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My 3-year-old daughter completely fell in love with Czech Elmo. I mean it is the same American Elmo from Sesame street but with the Czech voice-over. She likes the original, English-speaking Elmo too but for some reason, she thinks the Czech-speaking Elmo is funnier. What’s even more interesting is that the Czech Elmo sounds EXACTLY the same as the American one. I am attaching a YouTube video of both so you can judge for yourself.

By they way,if you are interested, the DVD series are called “Svet Elmo” and they are virtually not available anywhere anymore. I don’t know why :( . Fortunately one of my Facebook buddies recommended ‘ulozto.cz’ and I was able to download some of those series. These videos are great to learn the Czech language – for young or old.
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I am sure you have already seen this video but if you haven’t it is a must (video is attached below). Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, was caught ‘stealing’ a pen during a presidential meeting in Chile. Some viewers have become really angry seeing this movie, thinking that he is stealing the pen for real, which he is not. “It was a routine pen with a logo of Chile which is given to every president when he comes to visit.”, explains Radim Ochvat, president’s spokesman. [click to continue…]

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Today I am bringing you something on the lighter note. The following video makes fun of the state of the Czech health care. It is in Czech so I apologize to those who do not understand the language. In short, the Czech health care is going through some troubling times and a comedian, Zdenek Izer, is making fun of it. The patient in the video comes to the doctor’s office but ends up basically treating herself. [click to continue…]

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This is truly  so funny the funniest thing ever! Chuck Norris is an American movie star known to the Czechs mostly from the 80′s shows like ‘The Delta Force‘ or ‘The Firewalker‘. His career in the US may have slowed down a bit but that does not mean that he is retiring. He is starting a new career in the Czech Republic! The Czech T-mobile executives tried to hire celebrities like John Travolta or Danny DeVito but since they turned down the offer the firm had to ‘settle’ for Mr. Norris. Not bad!!

I found one of those famous commercials on YouTube, which has been getting millions of hits from viewers all over the world.

Read the article attached and watch those videos - it will make your day! [click to continue…]

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Greetings! I hope you all enjoyed Christmas and that the year 2011 (it’s going to take me months to get used to writing the correct year) is going to be the best one ever. On that note, I have a little surprise for you. I am updating the blog image, making it more fancy and getting rid of the old technical bugs that have been bothering me (and some of you) for some time.

Since it’s the first of the new year let us remind ourselves of one ultimate and absolute truth about the Czech nation: WE LIKE BEER. We like it so much that the world rated us number one beer-drinkers of all times. Don’t believe me? Click on this link (click here) and watch the video.

CZ: Doufam, ze jste si vsichni uzili vanocni svatky a ze tento rok bude vasim neuspesnejsim. Ocekavejte v nejblissi dobe male prekvapeni a to v podobe aktualizace tohoto blogu. Vzhled by mel byt podobny (lepsi) a po technicke strance bude vykonejsi – tedy takovy je  alespon muj zamer.

Jelikoz je dnes 1. ledna 2011 (!!), pojdme si pripomenout jednu z nejpravdivejsich pravd ceskeho naroda: CESI MILUJI PIVO. Miluji ho do takove miry, ze se stali temi nejvetsimi pivari na svete! Neverite mi? Podivejte se na toto video (kliknete zde).

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Hi Folks,

I hope you are enjoying Christmas season and all of you have finished your letters to Santa (or Jesus). To make these moments complete I selected a few YouTube videos of Czech Christmas carols. The last song is sang by Karel Gott (also known as the Golden Voice of Prague), probably the most famous current Czech singer whose career has spanned over four decades. He sold over 30 million records and became one of the first multimillionaires in the socialist Czechoslovakia.

CZ: Doufam, ze si vsichni uzivate predvanocni pohody a ze jste jiz dokoncili dopis Jeziskovi. Aby byla ta vanocni pohoda uplne dokonala, tak jsem si pro vas pripravila par klasickych vanocnich pisinicek. Nejdriv je to samozrejme Rybova mse, pak par koled a pak nas nezapomenutelny Gottik :0)

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Orloj’s 600th birthday was celebrated in style this year. All of the Old Town Square visitors were able to enjoy a 10 minute large-screen video, which was projected on the Orloj’s wall itself (see the YouTube video below). “At first we had to take very detailed measurements as well as detailed photos of the building. Then we had to download these measurements and images into the computer and created a 3-D computer model. Then we had to come up with various animations which were projected on this 3-D model and also captured some of the major historical moments in the building’s history”, explains Tomas Rychecky, the producer of the whole thing.

Let’s do a brief history review about this magnificent architectural piece. The Old Town Square clock tower was build by Mikulas from Kadan in the early years of 15th century (September 9th, 1410). The building was greatly improved by Hanus from Ruze, who was supposedly blinded on purpose by the Prague authorities so that he could not build an exact copy anywhere else. Hanus came up with a bitter payback, broke the Orloj’s mechanism and no one was able to fix it for a long, long time.

The Orloj’s history still has a few secrets up its sleeve, for example, no one knows when did the sculptures of the 12 apostles came to life and who made them.
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lednice google imageThe Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape is a lesser known part of the Czech UNESCO heritage, which is spread over the vast area of a beautiful Southern part of Moravia. It contains a romantic château (Lednice), a picturesque village (Valtice) and the largest park in the country. ‘Since Lednice was first passed into the hands of the House of Liechtenstein in the mid-13th century, its fortunes had been tied inseparably to those of that noble family.’  The current area of Lednice is laid out in a beautiful English garden style, covering almost 300 kilometers squared. Not only can visitors encounter unique types of trees and flowers but the park is also filled with serene ponds, luscious meadows, fancy sculptures and even replicas of ancient Greece ruins. [click to continue…]

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19174_279609116043_279605881043_3942574_2859337_nTexas Czechs developed a very nice Czech language series on YouTube. I found so far only the first 4 beginner lessons but I am sure more will be coming in the near future. For those who would like to learn this difficult language these videos are a perfect opportunity. They are simple and entertaining.

CZ: Pro ty, co nemluvi cesky a radi by se naucili, Texas Czechs maji vyborna YouTube videa pro zacatecniky:
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young Karel Kryl google imageI have been lately into listening to Karel Kryl’s songs. This guy was such an interesting person! He died quite young at the age of 49  but his songs are going to be cherished by the Czechs and Slovaks forever. By the way, his music skills are just one slice of the Kryl-pie. He was a great poet and a painter as well.

CZ: Posledni dobou se mi nejak zalibily Krylovy pisnicky a dosti casto je ted posloucham. Nic moc jsem o Krylovi pred tim nevedela, pouze ty zaklady, tudiz jsem se rozhodla udelat jakysi Krylo-vyzkum, co se tyce jeho zivota a dila. Pro zmenu to byla opravdu velmi zajimava a dobrodruzna osubka. Nejen ze byl nadany na poezii a hudbu, byl take vybornym malirem. Zbytek textu je v anglictine, protoze na cesky preklad uz jsem nemela cas ani silu. Sorac.

Karel Kryl was born and raised in a Moravian town called Kromeriz, where his grandfather established a printing business, one of the best ones in pre-communist Czechoslovakia. Thanks to this book-friendly surrounding Karel was in love with literature ever since he was a little boy. When he was just 5 years old the communist party won the elections and few months later he was forced to watch, while the communist army destroyed all of his family’s printing machines. That was the end of prosperous times at the Kryl family. His father had to start working at the local factory and Karel later followed his footsteps. [click to continue…]

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