1st Medical Experience

So my ribs have been killing me since the go-kart crash last week. It hurts when I breathe too deep, cough, sneeze, laugh or move around too much. After a week the pain didn't decrease so I decided to see a doctor just to make sure that I didn't have a hairline fracture.

I've only been to Medicover for my initial health screening as required by Czech law. So Tuesday morning I called the clinic at 7:30 AM and was told to come in at 9 AM. The doctor spoke enough English (and some Spanish) to let me know that he didn't think anything was broken. But he wanted me to go to St. Anne's hospital for an x-ray...just to make sure.

The clinic didn't charge me anything and gave me directions to St. Anne's hospital. I was told to go to the information desk and they would direct me where to go. Here's where it starts getting good...

St. Anne's is a state facility and consists of several buildings on a medical campus. Nothing was in English and I had no idea of which building to go to. I tried asking for directions but no one I came across spoke English, German, French or Spanish. When I saw a sign that said "onkologie" I knew I was in the wrong place. I eventually found where I thought I was supposed to be. Wrong. Fortunately, an orderly who only spoke Czech, took sympathy and walked me over to the correct building. He gave my referral slip to the receptionist and told her that I could not speak Czech.

The receptionist came up to me and said "co?" (what?). Great. She was not very friendly but I eventually understood that she wanted my VZP card. She made a photocopy and motioned for me to go have a seat and wait. I noticed that here they don't come out to get the patients. They call your name over a loudspeaker and tell you where to go. Eventually, I heard my name but didn't understand where to go. So in Czech I told the recptionist that I heard my name but didn't know where to go. She got on the phone and then told me to go to door "C". I walked down the hallway and opened door "C". But then the doctor yelled at me in English to get out because there was already a patient in the room. Why the heck do they call you to a room just to wait outside a door?
When I was allowed inside the doctor spoke English but he was an ass! He examined me and asked if I'd had x-rays yet. I guess he didn't get that this was the reason I was there. He told me to go down the hall to radiology and wanted my "stamp". I had no clue what he was talking about. Apparently, I needed to purchase a 30 Kč ticket (~$1.71). It's basically a co-pay tax imposed by the government. The nurse in the room didn't speak English but volunteered to take me to get my x-rays. She asked me for 30 Kč and took care of my ticket for me.

The radiologist took my films and then told me to get dressed and wait in the hallway. The nurse then saw me in the hallway and aksed if I was done. She told me to go back to room C. This time I made sure to stay out of the room until I was called in. The doctor glanced at the films on the computer and said he would need to review them. He told me to go back to the waiting area until I was called back again. He was still an ass but I think that the nurse must have said something to him.

While waiting in the lobby, the doctor called me back but this time it was in English. All of a sudden...the doctor was nice and professional. He told me what I already knew. Nothing is broken but it would hurt for the next few weeks. I asked him where I needed to go now and the doctor told me to go home. I wanted to know where to go to pay for the hospital visit. He just laughed and told me that I didn't have to pay anything other than my 30 Kč tax because I have insurance. I thanked him and left. But I made sure to thank the nurse before I left.
So my first Czech medical experience cost me $1.71 and 4 hours. I could not believe how inexpensive it was. I'm sure the system here works great if you speak Czech. One of my Czech colleagues also hurt his ribs while go-karting. The difference being that he went to the emergency room on Sunday night. He had to pay 90 Kč for the ER visit but was done with everything in only 30 minutes.

This whole experience was really humbling. My Czech is slowly improving but Tuesday was incredibly frustrating. I felt helpless and stupid because I didn't know what was going on. Plus being in pain didn't help. I really need to improve my Czech.

Here's what I found out...
There is a deductible of 30 Kč for visits to the doctor. There is another deductible of 30 Kč for prescriptions.

There is a 60 Kč deductible for in-patient hospital treatment. There is a 90 Kč deductible for an after-hours visit to the emergency room.

Update 2017:  The 30 Kč co-pay for visiting the doctor was done away with years ago.  

1st Visit to Vienna

After Milan, Claudia and I took Monday off from work to visit Vienna for the first time.

