The legal driving age in the Czech Republic is 18. You are required to have a zero blood alcohol level when driving and police often conduct breath tests. You must have fastened seat belt and children up to twelve years of age may not travel in the front seat of vehicle. The speed limit is 50 km/h (30 mph) in built-up areas, 90 km/h (60 mph) out of built-up areas and 130 km/h (80 mph) on highways.

If you use any multilane divided highway you have to buy the Highway Sticker for 1200 Kc ($66) and place it on the windshield. The sticker may be purchased at all border crossings, post offices and some gas stations. The fine for driving without the sticker is 20.000 Kc ($1111).

For car emergency service call the automobile and motorcycle club 24 hours a day on the number 1230. In case of an accident the police should be contacted immediately if damage exceeds 100.000 Kc.

D1 pile up

Xmas in Brno

According to tradition, gifts are brought not by Santa but by Ježíšek, or “baby Jesus”. People usually fast on Christmas Eve and only eat a spot of sauerkraut soup to keep them going during the fasting period; traditionally children are encouraged to fast alongside the adults with the promise that the best amongst them will see the “golden pig”, which brings good luck. Fish soup and breaded roasted carp with special homemade potato salad are a traditional dish for the dinner. The gifts are secretly displayed under the Christmas tree (usually a spruce or pine) by one of the adults, usually just before or during dinner. Children have to wait for the ringing of a Christmas bell (one of the decorations on the Christmas tree) – the sign that Ježíšek (little Jesus) has just passed by – to run for the presents. That happens at the end of Christmas dinner meaning – early delivery…...

The competition has really become a bit of a joke to everyone except Karel Gott fans. Gott (photo above )- now 72 years of age – released his first single in 1962 and is the Czech version of Sir Cliff Richard in the UK (Charlie God in English!). Frankly, I think you simply have to be over 60 and Czech to appreciate this singer as I think he is a total joke. But Gott won best make singer last night for the 37th time (that is correct THIRTY SEVEN). What I can’t understand is that, being Communist approved during the totalitarian era, how anyone here can tolerate this ex-communist hack. He has sold over 30 million records apparently – 3 for every man, woman and child in the Czech Republic – it is sad. Here he is ?singing? one of his hits (LOL!)…

Things aren’t much better on the female side either with Lucie Bila (photo below) knocking up 13 wins – but at least this woman can sing…. Here she is singing with a real male Czech singer – Martin Chodur..

The funny thing there is some real talent in this country. But the country itself seems quite conservative and fixated on its idols of yesteryear. Shame really but hopefully it will change over time.

To get an idea of the voting (by text) results for the Czech Nightingales 2011 pop over to its site

Check out Martin Chodur for example….

Or check out Gabriela Gunčíková & Lukáš Adamec …

Or group Charlie Straight….

Funnily enough, outside of Prague, real coffee is sold by Segafredo outlets NOT Starbucks. I prefer Segafredo to be honest but a cup of Starbucks can make a nice change. There are also many private coffee shops that simply offer very good coffee.

Massimo Zanetti founded Segafredo Zanetti. Initially he developed the business within Italy, where it soon became a leader in the licensed and public premises market. The company then extended into the consumer market and large scale retail trade, before going on to conquer the international markets.

Segafredo Zanetti is now the leading Espresso producer in Italy and throughout the world, with more than 70,000 clients and 50 million cups of espresso drunk each day. It certainly appears to be the most common outlet for coffee in Brno….

Sometime in 2012, an Ossuary will open here in Brno. Before doing any renovation or new construction in Brno, it is standard practice to do a preliminary archeological dig, but what they found several years ago under Jakubske namesti or “St. Jacob’s Square” was a surprise to everybody. They found some 50,000 skeletons stuffed under the square into a medieval Ossuary. Once piled in neat rows, at some point water and mud had flooded the gigantic underground ossuary and jumbled the thousands of bones.

The bones, thought to be from the 1600 and 1700s, are believed to have been dug up from an old cemetery to make space for more burials as in most of the ossuaries and catacombs in Europe. It is the sheer amount of skulls, bones and skeletons here, second only to the Catacombs in Paris, that make the Brno ossuary especially significant. It is clear that many of the people died of various disease which can be seen in the coloration of the bones themselves. Though all the bones are tinted yellow — having never been exposed to sunlight — the extra yellow ones likely died of cholera, while the red tinted bones probably died from the plague.

Unfortunately the bones are not yet open to the public. Due to having been exposed to water, the bones are still unsanitary and may carry bacteria and disease, and need to be cleaned before the ossuary can be fully opened to the public. The opening is planned for 2012.

Funny though how the Czech hospitals are run. They are efficient, almost Germanic in many respects. Here is an outline of the day;

6:30pm – Woken up by nurses and orderlies barging into room switching on lights and changing the bedding and handing out clean PJs

7:30am – Breakfast is delivered – typically two rolls and jam

8 – 9am – Doctor’s round preceded by morning meds

11:30-12:30pm – Lunch preceded by meds

1-2pm – Major doctor rounds where head of department is trailed by 50 staff and students and barely stops to say more than “hell, how are you?”

