The Expat Bible without Religion

The expats.cz Survival Guide & Business Directory 2012. Photo © Ricky Yates

In more than one previous blog post, I have mentioned the extremely helpful website expats.cz. For example, it was through the forum on their website that I found Adrian Blank of Nepomuk to help me through the various hoops in order to register my right-hand drive car here in the Czech Republic.

As well as their website, expats.cz also annually publishes the ‘Czech Republic Survival Guide & Business Directory’. A new edition comes out around the end of September each year. We discovered the then new edition of the ‘Survival Guide for 2009’ within a few days of our arrival in Prague back in September 2008. At that time, expats.cz were specifically asking for new locations from which the guide could be distributed to English-speaking expats. Finding it . . . → Read More: The Expat Bible without Religion

Tábor

Tábor with the spire of the Church of the Transfiguration of our Lord © Ricky Yates

As part of my two weeks of annual leave following my return from the Eastern Archdeaconry Synod in Bucharest, Sybille and I spent a long weekend at the beginning of October, staying in Tábor, exploring this fascinating historical town and parts of the surrounding area of South Bohemia. During the whole time we were there, we were blessed by some wonderful ‘Indian Summer’ weather as can be seen in the accompanying photographs featuring very clear blue skies.

Tábor lies about 100 kilometres south-east of Prague and it took us less than two hours to drive there. After walking around the historic centre of the town, we eventually found excellent accommodation in Penzion Modrá ruže which has a gated back yard where we were able to securely park . . . → Read More: Tábor

A local derby football match

My ticket for Bohemians 1905 versus FK Dukla Praha © Ricky Yates

On Sunday 16th October, after celebrating the Eucharist at St. Clement’s Church and chairing a meeting of the Church Council, I went with eight of the guys I play cricket with, to watch a local derby football match – Bohemians 1905 versus FK Dukla Praha. The game was part of the tenth round of matches in the 2011-2012 season of the Gambrinus liga, the top division of Czech football. For the benefit of my American and Australian readers, the sport I am talking about is what you call ‘soccer’ but everybody else in the world calls ‘football’ or fotbal in Czech.

Bohemians’ emblem & mascot is a kangaroo. This apparently dates from a tour the club did to Australia in 1927 when they were given two live kangaroos which they donated to Prague Zoo. One . . . → Read More: A local derby football match

Living in the light of one’s own mortality

Ancient tower and town gate in Tábor © Ricky Yates

I’ve become very aware that in recent months, my blog has been predominantly a travelogue with a bit of history thrown in, together with articles describing the changes taking place in and around the Podbaba area of Prague 6 where I currently live. The more spiritual or reflective posts have been somewhat absent. I hope that with this post, the balance will begin to be corrected.

Last week, the news was dominated by the death of Steve Jobs, the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc, whilst the sports pages reported the death of Graham Dilley, the former England test cricket fast bowler. What most struck me about the death of both these individuals was their age – Jobs was 56 and Dilley only 52 – therefore both were younger than I am now.

Around the . . . → Read More: Living in the light of one’s own mortality

Bucharest

View along a side street in Central Bucharest © Ricky Yates

I spent a further 24 hours in Bucharest following our Archdeaconry Synod meeting, not least because flying back to Prague on Monday afternoon was far cheaper than flying back on Sunday evening! I used the time exploring the city centre by bus and on foot, and I hope that these photographs will give readers of my blog, some impression of what Bucharest is like.

Looking at the photograph on the left, it would be very easy to think that it was taken in Paris or another French city, rather than in Bucharest. And many of the most attractive buildings dating from the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century do display a French architectural style. This is because of the strong French-Romanian links during this time period . . . → Read More: Bucharest