Golden Prague, Expat life, tips and reviews

Blog News and Top Droppers

I must say I am incredibly proud of myself, I managed to post every single day in February, I hope you enjoyed what I wrote, because I wrote it for YOU!

Blogging so regularly paid out traffic wise and also in getting more interaction/comments on the blog. I maintained PR2 (can’t wait for the next Google update) and I have now an average of 250 unique visitors per day. But that are only statistics, far more important is that I made also a whole bunch of new blogger friends this month and that I discovered new blogs and new viewpoints on a daily base.

My (blogger) name is Golden Prague and I am addicted to blogging!

Perpetual Top Droppers

I am a big fan of entrecard, I wouldn’t have managed to get my blog before so many eyes so quickly without it! Entrecard encourages its community members to participate at the end of each month in the “Top Droppers (=visitors) Day”. To take this a step further I have added a page called “Perpetual Top Droppers ” to this blog. Please leave your comment and blog url on that page if a) you display your current top droppers via some kind of widget and b) this top dropper list is reasonably easy to find on your blog. I will then make a list of all blogs that link to their top droppers continuously and not only via an “end of month” post. Hope you join and spread the word.

Nevertheless my own widget, I still want to give a personal Thank You to my 10 Top Droppers this month, celebrating Top Droppers Day and celebrating my friends that visited daily. This month in reverse order:

10. Internation Musings : Hans has not only been a faithful follower but also an inspiring commenter here. His own blog concentrates on politics, cultures, religions, art, daily life, communications, etc. from an international perspective. That gets warranted by a group of bloggers, not only him, that includes Hindu, Catholic, Muslim, Greek Orthodox, and Agnostics from countries as diverse as Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands and the USA.

9. ThemeLib is a well made and easy to navigate (so rare today, so rare) resource for bloggers with the “point of gravity” on the wordpress and blogger platforms. Themes (sic), plug-ins and blogging tips included. A visit is always worthwhile, not only for the beginner, also for the seasoned blogger.

8. Moshi & Kibo’s Dog Blog Two English Toy Spaniels are taking on the blogosphere dogosphere. Do I need to say more? Visit them, their barks are worth a read. I loved especially their puppy pictures, soooo cute.

7. Dallas Marketing Services Belongs to Moshi and Kibo’s dad, he blogs about marketing strategies. Need some tips how to promote your blog? Check his! Psss, don’t tell him, but I find his dogs are cuter then he, rofl.

6. All blogspot templates specializes on blogger templates (quelle surprise!) Looking for a new “dress” for your blogger-blog? The place to go for a fashionable outfit!

5. The Ad Master What to say about the master? Blogging tips? Checked! SEO secrets revealed? Checked! Humorous + well written = easy to read? Checked! A must read for everybody that wants to be successful in the “make money from your blog” game.

4. Computer Aid The, nearly, daily adventures of a computer wizard. He posts the sometimes unusual solutions to the usual computer problems. Does your compi runs slow? Check his blog first before calling in the expensive computer tech!

3. Bingo Sites Online for Women Pink, pink, pink and did I say pink? This is a girlie blog, for girls that like to play bingo. Might be because I am not so much into bingo, but I find it a tad difficult to navigate. Also a bit less ads and a bit more content would be nice…

2. Tech-Blog Another well made computer blog with a lot of hands on info on hard and software. A fairly new blog that is off to a good start.

Drum Roll Please, the number one is:

1. SkipRatt The Mountain Bike Enthusiast has a blog about, you might have guessed it, mountain biking. Mountain biking is a very expensive hobby for enthusiasts to get into and maintain. Once your in though, you would think nothing about spending a load of cash on the latest products/upgrades or on a brand new bike. But SkipRatt also blogs about other things then mountain biking, I loved especially his post about do-follow versus no-follow links, so true.

So that was my “end of the month blog news and top friends post”, see you all in March, take care! Some very last words in case you dropped each day on my blog and haven’t been mentioned here. I use the statistics Entrecard provides and they are a bit time zone sensitive. Plus it displays only the top ten appear, not everybody that dropped by every day.

Still want to get mentioned on my blog each end of the month? Leave a meaningful comment as often as possible and I will link back to you, promised! And remember to join the “Perpetual Top Droppers ” list!

