By Ricky, on December 24th, 2013
Interior view of St. Clement’s Church, Prague on the Fourth Sunday of Advent © Ricky Yates
As I start compiling this post, so it has just gone dark outside, therefore meaning that Advent has ended and the Christmas season has begun. I’m very aware that I’ve only written and posted one blogpost during Advent this year and that was in no way related to this important liturgical season. So this my small attempt to make amends by reflecting on the past twenty-four days of Advent 2013.
For once, this year Advent started on the day all manufacturers of Advent calenders think it always does – 1st December. For those who don’t know, Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas Day, thus meaning it can begin as early as 27th November or as late as 3rd December. Whilst we should use the season to help . . . → Read More: Through Advent to Christmas
By Ricky, on December 15th, 2013
Half a litre of Gambrinus Czech beer © Ricky Yates
Ten months ago, I published a blog post entitled ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps‘, based on my experience at that time, of having lived as a cizinec / foreigner in the Czech Republic for nearly four and a half years. To my utter amazement, this post almost immediately went viral. It resulted in the blog getting 2040 visits on 20th February 2013, the day after it was published, and 1034 visits the following day. It took another three weeks before the daily visitor numbers returned to the more normal figure of around fifty.
I found the main reason for this sudden upsurge of visitor numbers in the social media buttons at the end of the post. The number of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ on Facebook rapidly rose from zero, to . . . → Read More: How to be Czech in 10 easy steps – revisited
By Ricky, on November 28th, 2013
Svatojakubská cesta – the Way of Saint James © Ricky Yates
As Sybille and I have, at different times, both made a walking pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, ever since moving to Prague more than five years ago, we have sought to discover more about pilgrimage routes that lead from the Czech Republic, via Germany and Switzerland, to link with the well-established paths in France and Spain.
Soon after we arrived in Prague, we managed to purchase a guidebook in German entitled, ‘Der Jakobsweg von Prag bis Tillyschanz/Eslarn‘. It describes a route starting at Kostel sv. Jakuba / Church of St. James, located in the Old Town centre of Prague, heading in a roughly south-westerly direction to the German border at Tillyschanz, a small village four kilometres from the Bavarian town of Eslarn. The guide is the work of three Germans and one . . . → Read More: Discovering the Way of Saint James in the Czech Republic
By Ricky, on November 20th, 2013
Sign outside a bar in Karlín © Ricky Yates
On my day-off a week last Monday, Sybille and I were exploring the side streets of the Prague suburb of Karlín, when we came across this sign outside a local Czech bar. We both smiled broadly when we saw it and duly took a few photographs. We did then enjoy a quiet drink inside the premises.
A day or two later, I posted this photograph on Facebook with the cryptic comment, ‘Only in the Czech Republic….. 🙂 ‘ It almost immediately got several ‘likes’ and a number of humorous comments. But I was also asked by more than one person, exactly what I was seeking to imply by my comment.
In response I wrote as follows. ‘Whilst acknowledging that sex is widely used by advertisers to sell products, my ‘only in the Czech Republic’ comment, referred . . . → Read More: Debunking a popular myth
By Ricky, on November 9th, 2013
Prague Castle & the Vltava River © Ricky Yates
As October has become November, so many aspects of my life and the situations around me with which I interact, have changed. I’ve therefore decided that this provides an overarching theme for a new blog post 🙂
As all across Europe, overnight between Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th October, our clocks changed, going back one hour. I write this, partly for the benefit of my British son-in-law who some months ago, famously remarked, ‘I don’t suppose the clocks change where you are?’ Well yes – they do! At the same time as the United Kingdom was moving from British Summer Time (BST), back to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), here in the Czech Republic, we changed from Central European Summer Time (CEST), back to Central European Time (CET). This means that we remain one hour ahead of . . . → Read More: November – a time of change
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