World's most "e-ready" countries

A white paper from the intelligence unit of British magazine The Economist written in co-operation with the IBM Institute for Business Value was released on Tuesday reporting their annual "e-readiness rankings" of 68 countries, topped by Denmark, which scored 9 out of a possible 10 points, followed closely by the United States and Switzerland.

With over 1bn Internet users and 2bn mobile-phone users worldwide, and continual progress in most qualitative indicators of technology-related development, the world in early 2006 may be proclaimed ever more “e-ready”. (more on EIU)




Czech Republic ranks 32 (tie), rising from 29 in 2005. Not too bad… but ok, it would’ve been higher if it were “Czech Republic (excluding Club Andel)”… We definitely lowered the e-readiness of this country. :P

More Beer Magic

Prague - Women struggling with the discomforts of menopause may soon find relief in a cold glass of beer.

Experts in the Czech Republic are working on a beer specifically brewed for women experiencing hot flashes, troubling sleeping and other woes during this phase.

The low-kilojoule, low-alcohol beer being developed by the Prague-based Research Institute of Brewing and Malting contains heightened levels of phytoestrogen, a plant form of the hormone estrogen often lacking in menopausal women, said the institute's director Karel Kosar.

Phytoestrogen is found in the hops and barley malt used in many types of beer. Kosar said breweries could produce the special beer by increasing the levels of these ingredients.

A gynaecologist working with the institute reported good results from clinically tests with the beer on 20 women. The volunteers who drank three decilitres nightly for two months reported fewer menopausal symptoms.

The gynaecologist, Dr Milan Anton of Masaryk University in Brno, plans to expand the research. - Sapa-dpa (Independent Online)

April Lexicon

Prologue

April is a great month in that most of the world’s (at least Praha’s) greatest characters were born in this month, i.e. Ozgur, Claire, Michela, Will, Jenny and Lukasz. These birthdays, naturally, have made April a party month for us (as if the other months weren’t). April is a great month also in that the half-year long winter in the Czech Republic is finally saying goodbye, reluctantly (it had a going away party for itself by flooding the country with melting snow, the coming spring’s welcome party joining in with non-stop rain. An expensive party.) The warming up weather, naturally, has made April a travel month for us, too. Ozgur, Claire and Michela’s 3 in 1 birthday party, our trip to Brno right after the party, and our trip to Southern Bohemia the past weekend have been fully covered by Michela and Aruna’s entries. Hence here is not a story but a little dictionary for you to read their entries and photo descriptions in case you are not familiar with our language.

Content

Breathalyzer: A trademark used for a device that detects and measures alcohol in expired air so as to determine the concentration of alcohol in a person's blood. (Source: Dictionary.com) I assume the one that the group of drunkards used in Pivnice Budvar was the same as what Tucker Max had, but they were apparently less drunk.

Budweiser Budvar: Budweiser is the name of a style of lager beer (similar to pilsner) from the city of České Budějovice in Bohemia (Czech Republic), brewed since 1265. Budweiser Budvar has a very rich taste of malt and Saaz hops. The bitter hop presence and distinct malt profile makes it easily distinguishable from an American Budweiser (Source: Wikipedia), which is produced in the Budweiser brewery in the US established by a German who wanted to serve those homesick Germans in the States back in the days (Source: Budweiser Budvar brewery tour guide). The brewery tour was awesome, especially that the tour guide allowed us to re-fill our cups for the fresh beer tasting. In the beer house Yuan had her first encounter with a 1L beer, impressed.

Buggie style: In Brno when waiting for the tram we saw two bugs, ahem, doing it, which is how you know it’s spring and also how you know people are bored because they start chasing the bugs to take photos of them. Perverts. We saw another bug couple in the Budvar brewery, in a more drunken style.

Chocolate overload: The endless chocolate and chocolate ice cream supply at Michela’s party. During her planning Michela told me that we were going to have some chocolate ice cream mixed with Bailey’s. I realized that it would be the only chance that we could see Michela, who doesn’t drink, drunk. But when I tried to mix the Bailey’s with the melting ice cream it didn’t look so tasty and for me it took too long for the Bailey’s to down my throat. So I ended up drinking the Irish cream from the bottle which was part of the reason for the excessive ice cream leftover. And of course Michela didn’t get drunk. Mission failed, but the party was awesome.

Claire: A legal loser.

Krumlov Castle tour guide: Named Ondrej Trnka (Yes he was that impressive). So cute that he avoided eye contact with anyone and kept playing with his keys. Greatest tour guide we’ve ever met in the Czech Republic. If you are going to do the Krumlov Castle tour, ask for Ondrej! (Check out our favorite conversation with him in the Supplement.)

