My family's last full day in Prague (Mom and my two sisters had to return to the U.S. for silly things like school and work) was also the day we were celebrating Mom's birthday. However, the night before we'd had a rude shock when we returned to our guest house after a folk music and dance performance (a little on the hokey side but surprisingly amusing and with abundant food and as much beer and honey wine as you could drink it was an enjoyable night even with me being forced up to participate in the "Moravian Broom Dance") to find that Mom and Tom's room had been broken into and not only were important things like bags, credit cards and a camera stolen, but the jerks had taken her birthday presents!! The next day understandably everyone was a little grumpy but we decided to carry on with the birthday celebration as planned. So we wandered around the New Town area until we found the Botanical Gardens and the smell of warm dirt and plants helped cheer us up a bit. After lunch we took a tram into Mala Strana to do some last minute tourist shopping and were just wandering around when we stumbled past a large walled in park. After meandering up paths past benches and little ponds, we came into a courtyard to be greeted with this image. A whole flock (I'm sure there is some special collective noun for peacocks but since I do not know it we will have to make do with "flock") of peacocks and the most charming elderly couple feeding them and the pigeons. Needless to say a half hour later after much bird watching, we all walked out with big grins on our faces feeling much better about the day. Thank you peacocks for saving Mom's birthday!
2 comments:
It occurred to me today, that a contributing factor to Tom's and my low spirits (beyond the lost gifts for friends, missing credit cards, lack of sleep, etc.)was the fact that we were up until the middle of the night drinking Slivovice with the inkeeper and the Czech police officers. One thng I know for sure is that peacocks are the perfect birthday present.
Yes, I did mean to add in the fact that you two had to stay up all night cancelling credit cards and drinking plum vodka, but I forgot in all my zeal to talk about the peacocks, which is really too bad because plum vodka is always such an important part of any story!
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