Wien ("Vienna"), is Austria's capital and about 86 miles from Brno.

With about 2.3 million people in the metro area, Vienna has more than 25% of Austria's population. It is the 10th largest city by population in the European Union.





We went to Vienna just to walk around and see the city. It is an extremely beautiful city and I'll be sure to get back there soon to really spend some time seeing everything.


We also wanted to see the Christmas market and it was awesome! The city invested 1.3 million euros for publicity, decorations, lighting and children's activities. I'll post about European Christmas markets later.

A few more pictures are alreay posted on Flickr.

Duomo di Milano

The Duomo is Milan's cathedral in the center of the city at Piazza del Duomo.

The Duomo is huge! 40,000 people can comfortably fit inside.

It is the 4th largest church in the world. It is also the largest Gothic cathedral and the 2nd largest Catholic cathedral in the world.

It was commissioned in 1386 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti but was not finished until the early 1800's. The building started out as a Gothic cathedral but since it took 500 years to complete the finished building is a cool mixture of styles.




Duomo is an elegant mass of marble with 135 spires and 3,400 statues.
One of the best things is a trip to the roof. You can climb up the stairs to the roof for €5 or take a lift for €6. Visting the roof is a no-brainer because the view is awesome!
Perched above the cathedral is a gilded statue of the Madonna. The 4 meter (13 feet) statue, called the Madonnina (little Madonna), dates back to 1774.

Milan, Italy

The four of us spent this past weekend in Milan; the biggest city in northern Italy.

This was just a quick weekend getaway so there was no time to do all of the museums and such. We only had Saturday and part of Sunday. But we sure made the most of the time we had there.

Saturday was a full day of walking around the city as we tried to see as much as possible.

We started off in the city center at the Piazza del Duomo.

The Duomo cathedral is the main symbol of Milan and is just amazing! Which says a lot because the city has some great architecture.

Although this was a budget trip we had to go to the Quadrilatero d'Oro (Golden Quad) to see Prada, Armani, Versace, Pucci, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, etc. But I was good and did not spend a single euro there. Of course, €1 wouldn't have gotten me anything at Prada anyway.

We did notice a lot of police with riot gear out and about. At the Piazza della Scala we found the reason...some sort of communist rally. Go figure.

Leonardo da Vinci lived in Milan for 17 years.

We also really enjoyed the kids singing carols at the Christmas market.

The only thing that would have made this trip better is if the hostel had not been so terrible. But hey, that's just part of the advendure. There are about 500 pictures that are already loaded up on Flickr.

1st Hostel Experience

I had another "first" this past weekend. I stayed in a hostel. What an experience...
I went to Milan,  Italy, this past weekend with Claudia, Marcus and Janelle. Our flight from Bratislava didn't put us in to Milan until 11:30 PM and it took another hour just to make it to the city.

Since we would only have part of Friday night and Saturday night we figured we would just get a private room in a hostel and save some money. And at only €100 total for four people for two nights the price was great.
We also chose this particular place because of its convenient location and this was one of the only places that was able to provide a private room for four people.

However, when we got there we found out that meant a double bed and two singles.

We knew that we would have to share a bathroom with the other rooms. But I was scared of the bathroom. I don't get why it was so bad. It would only take a few gallons of bleach to get rid of the mold in the shower. I could not wait to get back to Bratislava on Sunday night just to take a shower!!!

I don't see myself staying at the Hotel Lario again. The gang did all say that this was the worst hostel any of them had ever seen before. I may give hostels another chance but I'm not staying at one that doesn't have at least a 90% rating on hostelworld.com.

Go-Kart Racing

One of my colleagues organized a little pre-Christmas mixer last night over at Bobycentrum in Královo Pole. The event was go-kart racing.

We had about 22 people in total, racing four at a time. It was a lot of fun!!

However, I think most of us were all moving just a tad bit slower today as we all had different aches and pains.

I took a steering wheel to the chest in a four car pile up so I've got a small bruise and a stiff neck. But it was totally worth it! This was loads of fun and a perfect way to burn off some stress.

Mikuláš

December 5th is the kick-off of the Czech Christmas season. The 6th of December is St. Mikuláš Day but everything actually happens the evening before on the 5th.

