Keepin in Real in the Southern CZ.

I'm sick. Sinus-ey, post-nasal drip, stuffy head, my-nose-just-dripped-on-my-computer sick. Dammit. I guess those few nights out did me in. I don't remember the last time I was sick.

Another long day of mostly sitting on the bus today. Had breakfast at our hotel, and then went to Austerlitz, a Napoleon-era battlefield with a cool crypt and whatnot. Then we drove back to Brno to go to the garden where Gregor Mendel grew his marigolds and peas, and then went to Lednice to see a castle that was owned by the Lichtenstein family. It was quite cool; huge, with 3 floors, lots of ornate woodwork and paintings and whatnot. It had a huge garden area outside where we walked around and saw about 17 Czech couples getting their wedding pictures taken. They like weddings in this country -- we've seen a ton this weekend.

Ate lunch at a little restaurant before going to the castle; I had a Pilsner Urquell, a bowl of chicken soup, and a salat of cucumbers and onions and tomatoes and peppers. Quite good, and I ordered all in Czech. I'm getting better.

After the castle we headed to a wine cellar in Boretice -- a little house that had a wine cellar attached. It wasn't a restaurant, but they had dinner for us, chicken and cabbage salad and cucumbers, and then we got to try 4 different homemade wines straight from their casks. Three whites and a red -- they were all quite good. It was pretty obnoxious though, because we were all in this little cellar room and everyone was being incredibly loud and disrespectful to the guy who owned the wine cellar and people wouldn't stop talking whenever he was trying to talk to us. I felt extremely embarrassed. So far, this trip has made me really appreciate America and really hate Americans, or at least my peers who are the future of America, if you will. It wasn't just disrespectful behavior in the wine cellar, it was a symbol for the bigger, all-around asshole-ish nature of Americans, especially Americans who go abroad. Ugh.

But anyway, we got to buy some wine before we left -- it came in 1.5L plastic bottles that cost 50kc each. I got one of red and one of white -- when you convert the money and break it down to how big bottles in the States usually are, I basically got 4 bottles of good, homemade wine for $4. Can't beat it.

Tried to listen to Iron and Wine on the way back to the hotel tonight. I'm definitely not ready for that yet. I didn't get through one song before I changed it to avoid a hysterical crying breakdown in front of 43 of my closest new friends.

I might go down to the hotel bar and see what people are up to, and make it an early night, because I feel like crap. It is raining here today, and is nice.