that you can write any time you want to without worrying about the reception factor and we will respond as soon as we see it.

Yes, I know this sounds like email to most of you but it isn't. There are no security settings or ISP issues that block messages to and fro...in simplistic terms, you type...we read...we type back.

So even if you do not want to download Skype for the calling ability, it would be a great way to keep in touch via the chat ability.

For more detailed information, and to download, please visit www.Skype.com

Address Details

Here is a really quick entry that apparently should have been done a long time ago.

We have received many requests for our address and with all the issues we are having with emails not getting through to everyone, this seemed the most viable spot to post the data. However, for obvious reasons we are not particularly comfortable with actually posting this information for all the world to see so here is how you can get it:

Send me another email with that as the only subject (otherwise, the response will most likely get lost in answering all the other points)

Contact my mother, by phone of course, if you have her number.

Contact my sister, this is an email option since she is not technologically challenged.

After you have obtained this information, here are some guidelines to insure that we will receive what you send.

For regular mail:

Insert First Name Here Hodson
Street Address
Apartment Number
Hradcany Praha 6
160 00
Czech Republic

A standard letter under 16 ounces will cost you $0.90, after that I am not sure what the incremental charge is per ounce but it is a great way to get rid of those old 37 cent and below stamps!

For anything other than a standard letter:

Benjamin or Pamela Hodson

DO NOT use both names or either of the kids names as we have to present an ID and sign for items at the Post Office. The kids cannot write their names in cursive and if both of our names appear, then we both have to be present to pick something up.

DO NOT declare any value of goods and list anything you send as "Used" taking all tags off the items inside. If you are thinking of shipping something expensive, DON'T!! Wait for us to come home or for someone you know to come here.

Over a certain value and we have to pay a taxation on the shipment. Use a real description of what is inside, and if interest is intrigued on the receiving end we are likely to not ever see the package.

Check online or with your local Post Office to ensure that the item(s) you are thinking of shipping do not fall into the illegal category for the Czech Republic. You would be amazed at the things that are not allowed here through shipping. If you are ever bored and have a dull moment, try a mock order on Amazon.Com and see how many of your line items will go through. My first order of (10) line items ended up with (1) item viable for shipment...and the cost was astronomical.

So, there you have it...the address and how to use it ;)

Christmas In Prague

Christmas is a big holiday in Prague. There are lots of people all over the city from Christmas through New Years. The City was as packed as it was at the height of the summer tourist season. For the Christmas Season they put up up the small shack-like kiosks in the central parts of the city. They sell various things from food and drinks to ornaments to clothing and beautiful rock lights...think of it like all the extra little carts that show up in the mall at Christmas time. These same booths are used for Easter time as well. There are also dozens of Christmas trees put up around the city - some fake, some real - all beautifully and very differently decorated. The largest of these was a real tree set up in Old Town Square. It was a very large tree but rather crooked and, while not perfectly shaped like the trees you expect at home, it had a very natural look. It was kind of scraggly, with lots of missing branches at the bottom...which they made up for by placing many smaller trees around the base for a fuller appearance.
We got our tree a few weeks before Christmas. Alex and I went out and found 'the one' 1 metro stop away right by the top of the exit. It was about 6 feet tall and cost about 25 dollars - a rather large savings from what we would have paid back in the States. They netted it up and then I put it on my shoulder and we brought it home on the metro. As our flat is on the 5th floor with no lift, I got quite the workout bringing it up. Alex and I then went out and got a stand and some lights at Tesco. When we got home we got the tree set up and had to explain why it needed some water before we did anything else. Over the next week, the tree was decorated with all the ornaments that Alex had made last year and topped with a nice sisal angel Pam and Alex got at one of the Christmas booths at a nearby tram stop.
A few days before Christmas we ventured down to Old Town in the evening to see the big tree and check out the booths they had down there. Apparently everyone in Europe had the same idea and it took us over an hour to walk the 1/4 mile from my office to Old town square usually a 5-7 minute walk. The streets were packed wall to wall with people and you could barely move. Once we reached the square it was not much better. Think Times Square on New Years at midnight... We met up with Kelly, Alain, Paige, and Colby and after a treat of warm, candied nuts (one of the delightful items available at the kiosks) we all headed out the nearest street to go to dinner far from the square where it was much less crowded.
Alex was very excited about Santa coming this year. She put out cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer and was very excited to see the empty plate the next morning. It appears that Santa thought Alex was a good girl and Logan a good boy in 2007 as there were many presents under the tree Christmas morning.
We both have to admit it was wonderful to have this Hodson Family Christmas for a change and do everything on our own schedule, without having to travel here, there, and everywhere for the holiday. Normally we never get to open our stockings or our gifts around our own tree until the day after Christmas so, while we did miss seeing our families, it was very nice to have this relaxed day and the kids really enjoyed being able to open everything and play right then and there!
We did pass on the major holiday tradition they have here...the Christmas Carp. All around the city, barrels and holding tanks sprung up on the street corners days before Christmas with live carp in them. Upon purchase you could choose to take the carp home alive where it would most likely live in your tub until meal time, or they would gladly beat it with a bat, gut, and clean it for you while you waited. This made for a somewhat gory street scene...one which Alex did not enjoy at all. It also made for an interesting time walking around since these fish were in barrels of water, which were filled via courtesy of the hydrants and thin hose lines that apparently had some unpatched holes, and the immediate area became mini ice rinks. The daytime was better since you could readily see the ice and steer clear of it, but at night it was a bit more of a challenge.
From the street it appeared that few people here have taken up the Christmas tree tradition. We had been told that trees and outward decorations had not been on display during the Communist Era here and it seems that it has been a very slow build up since that ended. Mostly Expats are the ones with big holiday displays so we probably stuck out so a sore thumb...our tree was pretty much the only one you could see in any of the neighboring buildings, although candle lights were a big thing. We were also the only ones who kept things lit up until the Epiphany. However the city put up a large tree with white lights and a star on top and decorated all the