Mullet: The hairstyle most precisely described as business up front, party in the back. (Source: Aruna) Click here for an example if you are unfamiliar with the term as Yuan was.

Pivo: A type of golden beverage of which 90% is water and in the Czech Republic it is indeed the cheapest drink in all establishments. Most probably the first Czech word you learn when you arrive in this country. AKA “beer” in English.

Pre-trip bonding: A small warm-up and ice-breaking session at Dog’s Bollocks in which we were supposed to discuss about the travel plan, but that guy dancing on a pole managed to catch our attention. Yuan had her first taste of the fruity Hoegaarden, impressed.

Prosím, Futsk, & Dobře: Please, Fuck, & Good. Aruna has the complete explanation for these overused three words. A side note is that futsk is pronounced “footsk”. And by “overuse” we mean we use these words in every futsking sentence. Yeah. Click here to access the “prosím” file from the tour for the demonstration of all the occasions you can liberally use this word on.

Tairyfale: What came out when a non-native speaker was speechless looking at the view, which did look like a tairyfale with an appy hending.

Traditional Czech Easter practice: On Easter Monday boys are to whip girls with the birch sticks and douse them with water, and girls are supposed to be happy to be whipped and should even help the boys decorate the whips with ribbons. Eggciting Czech Easter. But this time, we hit back.

Tuckermax.com: A website blocked by Aruna’s bank’s internet security, categorized as “Tasteless & Offensive”. Aruna had to have Will send her the stories by mail as a result. Aruna’s rare perseverance. Tasteless website. Wise bank.

Yuanski: Yuan Yichan, AIESEC CEEDer from China. Little girl turned a big 22 on Easter Monday, so we decided to giver her an unforgettable birthday party starting from Easter Sunday. The drinking mission started at 10pm with the bottle of dobře Moravian wine I brought down all the way from Praha (Ye, traveling with alcohol is actually one of the dobře habits of mine), followed by Aruna dancing to “No Diggity” for Yuanski’s birthday. Then out cheap boozing. I proposed to have a pivo at every bar open at that night, and everyone had this "Are you crazy? Gosh I'll never travel with alcoholics again!" look on their faces. But later on we found out most of the bars were closed at 11pm, and two of the three bars still open offered a 0.3L pivo up to 40 Kč. (Who are those futsking bastards kidding? We are in the Czech Republic, prosím!) So we technically ended up checking out every establishment that can be called a bar (sells a pivo cheaper than 30 Kč) that was open at that night. Those alcoholics, sigh.

Supplementary list

Rules from the Weekend

1. Don’t trust Erik. Never, ever, ever.
2. Do not laugh (as we learned everytime we were shushed for doing it)
3. Avoid marrying men with mullets, they will ruin your wedding pictures
4. Don’t trust Jenny with directions. Just say “No”. Prosim.

Quotable Quotes from the Weekend

Oh Damn!

Jenny: Brill! (Bad influence from Raphael)

Jenny: Oh my fuck! (Bad influence from Raphael)

Jenny: Prosim! (Bad influence from Raphael)

Aruna: Can we sit down now?

Nuria: Are we there yet?

Claire: Legend! Fucking Ace!

(While wondering which way to go in Ceske Budejovice, AFTER the brewery tour)
Aruna: I see Mormons! I can tell they are Mormons, they’re wearing short sleeved dress shirts. Those are members of the Jesus Christ Church of the Latter Day Saints! They have to know the way, and they have to help us or they’ll go to hell!

(While looking at the view of Cesky Krumlov)
Jenny: It’s just like a tairyfale!
Aruna: With a eappy hending!

Jenny: If I had a dog I would name it dobře. I think if I had a cat I would name it futsk. I don’t like cats.

(After a guy walking by us was groping his girlfriend’s ass, not just touching-- squeezing and groping) and 3 of us stopped mid-sentence to be like…”what the flip?” and comment on it….
Yuan: I saw that, but I didn’t want to say anything. I thought they were more liberal in Europe.

(On the castle tour when we saw a picture of a nice chateau or something)
Ondrej the guide: This building was built in the year xxxx, for (something we don’t remember) at that time.
Jenny (to the girls): Cool. Hey I think we can do this place tomorrow, no?
Ondrej (looking at Jenny): Sorry, but you are not allowed to go there now.
Jenny: Why?
Ondrej: It’s for alcoholics and drug addicts now.
Jenny (starts to laugh hard and to the rest of the crew): Is there actually a better reason to go there?
Aruna (looks around and bursts out laughing, to Jenny): You can go there!
Ondrej: It’s no laughing matter!
(Everyone tries to stifle laughter. Jenny tries so hard she starts crying. )
Jenny: Guys, boozing tonight? I’m going to make the trip happen.

