With Easter Day being quite early in 2013, and with Northern and Central Europe experiencing one of the coldest months of March on record, I did rather expect our Prague Easter Day congregation not to be quite as large as it was in 2012. Added to these two factors, was the change to Central European Summer Time (CEST) during the previous night, another discouragement &/or confusion to add to the mix. In view of the weather, the term ‘summer time’ did seem somewhat inappropriate 🙁
Despite all of this, we did still have a large congregation for Easter Day worship in Prague with a very good turnout of our regular congregation, a few of our ‘lost sheep’ reappearing, and being joined by a good number of English-speaking visitors from around the globe. Amongst the latter were several young Christians from India, all of whom are currently studying at various universities in Germany, who had organised to spend the Easter weekend together in Prague, and had made attending Christian worship on Easter Day, a central priority of their trip.
Having on Easter Eve, put the third member of our family, Oscar our elderly black & white cat, into the care of Hellam family for a few days, it meant that Sybille was able to travel down with me to Brno and attend worship there for the first time. So after fellowship and post-service refreshments in Prague, we set off together in the ‘Carly’, along the D1 – the Prague-Brno motorway.
We stopped for a late lunch at a service area some 60 km out of Prague, which advertises itself as serving the largest rízek/schnitzel on the D1 🙂 As I was eating mine, so snowflakes started falling outside. And as we drove on after lunch, across the Vysocina/Highlands, so the snow got heavier. Fortunately, the motorway remained relatively clear, but we arrived to see Brno covered in snow. Apparently, it had been snowing there for most of the day. So in Brno on Sunday 31st March 2013, I experienced the first ever ‘White Easter’ that I can remember.
Unfortunately, the adverse weather discouraged a small number of people from attending our evening Eucharist in Brno. But I was thrilled that Phil and Lenka, an English-Czech couple whose wedding I conducted in September 2010, came along to boost the regular congregation. They are currently having a house built for themselves, just south of Brno, with a view to moving there permanently from the UK, later this year. Two more future members of the Brno congregation!
Even better was the news that Phil & Lenka had taken note of what I had said in my sermon at their wedding. I had spoken about the Christian understanding of marriage as outlined in the preface to the Marriage Service in ‘Common Worship- Pastoral Services’. In the preface it states that the third reason that marriage is given is, ‘as a foundation of family life in which children may be born and nurtured’. Yes – Lenka is pregnant and is expecting their first child in August this year!
After post-service refreshments, Sybille & I drove out to Komin, a former village that is now a Brno outer suburb, to stay overnight with Katka, my chief Brno service organiser, and her husband Josef. The photo at the beginning of this post, is of the view from their guest bedroom window that greeted us on Easter Monday morning. Please note the snow on the nearby rooftops & the surrounding hills. Bing – I’m not dreaming of a ‘White Christmas’ or a ‘White Easter’ – I’ve just experienced one!
Last weekend, we had the heaviest snowfall here in Prague, since early January 2010. It started snowing late on Friday 22nd February and rarely stopped until just before Sybille and I left the Chaplaincy Flat to go to Church on Sunday morning. To give you a visual impression, here is a picture showing what Kostel sv Kliment / St. Clement’s Church looked like last Sunday, covered and surrounded by freshly fallen snow.
But in contrast to the UK, where everything seems to grind to a halt as soon as any snow falls, here in the Czech Republic, that just does not happen. So it was that Tram 8 arrived on time at 10.07 at the Podbaba tram stop, and whisked us off on our sixteen minute journey to Dlouhá trída, two minutes walk from the Church.
But although public transport almost always keeps going when it snows in Prague, I generally believe that ‘discretion is the better part of valour’, when it comes to trying to drive the ‘Carly’ when it is covered in this amount of snow. The irony of having finally obtained my new Czech driving licence just a few days earlier, was not lost upon me 🙂
After Church, Sybille and I took Tram 26 to Letenské námestí and had a celebratory lunch for Sybille’s birthday, in Fraktal Bar-Restaurace. Then we walked home through Stromovka Park where some park visitors were not put off by the snow, but were sitting out on deckchairs, enjoying liquid and other refreshments from the Slechtovka Restaurace, located in the middle of the park.
Much as I dislike Christmas being brought forward into the Advent season, working with two expatriate congregations here in the Czech Republic means this inevitably has to happen. So many of our regular worshippers are absent at Christmas because they travel back to their respective home countries in order to spend the holiday season with their family and friends. But before setting off on their travels, many want to be able to participate in the Anglican tradition of a ‘Service of Lessons & Carols’, either in Prague or Brno.
