Birth Certificate Bureaucracy

I was eligible to apply for Czech Citizenship two years ago after I passed my B1 Czech language exam.   However, I can't apply until I first sort out my birth certificate.

Here's the situation...

I need to provide a birth certificate with an apostille.  An apostille is basically an internationally recognised "super notarisation".  In the USA,  an apostille can only be issued in the state where the document was issued.  Since I was born in California, my birth certificate can only be given an apostille by the Secretary of State of California.

The fee to request an apostille in California is $20.  I have an old certified copy of my birth certificate with me in Brno.  I would need to mail my birth certificate to California, along with payment for the apostille, and the return postage for it to be mailed back to me in Czechland.  

I wasn't really thrilled about mailing the only copy of my birth certificate.  The next option was to request a new certified birth certificate from Riverside County, in Southern California.  I would need to submit a request by mail, with payment, for the new birth certificate.  It would get mailed to me in Brno.  Then I would need to mail the new one back to California for the apostille, and then have this mailed back to me in Brno.  Crazy.

I found lots of companies that I could pay to sort out a new certified birth certificate or to sort out the apostille.  Finding companies that would handle both the birth certificate and the apostille was damn near impossible.  The few companies that I did find that would handle both parts, and seemed somewhat reputable, cost around $1000.  

So while we were in California I took the opportunity to finally get my documents sorted.  I shipped my birth certificate to Sacramento for the Secretary of State to issue the apostille.  My mom needed to write a Czech for the $20 processing fee.  I included a pre-paid DHL envelope for it to be shipped back to me in Brno.

While in California, I also requested a new certified birth certificate just so that I will have a spare copy.  The new birth certificate will be sent to my parent's home in Arizona.

Time to Head Back Home

I can't believe that it's already been three weeks and now it's time to head back to Euroland.  It's been great to spend time with Steven & Michael in Atlanta, and with my family in Arizona and California.  A special shout out to my brother-in-law, Manuel, for driving us all over Southern California!!  I even got to spend my birthday with my family for the first time in forever.  

I'm really glad that everyone got to meet Kája.  It's been fun seeing his reactions to some of the differences between Czechland and the USA.  

I've had a bit of reverse culture shock as well but I suppose that's a normal thing that most long-term expats experience.  I may have to put together a list later of some of the things that I noticed.  

Of course my last meal in the motherland had to be an animal-style double-double from In-N-Out.  If you're from California...then you know.

At LAX

For now, we're waiting on our flight from LAX to Madrid, then to Vienna before our train back to Brno.  We'll lose a day travelling back and I'm not looking forward to the jet lag.  Jet lag always hits me worse going back to Europe way more than it does flying west.  I hope to get over it soon because at the end of the week we're off to the Tatras.

52nd Birthday

Yesterday was a pretty cool day.  I celebrated my 52nd birthday with my family.  The last time I was with my family on my actual birthday is when I turned 18.

My nephew Kai plays the drums and he has been participating in a jazz camp at one of the local community colleges this week.   

As the final wrap-up he performed in a jazz concert that we all went to.  I look at it as getting a jazz concert for my birthday.  

It was pretty cool to see him do this thing.  Here's a video of his group performing.  

Afterwards, we came back to my sister's house and had dinner and cake.  

This has been a really nice holiday but it's hard to believe that it's already been three weeks.  Just one more day and then it's back to Euroland.

Some Major California Sightseeing

We did quite a bit of sightseeing yesterday.  With mom, my sister Angela, and brother-in-law manual we showed Kája more of the LA/Hollywood touristy experience.  

The first stop was Union Station which is in the northeastern corner of downtown Los Angeles.  Union Station opened in 1939 was known as the "Last of the Great Railway Stations."  

The station is beautiful, combining Art Deco, Mission Revival, and modern styles.  In 1980, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Union Station is the largest and busiest passenger rail terminal in the Western United States.  It is the 13th busiest train station in North America.  This also shows that train travel isn't really a thing in the USA.  Just the city of Los Angeles has about 4 million people but the station only serves about 110,000 passengers a day.  Brno has about 400,000 people and more than 65,000 passengers use hlavní nádraží every day.

Me & my sister

Across the street is Olvera Street.  It's a historic pedestrian street in the historic centre of the city.  There are plenty of street vendors and restaurants to check out.

