By Ricky, on May 28th, 2010
Karen © Ricky Yates
A person who has featured in several of my previous blog posts is Karen, an American who came to Prague in November 2008 to train as a TEFL Teacher at the Caledonian Language School. A few weeks later, she found St. Clements and became a regular worshipping member of the congregation.
Unfortunately, along with another American young lady called Anna, Karen was forced to leave the Czech Republic at the end of April 2009 because of the total incompetence of the Caledonian School in helping both young ladies obtain work permits and residence visas. A second visa application, via the Czech consulate in Chicago, was also unsuccessful. Full details of what happened can be found in my earlier post entitled TEFL Teachers – Caledonian School and Broken Promises.
A few weeks after I started this blog, Karen became a regular visitor . . . → Read More: Farewell to Karen (hopefully only temporarily)
By Ricky, on July 24th, 2009
Lea & Petra at Bouzov Castle © Ricky Yates
The newly married couple © Ricky Yates
Earlier this year I received an email from an English young man called Lea, asking if there was a Czech language version of the Anglican ‘Common Worship’ Marriage Service. He was planning to marry a Czech young lady called Petra, at a venue near her home town of Olomouc in the east of the Czech Republic, and this was the liturgy that they wanted to use. As there would be both English and Czech speakers attending the wedding, they wanted the text in both languages.
One of the many helpful things left by my predecessor John Philpott, was a ‘Word document’ containing exactly the text that Lea had asked for. I forwarded it to him but wrote an accompanying note asking who was going to use it? If they . . . → Read More: My first Czech Wedding
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!
By Ricky, on June 4th, 2009
Right-hand drive vintage car in Prague © John Millar
Continental Europeans, together with Americans & Canadians, are quick to tell British people that they drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. To them, driving on the right is ‘right’! Some British people can be just as bad in reverse, complaining that if they take their car across the English Channel, they have to drive on what to them is also the ‘wrong’ side of the road.
Like many British people, I have regularly taken my British registered right-hand drive (RHD) car to continental Europe both for holidays as well as for shopping trips to Calais. I personally have no real problem with driving a RHD car on the right (as in the opposite of left) side of the road. In the past few years I’ve twice driven from the UK to Galicia in the far north-west . . . → Read More: Driving on the ‘right’ side of the road
By Ricky, on May 8th, 2009
Schengen Visa – Image in public domain via Wikimedia
As I feared, Anna has suffered the same fate as Karen. Despite going in person to the Foreign Police three times this past week, accompanied by a Czech speaking friend, she has had to leave the country today. She was eventually told that her application for a work permit & residency visa, submitted in Berlin on 21st January 2009, would not be granted because she had exceeded the 90 days she was allowed to be in the Czech Republic as a tourist.
Anna sent me a text/SMS message with this information early on Wednesday afternoon. I rang her straight back and invited her to join Sybille & I for a meal at Grosetto that evening so I could learn more about her experience with the Foreign Police and also say a proper ‘Goodbye’. We had . . . → Read More: Update on my previous post ‘More problems with Czech Bureaucracy’
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