When I was a little girl growing up in Czechoslovakia, tea was tea. Cheap black tea from China, India or Ceylon was all we could get. The container said “Čaj”. When you asked for tea, you knew what was coming.

Those times are over. Capitalism arrived and brought with it all sorts of new things. Fruit flavored Pickwick teas were some of the first “bourgeois” arrivals that hit the young Czech market in the early 1990s. They woke up the lethargic Czech tea-drinking nation to a brand new, exciting era of a seemingly limitless selection of tea varieties, flavors and brands that now fill the shelves of supermarkets and specialty tea stores.

Asking for tea is no longer simple business. When I’m ordering tea at a Czech restaurant these days, I’m used to being asked, “Black, fruit or green?”, not necessarily in that order. I was recently at a Prague pizzeria and ordered tea. A container full of tea packets arrived at the table. Lemon, orange and spice, green, chamomile, peach, cinnamon, strawberry, mint… Not a single packet of normal black tea. But again, what is normal? Which reminds me, the same pizzeria used to serve tea in large, thick-glass beer mugs. I loved it. To my great disappointment, the beer mugs were later replaced by boring, fancy tea cups. Oh well.

I just finished reading another book by Michal Viewegh, Účastníci zájezdu (Holiday Makers). It’s one of his earlier novels (he wrote it in 1996) and it turns out to be my second most favorite book by Viewegh so far. There has been a lot of talk about Holiday Makers and the fourth edition of the book was published a few months ago, all in connection with the April release of the movie that was based on the bestselling novel. The film was entered into the Tribeca Film Festival soon after it came out and ended up receiving an award and a special mention to the ensemble cast.

I loved the book. I haven’t seen the movie and am a little reluctant to go see it because a film is rarely as good as the book it’s based on. I’m too curious to see all the characters on the screen though, so I probably won’t resist…

Karel Gott is a singer and painter, and has been a fixture on the Czech entertainment scene for half a century. Some consider him the “Sinatra of the East”. Even at 66 years of age, he is still just as active as ever, although this year he is staging his first “good-bye” tour. He has won 30 Zlatý slavík (Gold Nightingale) awards, which are given every year to the most popular pop singer in the country.

If you are in the Czech Republic for more than just a visit, you are bound to come across Karel. You can hear him on the radio, see him in any number of variety shows on television and he always seems to pop up at the end of award shows. He can be seen grinning on the covers of magazines. In April, he was in the news because his 30 year-old girlfriend gave birth to his daughter. The Supraphon label recently released a DVD with his hits of the 60’s. And at the end of this month, Karel Gott’s own museum, Gottland, will open to the public.

On some days, it is hard to avoid Karel. I don’t know how many times I have walked into the living room when the TV was on and there he was, delivering an award or singing one of his new songs. One evening I visited my favorite Chinese restaurant and along with the printed reviews posted by the front door, I noticed a photo of a smiling Gott surrounded by the happy chefs and waitresses.

If you want to read more about Karel Gott, you can visit his website (turn your speakers down) and his Gottland site.

Jeff and I have gone out for a typical Czech lunch a few times lately. Many restaurants in Prague and elsewhere in the Czech Republic have a special lunch menu (usually called polední menu), which is valid during a specific time period - e.g. from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. - and consists of a limited number of menu items that are often smaller in quantity and cheap. Very cheap. You can get a full meal for under 100 CZK (3 - 4 EUR, 4 - 5 USD) even if the restaurant charges two or three times more for a dinner course. The point is to attract people from nearby offices to come down on their lunch break. The lunch menu usually changes during the week, so you don’t find the same selection every day.

Some restaurants keep their lunch menus focused on the cuisine in which they specialize. For example the lunch menu of a Thai restaurant may consist of smaller and cheaper versions of pad thai or curry dishes. Others follow the Czech tradition and create menus that include popular Czech standbies like roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut, goulash, Viener schnitzel with boiled potatoes, meatloaf with mashed potatoes, fried cheese with fries, fried mushrooms with fries, fried cauliflower with fries… And soup. Czechs love their soup and the chefs know it.

I had my fair share of these typical Czech lunches back when I had a nine-to-five job in the Old Town. I’ve eaten fried mushrooms with fries too many times. But that was ten years ago and I’ve almost forgotten about the convenience and comfort of a quick Czech lunch. The steaming soup is brought to your table two minutes after you order it, the beer is nice and fresh and the pork chops with rice taste exactly how you remember them from your school cafeteria.

Jeff and I have decided to explore the restaurants in our neighborhood and see what their lunches are like. So far we have made several promising discoveries. I’m starting to wonder, why cook at home when you can get a perfectly fine meal AND fresh beer at a restaurant, you don’t have to do the dishes, and the soup costs 70 cents?

(The bill in the picture above is for two soups, a 0.3 liter Hoegaarden beer, a mineral water and two main courses. The total came to 193 CZK - about 9 USD/7 EUR).

The World Cup in footbal (soccer) is underway. The home team Germany won the opening match yesterday against Costa Rica 4-2.  The Czech Republic has their first match on Monday against the United States.  In the Czech Republic, it is showing on ČT2 in the U.S. it is on ESPN2.

It seems like all the pubs and bars in Prague will be showing the games.  Some of them have had their signs out for weeks, inviting people to come and watch on their large screen TVs.

Of course, the offical FIFA World Cup website run by Yahoo! is a good source of information.

If you can read Czech, here are a couple sites to stay on top of the excitement:
ČTK - Sportovní noviny
Česká Televize - ms fotbal ‘06