Easter: why not Wester? ... or ... Easter? I hardly even know her!

In the Czech Republic they have an Easter tradition: they beat their women. I'm not kidding. Every Easter Monday, men go around in small gangs, sometimes to just their family members, but sometimes door-to-door. They ring the doorbell, and then swat the females with a stick made of willow branches. In return, the women can demand that the men sing a song; after, the women give the men either an egg, or a shot of alchohol, or sometimes even both. Why would a woman reward a man, who has just smacked her ass, with a free shot? My theory is that they are just trying to put the men to sleep.

This tradition may seem violent, and sometimes it is. However, I don't think it's sexist. My amateur anthropological spidey-sense tells me that the stick is an old pagan phallic symbol, and the egg is, well, symbolic of the female eggs. See any old mating rituals here? Possibly? I'm pretty damn sure that's where it comes from.

Anyways, back to modern traditions.....

Visiting Niky's uncle in the hospital, he allowed me to smack his neice's bottom with his swatty-stick

Later that day, in Niky's Mom's apartment, my lovely girlfriend gets her holidays confused. She still looks cute though. I can't even believe she let me take this photo, let alone post it online :P

Happy Easter everyone. May the spirit of Jesus, chocolate bunnies (chocolate sheep in the Czech Republic), and willow-branchy swatty-sticks be with you.