Olomouc and World Uni Champs

My final weeks prior to my arrival in Sverige were spent in Olomouc, Czech Republic managing the NZ team for the World University Orienteering Champs. It was my first time in Czech Republic and as the taxi driver said "good to see the real Czech" rather than just beautiful but touristy Prague.

Fun facts about Olomouc and World Uni's:

Olomouc (said Olomoutz) is about a 2 hour train ride south east of Prague and reasonably devoid of tourists which was a bit of a relief post Zermatt, Prague and Vienna. It has a couple of lovely squares, one of which became an NZ favourite courtesy of the amazing gelato place on the corner.
People seem to like ice hockey, judging from the way they were all flocking to the stadium in team scarves in the 29 degree heat; we were in town for gelato.
The Czech language is damn hard, by the end of the first week I'd finally mastered how to say thank you but that's as far as I managed to get!
There is no air con on any of the public transport, making for some relatively uncomfortable rides, particularly with a bus load of smelly orienteers on the way back from training.
You're lucky to find anyone over 30 that speaks english. Every day we would head out on a bus for the organised training accompanied by one of the organisers and a younger person from the club to act as translator for us. Whenever we weren't lucky enough to be accompanied by them some seriously good charades would take place to get things solved. Whether it was to find out what was on the menu at the local restaurant or to try and get a constantly ringing phone unplugged in the room above us at the Uni accommodation; each experience would usually involve google translate or a phone call to someone who spoke english and could understand "no we don't want to change rooms, we just want to unplug the phone!"
They have crazy thunderstorms at this time of year. I thought the ones in the Italian mountains were good but they had nothing on the lightening strikes just outside the window in Olomouc. First time I've actually been a tad concerned in a storm.
They have very sneaky cats everywhere. One of them managed to get itself stuck between the 2 locked doors in the entry way and made its presence well and truly known at 3am when it wanted to go out. Another one somehow managed to find its way into Celia and my room the next night at 4am, luckily for me she was game to chuck it out the window (we were on the first floor, not that cruel).
They have a funny system for people that get picked up drunk. One of the Latvian runners got himself into such a drunken stupor at the end of the week party that Tessa and Tori (doctor and nurse from NZ and Canada) weren't game to leave him with his teammates as he was completely unresponsive and they were all drunk. After calling the police and ambulance and with the help of one of our lovely translators (one of the organisers, poor girl had her night just about ruined by it) we were told that if he regained a little bit of consciousness then rather than being taken to the normal hospital he would be taken to the equivalent of a psych ward for alcoholics; tad extreme! All ended well and pleased to say no Kiwi's ever got close to that state.

The two weeks were great, we were in the university accommodation for the entire time and gradually joined by all the teams. The NZ team had some really good races, best place was Laura's 11th in the sprint. The party was also great and thanks to some interesting choices for the NZ party uniform I'm now the proud owner of some crazy cat tights and a baseball top, the start of my Swedish dress up chest!