Larry Kesslin

Dinner w/ New Friends

Posted on May 25, 2015

In each city we have visited we have invariably met families either before we arrived or through Rotary meetings once we got there. Prague was no different. Our landlord of our AirBnB was very helpful for the first hour we were here, but since then we have been on our own. We met an American/Czech our first morning named Michael Mayher, who I am planning to get together with tomorrow morning, and I met a bunch of locals at the Prague Rotary International Club. This is the only club in town that holds their meetings in English. When I arrived I immediately met a man named Casey, who is from NH and has lived in Czech for about 6 years. Then I met Sanan and his girlfriend, Rodka, along with over a dozen others who attended the meeting.

When the meeting was about to end I told everyone that I was very interested in introducing our teenage kids to local kids. Sanan and Rodka told me that they had two teenage girls, one 16 and one 15 years old. So, we talked about possible times to get the families together and chose last night. We met in the middle of Prague by the big mall and Sanan asked if we wanted to go to a local Czech restaurant that he had made reservations at. Who am I to argue with someone who has lived in Prague since the late 1990’s? I came to learn that Sanan is from Miami and came to the Czech Republic as an exchange student from his university in the 90’s. He said that one of his professors in college pushed him to do their international exchange program and when he did he fell in love with Prague. Rodka is a widow who has raised her two girls by herself since the oldest one was 4 years old. Sanan and Rodka have been together for over a year now and they are a very cute couple together.

The two girls, Natalia and Denisa, were super nice and got along great with Drew and Noah. The older daughter, Natalia, is in a special school for photography, so Drew immediately started talking about her picture taking on our trip and her Instagram account. Denisa happens to be an avid reader and seems to like all the same books that Drew likes. Besides the kids getting along really well, the restaurant that Sanan picked was perfect. The food was awesome, the service was great and we ate more really good food than we normally do for dinner. Sanan ordered some home made sausages and chicken wings as appetizers and we devoured those pretty quickly. Ilise ordered the duck and a Greek salad for us to share. The duck was so good and big, it was lucky we shared it. Sanan also ordered a rack of BBQ ribs, which were also delicious. To finish off the meal he asked if we wanted to go to the best ice cream place in Prague? He must not have been reading my blog, so we started on a 10 minute walk through Old Town to this little place called Creme de la Creme. We were so nauseous from dinner but we indulged and each got a couple of scoops. I must say that outside of Italy this was the best ice cream we have had to date.

We headed back to the metro together as we said our goodbyes. It was a lovely evening, one that was only made possible because of Rotary. This connection of like-minded people that are interested in making a difference in the world has been awesome. I can’t imagine what this trip would have been like if I hadn’t visited all these Rotary clubs. The people have been amazing and the experience for me has just motivated me even more to get much more involved in Rotary upon our return to Carlsbad. Look out Carlsbad Hi-Noon, it’s time to change the world together 🙂

To a life well lived!