Days off

My time finally came and I had four free days in Hradec with my family when I did not have to do anything. Seriously anything! I don’t even remember the last time this happened. I did not have to work, study or write a report or anything. I did not even have to arrange anything because I already received an email from Amsterdam saying they got all required documents!

This week I realized one funny thing about me. I am so adaptive that sometimes I have trouble to changing places and activities I do. For instance, when I am at home just for two days I don’t wanna go to Prague again. On the other side, when I am in Italy with friends I don’t wanna come home after five days. I always have these feelings. In the beginning I don’t want to change anything and when I adapt to new environment I don’t want to change it again. The funny thing is that I hate stereotypes by contrast. Therefore, I need to change in order not to be bored. It implies that my life is really difficult haha.

It can sound unbelievable but after working four days in a row in Las Adelitas I was so used to being there that I did not want to stop working. I mean that I already met a lot of people and I felt there so good that it was a shame to go home because I was paid for working there. To be honest I am really surprised because I thought that I would not find any similar job to the one in La Casa Blu, but miracles happen and I found one. Of course, it has a lot of advantages and disadvantages, but for the moment I am happy. So hopefully it will stay like this and I will have opportunity to have a lot of shifts there. The thing is that even though it was quite demanding I managed to work four days in a row (sometimes two shifts per day) and I even liked it. Now I exaggerate because I naturally always prefer having fun and free days over working. But the point is that it was great to work there and I just needed to realize that my desired free days with my family came!

Since I was working late on Wednesday night I went home on Thursday morning. I went directly to our Salon Be In because we booked Vacutherm. I have to say that it is really difficult with the company since they rearranged their opening hours during the holidays and they are open only weekdays – sometimes just during the morning, which is totally crazy for me. Although I decided to come home during the week to go there and work on Sundays. I have to admit that I already feel the difference after using Vacutherm every week for less than two months. I can not say if I lost weight due to the better food, running, working or lots of exercising. Perhaps, it is a combination of everything. Nevertheless, I do think it has an effect on me and in addition, I am already used to going there without problems. I found a strategy to do exercise more effectively and I don’t mind the heat anymore. This day when we finished we decided to go for a lunch as always. Instead of having salad we wanted to have a normal meat with a side dish and vegetables. We used a great website called menicka.cz where you can just set the city and then you can see all the daily menus of the restaurants located in the city together with their prices, which is very convenient. We were choosing between Springfield Club and Sport Café. We went to Sport Caféeven though it is not our favourite restaurant, but we liked their daily menu: chicken steak with caprese salad and smashed potatoes.

Immediately when we came to the restaurant I was unhappy. We wanted to be seated and we were looking for a seat but it was full outside. When the waitress noticed us she did not even say hello. It was awkward for us because we were just standing there unnoticed but the problem was that they noticed us and they decided to ignore us. Since I work as a waitress I probably perceive these things more intensely but I was shocked. If it was me I would come to the guests in three seconds and it would be totally different. I mean, if they did not have space for us, they could have told us and if they did they should have seated us. Nevertheless, we found the place and we were waiting for a waiter. When the waiter came and gave us the menu I asked: "Do you have everything from the menu? " Then, unfortunately, he answered that they did not have only one food – the one we wanted to have. By the way, I did not get why he did not tell us this information himself, because I hate it when I finally choose one food and when I order it they just say: "We don’t have it". Therefore, my mum took a chicken schnitzel with mashed potatoes and I took a French salad with many types of cheese. The food was good but I did not like the service at all.

When we got home we finally went to the swimming pool. I am so happy that I have time to enjoy it because the first year we bought the swimming pool I spent the whole summer in rainy England and the year after I went to Sri Lanka for three weeks. Although now I have time to enjoy it a little bit. The weather was great the whole time and we spent around 2 hours there. I don’t have to say that my sister was crazy again because she is in love with water and she did not even want to leave the pool after two hours.

Our typical summer plan was doing barbecue for dinner. At that time I did not know that it could be the worst idea ever. When we moved to Předměřice we had one small grill which was not bad. Then, mum's boyfriend bought the new one and got rid of the previous one. The problem is that the new grill does not have any holes for the air and it is impossibly hard to set the fire and keep it. I did not know it in the beginning so we prepared the meat and vegetables. Last time I finally started to like grilled zucchini, garlic, onions and peppers. We managed to set the fire but it was impossible to keep it. Therefore we had to use a fire started many times and it was not working well. Subsequently, my mum decided to finish the food in the oven. It was delicious but it had nothing in common with barbecue. Unfortunately.

We did not have plans for Friday but when we heard that my mum was supposed to have some part-time job in Pardubice we decided to go there too. In fact, we went there to buy me a new rain coat or jacket because I don’t have any and I will need it for Amsterdam since my previous one was stolen. In the meantime we ordered one waterproof coat from H&M but the size did not suit me well so I decided to find another one. In the morning I went to my doctor who was on holiday (she chose totally inappropriate timing). Therefore I spent whole morning in the city centre for nothing. It was useless. I came home around 11 am and Pavel wanted to take Julie to have a ride on a horse. I took an advantage of it and I stayed at home.

It was so great! It does not happen often that I would have whole swimming pool for myself. Every time when I go there I go with my sister. Therefore I decided to make my time there amazing and I prepared a watermelon and banana smoothie. I cut a mango and I took my book. I was under the sun almost two hours, lying on the air mattress. It had been a long time since I had time only for myself with no worries and I enjoyed doing nothing with my book a lot.

