Prague Expat Life

Through Advent to Christmas

Interior view of St. Clement's Church, Prague on the Fourth Sunday of Advent © Ricky Yates — 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 prepare ourselves to be ready to celebrate the Incarnation at Christmas, it is inevitable, especially with mainly expatriate congregations like mine, that earlier celebrations of Christmas intrude into the Advent season in the form of Services of Lessons and Carols.

Therefore, maintaining the established pattern of having worship on the second Sunday of the month in Brno, we held a Service of Lessons and Carols there on the evening of Sunday 8th December. This effectively marked the second anniversary of the establishment of the Brno Anglican congregation, as we held our first ever service in Brno; also one of Lessons and Carols, in December 2011.

This year’s Brno Carol Service was a real encouragement as several of the existing small congregation, invited other friends who came along and attended for the first time. We also were joined by a British/Romanian couple who had just discovered us via our Church website. Together, we made a very joyful noise with our singing of familiar Christmas Carols, interspersed by readings from scripture. It is a shame that it will be a full five weeks before our next Brno service on Sunday 12th January 2014. But all of the new worshippers gave me their contact details and were keen to join us again in the new year.

The following Sunday evening, 15th December, we held the Prague Service of Lessons and Carols. There was a similar programme to the Brno service but with the addition of three delightful solos. The congregation itself was a mixture of regulars, some infrequent Church attendees, together with a number of visitors. Seasonal refreshments in the warmth of the Church Hall in Klimentská 18 following the service, gave me a chance to talk with at least some of the new faces.

The Carly under light snow © Ricky Yates

We have yet to have any really severe winter weather in Prague though we did get a dusting of snow on the day before the Brno Carol Service.

Sunset on the evening of Sunday 15th December © Ricky Yates

And we have also been treated to several delightful sunsets. This one is from the evening of Sunday 15th December just before leaving the Chaplaincy Flat for the Prague Carol Service

Sunset on the evening of Saturday 21st December - the winter solstice © Ricky Yates — Sunset on the evening of Saturday 21st December – the winter solstice © Ricky Yates

Whilst this one is from the evening of Saturday 21st December – the winter solstice.

The following day was the Fourth Sunday of Advent. As can be seen in the slightly fuzzy photograph at the beginning of this post, not only did we have the wonderful hanging Advent Ring with all four candles lit, our host Czech congregation had also erected their Christmas Tree, ready for the forthcoming days of the Christmas season.

Our Gospel reading last Sunday, told of the annunciation of the birth of Jesus to Joseph as recorded in Matthew 1. 18-25. Together with the Old Testament reading, Isaiah 7. 10-16, they are the only two places in scripture where the name ‘Emmanuel – God is with us’, appears. We therefore had to sing that great mediaeval Advent hymn, translated from the original Latin, ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’, that expresses our longing for the coming of Christ – for God to come down and dwell with us.

But we ended our worship by singing a twentieth century hymn by the Methodist hymn-writer Fred Pratt Green, ‘Long ago, prophets knew’. At the end of the first three verses, the question is asked, ‘When he comes, when he comes, who will make him welcome?’ But in the chorus that follows the fourth and final verse, a positive affirmation is made; ‘Jesus comes! Jesus comes! We will make him welcome!’

If you are unfamiliar with this modern Advent hymn, I found this version on You Tube. Don’t be confused by the opening with a couple of lines of ‘This is the truth sent from above’, sung by a soloist – the correct hymn then follows! May we all be ready this Christmas, to make welcome, God with us – Emmanuel.

How to be Czech in 10 easy steps – revisited

0.5 of a litre of Gambrinus Czech beer © Ricky Yates — 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 nearly one thousand, together with numerous ‘tweets’ on Twitter, and ‘shares’ on Google+. The post also got highly rated for some time, on the social news and entertainment website, ‘reddit‘.

Since visitor numbers to my blog returned to more normal levels in mid-March, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps’ has still remained as one of the most popular landing pages for new visitors to the blog. This has coincided with a gradual rise in Facebook ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, to around 1,100.

Then, in the past ten days, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps’, has suddenly gone viral once again. From my blog having 47 visitors on 4th December, it suddenly shot up to 641 visitors the next day, and peaked at 1301 on 7th December. Yesterday, the visitor total was still nearly ten times the normal figure at 422. Once again it has been thanks to publicity, via social media, of this particular post. Even whilst drafting this new post, the number of Facebook ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ it has received, broke through the 2100 barrier!