Obama is coming to Prague

Image source
No, that is not a hoax, there is every chance that we get a US-presidential visit to Prague this spring! Most likely in the first days of April. Some background information, observations and opinions from yours truly:

First of all he has not -yet- confirmed the visit, but also not denied that he might come. If he comes, it will be around the 4/5^th April to attend the EU-U.S. summit, an event that this year is actually due to take place in the US but might instead take place in the capital of the current holder of the EU presidency – the Czech Republic. Obama’s planned international travels for April include already the G20 economic summit in London and the NATO summit in France and Germany that marks the alliance’s 60th anniversary. The invitation to Obama was issued by President Vaclav Klaus, not known to be an enthusiastic supporter of the EU by the way. There is no confirmation whatsoever for a US-presidential visit to Prague but it seems a preparation team from the US will arrive in Prague beginning of March…

What will such an important visit mean for Prague? Two things: Increase of visitors and a hell of a security set up. The visit of President George W. Bush in 2007 has cost 30 million CZK, that is US$ 1.4 Mill, not peanuts!

If he comes, Obama will come to Prague at the end of his European tour and he might want to talk and/ or has to talk about the future of the planned stationing of parts of the U.S. missile defense system in the Czech Republic. But if he stays too long in Europe he might well be accused of “sightseeing” and the wasting of tax-payers money by his critics at home. Tough call, Mr. President!

Czech foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, made the following interesting comment: “It’s our impression that the new [US-American] administration doesn’t just care about the fat cats — Germany, France and Britain — but they care about the small countries, too.”

Will he come? What do you think? What does matter to the so-called “leader of the free world” and “most powerful man on earth”? A visit to a small country like the Czech Republic or just the “big fat cats”?

Czech by full immersion

Hubby and I have finally started Czech language classes, 90min 2x/week, that is what they call „Czech Express“, lol.

image (c) by me
The teaching method is more or less full immersion, without much time to catch your breath back. Do you see the little bubbles on the left? They are hubby and I, drowning!

Actually it is not too bad and surely the best method to get us going, but hubby is a bit annoyed when he can’t understand the teachers’ instructions. Having given language classes myself I am less bothered. I just try what I think could be right. If there are lines/ spaces in the text something has to be filled in. If there are two columns, there must be a relationship between the words –somewhere.

If only my memory would be better, I am not twenty, thirty, forty anymore. So resolutions for next class: Don’t do the homework in the last moment, just before leaving for school and dedicate each day some time to repeat the lessons. Sounds like I am back in school again, right? So, please excuse me, I have to go to my books now, see you tomorrow!

1£ Hotel Nights in Prague

Are you looking for a really cheap hotel deal in Prague? I just stumbled across this offer from HotelConnect :

image (c) by me ;-) 

“On Thursday, 26^th February 2009 10am GMT we will have hundreds of hotel rooms in Prague for just £1 a night!!These will be for travel in March & April on a selection of 2 star to 4 star hotels!” Terms and Conditions that apply include, but are not restricted to,:

Rooms for the price of £1 are available to book online only at HotelConnect and are restricted to selected hotels in Prague (Czech Republic). Booking opens at 10am GMT, 26th February 2009 and closes when all rooms are sold out. Only one booking per person is allowed and only for max three nights. A word of warning, if you think of booking for “just in case” then beware that a cancellation charge of £15 applies.

What do you think of such an offer? Good deal or trap? I will might be tempted to check the hotels and invite hubby for a “holiday in your own city”! Anybody willing to baby sit the cat???

Every Expat needs a “Stammkneipe”

The German word Stammkneipe means in English “favorite pub” but that somehow doesn’t cut it! The concept of “Stammkneipe” is broader then simply meaning a “favourite pub”. A “Stammkneipe” is a home from home, a place where the food tastes like your mother would have cooked it and where you can be sure always to find a friend, an open ear, a shoulder to cry on or a person to laugh with the moment when you come through the door.

Everybody, and expats especially, do need a place like that to keep spirits up

Let me tell about our “Stammkneipe” here in Prague:

It is close, just 10min walk from our place, so it gives us some distance to walk and to think we have done some exercise. When we come through the door, the regulars great us and wave at us, they give us the thumbs up for every little improvement of our Czech. The food is good and affordable and the beer fresh and well cared for. The landladies know our names as we know theirs. And the most important for us, there are normally no other expats, we have a Czech Stammkneipe! Integration into a Prague neighborhood is best done with a pint glass of beer in the hand and a smile on your face.

Do you have a “Stammkneipe”? And if yes, what do you like the most? Please share your thoughts in the comments!