Since commencing regular monthly services in Brno at the beginning of 2012, we have consistently held them on the second Sunday evening of each month. So it seemed right to make the service due on Sunday 9th December, a ‘Service of Lessons & Carols’, a year on from our first ever Brno service in December 2011. And to be further consistent, we held the service in the little Czechoslovak Hussite Church Betanie / Bethany we have been using throughout 2012, rather than returning to the Betlémský Kostel / Bethlehem Chapel where we held the first ever Brno service.
Brno Carol Service invitation
This year’s service was very much a home-grown one, rather than being laid on by members of the Prague congregation. But I was most grateful to my Church Treasurer Gordon Truefitt, who kindly volunteered to travel down with me to Brno following our 11.00 Eucharist in Prague, to give me both company and support. Gordon read a couple of the lessons, sang ‘gold’ in our rendition of ‘We three kings of Orient are’, and as a good treasurer, also took up the collection!
Gordon and I drove down to Brno in my car as I’ve been doing each month since July. Outside of Prague, there was snow on the fields which looked particularly beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine. However, the Prague- Brno motorway itself was completely clear of snow and we reached Brno in very good time. Following the service and some excellent post-service seasonal refreshments kindly laid on by Katka Bánová, Gordon and I returned to the car with light snow falling. But as we left Brno and headed back towards Prague, so the snow got heavier.
Both Prague and Brno lie in river valleys – Prague is on the Vltava River whilst Brno is situated at the confluence of the Svratka and Svitava rivers. But whilst the Vltava flows into the Labe which becomes the Elbe once over the German border, and eventually enters the North Sea, the waters of the Svratka and Svitava head in the opposite direction, eventually entering the Danube which flows out into the Black Sea. Dividing these two major drainage basins are the Vysocina range of hills.
Crossing these hills, the outside temperature dropped from -2° to -6° and the snow got thicker and heavier. Despite the presence of several snow ploughs, one of which nearly tried to clear me from the motorway 🙁 , driving became extremely difficult. Numerous trucks had ground to a halt, unable to cope with climbing up the steeper parts of the motorway. I cannot recall driving in such severe weather conditions for more than thirty years. We did eventually make it back to Prague still in one piece. But a journey that normally takes just over two hours, instead took three and a half hours.
The following weekend, we held our Prague ‘Service of Lessons & Carols’ on the evening of Sunday 16th December. This is the only occasion each year when we hold two services on a Sunday in Prague. Inevitably, some people therefore opt out of the morning Eucharist in order to attend Lessons & Carols in the evening. However, both services were still well supported.
In the evening, we were joined by a small choir from the International Women’s Association of Prague (IWAP). Two of the choir members, Caroline and Celieta, are also regular members of our congregation. But the IWAP choir did give a wonderful lead to our congregational carols as well as contributing two individual choir items. Afterwards, we all enjoyed mulled wine, mince pies and other seasonal refreshments in the Church Hall across the road from the Church in Klimentská 18.
I remarked last year, that Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, as it did in 2011, was ‘Every clergyperson’s delight’. But because of this year being a leap year, Christmas Day in 2012 fell on a Tuesday. This is probably best described as ‘Every clergyperson’s nightmare’ as it meant Church services on three successive days. However, this is where I really benefited from the help and support of others.
On Sunday 23rd December, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, my recently licensed Reader Jack Noonan was the preacher at our 11.00am Eucharist, reflecting on the example and role of Mary, the mother of Jesus. And at our Midnight Eucharist the following day – Christmas Eve, my Presbyterian ministerial colleague Rev’d Dr Karen Moritz was the preacher, giving an exposition of the mystery of the Incarnation as described in John 1. 1-14. So I only had to preach one sermon, on Christmas Day morning, speaking about the message of the angel to the shepherds – ‘to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord’.
Whilst having two supportive preachers made my role easier, I did still experience one of those moments for which no training at theological college can ever properly prepare you. At our Midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve, a British lady, visiting her son who has been living and working in Prague for the past five years, tripped over the chancel step on her way up to receive Communion and fell, seriously banging her head on the stone slabs of the chancel floor.
Fortunately, Sybille as a trained nurse was on hand to help and Honza, Czech husband of American Church Council Secretary Tasci, got on his mobile phone and was promptly able in Czech, to summon an ambulance. But I decided it was best to end the service without singing the final carol, (much to the confusion of the organist who was unaware of what had happened), and within a few minutes, blue lights were flashing outside the Church and two paramedics were striding in.