The original post also attracted 77 comments. I think I am right in saying that this is the largest number of comments on any of the 252 posts here on my blog. In view of the recent upsurge, I suspect there would have been more comments, except for the policy I adopted more than two years ago, of not allowing comments on posts that are more than three months old, in an attempt to help reduce the number of spam comments I have to delete every day. However, real comments are most welcome on this new post 🙂

I really enjoyed reading and replying to all the comments, the original post received. In particular, I appreciated the many English-speaking Czechs, who could recognise what I was describing and were able to laugh and smile about themselves. There were several commenters who thanked me for being positive, rather than negative, about Czech people and their culture. This was always my intention. As I’ve written previously on this blog, I enjoy living here. The main thing I take issue with are the absurdities of Czech bureaucracy, which I know many Czech people get frustrated with too! I have no time for foreigners who constantly complain about living in the Czech Republic. There is a simple answer to their problem – go back to your home country!

Inevitably, there were several additional suggestions as to things I should also have included in my original post. With my first point, ‘Drink beer’, I should really have also added ‘or Kofola’. Kofola is a communist era product that was a substitute for Coca-Cola or Pepsi, which has enjoyed a nostalgic resurgence in recent years. Point 8, ‘Get a dog’, should really have been extended to, ‘or a cat’. And as part of point 7, going out into ‘the nature’, the important autumnal activity of ‘mushrooming’, should certainly have been highlighted.

Inevitably, ever since writing the original post in February, I have been on the look out to observe further examples that confirm what I wrote. I have to say that they are rarely hard to find 🙂 This particularly applies to point 3 of my original blog post, ‘Dress Czech’.

As I wrote there, ‘In the Czech Republic, you will frequently see a mother and her daughter out walking together, with the daughter pushing a buggy containing her new-born infant. You will then often notice that there is a competition between mother and the new grandma, as to which one has the shorter hemline’.

Two weeks ago, Sybille & I paid our regular Saturday morning visit to the Farmers Market at Vítezné námestí. Afterwards, we stopped off at Bar-Restaurace U topolu, for lunch. Soon after we sat down in the Bar-Restaurant, a three-generation family group came in. There was a toddler in a buggy being pushed by the child’s mother who would have been in her late twenties/early thirties. Behind them came the mother’s parents – grandparents of the toddler. Whilst the mother was in jeans and trainers, the relatively new grandmother was wearing knee-high boots, black tights, and a skirt that finished several centimetres above her knees!

A few days later, we were in another of our favourite haunts, Restaurace Pod Juliskou, when another family group came in and sat on the table next to us, this time without a young child. There was the daughter, again either late twenties or early thirties, together with her parents. Whilst the daughter was wearing what I call the Czech female winter look – spray-on jeans tucked into knee-high boots, together with serious heels, her mother was in a thigh-high woollen mini-dress, teamed with black patent leather knee-high boots!

A week last Tuesday, I attended a follow-up appointment with my dermatologist at Vojenská nemocnice, the Military Hospital, for treatment of another basal cell carcinoma, the commonest and least dangerous form of skin cancer, from which I periodically suffer. In the good Czech fashion of beginning work early in the day, my appointment was for 08.00. I duly arrived at 07.55 to check-in, to be greeted by a receptionist in a short red top that revealed part of her midriff and a serious amount of cleavage. It was a look that her boyfriend or husband would have enjoyed whilst sharing a romantic evening dinner, but not what I really wanted to see at 08.00 in the morning, before having my face attacked with liquid nitrogen!

Also in the past week, whilst leaving the metro and heading towards the escalator, a lady walked straight into me because she was trying read a whole series of notes, whilst walking along at the same time. Point 9 of my original post applies!

Therefore, in view of the continued high level of interest in my observations of how to be Czech, I am working on expanding the original post into a book. I started on the project in August when I took a week of my annual leave and tried to use the time to write. I am hoping to resume writing when I try and take a few days off as my post-Christmas break. In the meantime, there might have to be slightly fewer posts here on my blog 🙂

Update January 2014

In total breach of copyright, Prásk! the online tabloid newspaper belonging to the TV Nova Group, have published an abbreviated and very badly translated version of the original post – a complete act of plagiarism.

Discovering the Way of Saint James in the Czech Republic

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 German-speaking Czech and suggests that it is possible to complete the journey in ten days.

Over the past five years, we have from time-to-time talked about trying to use this guidebook and walk from Prague to the German border. But for a variety of reasons, the idea has never until now, become a reality. However, last Monday on my day-off, we finally set out to explore a short section of the route just outside the confines of the city of Prague.

We were particularly keen to discover how well the route is waymarked. We were already aware that there are no yellow arrows or scallop shell markings, showing the way from Kostel sv. Jakuba, through the Old Town, across Vltava River and out of the city. But both the German guide and my 1: 50 000 Turistická Mapa, seemed to indicate that waymarking should exist, beyond the outskirts of Prague.

