Our new gym......

Today we woke up late, made some online bookings getting ready for Vienna & decided to check out our new gym at the Inter-Continental hotel (the company paid for all the family - std benefit for office employees). J is signing up for the yoga classes & checking out the solarium.

Rooms with a View

Lounge Room



N's Room

Surrealism by N

Beer, Wine & Pizza Review

We're starting to become locals now. The local shop keepers keep an eye out for those Aussie gringos & rub their hands together.

This week we've continued to feast on beer, wine & pizza plus a little upper class restuaranteee!

M's Beer Rating

1. Pilszen (http://www.pilsner-urquell.com/) - surperb, clear crisp beer & a good price. $1 AUD per 500ml - what a bargain.
2. Krusovice (http://www.krusovice.net/en/index.php?PHPSESSID=fbe47bccf8bf8a533860712bb03f197c). Very nice dark beers, way better than Tooheys old !
3. Budweiser (http://www.budvar.cz/budvar/budvar-web/corporate/prvni_en.cms). Bottom of the barrel - similar to VB & Tooheys new - rubbish !

We've been buying out the local shop keepers of their wine stocks. At the moment we're cleaning out an Asian grocery store of all their Chilean Cab Sav & Merlots ! It's quite funny going into these shops where they look Chinese, speak Czech & understand Aussie - but money speaks all languages - $4-5 AUD per bottle - we've become cheap drunks - the wine is pretty good.

Pizza's are all thin & cheap. $4-5 AUD per large pizza. You have to run pretty fast to get them home hot ! Bit of lurk when you have to wait while the wood fire oven cooks the pizza & you have a nice pivo (beer) while you wait - what a life. Our local pizza place is Sicilia (http://www.sicilia.cz/) - the only down side is they have Budweiser beer :-(

Work has been rather successful this week. We're in the process of offering another 6 people positions -that takes us to 20 people by the end of May. 12 more to go. So far we have Aussies, Poms, Portgugese, Serbians, Romanians, Polish, Slovaks, Germans & Czechs - most of the names I can pronounce.

J, N & I had dinner with my new boss (Georg pronounced Ghe - Org) and the Rudy Baron (Red Baron) down the street. Very nice, loved the pea soup - 'Delicious' would like the recipe I'm sure.

Next week we're flying to Vienna due to Visa requirements. Spending the weekend there..............it's a tough life ;-)

Astronomical Clock, the door behind us is as high as N.

Home Sweet Home in 3 weeks !

We've finished !

All rooms furnished with luxurious Ikea furniture including the spare room waiting for the onslaught of international visitors - young & old. Our interior decorator is putting together a selection of photos for the blog.

New reality show should be created called 'Moving Ya Kin Overseas'.

Script

• 3 week timeframe with $7500 AUD in your pocket
• Paid one-way air flight into unknown city eg Prague
• Start new job & induct new team members
• Put ya kids in school
• Find an apartment & hook up utilities (phone, water, electricity, gas, satellite & internet)
• Buy furniture, get delivered to above 4th floor without a lift & build it
• No car - work out local transport
• School holidays in the middle of the 3 weeks
• Your work management team drop in for 3-5 days & organise entertainment in a city you don't know
• Buy water that has no bubbles & decipher 20 grocery items per week
• Everyone get sick at least once in the 3 weeks
• Throw in some extreme weather for fun - minus 10-12 degrees & snow
• Learn 10 new words per day to survive

Prize

• Years supply of wieners & local beer of your choice
• Seriously, experience of a life time !

Famous Quotes

• Your child looks at you after putting 2 truck loads of furniture together - 'What's the problem ?' or 'I'm hungry.'

Stay tuned on expanding the script and more insightful quotes.

Cie la vie...............

Go the Wiener !

Thought we'd pop down to the local store to pickup lunch. Hotdogs would be a safe bet you'd think. We returned to pop our weiners in the hot water only to find they have protection !!!!

Look very closely whilst unwrapping the wiener..............................



What a naughty girl ! M had two ;-)

It's all right for some!

The home bodies spent the week unpacking air freight and assembling Ikea - and drawing pictures to explain to the hardware guys that I needed a spade bit...etc..ahhhh Ikea. My hands are swollen, not from the cold, but from furniture assemblage and cardboard box squashing.

