The Expats Blog Awards 2012 – Bronze Award for the Czech Republic

Further to my previous post, yesterday was judgement day for the ExpatsBlog.com Awards 2012 for the Czech Republic. And I came third – I got the Bronze Award.

I am very grateful to everybody who took the trouble to follow the link in my previous post and ‘left some love’ for my blog in the comment box. I shall say something about those kind comments a little further into this post. There were also, a number of people who promised to go there and leave a comment, but who never did – sigh 🙁 Whilst the number of positive comments was not meant to be the only criteria by which blogs were judged, it is noticeable that the two blogs which finished ahead of me were the two that also got more comments than me.

The winner of the Gold Award was Christopher’s Expat Adventure. Chris is an American who was relocated to Brno a few years ago by his employer IBM. He has taken full advantage of being based in Central Europe to travel widely and, in his blogposts, always gives some interesting background details about each country he visits. He frequently explains the size of a country by relating it to one of the American states – for example ‘Sweden is slightly larger than California’. I do think this is a good idea, especially as I presume a sizeable part of his readership is American, many of whom will have never set foot outside of the USA as 80% of Americans don’t hold a passport.

Chris also writes about his social life and how things differ between the Czech Republic and the USA. He is also good at explaining aspects of Czech culture and history. A recent post was very informative about why there is a Greek community here, something I had only become aware of recently during a conversation I had with a Czech young lady sat next to me on my Prague-Geneva flight in late September.

However, I couldn’t help but note that two of the positive comments were from people who admitted that ‘Chris is my boss’. It did make me wonder how many other of his underlings left comments as a result of an in-house memo 😉 But joking aside – congratulations Chris on your Gold Award.

The Silver Award went to a fellow Brit who blogs as Girl in Czechland. GIC is a young lady who met her ‘Czechman’ whilst he was living and working in the UK. When he decided to return to his native country, GIC moved to Czechland with him, about a year after I moved to Prague.

GIC or Ms Girlová, writes both articulately and humorously of her life here in the Czech Republic. Her posts about visiting the ‘Village People’, her descriptive title for Czechman’s family who live in the Bohemian countryside, are one of the hilarious highlights of her blog.

I’ve been a fan and follower of ‘Girl in Czechland’ from the blog’s very early days and have recommended it to numerous other expats and English-speaking Czechs. I honestly thought Ms Girlová would win the competition and regard it as no disgrace to finish one place behind her. And yes, I do know her true identity, (we’ve met on several occasions), but I do promise not to reveal it – honest!

As promised earlier, I want to say a few more words about the twenty-three comments/reviews my blog received. Those of you who wrote were extremely kind in what you said, describing my writing as, ‘funny, interesting, insightful, informative, warm, incisive, well-written, balanced, smart, eloquent, entertaining and detailed’. It’s left me feeling quite overwhelmed and, if I’m honest – embarrassed.

Several comments were also complimentary about my photographs which I also appreciated. And with regard to content, my frequent examples of that wonderful language I call Czenglish, are clearly enjoyed by many of my readers. I’m sure I’ll have more to share with you in 2013! Who knows? They might just help me win silver or gold, next time around 🙂