4-5pm – Dinner – typically two rolls and jam

8pm – Night meds round

Midnight – Midnight meds

5am – Blood collection and injections round

Every day the same without fail…..

The hospital I stayed in has its own historical interests too;

The Merciful Brothers´ Hospital in Brno, the second oldest and continually functioning municipal hospital in the country, was established in October 1747 by the Moravian count Jan Křtitel Leopold of Dietrichstein. In 1805, during the Battle of Three Emperors at Slavkov (Austerlitz), not far from Brno, the hospital was occupied by Napoleon´s army and overcrowded by wounded soldiers. During the First World War the hospital was full of wounded people too.

In 1920 electrification of the hospital was carried out. The beginning of communist totality in February 1948 brought about nationalization of the hospital. A new building for Long-term Care Hospital and another one for Rehabilitation Medicine were completed in autumn 1987. Since 1993 the Merciful Brothers´ Hospital has been functioning as an independent contributory organization of the town Brno again. Building of a new, up-to-date, six-storeys high facility for acute medicine started to the end of 2002 and three years later this building was completed. In 2005 the hospital succeeded gaining the international quality certificate ISO 9001:2000. The hospital joined the citizens´association project Baby-box in the same year and by this it became the first hospital in Moravia owning such a rescue box.

At present, the hospital provides care for in-patients on 510 beds every day, the number of in-patients per year being about 14,000 and this of out-patients 130,000. There are 600 stable employees who take care of patients in the Merciful Brothers´Hospital where they work in management and following departments:

Department of Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Medical Care (ARIM)
Department of Surgery
Central Operating Theatres and Sterilization Department
Department of Gynaecology and Obsterics
Department of Neonatology
Department of Internal Medicine
Endoscopy Examination and Treatment Center
Department of Rehabilitative Medicine
Long-term Care and Rehabilitation Hospital Polní
Long-term Care and Rehabilitation Hospital Červený kopec
Department of Radiodiagnostics
Department of Clinical Laboratories with Haematology Examination Center
Neurology Examination Center
Psychology Counseling and Examination Center
Engineering Department
Department of Economics

The Endoscopy Examination and Treatment Center of the hospital rank among the first three Czech hospitals by the number of examinations and treatments accomplished on the colon.

The Merciful Brothers´Hospital has a status of Diabetology Center which is a great success for a municipal hospital as usually only big faculty hospitals can pride themselves on this title. The hospital offers not only a comprehensive therapeutical care of patients suffering from diabetes but also both individual and group education of children and juvenile diabetics.

The Department of Gynaecology and Obsterics noted a record high number of babies (1,507 babies, 1,498 births) born there as soon as in 2006 (comparing with the numbers in previous 25 years) and the number of births has been increasing year by year since. The average number of births per week is approximately 40 to 45. Thanks its attitude to the newborn babies and to the mothers the hospital was graced with the title Baby Friend Hospital. Our daughte was in fact, born there.

My view: Czech healthcare is remarkably good…..

Mr. Parker’s story is one I have hear too many times already living in the Czech Republic this last 6-years and it is one I have little sympathy for frankly. Rather bohemian himself, Parker makes a living teaching English, shepherding tourists and the such like while sampling Czech culture. Prague, and the broader Czech Republic, is stuffed to overflowing with his ilk. It’s not that I dislike him or people like him but more that I have simply heard this story from so many expats I have become bored with it and it simply doesn’t match my own experience in several important respects.

Parker’s initial impressions are one of finding what he had always looked for. A nation experiencing the freshness of ‘freedom’ where beer and everything else is cheap, morals loose, and women’s clothing tight. Those first idyllic years are spent by Parker screwing every Czech woman he can lay his hands on while smoking as much weed as possible, consuming more cheap beer and alcohol than a sinking battleship and generally having a rip roaring time.

His later returns to the Czech Republic (as it became) prove disappointing as he sees the country, politicians and people grasp for unrestrained capitalism before understanding that capitalism doesn’t work for everyone and can be as much of a drudgery as the Communism it replaced. His final experience of trying to open a business (a pub) and people’s attitudes towards him leads him to rue what the country has become and he leaves vowing never to return.

In reality, his vision of people of any nationality appears negative he is equally damning of the English tourist hoards he shepherds around Prague and Central and Eastern Europe as his is of the ‘nation of thieves’ Czechs. Parker’s vision of a true Bohemia is replaced with the reality of a western style capitalist nation desperate to share in the wealth and bounty of the broader E.U. (whether real or imaginary).

The book touts its sense of humor but I rarely laughed at his style of continually using the same jokes throughout the book such as Jan (Honza) and yes is no and no is yes or its normal. Read the book and you will understand my critique.