The snow this week covered everything. To N and I it looked fantastic. In the park we walk through, between our two apartments, the trees were loaded with powdery snow that dropped unexpectedly as you walked beneath them. We had to tread precariously along pathways that were thickly covered or choose a path trampled down to an even more slippery surface. But no matter how much snow there is in the park there's still plenty of dogs all shapes, sizes and furriness being walked or chasing sticks or snowballs.


Shopping is still lots of fun. N will only drink non-carbonated water and thanks to Christiana we now have the key word to look for - 'neperliva'. Today my goal was Sweetened Condensed Milk. I found it. Zahustene slazene mleko plnotucne (husty-thick;sladky-sweet;mleko-milk;plny-full). Found it in the baby food section, I asked a shelf packer "cukr mleko" - sugar milk - "Ano" - Yes! It's what I was looking for.

Mum....how's Ziggy's boyfriend going?

Snowman

Snow, Support, Shots & Slivovice

Busy week. Leadership team in town for 3 days. Meetings, meetings & playing host in a city we're settling into.

Monday: People flew in from Dusseldorf, New York, New Delhi and Sydney. Thought after travel & day of meetings people would retire & we'd get an early night. I was wrong !! We ended up at the Kolkovna (http://www.kolkovna.cz/en/main.htm) restuarant having several pivos, Czech sausages, goulash & Becherovka (http://www.becher.cz/en/becherovka.php) shots. We staggered out & walked down to Old Town square heading towards home but half the crew ended up going to Charles bridge whilst others (including me) headed towards Jama (http://www.jamapub.cz/en/). We all decided to call it a night & I arrived home about 11:30pm just in time to receive a phone call from the bridge team who ended up at the Prague Castle wondering where we were. Bugger off was my answer & I went to bed.

Tuesday: More work, ho-hum. The only highlight of interest was it started to snow & that the team went out to the Pilsen restuarant at Obecnidum (http://www.obecni-dum.cz/e_index.htm). The best part was that 'J' was invited aswell & had a ball eating Bohemian duck & Czech riesling. Then came the shots - Slivovice (http://www.vmp.cz/images/nabizime/slivovice2.jpg) - last time I had this on my previous trip it tasted like dirty Russian vodka. This time it was chilled (you cold see shards of ice) & must have been the good stuff as it went down pretty easy. Now your probably wondering where N was during these festivities. We've got a baby sitter ! Yep, one of the teams girlfriends (Ansgar & Nadine) offered - we promptly accepted & paid in Aussie wine. Therefore, after the restuarant we headed home to see if N was still awake entertaining the sitters - she was not & everything went well.

Wednesday: Awoke to snow covered windows & back patio. Wandered to work not trying to fall arse over tit & look like a real wally. 2-3 inches of snow everywhere. Once at work I found out that the airport had closed & a very senior manager that was expected (not from our group) could not make it - bit of a sigh of relief from all ;-). The office said the airport would be open by 10am. Meetings went well, meeting the office manager & finding out that the average age of people in the office was 35 ! Feel like a real old codger now - just need grey hair. 4pm arrived & I checked to find out the airport was still closed & we had 8 very nervous people in the room wondering if they'd make the 7pm flight - they did & I trudged back across the snow street to our new apartment & a giant snowman on the back patio.

Thursday: Played catchup at work then meet J, N & Christiane (my old boss) for lunch. Kind of nice being close to the city centre. Home at a reasonable time, Uno, read the Ikea catalogue again & bed !

Friday: Work starting to gear up now. We started a trial support day for 1st level activities. All went well. Next week will be the test. Arrived home with a bottle of merlot from Chile ($89 Kc - $5 AUD) to a home cooked meal. Setup the wireless CDMA (1-4 Mb link) internet connection & started to update the blog.

Nearly in our new home

We picked up our keys (4 keys just to get into our apartment). The apartment is a modern refurbishment in an early C20th Art Nouveau building. The stairwell has mosaic tiled floors with etched glass doors and organic wrought iron handrails. The door for our level is a heavy metal door, like a old gaol door with a skeleton key. From our lounge and bedroom windows we look out onto a large spire and below it a sculpture of a saint standing about 7 ft tall. The apartment has high ceilings in the living area. N's room is in the attic area and has it's own bathroom. The kitchen is a good size and leads directly onto a balcony.