Jenny: I would love to be a religious vegetarian who didn’t drink in this country.

Claire: It’s legal to be a loser

(After Claire tries smazeny syr (fried cheese) and is no longer a smazeny syr virgin, and does other stuff for the first time that we can’t remember (like go on a brewery tour maybe? Claire, what was that again?))
Aruna: God, Claire. You’re a slut! Why are you such a slut? I'm going to tell your mom.

Anyone: Fakt yo?
Instead of yes: “yo, yo, yo”

When Yuan attempted to enter a souvenir shop with an “open” sign
Shopkeeper: I’M ON A BREAK! NORMAL PEOPLE EAT LUNCH! YOU CAN’T WORK 24 HOURS A DAY!”
Yuan: uhhh
Claire: Well you don’t have to be rude about it!

Claire’s dance mantra: big fish, little fish, cardboard box.

--ski. Really, anythingski goesski.

Aruna: See that guy at that table teaching people how to take Slivovice shots? I mean, really, don’t be a bitch and just drink it! And by bitch I mean Erik.

(Conversation with stupid girl we met at the hostel who has been traveling for a while, probably trying to find herself. Aruna vomits at this.)
Girl: Breakfast here is so cheap, only 99kc! (like $5can)
(later on…)
Us inquiring: So, are you going to travel around Czech Republic a bit? The transport is pretty cheap. It’s only like 200kc to go from here to Prague.
Girl: No I think I’ll stay here for a while, it’s too expensive to travel.
Collective thought: What a fucking idiot, she pays 100kc for BREAKFAST and then won’t pay 200kc for the bus??? How stupid can you get?

Nuria when seeing a weiner dog: Who has bread?? I want a hot dog!

Chinese proverb: The sun is pissing (refer to raining and sunny at the same time)
Claire: The sun is pissing way too often (every 5 minutes), I think the sun is pivoed out.

Girls: Hey at the end of the trip we should take a photo of us lifting Erik up.
Jenny: And then drop him.

Aruna (asking Erik for a favor to bring her woodpecker toy to Praha): Can I trust you with my bird?

(Jenny was playing with the stick and clumsily kept hitting herself with it.)
Erik: I don't even need to bother to get the stick back coz you keep whipping yourself with it. Good job.

Epilogue

Prosím refer to Michela and Aruna’s blogs if you want the detailed reports of the past half of April of endless fun. They are futsking dobře.

Hlavní nádraží to spruce up

Prague's main train station will finally get its overdue makeover

To say that Prague's Hlavní nádraží, or main train station, isn't pretty is an understatement.

For many travelers, the station is their first glimpse of Prague, and this is what they see: grimy fluorescent-lit halls, sausage stands and suspicious looking individuals lolling about the main entrance. On cold nights the station's main hall doubles as a dormitory for the city's homeless population. Prostitutes and drug addicts lurk nearby.

All of this is about to change, however.

Grandi Stazioni Česká Republika, the daughter company of Italy's Grandi Stazioni, signed a 30-year lease with Czech Railways (ČD) for the main station in 2003 and is planning a massive renovation of the once proud Art Nouveau building. Work is set to begin this summer and continue until 2009.

ČD officials are assuring travelers the station will remain open, with only parts of the main hall closed at any given time. Train schedules are to remain unchanged.

The reconstruction, estimated to cost 660 million Kč ($28.5 million), will transform the station into something akin to a shopping mall, introducing 11,000 square meters (36,089 square feet) of new retail space and delivering glitzy new shop windows and high-end stores to much of what is now the station's main hall. (The Prague Post)

Booya!  Get it done, prosím!

Police Encounter

First, why police? Briefly, burglary. Don't ask for details. Don't have to ruin your day, too – you already don't have better things to do than reading this blog so I shouldn't push you over the edge. But if to keep me repeating my pain will make your life better then feel free to contact me in person, I'm more than happy to help, as always. If you email me with the Subject "WTF is up with the burglary?" you might get an auto-reply with the standard and complete story, maybe even for IM or SMS. (Sounds like a plan but I haven't got time to work on these little projects so don't do that yet.)

So the first policeman showed up on time (score), and I immediately decided that it wasn't a bad idea to call the police at all, because he's good-looking. Actually, he's very good-looking. You have to believe me because no one else in the flat saw him (I gave all the boys who could be home at that time a heads up that don't freak out when you see the police in the house they are not here for you even though you deserve some investigation for all the damage you cause to this house and your flatmates' lives, but they still locked themselves in their rooms when the police arrived. Suspicious? Jah.)