surrounding live trees at the gate across from our building so there was a whole Winter Wonderland feel to the area and we all enjoyed the view.
What seemed to be the big thing was to buy the tree a few days before Christmas and leave it netted out on a balcony until Christmas Eve. Then a day or two after Christmas, it found its way back outside in a holding pattern until the trash men could pick them up. Pam had read on the Expats site that you could just leave it by the Recycling Dumpsters and they would pick it up when ready, but that the best
method was to simply wait until you saw a pile of trees somewhere and then add yours to it. Last weekend we noticed 3 or 4 trees had been placed by our local dumpsters so we immediately added ours to the pile and are now enjoying the process of daily vacuuming as pine needles spring up out of nowhere. A live tree is wonderful, however we all appear to share the same tree allergy so next year we will most likely join the Eco-Friendly community and purchase a tree we can enjoy for years to come!
More Pictures

Holiday Fall 2007 Gibraltar

For a day trip, we took a bus ride to Gibraltar. I had thought that we would have to take a boat or something to get out to the rock but you actually just drive the whole way. We had to go through 2 border crossing as the 5 Square KM Gibraltar is actually aUK colony. After crossing the border you drive across the airport to get to the main part of the peninsula. When I say driving across the airport I mean literally driving across the one runway they have. They need to stop traffic on the road to land planes. The official currency is the British Pound however they do take Euros as well. It is best to have whatever the currency of the area is since you never know what the daily conversion rate is going to be and you can never be quite sure you aren't getting snookered :)
We had signed up for Full Tour Excursion so we transfered to a smaller tour bus to go up the rock and see the monkeys that are prevalent on the upper portion, as well as the other stops and sights. We got a brief tour of the town, the abandoned British Naval and Army bases, and then went down to the Southernmost point where you could easily see Africa across the channel. The amount of Shipping traffic through this area was incredible. There is also a lighthouse on this point and a couple hundred yards off the coast was a half sunken freighter being salvaged.
We then started up the rock itself stopping about halfway up to visit St. Michael's Cave... a natural cave that has been turned into a concert hall at one end. When we arrived there we were greeted by the monkeys who were totally unafraid of people and were jumping from car to car and very curious about everything going on. We did not touch any of them, although some groups were privy to having them jump on their shoulders for pictures. Our guide warned us that they do, on occasion, bite if provoked and that we should make sure to hold onto anything we took off the bus because they would quickly grab any thing they could get their hands on and disappear into the brush with it. After we came out of the cave we drove to a nice lookout spot to see more of the monkeys, as well as a beautiful view down onto the town and the harbor.
We continued back down and the tour ended by the shopping district where we now had two hours to kill before heading back. We got lunch did some window shopping, found a great English toy store which stocked Educational Workbooks, and then poked around for a bit more before heading back to the resort. It was a very interesting trip and truly an amazing place to visit. Next time, we will definitely rent a car and be able to tour Gibraltar on our own. It was a lot of fun but we lost 3 hours on each end with the bus stopping at all the resorts for pick ups and drop offs and we would love to take the Cable Car to the very top!(More Pictures)

Holiday Fall 2007 Malaga Spain

We continued on from Milan to Malaga on the southern coast of Spain. I was excited to use some of the 20 or 30 Spanish words I had learned in High School and College. However the town we stayed in, Benalmadena Costa, was like Florida for the Brits. Lots of retired people moved their families here for the warmer weather, almost all the restaurants we went to were foreign owned, and you would be hard pressed to find a Native.
The resort we stayed at was an Interval International participant so we used a free week we had been awarded when we purchased our Aruba timeshare. It was very nice and the suite we had was comprised of 2 bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen, a large living/dining room area, and nice large terrace. The resort had an indoor and an outdoor pool and a kids wading pool. The weather was never really warm enough to try the outdoor pool, but we did use the wading pool a few times and the indoor pool received quite a bit of our attention. Alex was amazing in the pool...she was actually swimming on her own, with the aid of floaties. She has been enjoying swimming lessons once a week through school and seemed to have lost any fear she had had of the water - we had a great time swimming and playing in the pool.
The resort also had a small miniature golf course, a ping pong and Pool table and a large outdoor chess set. Alex was really enthralled with this concept of the outdoor chess set and played a few turns before losing interest in the actual game itself and decided it was more fun to just move the pieces around to where she thought they looked nice.

On one of the warmest days we had, perhaps upper 70's, we went to the beach right across from our resort. We all went in the water and can now say we have been in the Mediterranean Sea. Logan ate some sand and had fun playing with the sticks and bamboo that had washed up on shore. We made a sand castle and collected some shells and rocks...these remained at the beach when we left so that other boys & girls could enjoy them after we left.
We found several good restaurants near the resort...the best being a Chinese place and an English pub/restaurant which we ate at most days. The waitstaff and food were very good and made each meal a fun time. However, my goal was to have a really good Spanish Paella while we were here so on the last night we went down to the waterfront and were talked into the first restaurant we came across. Unfortunately after ordering and overhearing the other patrons, we found out it was yet another English owned spot with an English chef. Needless to say the Paella was not what I thought it should be.
There was also a very large park a block away that the neighborhood on a whole had put in a couple years back. It was very nice with chickens and rabbits running wild, a huge duck pond, and a large playground. We did not get to see the park in its entirety but Alex really enjoyed her time running around and climbing on the slide structures and that is really what it was all about.

In all, I really liked the area but think I would shoot for someplace a bit more Spanish next time we go...the hunt for the perfect Paella is now on! (More Pictures)