Olvera Street is home to Ávila Adobe, built in 1818, which is the oldest standing residence in Los Angeles.

Olvera Street gets about two million visitors per year.  Some people don't care for it because it can seem touristy.  I like it because of the history; it was the historical city centre in both the Spanish and Mexican times prior to California being taken by the U.S.

Then it was on to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour.  Warner Brothers (WB) was founded in 1923.  It is one of the major American film, animation and television studios.

It's fun but expensive.  An adult ticket is $76 and the tour lasts about three hours.  You get to visit a soundstage and the backlot, which is where we got to sit on the Friends couch.

Some of the most popular sets we got to visit were from Friends and The Big Bang Theory, plus big exhibits for Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and The Justice League.  

Barbie gets released this week so there was lots of promotion for the film.  I had to get a photo of the Kája Barbie doll, plus some video of him dancing around like Dobby the house elf.  

San Clemente Pier, California

Yesterday we went to San Clemente Pier to meet my aunt and uncle for lunch.  San Clemente is a city of about 65,000 people about a half hour drive, 42 km (26 miles) southeast of Irvine roughly half way between Los Angeles and San Diego.  

San Clemente is known as the "Spanish Village by the Sea" due to its Spanish Colonial style architecture.  

It's a popular California beach town that gets about 300 days of sunshine and an annual average temperature of 23℃ (73℉).

The most famous landmark is the San Clemente Pier.  

Me and mom

It was first built in 1928.  It was rebuilt in 1939 and again in 1983.  The pier is a popular fishing site and home to a nice seafood restaurant.  

It was nice seeing ma aunt and uncle and lunch was nice.  But for dinner, I finally got my In-N-Out fix.!!  

My niece decided that we needed to wear the hats during dinner.  Though not everyone was on board with that one. 

Griffith Observatory, California

Yesterday we got in a bit of sightseeing.  My brother-in-law, Manuel, drove us out to LA so that Kája could see a few of the city's iconic sights.

The first stop was a visit to the Griffith Observatory.  

When it opened in 1935, it was only the third planetarium in the country.

The land was donated to the city in 1896 along with funds to be an observatory and planetarium that would be free to the public.  Since the day it opened, the observatory has been free.

From 2002 to 2006, it underwent a major $93 million renovation.  

So many movies have been filmed here.  Here's a short video I found on YouTube.

©Fandor

Of course being so close the the Griffith Observatory, we had to go check out the Hollywood Sign.  First built in 1923 has part of a temporary real estate advertisement, it is not a California landmark.  The sign was replaced in 1978 and the steel letters are 13,7 metres (45-feet) tall. 

Us and Manuel

There were some German tourists taking selfies next to us and I took a photo for them.  They were quite surprised when I spoke to them in German.  

While in Hollywood, we hit a few of the typical touristy sites such as the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Seeing as we went to the Griffith Observatory, we decided to watch La La Land on Netflix with the entire family.

Some Beach Time

I've lived in Czechland, a landlocked country, for 14 years now.  Before that, I lived in Atlanta for 13 years and from Atlanta it's a good 5 to 7 hour drive to the beach in Georgia, South Carolina, or Florida.  

So yesterday was some long overdue beach time!  

We headed over to Dana Point and went to Strand Beach.  It's a popular spot for surfing but we just wanted to lay out and catch some rays.

The sun was strong and we did get a little red but, to me, it was so worth it.  I guess that, deep down, I will always be a bit of a California boy.

Going Back to Cali

Yesterday, we drove from Prescott to Irvine.  Well, Dad did all of the driving.  

The trip took 7,5 hours and thank goodness for air conditioning because it was wicked hot.  It was 45,5 ℃ (114 ℉) at the Arizona-California border.

I was one happy Mexican when we got to my sister's house because she had a feast waiting for us. #fatandhappy 

I need to make sure that I don't put on 5 kg while I'm on holiday. 

Seven Wonders of the World

There have been a few versions of the "seven wonders of the world."  The oldest list, known as the "classic" seven wonders were located around the Mediterranean and the Middle East.  Of the classic wonders, only one, the Great Pyramid of Giza, still exists.

1.  Great Pyramid of Giza in El Giza, Egypt.
2.  Colossus of Rhodes, was located in Rhodes, Greece.
3.  Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in Babylon, Iraq.
4.  Lighthouse of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt.
5.  Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in present-day Turkey.
6.  Statue of Zeus in Olympia, Greece.
7.   Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Turkey.   

