Czechmatediary

Hello everyone / Ahoj vsichni,

So July schedule of Czech and Slovak events doesn’t look so hot (unless you like polka!! We have got couple of polka dances going on). I guess everyone is still vacationing somewhere….Also, the National Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids - my important source of info - got flooded last month so they will be out of the business for a while as far as Czech events go :(( (more…)

Where are you planning to travel this summer? Are you going to lay out on the beach somewhere in the Pacific or would you rather do some sightseeing and wonder around the streets of some ancient city like Rome? Why not do both? Prague not only has the medieval architecture but now it also has the beaches. The river that cuts through the center of Prague,Vltava, is opening up a new beach right by the Charles Bridge! (more…)

A new vaccine for a potential avian flu pandemic has been recently developed in a Czech town Bohumile. The US-owned production company is called Baxter International and their new “mirracle child” vaccine, Celvapan, has been more promising than any other such vaccines. Why? Because the researchers decided to use monkey cells instead of the traditional use of hen’s eggs. (more…)

Remember when I said in one of my recent posts that without Czechs people would be still living in caves? Here is yet another example. Eugene Cernan, the son of a Slovak father (from Kysuc) and a Czech mother (from Pisek), was a crew member of 2 of the most historical trips to the Moon: Apollo 10 (1969) and Apollo 17 (1972). Both times Eugene carried the Czechoslovak flag with him - not by accident. (more…)

The internet pages of the iDnes magazine re-created the communist shopping mall and it is AWESOME! Talking about reminiscing, this will definitely bring back some weird memories (I mean who didn’t have Krasohled!!!! - see picture above)…… (more…)

What Czech actor (dead or alive) has made the biggest impression on the Czech audience? The results are not surprising (at least for me):

CZ: Kdo je nejoblibenejsim hercem/hereckou vsech dob? Vysledky nejsou zdaleka prekvapujici…

• 1st place
  • Female: Libuse Safrankova (Three Wishes for Cinderella)
  • Male : Vladimir Mensik (more…)
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Hello everyone/ Nazdar vsichni!

I thought some of us moms - myself included - would like to brush up on Czech lullabies (Ukolebavky) so I went ahead and found some of them. Up till now I personally would usually just remember the first verse/sentece of a particular ukolebavka and then was left with brainless humming or substituting words than not only didn’t rhyme with the rest of the song but they also didn’t make sense (my poor child). Well, today is a new day, new beginning! I did not translate the content into English for one simple reason: I want to keep my sanity (I hope you understand).

CZ: Tak jsem si rikala, ze je na case, abych si oprasila znalosti ceskych ukolebavek. Pamet mi moc neslouzi, coz znamena, ze si vetsinou pamatuji prvni vetu z kazde ukolebavky a pak jsem odsouzena k prostemu broukani, nebo do pisne vlozim vymyslena slova, ktera nejen ze se nerymuji, ale take nedavaji vubec zadny smysl. Jestlize mate ten samy problem, tyto nize uvedena slova vam pomohou problem vyresit: (more…)

All right, we know that Czechoslovakia, the new democratic republic on the map of Europe, was established in 1918. Slovaks wanted to join the Czechs in their new beginnings to break away from Austria-Hungary and create their own semi-private state. Who saved the situation? In one of his Fourteen Points, the US president Woodrow Wilson demanded that all of the nationalities of the defeted empire (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, Austrians, Slovenes, Croats and Serbs) have “freest opportunity to autonomous development“. (more…)

Krupice is great the ultimate comfort food. Are you depressed? Did you just break up with your boyfriend? Did your favorite show on TV just get canceled? Make some Krupice!

Krupice brings a lot of childhood memories to me. They used to serve it to us in the kindergarten/pre-school cafeterias (I think they finally stopped serving it to us at the university). What was also cool about this product that the box you would buy it in had a little “puzzle” on it. (more…)

5 brave guys from Brno (Czech Republic) will be soon immortalized in the Guinness book of world records. They all scuba-dive for living and one day they decided to take it up a notch and stay underwater for 1 hour with just ONE oxygen bomb. What does’ that mean? That means that each one of them could take only one breath from the oxygen tank per minute. Can you imagine to take only 60 breaths in one hour? (more…)