Saturday afternoon was Ikea furniture assemblage afternoon. It all went reasonably well until our bed and one troublesome screw (M has some advise for Ikea) and we realised we needed a hammer. Most local shops close for the weekend on Saturday at 12 noon - ie. the hardware shop.

Sunday we had afternoon coffee at Cafe No.1 (Wenceslas Square) with Vishal(Indian office), Sushil(NY office), Ansgar(Prague Office) and his girlfriend Nadine.

This week is a school holiday.

The Firm

Life at work has been challenging & rewarding. Building a new support organisation from scratch is good fun - what I like best, I think. Throw in a new language / ways of working it can change your perspective.

Really enjoying the 15 minute walk to work instead of the 2 hour train commute in Sydney.

The new team (7 at the moment) has settled in. Training is continuing & we're in our temporary new office. Work has begun on the new floor & hope to be in late April/early May. We're interviewing pretty much weekly now & lots of trainers from all over the world are dropping to assist in technical training etc.

Last night we had a team dinner at a traditional Czceh beer hall / restuarant. Check it out here --->> http://www.npivovar.cz/index.php?page=en

Recommend the Juicy Goulash !

Over the next week we'll have the entire management team here in Prague. Intense work & meetings but I'm sure we'll all sneak out for a few pivos (beers).

Ahoj (pronounced ahoy - bye)

Privacy & Confidentiality

Some of you are wondering why we've not been posting our names eg ball & chain, the girls, N, M & J.

We feel that this public forum should not contain too much personal name & address detail.

You never know..................

DPP vs Cityrail

The're warm, easy to catch, clean, cheap & run every 3-7 minutes ! Yes, it's NOT Cityrail.

Welcome to DPP (Dopravni Podnik Praha)

http://www.dpp.cz/en/index.htm

Your ticket allows you to use Metro (train), tram & buses within the Praha area.

The above URL outlines the prices & ticket types but one ticket that blows me away is that for $200 AUD you can get a yearly ticket !!! 6 - 15 yo half that & under 6 is free. Oh yeah, over 70 get special deals aswell.

How's Miss P you are asking!

The girls visited the school last Friday and N started school on Monday. She chose not to have mum go with her on her first day, so Miss Independent caught the bus outside the apartment all by herself at 7:30 ready to take on any adventure. When she arrived at school she found another 3rd class boy who directed her to her class where she found the girls that were suppose to pick her up from the bus.

She described her first day as "excellent". She made lots of friends, her favourite being Sara from Bulgaria. Lunch time play is a game called Ice Factory - mounding snow up with your boots then crushing it into shapes to make puzzle pieces. She's had a class of drama, which involved a lot of cuddling boys.....and girls; maths (test); making monsters out of recycling; music (singing); English (they all do running writing); German; PE (which N got out of because we didn't pack shorts, but those of you that know N well will realise that to N it was a blessing); and computers, including using whiteboards with interactive touch screens attached to the internet/computer.

Yesterdays temperature while we were waiting for the bus in the morning was about minus 10 deg. Minus 1 doesn't really feel that bad, but -10 leaves you feeling cold all day (that probably seems quite lame to any non Aussie). N's bus arrives home at 4:30, just as the temp starts dropping again.

Pick pocketing the Portmans in Prague

Yes, an attempted pick pocketing. But alas unsuccessful this time. Rush hour at Mustek station sardined into a train to Cerny Most. Jen was being overly squashed between four beefy men. She put her hand down to her purse to find some very warm fingers unzipping one of the zips. She pushed the fingers away but her freezing fingers mustn't have felt real as he tried again. This time Jen slapped him and gave him the evil eye. He didn't try again. All the men left the train together. Bastards!

Winter 

Banking in Prague - The Good, Bad & the Ugly

Back in November I managed to open a CSOB account without much fuss. Just a passport, 20 AUD and a interpreter. Forms, forms & more forms but managed to get it all up and running including an internet banking function with SMS authorisation thingy ma jiggy.

The debit card turned up to Woonona about 2 months later with the PIN in the same bunch of envelopes - just in time for us to leave !

So, with our generous moving allowance we thought we'd be a gold customer - not to be.