Next month, we're off to Kuşadasi for a week and will visit Ephesus.  I'll get to see what's left of the Temple of Artemis and will be the only item on the classic list I'll have seen.

The Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages include:
1.  Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa in Alexandria, Egypt.
2.  Colosseum in Rome, Italy.   
3.  Great Wall of China, in China.
4.  Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.
5.  Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy.
6.  Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, in Nanjing, China.
7.  Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England, UK.

So far I've managed to see four of seven from this list.  I missed out on going to Nanjing during my Shanghai trip due to rain.

In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers paid tribute to the what they thought were the greatest civil engineering achievements of the 20th century by releasing their list of Seven Wonders to the Modern World.

1.  Channel Tunnel, between the UK and France.

2.  CN Tower in Toronto, Canada.

3.  Empire State Building in New York City, USA.

4.  Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, USA.

5.  Itaipú Dam between Brazil and Paraguay.

6.  Delta and Zuiderzee Works in the Netherlands.

7.  Panama Canal in Panama.

From this list I've been to the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge.  Toronto's been on my list of places to visit for years but who knows when I'll get a chance to visit Canada.

In 2001, a New Seven Wonders of the World was released.  The Great Pyramid of Giza didn't make the list but was added later as an honorary mention.

1.  Great Wall of China.

2.  Petra in Jordan.

3.  Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

4.  Machu Picchu in Peru.

5.  Chichén Itzá in Mexico.

6.  Colosseum in Italy.

7.  Taj Mahal in India.  

From this list I've been to the Great Wall, Petra, Christ the Redeemer, and the Colosseum.  Back in 2007, Steven and I were getting our MBAs from Georgia State University.  We did a two-week study abroad programme in Argentina and Brazil.  One of my favourite memories is of us in a helicopter flying around Jesus's head in Rio.

Ephesus for sure will be the next place from all of these lists that I'll see.  Beyond that, who knows?  The Taj Mahal and the Great Pyramid are both on my bucket list.  Stonehenge would probably be the easiest to visit.

EU vs. Internal Combustion Engines

Tomorrow is the beginning of Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union.  The EU has a Green Deal goal of climate neutrality by 2050.  This means that action is required now as 20% of the EU's CO² emissions comes from road transportation.  The European Commission has proposed that as of 2035, all new cars and vans should yield zero emissions.  It's been approved by the European Parliament.  The finalisation of the new rules will be negotiated during the Czech EU presidency.

©France24

Škoda is the largest employer in Czechland.  All of the company's Czech plants already make electric cars or components.  In 2019, it introduced the Citigo-e iV, its first electric car.  By 2030, Škoda wants 50-70% market share of all-electric car sales in Europe.

Hyundai has a factory in Nošovice.  In 2020, they started producing the Kona Electric and they also want a big piece of the European electric car market.

Toyota is the country's third-largest automaker with a factory in Kolín.  The Kolín factory currently produces two models, both with internal combustion engines.  The company wants all of its luxury cars running on electric by 2030 in Europe, North America, and China.  All of its cars should be running on electric by 2035.

The EU has also proposed legislation that will require public charging points no more than 60 km (37 miles) apart from each other on major roads by 2025.  The outlook is for 3,5 million public charging stations by 2030 and 16,3 million by 2050.

Update:  On 26 August, legislation passed that all new vehicles sold in California by 2035 must be either electric or electric hybrids.

©France24

New Brown Bins

Recycling is a bigger deal here than in the USA.  At least compared to California and Georgia.  When I moved here I had to learn to separate waste.  Every couple of blocks you'll find coloured bins to sort paper, plastics, glass, etc.

The blue bin is for paper so paper wrappers, packaging, newspapers, magazines, cardboard boxes, books, and office documents.  Receipts do not go in the blue bin.  You can't put anything in the blue bin that is wet, waxed, or greasy which means no pizza boxes.

The green bin is for coloured glass.  White bins are for clear glass.  Ceramics, porcelain and china can not be put in the glass bins.  

The yellow bin is for plastics.  In Brno, the yellow bins are also for the cartons used for milk and juice.  I recently found out that toothpaste tubes can't be placed in the yellow bin because the tubes are often lined with aluminium and contain leftover toothpaste.    

