Czechmatediary

Today left Prague an important travel expedition called the Bargans Bajkal 2010. It consists of 2 extra brave men - Vaclav Sura and Petr Blazek, who are to cross the Siberian Baikal lake on foot, by so-called unsupported style. All of their belongings (food included) will be pulled by those two man on sledges. The trail leads from the south peak of the lake to the north peak and it si ‘mere’ 650 km long, which should take them 4 to 5 weeks to conquer. The slight problem is that the temperatures during this time go as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. Only one such expedition has been done in the past, so if the Czech one is succesfull it will be a great victory.
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The 2010 Olympic Games start next week in Vancover. How is the Czech Republic going to do this time? Four years ago the Czechs won 4 medals: gold for cross country skier Katerina Neumannova, silver for cross country skier Lukas Bauer, and bronze for men’s ice hockey team. athleets

This year the Czech Republic Olympic team is bigger than ever, mounting to the total of 93 members! The Czech Olympic committee says that even athletes who have little chance of succeeding should be allowed to take part, budget permitting. “”For the Summer Olympic Games in Athens we took with us a very young athlete, a javelin thrower called Barbora Špotáková. She was in seventh or eighth place there [actually she finished 23rd]…It was her first Olympic Games. In her second Olympic Games in Beijing she was Olympic champion. And we think if she hadn’t taken part in Athens, she couldn’t have made it in Beijing, to win gold at her first Olympics….So we don’t take everyone, but we take those who we feel have achieved a very good effort, very good results. And we wish the best for them.” (more…)

OK, here is yet another addition to our photo-gallery of Prague-under-snow. The My Czech Republic blog took some awesome pictures of the Czech capital (and other places) just a few hours after it stopped snowing earlier this past month. Click here to view all of the images - it really looks like it’s from some kind of a fairy-tale.

CZ: Jestlize jste ve snehove nalade, My Czech Republic blog zverejnil nekolik naaaadhernych, pohadkovych fotek zasnezene Prahy a okoli! Kliknete zde.

You know how much they all talk about how much snow is in the Czech Republic now? I got a proof! These wonderful Prague pictures (taken by a generous donor - Peter) were taken just a few days ago. And if Prague is snowed-in, you know that the rest of the Czech Republic is REALLY snowed in.

CZ: Vite, jak se vsude stebeta o tom, kolik v Cechach napadlo snehu. No, a ja mam dukaz! Fotky (velkodusne darovane panem Petrem) zasnezene Prahy! A vime preci, ze jestlize je Praha zasnezena, tak zbytek cele Ceske republiky je opravdu zapadly pod horami snehu.

Kampa

Since we have been talking about the world records I have got another one for you. On Friday the Lysa mountain in the Czech Republic got about 1 meter (3.3 ft) of new snow which has been the biggest amount for the month of October since 1897! Of course, that number is far away from the all-winter record, which is dated from 1911. On March 8th of that year the same mountain received close to 5 meters of fresh snow!! Orlicke mountains have scored this year as well. Their peaks are covered with about 1 meter of snow which is an amount that none of the mountain locals can remember happening in their lifetime. The least amount of snow is currently in Sumava mountains (only 10 cm) but more snow is being expected to fall in the next few days. (more…)

Someone once asked me: “Do you think it’s a good idea to vacation in the Czech Republic during the winter?” Without any hesitation, I said “yes! There is so much to do all year long especially during the winter!” I talked to that person  for a little while longer and then we parted ways. I never actually found out if she even went to Czech that winter or if she just got cold feet and gave up on that whole “crazy” idea. If I were to meet her again I would give her a week-long schedule of things to-do, whether she liked it or not. This is what would the “Nazi” list look like:

CZ: Jednou se me nekdo zeptal, jestli pry je dobry napad stravit v Cechach zimmni prazdniny. Bez rozmysleni jsem vyhrkla “No samozrejmne! V Cechach se da delat tolik veci po cely rok, natoz v zime!” Jeste jsme si spolu chvilku povidaly, a pak ta osoba nekam zmizela, aniz bych se kdy dozvedela, jestli vubec do te krasne ceske zimni krajiny zavitala. Kdybych mela sanci vratit cas a ta dotycna osoba by se me zeptala tu samou otazku znovu, beze slov bych ji podala striktni rozvrh aktivit na cely mesic. Vypadalo by to asi takto: (more…)