We took the train out to the small town of Radotin, and following lunch in a town centre bar-restaurant, found the route where it passes through Namestí sv Petra a Pavla, the square in front of the parish Church of Radotin, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. It was here that I photographed the sign at the beginning of this post. The little blue and gold scallop shell emblems, show that the route from Zbraslav and heading via Vonoklasy to Karlštejn, is part of the Svatojakubská cesta – the Way of Saint James.

Bridge across the Berounka River with Kostel sv Petra a Pavla © Ricky Yates — Bridge across the Berounka River with Kostel sv Petra a Pavla, Radotin © Ricky Yates

As the sign also indicates, it is a ‘red route’ and therefore waymarked with by red and white marks, very similar to the French balises that mark long distance footpaths in France. At this point, it is also part of a European long distance footpath, the E10. We set out and walked towards Zbraslav, heading back towards Prague. The route took us over this footbridge across the Berounka River. Red and white waymarks were plentiful making the route quite easy to follow.

Former monastery at Zbraslav © Ricky Yates

As we walked down a steep wooded path towards Zbraslav, through the trees we were able to see this former monastery below us, with a Church dedicated to St. James – its small tower with a golden orb and cross, is just visible in the photograph. Unfortunately, the whole complex is now in private hands and appears not to be open to the public. I took the photograph below, by putting my camera through the metal gates that keep the grounds around the former monastery, secure from interested intruders 🙁

Former Monastery & Church of St. James, Zbraslav © Ricky Yates

In the main square of Zbraslav is where unfortunately, waymarking of the pilgrimage route comes to an end. The red route/E10 heads eastwards across a bridge over the Vltava River, whereas the pilgrimage route to/from Prague, remains on the western side of the river. So far as we can establish, there is no waymarking at all between Prague and Zbraslav.

However, there are much more encouraging signs further west. Whilst our German guidebook only describes the route from Prague to Tillyschanz, it does mention an alternative more southerly route, that leaves the one described in the guidebook at Karlštejn, and heads via Príbram and Klatovy, and then crosses the border about six kilometres before reaching the small Bavarian town of Eschlkam. Between Príbram and Klatovy, is the small town of Nepomuk, where my friend Adrian Blank is based, who has regularly helped me with repairs and servicing of my car.

On the outskirts of Nepomuk, there is another Kostel sv. Jakuba / Church of St. James by which this more southerly route passes. When visiting Adrian in January earlier this year, I discovered a display board near the Church with a map showing this pilgrimage route, together with this newly installed sign indicating the distance to Santiago de Compostela.

Debunking a popular myth

Only in the CR — 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 to this very blatant example of the use of sex’. I then added, ‘However, it is little more than what you can regularly see here. Only today, whilst having lunch with a member of the congregation, there was a lady across from us in the restaurant, showing a very similar amount of cleavage!’

There followed another comment, from one of my cricket playing friends, who observed that it was very interesting that I was able to make such an accurate comparison. Whilst I know the author was also trying to be humorous, he was reflecting a commonly held belief about the clergy which I’ve regularly heard voiced. It is one I wish to very thoroughly debunk – hence this post!

I wish to assure all the readers of my blog that there is NOT a third asexual gender of the human race called clergy. We are all normal human beings, either male, as in my case – or increasingly, I’m pleased to say, female. We, both men and women, live in the real world and observe and experience things, just like other human beings do.

Unfortunately, what my cricket playing friend was implying, as I’ve already indicated, is nothing new. I have an abiding memory of a pastoral visit I made very soon after I was ordained. I went to visit a young married couple who had asked for the baptism of their first child. When I arrived at the house, the mother and child were at home, together with the fairly young new grandmother – the mother’s mother. Whilst we were waiting for the father to return home, I had a casual conversation with the new grandmother during which I happened to mention in passing, a young lady wearing a rather short skirt. Her immediate response was, “I didn’t think the clergy were meant to notice such things”. 🙂

An associated question which I often get asked – ‘Have you always been a clergyman?’ – may partly explain why so many people think that all clergy must be asexual. Whilst it is nice to be asked about my background, it does seem to me that the implication behind the question is that I was somehow born with a dog collar around my neck. Let me assure my readers of the incorrect nature of that assumption too!

Like the vast majority of clergymen and clergywomen who serve in the Church of England these days, prior to training for ordination, I had a career in the secular world, latterly as Area Sales Manager for a publishing company. Whilst I came to Christian faith at the beginning of my teenage years, I wasn’t ordained until I was thirty-seven years old. It is my firm belief that my experience of working in secular employment over many years, enables me to relate to and hopefully better understand, those people I am now called to minister to as an ordained Anglican priest.

