The Prius Mania
I was amazed and pleased to see how many Californians drive the Prius (the wonderful hybrid gas/electric car by Toyota). Two or three years ago, there were a few of them on the roads. Now you can easily see four in an hour. The Czech Republic has a ways to go in this department. I think I have only seen the Prius - or any hybrid for that matter - on a total of three occasions in Prague since 2004.
Care for Some Water?
You won’t find a Czech restaurant that will serve free water and you won’t find a Czech restaurant that will serve tap water. At the same time, basically every Czech restaurant offers at least one brand of mineral water, which often comes in several varieties: still, lightly sparkling and sparkling. Mineral water, even Czech made, is usually more expensive than Czech beer, sometimes almost twice as much.
If you ask for mineral water at a U.S. restaurant, you may get a confused look from the waiter. Your large glass of iced tap water will arrive free of charge as soon as you sit down and it will be refilled throughout your meal, but mineral water or simply bottled water seems to be an exotic product at many establishments.
The Czech Republic switched to Daylight Saving Time last night. Let’s enjoy the longer, brighter days of spring!
An evening update: It got dark around 7:45. Not bad. 
The MICHELIN Guide Main Cities of Europe 2007 has just been published. Last year I wrote about the Prague restaurants that received the Bib Gourmand, which highlights “good food at moderate prices”. The same three restaurants that received the designation last year, received it again in 2007. They are: Aromi, Brasserie M, and Le Terroir.
Dana and I have enjoyed both Aromi and Brasserie M. We have not yet been to Le Terroir.
The Michelin Guide is famous for its 1 - 2 - 3 star restaurant rating system, with three stars being the highest. Prague still does not have any restaurants that have received a star designation. Neither does Budapest, Hungary or Warsaw, Poland. Budapest and Warsaw each have one restaurant awarded a Bib Gourmand.
Today was the name day of Josef, historically one of the most common Czech first male names. It is an old name and it used to be extremely popular in the past. For example, the village of Josefovice used to have at least one Josef living in every one of its houses (I wonder how the village got its name…). Today, only four Josefs and one Josefa (the female version of the name) are registered in Josefovice.
The name is not on the top of name popularity charts anymore, having given way to names like Filip, Tomáš, Adam, Jan or Lukáš. Out of the 4,700 boys born in January 2007, only 66 were named Josef compared to 320 boys named Jan. According to TV Nova however, there are currently 266,000 Czech men named Josef, which still makes it the fourth most used Czech male name in general. It is no wonder that the Josef name day is still celebrated across the nation and mentioned on the news every year.
And what’s the deal with Pepa, one of the most common diminutive versions of the name Josef? Well, according to linguists, “Pepa” came to us from Italy where the diminutive version of “Giuseppe” (= in Czech “Josef”) is “Beppe”. Who would have thought?
Source: TV Nova
