The “Hello Boys” Wonderbra ad from 1994 featuring Czech supermodel Eva Herzigová has recently been voted the best poster ad that has appeared on UK streets in the past 50+ years. The poll was run by the Outdoor Media Centre and attracted a lot of attention from the public.

Eva Herzigova’s Wonderbra ad tops Outdoor Hall of Fame

The Outdoor Hall of Fame

The Czech artist David Černý created a life-size sculpture of Sigmund Freud, which was originally installed on Jilská Street in Prague. The sculpture was hung on a metal rod over the street from the top of a building. According to an article on the České Noviny (ČTK) website, the sculpture has been shown in Europe and in the U.S. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, the latest city to host the installation, the “Hanging Man” was hung on a seven story building and a number of citizens thought it was was a real person who had taken their own life. The sculpture will make it back to Prague one day, so if you see it here, you’ll know it is just Freud hanging out.

The “Hanging Man” in Prague

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.

OMG, Those Commercials!

All of a sudden, I found American network TV almost impossible to watch due to the irritatingly frequent commercial breaks. I somehow got used to the commercials when I lived in the U.S. a few years ago, but it seems to me that they came on even more often this time.

For example, I watched an episode of Desperate Housewives and I swear the program was interrupted every 10 minutes. That’s five commercial breaks in a one-hour show. Needless to say, I didn’t try watching another episode. If I’m not mistaken, Prima TV that airs the Desperate Housewives in the Czech Republic interrupts each episode only once, approximately in the middle, for about seven minutes. TV Nova shows commercials every 20 – 25 minutes for about three minutes per break, so a one-hour show is interrupted twice. I can pretty much live with that. Now if only they would stop bothering me with laundry detergent, yogurt and free calling minutes over and over again! A bit more variety wouldn’t hurt, guys!

Smoking or Non-Smoking? Who Cares?

California restaurants are blessed with clean air. There is a state-wide ban on smoking in public places, so you never, ever have to have that little “Smoking or non-smoking?” conversation with the waiter as you enter a restaurant. You never have to scan the room to find a table that’s as far as possible from any customers who are smoking or may start at any minute (see the pack of cigarettes sitting on their table?). You don’t have to assess every newcomer and guess whether or not he looks like a smoker and if he does, whether or not he is heading for a table near yours. You can freely go to a restaurant you’ve never been to before without wondering if they’ll have a non-smoking section and without needing Plan B in case they don’t. You can come home from dinner with your clothes smelling the way they did when you left. Which means that you don’t have to take your smelly clothes to the dry cleaner…

Public Transport (or the Nonexistence Thereof)

From 1999 to 2004, Jeff and I lived in a suburban town in the San Francisco Bay Area that had a population of some 40,000 people. We had virtually no public transport available. I think there was a bus running between some of the neighboring towns about once or twice a day, but it was on a schedule that was of no use to us and we never figured out where the bus stops were. We each had to have a car to be able to function on a daily basis. We experienced a similar situation in Austin, TX, a city of about 600,000 people, where we lived in the late 1990s. Austin seemed to have regular bus lines in operation, but these buses were used by a fraction of the population – those who couldn’t afford to own a car, and occasionally me… Back then we only had one car available, which Jeff used for his daily commute, so whenever I needed to get somewhere and the car wasn’t around, I either walked along the side of the road (usually being the only person walking) or I took the near empty bus, feeling strange.

The lack of frequent, dependable and convenient public transportation struck me again on our recent visit to the Bay Area. I have gotten very accustomed to taking public transport around Prague and the Czech Republic over the past two years. It’s become second nature to me and I have felt relieved to not have to depend on a car to get me places. We don’t even own a car now and don’t have the need for one. Prague’s public transport is excellent and even the little Moravian village I come from with a population of 800 is served by 10 trains and 24 buses throughout a work day.

The California town we stayed in on our February trip requires the use of a car to get absolutely anywhere and everywhere. To the grocery store, to a restaurant, to the post office, to a DVD rental store, to the dentist, or to the park where you can drive yourself to … take a walk. Getting from one town to another usually requires you to drive as well, unless you’re lucky enough to be traveling between two cities that are connected by the Bay Area Rapid Transit train (BART). But then again, once you step off BART, there is often no convenient way for you to get to your destination without driving. So you get off the train and head for the parking lot to get in your car. Except for San Francisco and some of the cities right on the BART line, there are no local buses, trolleys or trains, not even taxis to take you home.

How do American kids get to school? From what I’ve seen, the real little ones take the school bus. It’s a cute idea and it works. But when kids get older, their parents usually have to drive them to school in the morning and pick them up again in the afternoon. You don’t want to find yourself driving at the time of “school traffic”, which can cause congestion on the roads. Once a teenager turns 16, she may get a driver’s license and her parents may give her a car, so she can start driving herself to school and back. American high schools and colleges are equipped with large parking lots where the students park their cars for the day. I still find myself dumbfounded by this concept. In the Czech Republic, kids either walk to school or take regular public transportation. Being driven to and from school by your parents is unheard of, or at least it was in my school days.

A car is supposed to give you freedom, but I distinctly remember how the ever present necessity to drive made me feel confined and unfree sometimes when I lived in the U.S. Sure, having to rely on public transport is limiting as well, but I just love having the option to hop on a Prague tram or take the train or bus almost anywhere I want to go in the Czech Republic. I think it is really unfortunate that the U.S. is such a car dependent nation. Sadly, the number of cars on Czech roads has been increasing steadily and congestion has become a common problem in large cities and on some freeways. I just hope we Czechs will know our limits and won’t start attaching two and three-car garages to our homes any time soon.

Purple Hair (or the Absence Thereof)

In the course of our 17-day stay in California, we didn’t see a single person with their hair dyed red or purple. It really struck me as quite a noticeable difference compared to the Czech Republic where these odd hair colors seem to have been the rage for years. I don’t know what it is that drives so many Czech women to color their hair red or purple, but besides blonde, these shades are very popular over here. An American friend was visiting Prague recently and asked me if I could explain a mystery about Czech women that had been puzzling him for years. I was curious to know what it was and, on a full Prague tram, he whispered in my ear: “Purple hair!”. I did not have an answer for him…

I finally noticed a woman with reddish hair at the Frankfurt airport on our way home. She was waiting for the connecting flight to Prague. I soon discovered she was Czech.

The world-renowned fashion designer Blanka Matragi who is Czech by origin and lives in Lebanon with her husband is currently exhibiting her latest collection in the Municipal House in Prague. The exhibition was preceded by an evening fashion show on September 22, the proceeds from which were contributed to the reconstruction of Lebanon damaged in the recent Israel/Lebanon conflict.

The exhibition runs from September 24 to October 15 and has been extremely successful.

The six annual series of New Czech Films, organized by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Czech Center New York, is underway and continues through Sunday. Screenings include Up and Down (Horem pádem) and Czech Dream (Český sen).

By way of the Slavs of New York! blog.