The good news is that, following a medical examination and an x ray, the lady was given the all clear by a Doctor at a nearby hospital. But she did take home an unusual souvenir from Prague in the form of a large bruise on her forehead 🙁
Our worship on the morning of Christmas Day was thankfully, slightly less eventful. The congregation was a mixture of visitors, long-standing Church members, and several Czech married to English-speaker families with their bilingual children. Therefore, although we are an English-speaking congregation, we did end our worship by singing a carol in Czech, ‘Narodil se Kristus Pán‘ – ‘Christ the Lord is born, let us rejoice’.
Where is winter? It is a question I’ve been asking for several weeks. This time last year, there had been snow lying on the ground for about seven weeks. Until yesterday, when we finally had a few heavy snow showers, there had been no snow at all in Prague this winter.
The temperature this evening has just dropped below freezing and the forecast is for temperatures of below 0 degrees Celsius for the next four nights at least. But there is still no sign of any serious snow.
There is a very good reason why I want some serious snow and for temperatures to remain below freezing for many days at a time. To ensure that the mosquitoes are kept at bay!
In the Autumn of 2008 when we first arrived in Prague and throughout the warmer months of 2009, we suffered from an abundance of mosquitoes here in the Chaplaincy Flat and elsewhere. Then two successive severe winters caused their numbers to drop to a handful. I fear that a mild winter might just allow the Prague mosquito population to recover!
In the meantime, a few evenings ago, we did experience this wonderful sunset, the picture being taken from one of the balconies of our flat. The floodlight pylon belongs to the stadium of FK Dukla Praha who, like the rest of the football clubs in the Czech Gambrinus liga, are on their mid-season break which started in early December and doesn’t conclude until late February. In view of the mild weather we have experienced so far this winter, they could still be playing!
As I mentioned in my recent sad post about Sam the dog, one of the many great things he did for Sybille and I was to get us out walking far more than before we adopted him. He became our ‘weight loss programme’ because he exercised us as we exercised him! We are both determined to continue walking just as much as we did when we had Sam so as to maintain our weight loss which between us now exceeds 30 kilos.
Most days, we would walk from the Chaplaincy Flat to the extensive and beautiful Stromovka Park, which lies about twenty-five minutes walk away from where we live. Through doing this, we got to know numerous other Czech and expat dog owners and improved our ‘dog Czech’ no end.
However, one behavioural habit which I regularly observed and continue to observe, annoys me intensely – dog owners and parents of young children, who go to the park, but then spend the whole time they are there, talking to someone else on their mobile phones!
The most extreme example I remember was of a woman we met, just by the entrance to Stromovka. She was pushing a buggy with a baby in it; was also holding onto the hand of a toddler and had a dog on a lead. She also was responsible for a slightly older toddler walking in front of her and for a second dog who was off-lead. But at the same time as all of this, she had her head bent to one side to hold her mobile phone next to her shoulder, in order to have a long conversation with one of her friends. I know women are meant to be able to multi-task, but…….
What conscious or sub-conscious message does such behaviour send to either the children or to the dogs? Why do people need to have such phone conversations if they are going to the park in order to spend quality time with their children &/or their dog(s)? Mobile phones are incredibly useful but they can also be a curse.
My photo is of a young woman walking across Václavské námestí/Wenceslas Square, also talking on her mobile, though admittedly, without dog or child in tow. But I hope I make my point – it is perfectly easy to say in response to a call, “I’m in the park with my dog/my children. I’ll call you back when I get home”.
As part of our ongoing walk programme, as well as walking to and around Stromovka Park, Sybille and I have also recently started walking around some of the more central areas of the city, particularly as they are currently relatively free of tourists! However, I’m afraid I cannot resist posting this further wonderful example of Czenglish we spotted one evening recently in Malá Strana. What might be on the menu at a ‘Restaurat’?
Finally for this post, below are two photographs, both of which brought a smile to my face as I hope they will for the many readers of my blog.
This year, New Year’s Day was a Sunday. Our Church Treasurer Gordon is a Scotsman and marked Hogmanay, by coming to Church in his kilt. I did jokingly suggest that he could put the collection in his sporran to take it home to bank the following day! I should add that it is post-Eucharistic coffee rather than a wee dram that he is drinking!
And alongside is an invitation to ‘Explore the meaning of life’ – in Czech!
“Do you like living in Prague?” This is a question I’m frequently asked by Czech people once they discover that I’m not a tourist but that I’ve actually chosen to live and work here. Many Czechs cannot understand why someone from Western Europe might actually want to come and permanently reside in their country.