Today whilst getting an extra card for the ball and chain we found out some of the intricacies of weekly/daily withdrawal limits. Your weekly limit is based on a rolling 3 month average. Therefore, if you know your moving here ahead of time. Open a bank account ahead of schedule & deposit at least 5000 AUD each month so when you get here you've got a good withdrawal limit to set yourself up in an apartment & buy furniture. Looks like we'll be juggling money around for another month or so til we get settled.

After managing to successfully get a card for the wife we retired to a famous cafe across the road. Here's a brief excert from a Prague website - sorry no URL this time...........

Kavarna Imperial(tel 222 31 60 12; Na porici 15; open 9am-1am daily) has beautiful, early-20th-century decor - oak parquet, walls covered in ornate cream-and-mustard ceramic tiling, and a mosaic ceiling - and is popular with locals and tourists alike, who gather for the live jazz on Friday and Saturday evenings

With a full stomach we launched into credit card land & was served by a very intense employee who nearly crushed our hands during the greeting ceromony. He was very interested to know where we were from & how much limit we'll require to make our stay in Prague a pleasant one. Alas, we failed to convince him that we had good credit rating & he sent us away to get proof that I have a job & they pay me enough (it's never enough).

Our next adventure is a return trip to Ikea (http://www.ikea.cz/) to select our furniture & hopefully get it delivered to the right address.

Highlights of school adventures will also be posted over the next days...........stay tuned.

Week One

We've visited some of the touristy sites and decided the Chequepoint city map of Prague has the best guide to the Metro/tram/bus routes, but another map is needed for tourist spot locations.
The girls visited Prague Castle (Prazsky hrad) catching a tram to Prazsky hrad stop at the top of the hill rather than walk the steps up from Malostranska Metro station. They watched the changing of the guards, walked the snow filled gardens and stood in awe of the majestic St Vitus Cathedral with its gargoyles spurting water from the constant dribble of rain that day. Inside and out the Cathedral is spectacular with mosaics, frescoes, carvings and statues.

The girls visited the Museum Hracek, a toy museum, with European and American toys made between 100-150 years ago. Included lots of tin toys, teddies, dolls/houses, trains and a Barbie doll collection(from the 50's to Spice Girls, including designer collections complete with Barbies' in real mink coats and diamond earrings). It took over an hour to get through it all.

Spent Saturday at the Ikea superstore organising furniture for our new flat. Absolutely no English on any of the items. I know the word for Bed (Postele), so how hard could it be, right! Wrong, try this out - Pruzinove Matraces Ramen. This is part of a bed, a spring mattress frame that a mattress sits on, then they have a mattress that goes over that or a potah (cover), plus legs. No one on the floor seemed to speak English - but we now know that if an employee has an English flag on their badge they speak a little English.

Sunny, freezing Sunday. Our daily 7am wake up bells didn't ring til 8:45. Yes, Monday to Saturday at 7am church bells ring for 5 minutes. We were off early to Old Town Square(Staromestske Namesti), visited the astronomical clock, found the Anagram bookshop in Tyn to buy a Czech dictionary - now I can read the Ikea catalogue! Finished the day off at Obecni Dum http://www.obecni-dum.cz tea and apple struddle with Claudia and Ziggy(Claudia's husband, not our cat who is staying at grandmas).

First Days

On Saturday January 29th, 2005, after spending the morning on Woonona beach (35 deg C) we hopped on the plane bound for Prague.

Sydney, Singapore, Heathrow & finally 24 hours later flew in over snow covered Czech farms, iced over streams (with kids skating) & Praha International airport on Sunday 30th, 2005 @11am - minus 6 deg C !!!

McKinsey limo whisked us away to our first temporary apartment on Vinohradska street, Vinohrady, Prague 2. Two bedroom modern top floor apartment with all the mod cons including lift & bidet.

The girls lasted to about 1pm and went to bed. I did some local investigation of local supermarkets, managed to extract some money from the bankomats & headed for the large shopping plaza, Palac Flora (like Penrith Plaza). Bought some basics for breakfast & headed home for a solid nights sleep.

Monday, 31st January - awoke @5am blaring with Czech TV as Nikita had been awake since midnight & was getting lonely :-) After breakfast we all headed off to work to pick up mobiles, security cards & for me to get ready for the new recruits to arive on Feb 1st.

My new office: http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/prague/home/

We all crashed again about 8pm......................