This week Brno put out 1000 (240 litre / 63.5 gallon) brown bins and 35 large (15.000 litre / 3,963 gallon) containers.  The brown bins are for bio waste so people can dispose of fruit and vegetable peels, tea bags, and coffee waste.  I read that eggshells and nutshells should not be put in the brown bins which seems counterintuitive to me.  Also, in Germany eggshells do go in the bio waste containers.

Czechland recycles 33,3% of its municipal waste which is short of the EU average of 47,7%.  Each of the countries surrounding Czechia recycles more.  Germany recycles 66,7%, followed by Austria at 58,2%, Slovakia at 38,5% and Poland at 34,1%.

When I grew up in California each house had small blue bins to collect recycling and we put these out on the sidewalk for the trash men to collect.  One bin was for newspaper.  Another was for plastic.  According to my mom, the newspaper bin was also for glass too but I don't remember that.

Language Difficulty

I'm headed to Prague on Friday to take my Czech citizenship test and my B1 language test.  I'm not worried at all about the citizenship test but I'm nervous about the language test.  Fingers crossed that it all goes well.

A common question I get is "how hard is it to learn Czech"?  The short answer is that it's hella' hard!  There are lots of reasons why Czech can be difficult to learn.  Some people take pride that "Czech is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn".  While there are times that it feels that way, there are way more difficult languages to learn.

The Defense Language Institute (DLI), in California, is the language school where the U.S., trains all of its military linguists.  Students study a foreign language full time, for seven hours a day, five days a week, with 3-4 hours of homework every day.  Completion of a basic course is basically more or less the equivalent of the CEFR B1 level.

The length of the course depends on the difficulty of the language.  All languages are rated from 1 to 4 with category 4 languages being the most difficult to learn for a native English speaker.

Category I languages have 26 weeks of instruction.  This includes French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Category II languages take 34 weeks.  This includes German, Romanian, and Indonesian.

Category III languages take 48 weeks.  All of the Slavic languages are 3's.  So Czech, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Serbian/Croatian.  Plus Farsi, Hebrew, Hungarian, Greek, Albanian, Hindi, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Uzbek and Vietnamese.

Category IV languages take 64 weeks to complete the basic course.  This includes Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Pashto.

I grew up during the Cold War and when I was in the military they still taught people how to speak German, Czech, and Polish.  These languages aren't even taught there anymore.  

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the language school for the U.S. Department of State where American diplomats get their language training.  FSI courses have 25 hours of class each week with 3-4 hours of homework every day.  FSI has five difficulty categories.

Category I languages last 23-24 weeks which equates to 575-600 hours of training.  Category I languages are the Romance and Germanic languages, except for German.  So Afrikans, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish.

The only category II language is German.  The course lasts for 30 weeks which is 750 hours of study.

Category III languages last for 36 weeks (900 hours) and include Indonesian, Malaysian, and Swahili.

Category IV languages take 44 weeks to complete which is 1100 hours of training.  This is pretty much the same as the DLI Category III languages.  All of the Slavic languages - Czech, Slovak, Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Ukrainian.  The Baltic languages Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian.  Plus Albanian, Armenian, Azeri, Burmese, Farsi, Finnish, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Hindi, Khmer, Lao, Pasto, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Xhosa, and Zulu.   

Category V languages take 88 weeks to complete.  A whopping 2200 hours.  These are Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

To me it's interesting how both DLI and FSI sometimes have different opinions as to a language's difficulty.  DLI had German, Romanian, and Indonesian as equally difficult while FSI says Romanian is easier than German but German is easier than Indonesian.  Or how DLI has Pashto at the same difficulty level as Arabic or Chinese but FSI has Pashto at the same level as Czech.

Here's the FSI language difficulty map for Europe.

So how hard is Czech?  Pretty dang difficult!  Especially for a native-English speaker.  Though not the most difficult language out there.  In the end however it really doesn't matter.  As long as I pass my exam.

Update: I found some graduation numbers for DLI.

• Czech was taught from 1971-2002 and again in 2017.  The top year was 1985.  In total 3.420 people graduated from the Czech programme.  
• Slovak was taught from 1984-1986, 1991-1993, and in 1995.  Only 144 people completed Slovak.
• German was taught from 1965-2018 and 1986 was the top year.  German had 13.699 graduates.