The country seemed flatter than ever and reminded me of Saskatchewan in the summer. I had crossed 900 km of flat prairies every year to see my grandfather and grandmothers. My fathers side of the family (hence the name Boyko) still lives there today.

Czech people have become less stressed and have started to open up a little or at least I have gotten used to them. I'm no sure if it is because of the fact that I am further away from the big cities or that it is the weekend but they seem harmless today.

Anyway I met Emmanuelle 30 km out of Hralec Kralove where she came with me into town. We looked for a bike repair shop because I have busted up my derailleur in Switzerland and now it’s getting real bad. I don’t think that it will last the trip so I gotta change it out. We had no luck finding parts so we went to the hotel we found on the internet in Prague which turned out to be an incredible 2 story apartment just on the other side of town.

The prices are funny here. You can find a hotel for 200 euros and go across the street in a nicer hotel and pay only 9 euros. I guess they don’t have any monopoly problems here. The same applies for food too; you can buy a loaf of bread or for the same amount buy a four course meal with drinks and dessert.

Tomorrow we will cross into Poland where I will meet Emmanuelle at the border and we will bike the rest of the way together. A total of 40 or so kms. I hope that her arm is healing because the roads here are getting worse and worse with stretches of 10 kms of arm shaking cobblestones. Beautiful but painful for Emma. The modifications for the bike seem to be holding out good and the fiberglass arm seems to be durable and a success. I just wonder what it will do when Emmanuelle will join me for the 100 km per day. She is still a little shy and refuses to move her seat back into the proper position because her feet don’t touch flat. This is good for security but she tires very easily.

Nevertheless, I think that it is impressive that she has decided to continue the trip with me. This is a huge trip and frankly, I had never thought she had it in her, but she has really surprised me this time.

I have fallen in love with her all over again.

I felt ok waiting for Chris at the station.

Today it was our lucky day; we found this amazing little hotel in a quiet residential area. A double 2 floor bedroom with breakfast, huge lunch and drink for only really cheap!!!! That was real treat! We scooped around with the bikes, looking for a bike store to fix Chris' bike but unfortunately we found nothing. Chris had only a couple of gears left and more km to go! How was he going to do it?