Sunday, January 28, 2007

Places to go - Noel's Lounge, Anny Letenské 18, Prague 2

This is my first recommendation for somewhere to go in Prague. Noel's Lounge is a very friendly bar run by British Expats. I like to go to Czech bars but as I don't speak the language it doesn't have the same relaxed feeling - I can't pick up much from the conversation around me, and I can't just chat with the staff. The atmosphere at Noel's is very relaxing and the staff there are friendly. They serve Staropramen and Budvar beers and a selection of light meals - nothing with dumplings, but the nachos are quite good. A bookshop called Anagram is attached and is accessed from inside Noel's.

I first found out about the place by accident. I was walking home from the school about 2 weeks ago down a street I hadn't visited before when I saw a blackboard outside a bar advertising a Blues gig coming soon. I didn't pay much attention, but the name of the artiste - Stan the Man - stuck in my mind. That evening I had been invited to join a group of people at another bar, The Globe, which had a musician, too. At the Globe I started talking to a cheery cockney called Barry who told me that he was a partner in a bar called Noel's. He described where it was, and mentioned that he had booked Stan the Man for the following week. Noel's was the bar I had passed earlier that day.

If you look for Noel's right now you may have trouble finding it, as it is called Metropole. Barry and his partners took it over just recently and they haven't replaced the sign yet. As Barry explained it to me "the bar is called Noel's, or Metropole, soon to be Noel's but we sometimes just call it Soon".

I have been there now for two gigs - Stan the Man and Jamie Marston and they were both good nights. Katia, one of the barmaids recognised me on my second visit. Some of my colleagues also went there on Wednesday for the Open Mic gig and one of them may actually have a booking after wowing the audience and schmoozing the proprieters. I think Noel's may become a regular haunt for me and some of my colleagues.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

The Czech Calendar

Unlike most European languages, including Russian and Slovak, Czech does not use the Roman names for the months. The names for the weekdays are different from those in other languages I am familiar with, too. It was a bit difficult at first, but I now know the weekdays and recognise the months we have already had.

The Czech names for the days of the week are:
pondĕlí (after nedĕle [Sunday])
úterý (second)
středa (middle)
čtvertek (fourth)
pátek (fifth)
sobota (sabbath)
nedĕle (no work)

The Czech names for months are:
- leden (ice)
- únor (melting ice, or possibly renewal, depending on which source you believe)
- březen (birch)
- duben (oak)
- květen (blossom)
- červen (red)
- červenec (redder)
- srpen (sickle, connected to harvest)
- září (blazing or glowing, or possibly preparing for rutting, again depending on which source you believe)
- říjen (rutting season)
- listopad (falling leaves)
- prosinec (time to kill pigs)
Snow in Prague

Winter arrived this week. Snow started falling on Tuesday afternoon, and was lying on the ground by the evening. It carried snowing more or less continually for 24 hours so by Wednesday evening we had a fall of about 7 or 8 cm. I'm glad we have had at least one snowfall this winter. It would have been embarrassing this week to have had less snow than the South of England.

The trams ran mostly to time during the snow, although workmen were stationed at some of the points to keep them working and clear the ice. The Metro was busier than usual, possibly because it is more reliable than trams and buses in the snow and ice.

We have had a few short falls of fresh snow since Wednesday but we have had some sun, too, which has melted the snow a little. I was able to get out to take some pictures on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. If it is sunny tomorrow I might take some more.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Useful software - synctoy

Synctoy is a really useful piece of free software from Microsoft, and I never thought I would use all of those words together in the same sentence. I have a laptop here which I use to manage my photographs, music files, Internet access, lesson plans and materials and anything else which needs a PC.

I also have a Linksys NSLU2 which is a tiny Linux-based NAS/fileserver device which takes two external USB disks and can export their filesystems using SAMBA . The server can be configured to perform nightly backups from one hard disk to the other, giving a poor man's RAID. There is a thriving Linux development community for the NSLU2, which has ported all kinds of Linux software, but so far I just use it as a fileserver.

I run weekly backups from the laptop to a directory on the fileserver using Norton Ghost, but I also needed to mirror my laptop home directory to a directory on the fileserver. This was the first task which led me to look for file synchronisation software.

So far I have been very pleased with synctoy, it has a preview mode which lets me see the difference in content between two directory trees without modifying them. It also lets me synchronise a directory tree from the fileserver to a directly-attached USB disk on the laptop to give me an additional level of backup of irreplacable files such as pictures and lesson materials which I have created.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Some spare time at last

This morning I finished writing up the last of the mid-year assessments. Since I came back from the Christmas break I have spent a lot of time preparing, conducting and writing up assessments on all my students. Now they are all completed so I will be able to have a bit more spare time in my life.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

A touch of frost

Yesterday morning there was a touch of frost. It's January, so why is this remarkable?
I've been checking the weather data for the Czech Republic and the average daily temperature for January is about -2° C. The daily maximum for January is normally about 2° C, but this winter we have had only a handful of frosty mornings since October, and we have had temperatures of over 10°C on many occasions.

Everyone has been telling me that last year the temperature barely rose above freezing from mid-November until April. This winter there is virtually no skiing in the whole country and the resort operators and winter sports fans are most unhappy. I think they're hoping that this winter is an aberration, but I wouldn't invest in winter sports in the long term.

I am indebted to Chris Gerhard for pointing me to the following video of a mountain biker on a ski jump! Maybe this is the way forward!

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Who knows where the time goes?

It's mid-January and I haven't written here since November! How did that happen?
Arno's recent comment reminded me that I need to write something here, and I have now managed to make some time to do that.

I spent some of my free time in December looking at the different events which happen here in Advent. There was St Nicholas's Eve, the Christmas Markets, an outdoor ice rink and vendors of live carp in the streets. I took pictures of these activities and have posted them to Flickr.

I went back to the UK for Christmas. Sue and I went to North Wales to spend Christmas, Sue's birthday and my cousin's son's wedding, then we went to the North-East of England for New Year. It was a busy time, but I managed to catch up with quite a few people.

Arriving back in Prague I was pitched straight into classes and mid-year assessments. I have tested the majority of my students, and have just over a week to complete all the reports. This means I have had a busy time so far this year.

After the rush is over I will tell you more about Prague and Czech life.

If you have any questions, post them as comments.