However, ordination has not changed the person who I am, nor my male gender. It doesn’t stop me observing ladies wearing short skirts or showing plenty of cleavage. And as I have previously written under point three of ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps‘, there is often a lot of both on view here in the Czech Republic 🙂 I may be called to be a priest in the Church of England, but I am still human and my gender has not changed – honestly!

November – a time of change

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 the UK, and also the Republic of Ireland and Portugal. Whilst the clocks always change on a fixed date – the early hours of the morning of the last Sunday in October – there is never any guarantee that the seasons and the weather will change in a synchronised manner. However, last week we had our first overnight frost and most of the leaves have now fallen from the trees. Autumn is rapidly changing to winter.

When Sybille and I moved to Prague more than five years ago, in September 2008, the third bedroom of the Chaplaincy Flat, was already furnished as an office, with a desk, bookshelves and a rather simple trolley on which was situated a printer/scanner/photocopier. Some time ago, the bottom shelf of the trolley collapsed when I put too much weight on it. More recently, the only reason it has remained reasonably upright, is because part of the metal trolley frame, was leaning against the wall! Before the printer/scanner/photocopier ended up in a heap on the floor, we decided that a change was required.

Late last week, we visited the IKEA store at Zlicín on the outskirts of Prague, in search of a replacement for the collapsing trolley. A three drawer chest that had the correct dimensions to fit into the corner where the trolley was located, seemed the best purchase. Thus I successfully put together a piece of flat-pack furniture for the first time in several years. The end result is very much a change for the better, as all the things that were on the trolley shelves, are now stored in the drawers of the new chest, where they cannot fall down or gather dust.

Last Tuesday, I met Her Excellency Jan Thompson, the new British Ambassador to the Czech Republic, for the first time. Jan arrived here in August and presented her credentials to President Zeman, at the beginning of September. She replaces H. E. Sian MacLeod with whom I had a very good working relationship, not least through hosting the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, during their visit to the Czech Republic in March 2010.

As part of a commendable and very understandable exercise of beginning to learn about and comprehend, the British expatriate community living here in the Czech Republic, Jan had invited Christian ministers working with British citizens, to afternoon tea at the British Embassy. Amongst those present were Rev’d Gareth Morris who is pastor to the International Baptist Church, together with his wife Elizabeth, and Major Mike and Major Ruth Stannett, who head up the the work of the Salvation Army throughout the Czech Republic.

The Ambassador was keen to both learn about our work, and to have our insights on life in the Czech Republic. Just like her predecessor, she has had over six months of individual language training and was able to present her credentials to the President, speaking in Czech, much to his surprise! After all that hard work, it does seem a shame that she is likely only to be here for four years before there is another Ambassador change.

There is another change that I have noticed at the British Embassy, over the time that I have lived here. With the exception of a relatively small number of senior positions that are held by British nationals, all the other staff are now Czech or Slovak. When I met my first British Ambassador, (I’m now on my third 🙂 ), the PA who set up my meeting, was a British young lady, who was on secondment for a few years from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.

Now the Ambassador’s PA is a delightful Czech young lady, who first sought my help for names and contact details of those she ought to invite to afternoon tea with the Ambassador. Likewise, all the staff of the consular section, dealing with lost passports, Brits who run foul of the Czech police etc, are also Czech or Slovak. The reasoning behind this change is almost certainly one of cost. Czech staff are cheaper to employ and have no additional expense of being moved from, and eventually back to, the United Kingdom. But it does seem slightly strange as a British Citizen, to be mainly dealing with non-Brits at my own Embassy 🙂

My car parked in the snow last winter © Ricky Yates

Last Wednesday, I paid a visit to my good friend Adrian Blank in Nepomuk, so that my car could experience an important change – from summer to winter tyres. This is the first winter that I’ve done this, as previously the car has been little used during the winter months. But after a couple of somewhat hairy return trips from Brno in falling snow last winter, this year I’ve purchased and had fitted, a completely new set of winter tyres. They certainly gave a very smooth return journey last Wednesday. And I shall be most interested to experience the promised improvement in grip and control they are meant to provide, once the snow and frost do arrive.

Finally for this post, there is one change that the Czech nation is still waiting for – a change of government. On the last weekend in October, the Czechs went to the polls to elect a new lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. The background to the election and its eventual outcome, would require a further post in its own right. But if a stable government is to be formed, it will need a three/four party coalition. Talks between the parties are under way, but lurking in the background is a President who has his own ideas of what should happen. Watch this space!

The Green Party campaigning in Pelhrimov © Ricky Yates