For some reason, my trip to the Czech Republic really stands out in my mind. We had an amazing group of people, incredible water and seeing Prague at night really made it seem like I was living in some sort of fairy tale. The place is stunning to say the least. A couple of other details really stand out, including my 24-hour bout with food poisoning and ice skating in the Darling Cabaret.
 
My Czech customers, Pepic, Pelda and their families have been visiting me in Orlando for the past couple of years and I was thrilled with the opportunity to visit them at their home. Just being around them inevitably breeds crazy stories and in no way did this trip fail to deliver.
 
Like most of Europe, Pepik and Pelda do the majority of their wakeboarding through a wakeboard club. However, their club isn’t in the most accessible of places, which was fantastic. You have to hop a fence and walk down the railroad tracks just to get to the dock. There were no other boats to deal with and we pretty much had perfect conditions. Combine that with motivated riders and the stage is set for a great week.
 
The first couple of days went well. We had guys learning to ride for the first time, girls working on 180’s and one of the kids stuck his first toeside backroll. We were off to a good start. Then things were taken to another level. One afternoon we got a call from Jiri, one of Pepik’s friends and the LF distributor, and he told us that he was sending a limo to the club to pick us up for a night out on the town.
 
We arrived in Prague and it took us maybe 30 seconds to find Jiri and his crew. They were the loud guys adorned in red Lycra suits pushing a bobsled on wheels through the streets of Prague and stopping at all the bars along the way. It was an interesting way to check out the town. After roaming the streets for several hours, we arrived at Jiri’s other job, the Darling Cabaret.
 
Jiri was having a “Winter Games” party at his…ummm…gentlemen’s club (yeah we’ll go with that), hence the bobsled attire. We walked into the place and it was elaborately decorated for a winter feel. Along with that, there were several TV’s where you could play Shaun White’s Pro Snowboarder on Nintendo Wii.
 
After hanging out for a while, we went upstairs with Jiri to get away from the madness for a bit. On our way back down to the club, Jiri asked us if we wanted to go ice skating. My immediate response was “of course,” so he led us through a hallway into a back room. The room was lined from wall to wall with plastic flooring and there were ice skates in every size, so we all had a go at it. That right there was one of the most random unforgettable moments of all my travels. Completely awesome.
 
Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse after we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant the next night. This resulted in me waking up early the next morning with an uncontrollable urge to release hell on the nearby toilet. But, to my surprise, nothing happened. A little confused, I grabbed some water from the kitchen and made my way back to bed. All it took was a couple sips and I was racing to the bathroom again. I was dumbfounded by the sheer volume of what I was able to donate to the sanitation system. And I was completely mortified by the fact that I needed to vomit as well. Mercifully, my body’s two points of exit took turns when they were “doing work” because that kind of synchronization really would have made a mess! I hope that painted a graphic enough picture for you guys. I spent the rest of the day in and out of that bathroom and I can honestly say that may have been the most miserable experience of my life. I’m glad I could share and I’m sorry there are no photos.
 
I felt great the next day and my riding was surprisingly on point and so was everybody else's. To top off, the last day there was a Czech western music party at the river and I was able to sneak off to Prague for a little bit of sightseeing.