Like I said, this is a story countless drunken long time ex pats have related to me of how the women just want their money, their Czech wife or girlfriend ran off with their best friend because he had more money, how their Czech friends ripped them off in business etc. etc. etc. I know that some of this is true. But I also know that it could be just as true in London, Houston, Paris or any other city as it might be in Prague. The Czech’s are Czechs. They like to drink. They don’t like to work. Show me a working class Englishman that would disagree with them!

The other thing I didn’t much care for was Parker’s politics. He continually refers to President Klaus as ‘Klaun’ – OK – funny the first time but not the third, fourth or seventieth. He dislikes Thatcher and he hates Klaus. I once watched Klaus on an episode of ‘Hardtalk’ on the BBC and he seemed pretty damned good at offering arguments and pretty bright to me. Has he made mistakes – yes. Is he corrupt – most likely. Is he different to any other European politician – probably not. I like his views on global warming and the EU – they are refreshingly controversial and yes…. very Czech. Parker is of course entitled to his politics but they do color sections of the book in a way that I found not just aggravating but a bit jaundiced frankly.

Is the book worth a read? Yes it is if only for its historical value and a reasonable portrayal of a nation trying to find its way post Communism. Are Czech women like he describes? Yes and No. Some are ready to drop their knickers for a 1000 Crown note but the vast majority are not. Perhaps things have changed and become more cynical – especially the women but I suspect that, inadvertently, the hoards of ‘English Teachers’ and Porn makers who exploited this early on are to blame.

What he doesn’t cover is as equally revealing as what he does. Most ex pats living here in long-term relationships with Czech women have problems with their relationships but its not that their girls are knocking off every guy in town behind their backs or in front of their eyes – in fact, most are simply not like that. No, its the Czech social understanding of what constitutes a good relationship that is different and the problem. Czech women don’t small talk. They don’t talk about the relationship and its problems. The sex that was so good early on is so often is replaced with a need to ‘mother’ their men with good home cooked food, ironing and cleaning and they are devastated to learn that their Ex Pat men would rather this were all replaced with a good hug and some deeper conversation about their relationship. It’s cultural. As Parker would say – its normal. One gets the idea that Parker didn’t have a long lasting enough relationship to experience this?

Perhaps I am being too hard on Mr. Parker. Like I say, it’s a book worth buying and reading but understand…. it’s is one man’s view of this country and it’s a colored view at that.

Now a country with less than 20 million people (actually two countries – Czech and Slovak Republics) only has so much talent…. the net result seems to be twofold;

1. The talent level has gone down….. so far down as to be a joke and,
2. We are now treated to foreign talent entering these shows and making progress….

Enough is enough. NOVA has just announced a new take on the show Voice of Czechoslovakia…. Stop NOW PLEASE….

These days, All Souls Day seems to get confused with Halloween – which is really not something the Czechs have historically followed. Halloween is becoming increasingly popular here though these days and on October 31st, it is possible to see people dressed in costume waiting for a tram to work or planning to go to a Halloween party.

Wikipedia says All Souls’ Day commemorates the faithful departed. In Western Christianity, this day is observed principally in the Catholic Church, although some churches of the Anglican Communion and the Old Catholic Churches also celebrate it. The Eastern Orthodox churches observe several All Souls’ Days during the year. The Roman Catholic celebration is associated with the doctrine that the souls of the faithful who at death have not been cleansed from the temporal punishment due to venial sins and from attachment to mortal sins cannot immediately attain the beatific vision in heaven, and that they may be helped to do so by prayer and by the sacrifice of the Mass. In other words, when they died, they had not yet attained full sanctification and moral perfection, a requirement for entrance into Heaven. This sanctification is carried out posthumously in Purgatory.

By contrast, Halloween is really a pagan festival – Samhain, usually celebrated on or near the evening of OCT-31. It was originally a celebration of the final harvest of the growing season among the ancient Celts. It was also their new year celebration. Today, it is mainly celebrated by Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans.

See my related article on the creepy Brno crypt…

Recently, ABC ran an interview with him on its website called “Whats in Jeopordy, the climate or our freedom’ in which he eloquently defends his views. It’s well worth a peek.

“When I was in Australia twenty years ago, we were still living under the threat of communism. That threat is long gone. Now I feel threatened not by global warming – I don’t see any – but by the global warming doctrine which I consider a dangerous attempt to control our lives in the name of controlling the climate.” he says.

“The global warming alarmists are not interested in our adaptation because they do not want us voluntarily to adapt. They want to change us, our behaviour, our way of life, our values and our preferences. They want to restrict our freedom because they themselves believe they know what is good for us.

I would argue that these alarmists are not interested in the climate. The climate is merely expedient in their ambition to restrict our freedom – and our freedom is what is really endangered here. The climate is just fine.”

President Klaus’s book is fine reading.

Originally posted at Just Hot Air