He came in, checked the doors and locks (not damaged at all), asked about when it happened with the translation by Mr. K. our beloved landlord, and left my room (whole thing took him, like, 2 min). I figured that was probably what he was going to do for the whole "investigation" so I "suggested" if he thought there could be a possibility that someone came in through the window because it doesn’t make sense to walk in all the way to the last room at the back to pick up some stuff that every room has. He turned back for a few second, looked at the window, said (in Czech) "too difficult to open from outside" (which is actually not true from our experience), walked out again and started taking photos of the undamaged doors and locks. Very professional.

So after this I was informed that I should go to the police station and sign on the theft report that they were going to prepare for me, in an hour. I thought "Wow that’s quite efficient!", and "Is this handsome cop going to be on duty in the office in an hour again?"

No, he wasn't (Of course, this is not a movie. Welcome to the real world.). I took Adam who speaks the most fluent Czech in Anděl with me, having thought it would be as simple as having Adam help me read the report and signing on it. But this simple procedure took us 2 hours. The guy meeting us was actually nice. I couldn't see half of his face because of his beard, and he's big. If Czech Police uniforms were red he would totally look like Santa Claus you saw outside of Carrefour. He was very friendly. When he knew that Adam was Polish he even slowed down and started to speak more clearly. We felt special.

Apparently the real investigation took place in the police station, not in the flat. He asked about lots of details, and took down everything we said (except that when we told him that there were 11 people living in the flat he decided it wasn't a good idea to write down the foreign names one by one). After we told him the whole story, drew him the map of the house, failed (again) to bring up the window idea (I guessed Czech police had a thing with opening windows from the outside) and also convinced him not to think about investigating into every person in the flat (now it looks like a movie, eh?) because logically everyone has what I had and mine were the least fancy ones, he started to summarize the whole report. That was a long 20 minutes to see him typing it. The computer looked tiny in front of him but he was very serious in checking all the grammar, adding in any random facts we kept brining up which were missed out in the previous descriptions, and changing "a" to "é". Kinda cute.

The theft report looks "Wow!" cool. I’m so going to copy it, frame it, and put it up on the wall in Anděl, and it'll probably be the most expensive piece of entertainment on the "Wall of Shame" for a considerably long time. I'll also give a copy to Adam (Thanks again!), Lukasz and Christian whose names all appeared in the report (you don't have many chances like that!)

Bummed though that my camera is one of the missing items so I couldn't take a photo with the nice and friendly Czech Policemen like Westy & Brett or Aruna & Nuria did. Hey, can't you tell that I'm liking Policie České Republicky now?!… Not that I'd like to see them too often, of course.

The beats!

I know I still owe the public some photos from the past few weeks, but unfortunately they’ll have to be written off from your Photo Receivables account from me. Unrecoverable. Sorry guys. Now you’ll have to use your vague memory and imagination to picture:

Gianni’s birthday and Christian & Lukasz’s welcome party…

…reasonably ended with getting everyone quite drunk (even Michela). Thanks everyone for coming and bringing happy beverages. I know 3 am isn’t the right time to call it a night for a 3 in 1 party like this but considering it was a Wednesday night when the next day didn’t happen to be any holiday or weekend (how surprising!), it was acceptable I must say. We’ll work harder this weekend (even Michela).

Geri made a beautiful and delicious birthday cake! How lucky I am living with her, even though my picky eating habit forbids me to eat most of the things she cooks (lucky for her), but anyway, this cake was yummy!

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Febio Fest 2006 -

- Prague’s largest film festival.

Didn’t manage to see many of them (there were just too many movies, plus bad timing - the screen-phobia from the last film festival wasn’t totally gone yet), but Hustle & Flow is definitely worth recommending.

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FebioFest Music Festival 2006…

… which accompanied the Febio Film Festival, totally turned the underground garage of the Village Cinemas Anděl into a heated music club!

United Flavor is such a cool band, and apparently they were invited to play in the Global Village of EuroXpro 2006 just a couple weeks ago as well. If you check their “Concerts” page and scroll down to “Already played”, you’ll find the entry in Czech about “benefit to the international student organization Aiesec” (if you did check it you could’ve known already that you don’t need to know Czech to figure that line out, but just wanted to let you know yes, so far my Czech is this good) and the link to aiesec.org. Way cool!

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Oh hey, the photos are gone but I guess here is some music that I also owe you after recommending Hustle & Flow and United Flavor, which I actually CAN pay off. Just feel the beats!

Hustle & Flow OST
It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp (Oscar winner: Best Original Song for Motion Pictures)


United Flavor
Revolution