The Day the Circus Came to Town...

Today was an exciting, fun day for all of us! Lydia experienced her first circus... the rest of us experienced a bit of a cultural lesson! :-)

When I saw the circus was setup at a park near us, I couldn't avoid the temptation. We checked if our friends, the Stones, were interested and when they said "yes", plans were set in motion. To make the show the most interesting for our 2-year old girls, we splurged for the higher priced tickets which put us within feet of THE ring (it was a one-ring circus)... and the stampeding animals therein! Let's just say the safety standards were not the same as we have come to expect in the States. Have you ever seen the TV show "When Good Animals Go Bad"? This venue seemed a plausible place for those scenes to occur. With only a 3 foot wall as a barrier, Emily and I breathed a sigh of relief when a temporary cage was constructed before the tigers were brought out. This turned out to be a really good thing when the tigers appeared moderately trained and slightly rebellious. They reminded me of those disobedient toddlers whose parents are constantly "counting to 3".

What else was a cultural lesson? Well, we stood for what we determined was the Czech National Anthem (our first hint was when everyone stood up)... Everything was obviously spoken in Czech, which made the clowns' acts a little harder to "get"... and the Czech circus has a much more "creative" slant. I.e., Lots of girls dancing to hip-hop music, with or without the aid of enormous writhing nylon octupus-like creatures or larger than life nylon slinkys.

All in all Lydia seemed quite impressed. She stood in awe for the duration of the 2-1/2 hour show speaking up only to ask for "More clowns, more horses or more popcorn". Ahhh, fun for the whole family!


Cameras were not allowed to avoid provoking the tigers, so Brandon took this one illegally. Question is: "Is that tiger eyeing Lydia or her pop-pop???"