When my sister arrived home we headed to Pardubice by train to meet my mother. The weather was so hot. When we found the shopping mall we were both happy to see a fountain to cool down. We were waiting for my mother and we were splashing around. Then we went shopping! On my way there I realized that they are not going to sell coats and jacket when the weather is so warm. It did not really matter. I bought a lot of summer clothes. However, I will have to buy the jacket next time. Firstly, we went to F&F and we spent a lot of time there. Sometimes they have a lot of good deals. I bought an awesome laced white (seriously I did not buy the black one! ) shorts. I fell in love with them immediately and they were not expensive. Probably it is fashionable these days because we saw them almost in every shop. When I came back to check the sizes I noticed a swimsuit on sale.

I remember that once when I was in this shop I did not even want to buy a swimsuit but I just saw a simple black swimsuit for a good price so I bought it. Later I did not even want to wear anything else than this swimsuit because it was so practical. I got it at a bargain! Therefore when I saw they had this offer again I tried to find a swimsuit. Moreover, I needed a new one. I was lucky because I saw one with a nice zebra print.

In the beginning I did not think that they would have a size for me and that it would be cheap, but it was exactly like that! They did not have a lot of sizes except for mine. Therefore I took my size and I tried it. I was surprised because it suited me well. In addition, it was special. I did not see often such shape of a swimsuit. When I checked the price I was even happier. It was super cheap. I did not hesitate at all and I took it! When I tried it at home I was happy with it!

My mum and my sister bought a lot of things there as well. Therefore, I thought that for the first time we would be done after one hour of shopping. I was mistaken. We did not give up. We got a bit tired, so we went to the food place. We bought my favourite Twister and chicken with chips. It was totally unhealthy. Then, we continued walking in the shopping mall. We checked our favourite shops - Tally Weijl, New Yorker and so on. I don’t even know how it happened but it was already 9 pm. Therefore we went home and I already knew that I was not going to run that evening. I managed to try my new swimsuit at night because we went to the swimming pool. It is nice to be there during the night to see the lights under the water.

Today it is Saturday and we planned our trip for a whole day. We decided to go to the Zoo in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. I haven’t been there for a long time. We arrived around 1 pm. It was probably bad timing because there were many people. When we went to buy the tickets we were already waiting the long line and when it was our turn they told us to go to another line because we wanted to buy a whole membership. Crazy. We found out that it is quite beneficial to buy the whole membership for a year because my mum and my sister do a lot of trips and they have to come up with new ideas. Therefore, it is good for them because they can visit the Zoo any time they want to. Normal entrance cost there 200 CZK and 150 CZK for students.

We started our day near the place for birds. These days were busy because they decided to organize a special festival at the Zoo called "Africa". Therefore, there were many people everywhere. We had a map and we saw a few animals. Since we only had breakfast, we were hungry and we decided to have lunch at the first food place. We chose grill and we ate pork leg. It was delicious. My sister had chips as always. Everybody was complaining about the service because the waiting lines were long and the food was expensive. They had special cups for the drinks for 30 CZK. It is a good strategy because they don’t have to clean much and a lot of people forget to return the cup back so they bring it to their home. Without this system, they would not buy it of course.

Then we found a festival place where a lot of people from Africa were preparing their specialties and they were making haircuts for small girls. We spent there a lot of time because my sister found a lot of goats. She liked that she could be with them in one barrier. They even offered possibility to buy special food for the goats. It was crazy because I went there to give them food as well but they were obsessed with the food and one goat hooked into my bag and I could not get rid of it. Therefore, I went immediately outside and I was just watching Julie.

The Zoo in Dvůr Králové nad Labem is famous for its safari. Safari buses go every 30 minutes and if you have your own car you can use it there as well. It took us some time to find the place from where we could take a bus. On the other side, we saw many attractions for extra money. We took a ride in a small swimming pool, then they offered rides on horses or camels, they had a rope centre and so on and so on. Moreover, they had shops with food everywhere. On our way to the safari we saw monkeys, lions, antelopes, zebras, etc. We also saw many playgrounds where Julie spent a lot of time playing. We also had a coffee with ice-cream. There is a big Amphiteathre for some performances. The way to the safari bus stop is quite long. We felt already tired and we appreciated the bus. We used also a hammock to have a rest. If you want to go to the safari it is something extra so you have to pay for the ticket – it is not included in the entrance into the Zoo.

I enjoyed the safari bus a lot. We had a guide who talked about all the animals we could see. It was interesting because the bus did not have any windows and we were closer to the animals. I was surprised that animals were not scared and they looked happy even though I know that they are probably not. We appreciated sitting for a while and we were watching everything properly. Nevertheless, the ride was quite short and they dropped us off at the same place we took the bus. That's why we had to walk the long way back again.

I remembered that we hadn't seen elephants yet. I took our map and we found where they were. I love them. I was thinking of seeing them in Sri Lanka and I wanted to come back. We also went to the place with crocodiles, fishes, monkeys, giraffes and so on. We also saw Dory from the famous movie. I got to know that the biggest snake is the anaconda and it is 8 metres long!

On our way home we went to Nové Město nad Metují to our favourite restaurant U Drašnarů again. As I am so happy about my new job we decided to celebrate it with my mum and we had our favourite grilled pork. We always have this food together and we always say how delicious it is. We ate everything and we were so full. Hopefully, next day we will start eating healthy again.

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