European Tour returns to Czech Republic in 2009 after 12 years
Golf has been gaining in popularity over the years here and this should give it a boost.

Dogs – Czechs’ best friends
I do see a lot of dogs around and unfortunately you have to watch where you step when walking on the sidewalk. 

Season tickets in Prague to be replaced by chip cards
It would be very convenient to buy monthly/yearly tickets or to just add credit online.

I looked down and searched the ground around me. Poison was laid down here… POISON?!? Where here? Around the tree? In what radius around the tree? In the whole park? There was no area specified on the sign or blocked off with tape. We’re supposed to keep an eye on little children and household pets. You mean, so they don’t eat any rat poison granules and die? This particular park is so popular with dog owners that it can almost be called a dog park. There is no leash law in place, so dogs have a free run. What about their paws and the tennis balls they fetch? What about little children’s little shoes and the balls they kick around? Will they all get contaminated with rat poison? Will my dog bring rat poison home on his little feet and spread it around my living room floor? How long is this rat poison that’s somewhere around here going to be a problem? For a few weeks? A few months? A year?

I was both amused at the Czechness of this casual approach to public safety and astonished that it is still allowed and tolerated in this country. I can picture the same situation in the USA: The whole park blocked off, red tape everywhere, large Keep Away! and Caution! Health Hazard! signs placed in several prominent locations around the area. Of course that’s only on the assumption that any U.S. city authorities would even contemplate the use of rat poison in a public park, which I doubt very much. Well, we Czechs are just a little more laid back I guess.

Prague spiders have been discussed briefly in the spiders thread on our message boards.

It’s a wedding mania day in the Czech Republic. Today’s lucky date of 07/07/07 is making many couples believe that this is the perfect day to enter into a marriage that’s going to be blessed, happy and will last a lifetime. Town halls, churches, castles and chateaus around the country are seeing twice as many weddings as usual and some popular wedding locations have been booked for up to a year in advance.

Just passing by Náměstí Míru, Jeff and I saw a wedding in progress at the St. Ludmila Church. I’m sure other Prague churches and town halls were busy as well. May all you newlyweds live long and happy lives together!

I was at a bank yesterday and overheard a conversation between a very bored looking teenager and his upbeat mother. The mother was making all kinds of plans for the summer and talked about all the fun stuff that her son and his brothers can look forward to – summer camp, visits with relatives, camping, traveling around the Czech Republic (”you can even bring your friend along”)… All the boy had to say was: “Stupid summer break”. I couldn’t believe my ears. What’s not to love about summer break??

An article that came out yesterday talks about a new set of high-tech tools that many U.S. cities have purchased and are using successfully in reducing the incidence of graffiti vandalism and increasing the rate of arrests and fines. I wish the City of Prague took a similar approach. Judging from the ever present scrawls around the city center (take Ječná Street for example), it seems that nothing much is being done about the graffiti problem in Prague.

In the Czech Republic, paying by cash can be a complicated business. For a reason that I have not yet figured out, Czech stores seem to be constantly desperate for change. If you use a 1000 CZK bill (roughly 35 EUR/50 USD) to pay for 174 CZK worth of groceries, you will likely put the cash register person in a difficult situation or at least get yourself into an unwanted discussion. If you don’t have 174 crowns, you should at least be decent enough and offer 204. Only someone inconsiderate or grossly unprepared will offer a thousand crown bill. Such a troublemaker will receive a sigh and a question “Nemáte menší?” (Do you have anything smaller?). If you don’t, they’ll plead for at least four crowns.

I was at a drugstore and it was one of those days when all I had in my wallet were a few thousand crown bills that I had just gotten out of the ATM. That’s already bad enough to even enter the store, I thought. Let alone in the morning before the store has been able to collect enough change from the customers. On the other hand, I thought it would be ridiculous for me to just go home without making the purchases I needed to make and to return to the store when I had smaller bills on hand. I don’t remember what my shopping came to but it wasn’t much. Probably a couple hundred crowns. Of course I ran into trouble when I handed over my thousand crown bill. After some discussion and my assurances that it’s really all I have, the cash register woman got up and went into the back of the store to discuss the situation with her colleagues. The line behind me started getting longer and I started feeling like an offender who’s creating trouble for the cash register people, the other customers waiting in line, the whole store… Finally, the lady brought some change and I was rescued. I don’t know where she got it but it is not uncommon for desperate shop employees or their colleagues to search through their own wallets to break a large bill, or to go hunting for change in neighboring shops.

Another situation that “tought me a lesson” happened on a train once. I had bought a ticket for second class but after boarding the train, I found the second class cars to be pretty full, so I decided to move to first class and pay the supplement directly to the conductor. This is a normal thing to do, at least according to the Czech Railways rules of train travel. The supplement came to some 120 CZK and when I handed the conductor my 500 CZK bill, he looked at me like I was crazy and announced that he’s not able to make change because he doesn’t have any. I stared at him, not knowing quite how to react. Do I have to go back to second class then? Do I get to ride on first class for free? Why is this my problem anyway? I want to pay you, I have the money, here you go, please just give me my ticket. I waited for the conductor to solve what I considered to be his problem. All he did was insist that there is nothing he can do and he casually suggested that I go check with some other passengers to see if they can break my “large” bill. Of course I was extremely excited at the idea of bothering complete strangers and asking them for money. I finally understood that there was no other way if I wanted to keep my seat. So I went from compartment to compartment, asking for change, feeling like an idiot. I wondered two things: Why does the conductor have no money on him when one of his jobs is to sell tickets and supplements? And why was it me and not the conductor who had to go look for change?

I have almost become paranoid about having small change whenever I need to buy something. I check my wallet sometimes before going out and get change from Jeff if I think I’ll need it. I carefully plan where I’m going to break my large bills (imagine my concern when all that the ATM spits out are 2000 CZK notes!). I know that it’s good to pay with a large bill at a restaurant and save the change for my evening trip to the grocery store. I try to be good and proactively search through my wallet when paying so that I can come up with the exact amount and earn some gratitude at the cash register.

Cash register employees in the United States have neat little packages of coins stacked next to the register, so they can dump a new set of quarters or dimes or nickles into their little change drawer every time they run out. The customer is not bothered, the employee is free of worries. Why is it that no store owner in the Czech Republic has ever thought of this brilliant solution?

To Jesse: In my opinion, the word “kačka” as in “a crown” comes from the abbreviation “Kč”, which is pronounced as “ká čé”.

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.

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.

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!