The same question is also frequently posed by English-speaking visitors who join us for worship at St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church and by family and friends when they write or speak with me. So for my first post of 2011, I’m going to set out some of the reasons why I enjoy living particularly here in Prague and more widely in the Czech Republic. Some of these I’ve mentioned in previous posts so there are an inevitable number of links to things I’ve written previously in this blog.
Prague has the most wonderful public transport system consisting of buses, trams, the Metro and even a number of little ferries. Why is it wonderful? Because it is:
Incredibly cheap – Last week, Sybille and I went to renew our annual season tickets for the Prague public transport system. It cost each of us 4750 Kc – at current exchange rates, just over £160.00 / €193.00 / US$250.00. For this sum we can travel anywhere in Prague, at any time, for a whole year! The Church reimburses me for my season ticket – we just have to pay for Sybille’s.
Integrated – Each part of the system links to the other. At Dejvicka, the current terminal of the A/Green line of the Metro and the nearest Metro station to our flat, you walk out of the station and immediately in front of you is place where buses depart to take you out further into the suburbs or to the airport. The Dopravní podnik hravního mesta Prahy or dpp for short, have a wonderful website that speaks Czech, English and German. Put in the starting point of your journey and your destination, the time you either want to start or arrive and then click. Out comes a journey plan with times, where to transfer from one form of transport to another, etc.
Frequent – If you know where you are going and you are travelling on a weekday between 07.00 and 19.00, there is no real need to visit the dpp website. Once you reach your point of departure you will only need to wait a few minutes at the most. Even on Sunday mornings, there is a tram every twenty minutes which will take us from the Podbaba tram terminus near our flat, all the way to Dlouhá Trída, just around the corner from St. Clement’s Church.
Reliable – there is a timetable and nearly always, it is adhered to. Sometimes buses and trams do get delayed by other vehicular traffic, but usually only at peak periods. And when it snows, everything keeps running – it doesn’t grind to a halt as in Britain.
It isn’t just within the city of Prague. The Czech Republic, along with Slovakia, has the densest rail network of any country in the whole of Europe. One member of my congregation lives in Milovice, about 50 km from the centre of Prague. But in 45 minutes, he can travel by train into the city centre and then have a 10 minute walk to Church. I don’t exactly know what his rail fare is for the return journey but he assures me it is extremely reasonable.
Prague has an abundance of bar-restaurants. And provided you avoid the expensive tourist traps in the city centre, ‘eating out’ can be remarkably inexpensive. As I’ve written previously, some single people tell me that it is often cheaper for them to ‘eat out’ rather than buy food from the supermarket and cook for themselves.
The photo on the left is of U Topolu which, since it’s refurbishment in July 2010, has become our favourite local place to eat and drink. A main course here, even with a side dish, costs no more than 150 Kc / £5.00. The quality is excellent and portions are generous.
The further great attraction at U Topolu is the beer. As well as Pilsner Urquell and Gambrinus, they have Kozel beer, directly from the tank. It is light, fresh and costs 26 Kc for half a litre. In British terms that is under £1.00 a pint! What more do I need to say?
Architecture and Buildings
As I’ve previously written, Prague suffered remarkably little structural damage during the Second World War. And whilst many historical buildings suffered years of neglect during the Communist era, since 1989, great effort has been put into restoration. What is really pleasing is how well restoration work has been done.
This photograph is of a building just around the corner from where my dentist has her surgery in the suburb of Vinohrady. It consists of residential flats on four floors with retail outlets on the ground floor level. But as you can see, all the intricate detail above the windows on each level has been lovingly restored, together with the ironwork that forms the railings to each balcony. Likewise, the render on the outside of the building has been repaired before being attractively painted.
These buildings are typical of those which form much of the inner suburbs of Prague. Yes – there are still ones like these that are crumbling. But increasingly they are a minority. And rather than wholesale demolition, buildings like these are being preserved and their interiors sympathetically modernised.
I could write and illustrate several blog posts about the architecture of Prague which I promise I will do during the coming months. But for the time being, just let me say that walking the streets of the centre of Prague, together with the inner city suburbs, is always a delight to the eyes.
Not too big but not too small
Prague only has a population of about 1.3 million people. Therefore, as cities go, it is relatively small meaning that the nearby countryside can be easily reached. Yet because it is the capital of the Czech Republic, (10.3 million population), it has all the assets and facilities of a capital city.
There are many more things that I could list as to why I like living here in Prague, but this post is probably long enough already. And yes – there are also a small number of things that I don’t like. But they are minor irritants compared to the joy of living in this delightful city.
