What do you think of Czechs?

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It's central Europe, wedged right between Germany and Austria, much to their historical pleasure. It's quite far from Hungary, you'd have to get all across the length of Slovakia. But "far" is a relative word for an American who drives across states routinely.

Czech Republic is beautiful, that is, it's extremely versatile for such a small land. You can go around chateaus and castles, renaissance/baroque cities, or hike or ride around the countryside hills, mountains and forests, visit wildlife preserves, limestone caves, the Stepmother chasm (Macocha), ride rivers, and so on... Including rarities like peat ponds, virgin forest preserves, wild orchids or heart-shaped cave corridors... I live in a nice place near mountains and we have many paragliders around there. Some locals get up the mountain, jump forth with a motorized parachute and fly all the way 50 Km home to the city of Opava
I suppose it's a wonderful place if you already have a school, job and a relationship. I need to move to a big city to get a life first.


Yes, locals are nice as long as you let them practice their English on you, specially the younger generations. But if you want - God forbid - to learn the language, this is where the problems start. You really have to insist to let you practice the foreign language too

Okay you have me. It's now officially on my list of Must See places.

Czechs had always great problems with Germans and Slovaks with Hungarians. Centuries of Germanization and Hungarization under Habsburg rule nearly wiped out our culture and language. So the two brother nations later united together to resist and survive. The languages were spoken in primitive form among peasants. The national revivalists of 18th and 19th century were quite a geeks for picking them up, modernizing, expanding them and publishing whole dictionaries. The patriotism of the national revival movement helped to create new culture and art in the languages and re-discover the old pre-Habsburg works. A glorious tale, although some newly created words were hilarious and never really caught up You got cold, do you want a nose-diaper?

Now both Czechs and Slovaks feel reasonably safe from Nazis and Communists and so they can again have a state of their own and elect their own thoroughly corrupted politicians. I don't mind the split, I am a young generation and in kindergarten I didn't care about the state borders.
You're right, Czech Republic is more modern of the two, mainly because we have better terrain (less mountains) and because our German minority was relentlessly exiled after WW2, but Slovaks got stuck with their Hungarian minority and more and wilder Gypsies. Also, being more to the west certainly helps.

Btw, Slovak alphabet is the same, except they use some archaic accents over the letters, like ŕ or ĺ. I think young Slovaks like the language (it's simplier) and they also love to study here on state universities without fees.

I prefer to pay cash

da-doing

I had a Czech linguistics professor one time, and he was indeed a follower of the famous "Prague school" in linguistics. He was a pretty cool guy with a pretty cool accent. The best part was that, as a linguist, he would comment on certain features of his own accent and explain where they came from.

Uh Jaromir Jagr seems nice enough, but I never warmed to Dominic Hasek, and I hope the Philadelphia Flyers don't bring him out of retirement.
Really, the only Czech people I've ever heard of are Vaclav Havel, Franz Kafka and ice hockey players.

I dislike it when they bounce

Let's see, supposedly Czechs and Poles are rivals, I'm part Polish and it's the part of my heritage I identify with most, so... I think I'm supposed to hate Czech's then?

Let's see, I guess your country seems pretty cool. Fairly liberal firearms laws compared to a lot of Europe, supposedly food is nice and cheap and not terrible for you there. Beer is cheap, too. Like most Eastern Euro countries, hot women. You do have some crime problems, I think Czech Republic led Europe or the world in stolen cars. Then there's the Eastern Euro mafia groups that seem ridiculously ruthless and scary. Murder rate in your country is about the same as USA. Oh, lots of Czechs are atheist/not religious, I think the majority of the population, which is sorta sad to me.

Overall, I'd like to go maybe. Seems like a good happy medium between places like Russia and Ukraine which first off got hit hard by WWII, then got a lot more of the brunt from Communism, I've sorta heard Czech Republic is like half a Western Euro country in feel, and half an Eastern. The Czechs also were a bit weird, I think they were one of the first to try to resist the USSR. I know for sure they wanted their own rifles in their own calibers, and that was a big thing.

Yeah I guess it seems pretty cool, I wanna visit Poland more, though.

Race dun matter. Welcome to the forums

I don't know much about the Czech Republic... sorry.

I like Czechs mix, but the kind made in the oven not the kind in the bag. I like the Rice Czechs best.

I don't think there is any rivalry, except Poland has much better food production so it threatens local business. And I heard that Poles on the border make raids on Czech forests and mountains for blueberries (leaving the bushes damaged) and also pick our snails for their restaurants.

The country is way too liberal in some ways, specially when it fits business mafia. Maybe the food is cheap, but local regulations allow companies to put all kinds of unhealthy ersatz junk into it. When I go shopping, I can hardly find anything reasonably priced without aspartame and hydrogenized fats. They say Czech Republic is a dumpster of western Europe and they sell us food that a normal German or Austrian wouldn't touch. I think it's true, I live near Polish borders and the food on the market there is much better and cheap too.
I don't know about the cars, murders or Eastern mafia, although I know Russians practically own the whole Carlsbad city. (what kind of government would allow that?!) The greatest plague here is a high-level corruption, businessmen control the politicians to give them profitable deals on government orders. Every single government project I've ever heard of turned out to be ridiculously overpriced and the politicians and businessmen split the profit. Czech highways are the most expensive in the world and in their foundation has been found a trash instead of concrete or something.
They say during communism everyone had to steal, because the market sucked. But today the thievery is immense, almost a 20% of state budget per year, and it all goes to foreign businessmen and Switzerland or Caiman banks. I believe we are on the verge of another revolution, the sooner the better.


Yes, you can live here a peaceful yet modern life. No millions-headed cities alternated with barren deserts, minimal decadence compared to the West, less wastefulness, commercialization and so on. (I have seen just one prostitute on the street in my whole life) Also, we have as many universities as the whole United Kingdom But it will be much better when the people overthrow the government and investigate everyone who worked there since the revolution. Specially the president Klaus.

Poland seems more like Bible belt in United States. Conservative, religious, rural. You'll be fine there as long as nobody needs an abortion or a gay marriage. But seriously, I visided the salt mine of Wieliczka and it was very nice. I also heard about the primeval forest in Bialovieza park and its European bisons. In fact, I had read about it in my 1st class reading book, as a borderland kid I have a year and half of Polish school.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5iHeU4JowQ[/youtube]

Yeah, Radek Zelenka a.k.a. David Nykl in real life. The show was good but all the nation cheered for Zelenka! I heard he acted on some other sci-fi shows since then, I've got to czech them out
(can't believe I wrote that)

I prefer cash.

Took me three or four visits to get that joke... good one!

I'm slipping.. :S

Cheques. Ha.