Dec 11 2008
How is the air in Prague?
One reason I was not blogging much lately was due to a hacking cough, the second one this winter! It is difficult to try to get your brains together and write something entertaining and informative when every few minutes you are attacked by a cough. Funny enough this time hubby didn’t get my cough (be thankful for small mercies!) so I only have to worry about me.
But actually it is not only me, half Prague seems to be sneezing and coughing. So I did a bit research into the air quality here in Prague. Actually there is not a lot of up-to-date information on the net, the two most useful sources I found are Air Quality in Europe and a statement on the Official Website of the Czech Republic .
It seems that the situation is far better then it was, lets say, twenty years ago but that Prague is still one of the cities with the worst air quality in Europe.
Next discovery: It gets even worse with inversion (Wikipedia explains that better then I could ) trapping smog/ polluted air close to the ground so that it can’t get dispersed easily. And guess what? Winter is prime time for inversion in my part of the world, so it seems I need to acclimatize a bit more to living here 
But air quality is not the only thing that makes –and keeps me- coughing. Also the overheated buildings here don’t help at all. Imagine what changing several times a day between environments of +20-25 C and 0- -5C means for your respiratory system! But in this is enough mileage to make a blog post in its own right, so if you want to know why Czech houses are chronically overheated, subscribe to my RSS Feed (the orangy thingy on the top right) to not miss my next post
Blog News:
I am averaging now 145 visitors/ day, thank all so much!!! and remember to drop your Entrecard (if you have one) and I will drop back.
My first post got ranked by Google! Not bad for such a young blog.
I added RSS and Twitter badges to the blog to make it easier to follow me. Together with the Entrecard Widget that should be enough, what do you think? Do I need more such things or is less more? See you soon in the blogosphere, SY
Europeans always say that NZs houses are under heated and we are told that its bad to have the house less than 18C I thik because of damp - but I agree I found in Canada that going from subzero temps to hot rooms was just insane! Hope you are feeling better soon
Thanks for the good wishes Lis! 18C is ok, but here it is more towards 25C, no joke. We have to open the windows to bring the temperature in the flat down - despite the fact that we are having the heating OFF. The neighbours are heating our flat up, if we want or not…
Hope that cough gets better.
Congrats on your Google kiss. Just keep blogging. You’ll find your own way.
Thanks for your good wishes and congratulation Jacqueline. I took the freedom to edit your post slightly. You put your email address in the url field
If you have a web site/ blog and want to link to it, just leave another comment and I take care of it by re-editing the first post. Hope that helps, SY
Back in Malaysia, there’s an annual “haze” that turns the air smoggy, smelling of smoke, and it brings out symptoms in many asthma sufferers. The authorities always blame open burning in Indonesia, but I’m sure it’s not the one and only cause…
btw, would you like to exchange links? I’m looking to add travel and expat types of blogs to my blogroll, and yours definitely fits
Hopefully, mine fits your criteria too.. 
@Lynne Your blog looks very nice, happy to add you also to my blogroll. I will review/ link also to your blog in my next post. We also could consider “guest blogging” how about “What it is to live in a country that is not -yet- yours.”? SY
Thanks Jordan! SY
@ hospialera… the gurst blogging concept and idea both sound intriguing … do email me with more details
typo! gurst = guest! sorry!
Will do so Lynne, but guest blogging could work like this:
We decide on a broad theme to write about, write our posts as a text doc, send it to each other and post it for each other. I would suggest also to set a max of links allowed in the blog post. For example: One link back to guest bloggers site (additional to the author line/ information), plus xyx links to other resources. I’ll send you an email with ideas to blog about and we take it from there, ok? SY