czechmatediary.com

Hello Everyone/Ahoj vsichni,

Calendar for Czech activities for April (click here) is here!

Jakou dubnovou kulturni akci si tentokrat vyberete? Spousta zajimavych vecicek se deje kolem USA, jako je napriklad verejna konference s Milosem Formanem anebo turne kapely Garage & Tony Duchacek .

Dejte mi prosim vedet, jestli znate o dalsich ceskych akcich, ktere na seznamu nemam. Take bych uvitala nejaky ten “input” od lidicek z Anglie a Australie - tedy co se tyce kulturnich akci. Dik!

Just a ‘simple’ day in the life . . .

. . . of a Czech language student. Lots of conditionals, imperatives, and motion verbs to think about and memorize; no big deal, just the simple life in a second level Czech language class. But, then there is that certain special day that puts it all into perspective; in fashion terms, gives it ‘bling’.

Our class is taught by a young ?eška graduate student. The university Slavic languages department is searching for a permanent faculty position in Czech language and literature. Each of the four candidates for this position has had to come and teach our class for one session with the search committee members looking on. The other day, we had our last candidate come to our class. I say ‘we’ and ‘our’ but this would be misleading. On this fateful day, of six students, only one showed up (a particularly poor comment on student attendance). That would be me. (more…)

The notorious party celebrity,Paris Hilton, is arriving to Prague on Sunday. No, the purpose of her visit is not to check on the Prague-based Hilton hotel and see if all of the toilet paper is well stocked in the bathrooms. She is actually coming as a groupie! She is escorting her current boyfriend, Benjim Madden, whose band the Good Charlotte is going to be performing in Prague on Monday. That is not all, however. According to the very “trusted” source, the German gossip magazine Bild, Paris wants to conceive her first child with this guy AND on this tour. AND(!!) he (or she) is supposed to be named after the city the child was born in. (more…)

According to the Eurostat’s new statistical data the Czech Republic rates as one of the safest countries of the European Union. Surprisingly, the most dangerous EU states are:

• Sweden
• Belgium
• Great Britain

Only every 30th Czech is predicted to commit a crime, whereas every 7th Swedish person has a high probability of joining the “dark side”. (more…)

Kostnice (Bone church) is a small chapel located in the town of Kutna Hora. The name already uncovers the big secret: the church is a home to a lot of human bones. And when I say “a lot”, I mean A LOT: the sanctuary contains close to 70,000 human skeletons, artistically arranged to create decorations and furnishings for the church. There are only 2 questions I had when I saw all these bones in person:

1/ Why so many of them?

In 1278 the Czech king Otakar II sent one of his monks to the Holy Land in Jerusalem to bring back some of the “real” soil. The monk returned safe and sound and with a bag of Jerusalem soil over his back. Once he sprinkled it over the Bone church cemetery it became a hot burial site in the whole Europe and everyone wanted to be laid to rest pretty much there (result –>a lot of bones). (more…)

The new Queen of Pop, Rihanna, is going to be performing in Prague this Thursday, and it is supposed to be quite the show. This is not her first time visiting Prague. To put it straight, Prague is pretty much Rihanna’s second home. Do you want a proof?

• She won the Czech Ocko prize in the Hip-hop and rhythm category (more…)
  If you liked this post buy me a coffee! (Suggested:$3 a latte $8 for a pound) Thanks!

The Czech crown has been reaching its all-time record-highs against the US dollar these past couple of months. The absolute highest point was reached on March 12th when 1 US dollar was equal to only 16.0 CZK.

When I came to the US in 1998 the American dollar was worth about 43 Czech crowns and I was scared to death to buy even a chewing gum: a 2-dollar chewing gum (about 80 crowns) was worth as much as a decent dinner for two (!) in a Czech restaurant. (more…)

Yesterday’s massive car crash on on the Czech freeway D1 (Prague -Brno) involved 116 cars (!!) and left thousands of Czechs - some badly hurt - hanging in the snow storm for about 12 hours. The resulting traffic jam has created a colony of cars many miles long. The following traffic diversions created even more traffic jams - the whole situation took on a “snowball effect”. It got so bad that the Czech minister of Internal Affairs, Ivan Langer, was planning on using the Czech army to save the situation. But when he saw the “excellent cooperation of the Czech police and fireman “Langer changed his mind. Although this was the biggest car crash in the Czech history, only one person died so far (30 people got injured). (more…)

Would you like to know what are the cool traditions of Czech Easter (for the not-so-cool Easter traditions click here)? Or maybe you are Czech but would like to “brush up” on those customs? For example, could you explain your fellow neighbor what are:

• rehtacka
• pomlazka
• Skareda streda (??) (more…)
  If you liked this post buy me a coffee! (Suggested:$3 a latte $8 for a pound) Thanks!

The 170-million dollar action movie, GI JOE, is gong to be filmed in the Barrandov film studios (Prague). The story takes place in Europe, where the special secret unit known as G.I.J.O.E. is trying to stop bunch of gun-smugglers (what a bore!!). The movie stars the former fashion model Channing Tatum as well as the British actress Sienna Miller. GI JOE is still on a waiting list though, since Barrandov is now being used for filming yet another American movie, the Salamon Kane. (more…)