By Ricky, on November 16th, 2011
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
By Ricky, on June 30th, 2011
The ‘Carly’ at Nepomuk having a new crankshaft sensor fitted © Ricky Yates
In order to legally keep a car on the road in the United Kingdom, it has to have an MOT certificate. This shows that it has passed its MOT test, proving that it is mechanically sound and its exhaust emissions are within the accepted limits. The abbreviation MOT comes from ‘Ministry of Transport’, the then government department which first introduced the test in 1960.
In the Czech Republic, the equivalent of an MOT test is also known by a set of initials – STK. These stand for Stanice technické kontroly / Technical Inspection Station. Whilst in the UK, once a car is three years old, it has to pass an MOT test annually, in the Czech Republic the STK test only has to be undertaken once every two years.
As I wrote in . . . → Read More: Stanice technické kontroly – STK
By Ricky, on December 31st, 2010
In the bleak mid-winter….. © Ricky Yates
Today is 31st December – New Year’s Eve. In Czech it is known as Silvestr as we discovered last year when the car park attendant at our local Billa supermarket wished us ‘hezky Silvestr’ as we gave him our ticket at the barrier. Sybille immediately knew what he meant as today is Silvester in German. And the reason for the name? In the Roman Catholic Church, today is the feast day of St. Sylvester/Pope Sylvester I who died on 31st December 335.
This post is really just a quick update on the things I’ve written about in my three previous December blog posts.
Weather
Not only did winter, with considerable snowfall, come early to Prague this year – it hasn’t gone away! We had a white Christmas with snow already on the ground and more fine powdery snow falling as . . . → Read More: Silvestr – New Year’s Eve
By Ricky, on January 18th, 2010
Town Hall, Klatovy. The two plaques referred to below are either side of the bottom left window. © Ricky Yates
When I moved to live and work in the Czech Republic in September 2008, I believed I had a pretty good grasp of European History. I had studied the subject for many years at school and it was one of the three subjects I read, along with Geography and Theology, during my first year as an undergraduate student at university. However, during these past 16 months, my historical knowledge and understanding has been greatly increased as I’ve sought to understand the Czech people and this country which has become my current adopted home.
Good students of history do not just learn dates and places when and where certain events took place, such as knowing that the Battle of White Mountain occurred in 1620 on a hill . . . → Read More: Correcting History
By Ricky, on June 25th, 2009 British car © Sybille Yates
Change is coming! © Sybille Yates
This morning, I walked out of the offices of ‘Praha Hlavní Mesto’ in the centre of Prague with an incredible sense of satisfaction. I had achieved what I had been told so many times, by a whole variety of people, was impossible to achieve. In my rucksack were Czech number plates and a Czech registration document for my previously British registered right-hand drive (RHD) car. Today my red Renault Megane Scenic has legally become a Czech car!
Czech car © Sybille Yates
It should really be what we have achieved as I would never have managed to do this without the help and support of Sybille, the knowledge of the whole variety of procedures to obtain the appropriate protocols which came from Adrian Blank of Nepomuk, together with being accompanied through . . . → Read More: Check this Czech car out!
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