By Ricky, on December 14th, 2017 Certificate of Permanent Residence © Ricky Yates
As I wrote in my earlier blog post entitled, ‘Czech bureaucracy – yet again‘, on Monday 30th October 2017, I submitted my application for permanent residency in the Czech Republic at the offices of the Czech Ministry of the Interior (MOI) in Ústí nad Labem. I was informed then, that the authorities now had up to sixty days to consider my application before coming to a decision. Once a decision was made, I would receive a phone call, summoning me back to the MOI office.
Last Friday morning, exactly forty days after submitting my application, my phone rang. It was from a number unknown to my phone and the caller spoke in Czech. Fortunately, the one word I did understand in the caller’s . . . → Read More: I have been granted permanent residency in the Czech Republic
By Ricky, on November 6th, 2017 Temporary Residence – forever!
A few months after arriving in the Czech Republic, Sybille and I, aided by an agency, successfully registered with the Czech Foreign Police. Our respective passports were stamped granting us ‘Temporary residence’ that was ‘neomezený‘ – ‘unlimited’ or ‘forever’. As I have pointed out many times since, temporary residence that is unlimited, is a contradiction in terms!
We were also issued with flimsy paper certificates of temporary residence, which most importantly, also showed our official registered address as being the Chaplaincy Flat in Prague 6. Shortly afterwards, we were also each issued with a ‘Rodné císlo‘, social security number. You can read about how we managed to achieve this in two early posts on this blog, here and here.
. . . → Read More: Czech bureaucracy – yet again!
By Ricky, on October 17th, 2014
The rocks and forests of the Czech countryside © Ricky Yates
Yesterday, I officiated at the burial of ashes of two people, a husband and wife, into the family grave. Whilst this is something I would quite regularly do when Rector of a group of North Oxfordshire villages, this was the first time of doing so in just over six years of ministry here in the Czech Republic. I have also only conducted four funerals during that time, a reflection of the predominantly young age of the English-speaking expatriate population resident here.
However, although I conducted yesterday’s graveside service in English, it was very much a Czech occasion and was an illustration of several aspects of Czech life and culture. And because I want to protect the privacy of the family, I hope readers will forgive me for not referring to people or . . . → Read More: Another insight into Czech life and culture
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 October 9th, 2013
Russell, in the garden of Bar-Restaurace Na Staré Fare © Ricky Yates
One of the things I really enjoy about this blog is when people respond to what I’ve written and leave a genuine comment. I say ‘genuine comment’ for, despite using a CAPTCHA Code, I still have to delete between twenty and fifty ‘spam comments’ each day, whilst approving and replying to the small number of genuine ones. I am also well aware that having to decipher and then enter the CAPTCHA Code, is what puts off many genuine people from ever leaving a comment in the first place.
Most of the small number of people who comment here regularly, are friends who are already known to me. But there are several others who I only know online. These are people who, in a variety of ways, have found my blog and are . . . → Read More: Russell
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