Czechmatediary

Way back when, when I was about 16 years old I had my appendix removed. The operation was successful although my appendix was wrapped around my stomach so instead of a quick one hour operation it was a 5-hour ordeal, but I am alive, which is all that matters.

After the operation was over and I gained consciousness I was given a choice to recover either in the pediatric department or to stay with the adults. I chose to stay with the ‘kids’ since I was almost postitive that some other sickly 16- or 15- year-old will share my misery there.Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. The oldest kid after me was 5 years old. The dining room had a little kid tables with colorful matching kid chairs; most beds had rails on them and the bed time was at 6pm. And I had 2 ‘wonderful’ weeks to spend in this environment! Most of the days I wasted my time reading my favorite book called “Mladi v hajzlu” (My life in the dumps) which lessen my misery by at least a bit.

I do not want to talk about how miserable I felt though. I want to talk about the other kids. Get ready for this. What am I about to tell you is so crazy that even my own father, a doctor at that particular hospital, did not believe me. [continue reading…]

I have just recently discovered the two Wild and Crazy Guys skit from Saturday Night Live. I was pleasantly surprised and also proud in a sense that a tiny bit of Czech culture got into such a famous American show! Are you telling me that Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd actually impersonated 2 Czech guys?? That’s pretty cool!

I dug out a YouTube video of these 2 dudes and it is pretty funny. Mind you, this was shut in about 1977, during the deepest communist era and ‘the wall’ was higher then ever. My husband remembers watching this as a little kid and laughing like crazy -little did he know he would eventually marry a ‘wild and crazy’ Czech girl! The funniest thing is that their ‘Czech’ names are really not Czech at all – Georg Festrunk and Yortug Festrunk? – they sound more like Swedish names if anything. Also, Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd tried to speak ‘Czech’ and again,sorry to say, it sounds more like some kind of a Moon language ;0) [continue reading…]

Czech students are wanting to learn Russian again! After English, Russian is the second most desired foreign language to learn, even more popular than French or German! Reason? Russian is much easier to learn since it is a Slavic language like the Czech language, and second, Czech companies are now doing quite a lot of business with Russia so they are after people who know how to speak the language. [continue reading…]

I was thinking the other day, that the Czech kitchen offers some weird dishes (see for yourself!). Yet, one cannot help it but love them. Which one of these unique Czech meals do you love the best?

CZ: Kdyz nad tim zapremyslite, nektere pokrmy ceske kuchyne jsou opravdu prapodivne (presvedcte se sami!). Nejprapodivnejsi na tom ale je, ze nam vsem hrozne chutnaji! Ktery z techto unikatnich ceskych pokrmu je vas nejoblibenejsi?
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The beautiful month of May is here and with it comes a bunch of exciting Czech stuff like Peter Nagy tour or if you live in Canada you get the chance to see Jirina Bohdalova in a play! There are also  couple of Czech/Slovak festivals so no one gets bored….

CZ: Kveten je tady a s nim take plno ceskych dobrutek jako napriklad koncert Petra Nagyho nebo jestlize zijete v Kanade, mate sanci take shlednout samotnou Jirinu Bohdalovou v divadelni hre. Take se teno mesic kona par ceskych/slovenskych festivalu – tedy nikdo se nudit nebude…

1. New York, NY (Czech center)

A. What – Bohemian Spring Celebration

When – May 1

More info – www.czechevents.net

B. What – Peter Nagy concert

When – May 12

More info – www.czechevents.net

C. What – Ostrava in New York (Ostravska Banda)

When –  May 6

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After a short but stressful in-limbo state the Czech Republic is still officially without any recorded case of a swine flu. The three Czechs in question who recently came back from Mexico are thankfully  not infected as the medical test have confirmed. However, more Czech tourists are coming back from their trip to Mexico this Saturday on May 2nd and they will be informed about the swine flu symptoms on the board of the plane itself. If in doubt, they may chose to be examined by a doctor at the Ruzyne airport.

For now the Czechs have enough of the anti-viral medicine for about 2.2 million people which is sufficient for about 20% of the Czech population. The Minister of Health, Daniela Filipova, warned citizens not to buy out all of the protective masks as well as the Tamiflu medicine which, if overused, can cause a resistance of the virus to the other otherwise helpful antiviral agents. [continue reading…]

Katie is my blogging buddy (you can check out her Makingthishome.com blog right here) and she is also an American married to a great Czech guy  named Martin. He was kind enough to write his little reflection on what it means to be Czech to him. I hope you will enjoy his writing as much as I did:

CZ: Katie je moje blogarska kamoska (jeji blog se jmenuje Makingthishome.com) a je take vdana za super ceskeho kluka Martina. Martin byl moc hodny a napsal nam kratkou esej o tom, co to pro nej znamena byt Cechem. Doufam, ze se vam to bude libit tak, jako se to libilo mne:

Being Czech has been a major element in defining the person I am becoming. When I met my wife, Katie (an American), I convinced her to spend part of a summer with me in the Czech Republic teaching local kids English. I believe that this experience taught both of us a lot about my character as a Czech. When we are young, we generally think that everyone is more or less like us. Our time with these children showed me just how unique Czechs are and how very much I live life with Czech values. I understood the Czech students and people around us–both in language and ideas about life. I felt comfortable interacting with the locals and enjoyed visiting small shops to pick up supplies for class. To my delight, the meals at camp were traditional Czech food. I would generally be found in line for seconds when the meals included any kind of knedliky, and when they didn’t, the cooks would save me leftovers from the meals before. [continue reading…]

Since we are on that hockey roll, I have got a juicy hockey news for you. A well-known Slovakian hockey player Ladsilav Scurko was arrested for a murder. The 23-year-old star confessed to killing a referee Marek Liptaj from Poprad with 14 knife stabs in January 2008 at a highway roadhouse. He buried the corpse in the forest which was discovered 11 months later by the police. It is not yet known why he killed this man but he is currently facing about 20 years  to a life time of jail sentence. It is too bad since Ladislav was a very gifted player. Not only did he play for the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds but he also represented Slovakia at 2 World Championships. [continue reading…]

The World Ice Hockey Championship 2009 is starting Saturday evening in Switzerland! The opening match is going to be between the Czechs (including Jaromir Jagr!!!) and the Dutch so it should be a great show. The world’s 16 best teams are going to face off in Bern and Zurich from April 24 to May 10 and you can watch the progression  of the games  right here (click here).

CZ: Tak uz je to tady! Mistrovstvi sveta v lednim hokeji 2009 zacina v Sobotu vecer ve Svycarsku! Cesky tym se tam utka s Danskem, mela by to tedy byt nezapomenutelna show. 16 nejlepsich hokejovych tymu z celeho sveta se  bude nebojacne prat o zlatou medajli az do 10. kvetna, tak se mame na co tesit. Vysledky vsech zapasu muzete sledovat zde (kliknete zde).

Primi prenos ceskych zapasu muzete take sledovat  on-line zde (klikntete zde).