Mikuláš looks a lot like Santa Claus whose origin was supposedly inspired by St. Nicholas, the 4th century Greek bishop who is said to have helped children.

On the 5th, St. Nicholas (Mikuláš), an angel (anděl) and the devil (čert) walk the streets and stop children along the way asking if they have been good the past year. Most of the kids say “yes” and recite a short poem or sing a song.

In return the kids receive candy or sweets from the angel. Bad kids are given coal or a sack of potatoes from the devil. Parents frighten kids by telling them that really bad children are put in the devil’s sack and taken to hell.

So December 5th is an exciting (or scary) time for children here!

Children also receive Mikuláš presents from their parents or relatives. Usually chocolates or other sweets are put into a stocking and hidden in the children’s room.

There are about 120 churches in the Czech Republic dedicated to the child-loving saint. The most famous is the Baroque Kostel sv. Mikuláše (Church of St. Nicholas) in Prague's Malá Strana district.

1st Visit to Prague, Czech Republic

Steven & Michael

Steven & Michael are my best friends from Atlanta and they came over for Thanksgiving which is only fair because I was with their family last year.



We rented an apartment on Václavské náměstí, Wenceslas Square, which was the perfect location to go out and explore the city.


Praha (Prague) is the capital of the Czech Republic and the most beautiful city in the world. I've been around the world and, with out a doubt, nothing compares to Prague.

I'm not sure how, but Prague came out of WWII realatively unscathed but I'm glad it did because the architecture is phenominal...you can see everything from Gothic to Early Modern here. You can't go five feet without coming across something else to marvel at. I know that sooner or later I need to invest in a better digital camera but it would not make any difference here because pictures can't do this city justice. There are lots more pictures already loaded up on Flickr but it will take me a while to add in all of the descriptions. We did most of the touristy stuff like tour the castle and the Charles Bridge, explored Old Town & New Town, went to the Christmas market, saw Wenceslas Square and the Dancing Building, and so on.

Prague is a totally modern city with an awesome public transportation system. But honestly, you really don't even need it because it was so great to just walk around and admire the city. And everyone speaks English! I was surprised by the number of Italian tourists that were there. But I also heard, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Swedish and Japanese. At times I had to try to remember I was still in the Czech Republic because I didn't hear a lot of Czech while out running around.

Three full days of sightseeing and we didn't come close to seeing everything we wanted to. I'm glad that I finally made it to Prague and the awesome thing is that it is only a 2,5 hours train ride from Brno so I'll definitely be back soon.

Thanksgiving 2009

It's been a couple of weeks but Thanksgiving wore me out and this is the first chance I've had to try to get all caught up.

Our turkey was 13,02 kg (28.64 lbs.). By far the largest turkey I've ever cooked. I got it in the oven at 5:30 AM so that it could cook for the next eight hours.

The gang from Bratislava arrived on the 10:30 train and Steven & Michael's train from Vienna came in at 11:30. So in between cooking we had to pick everyone up from the main station and make additional runs to the grocery store. Thank goodness Janelle and Marcus were here to help with the food and running around with people.

This was my most international Thanksgiving ever. We had folks from the U.S., Domenica, Germany, Slovakia, France, Spain and Poland. Not quite sure how we didn't have any Czechs but at least it was hosted in the Czech Republic and there's always next year.


We went in a circle and everyone said what they were most thankful for and then we tore in to all of the food.

Thanks to multiple care packages we had a full American Thanksgiving dinner complete with turkey, cornbread dressing, mashed potatos, gravy, cranberry sauce, home made bread & honey butter, sweet potatos with marshmellow, green bean casserole, broccoli & cheese casserole, tuna pasta salad, wild rice, macaroni & cheese, deviled eggs, black-eyed peas, garden salad, spiced wine, eggnog, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, and lemon cake.

It was really neat trying to explain what Thanksgiving is to all of our European friends. Several people told me that all they knew about Thanksgiving was what they had seen on episodes of Přátelé (Friends) on TV. In addition to new foods, we tried to introduce some other Thanksgiving traditions. Thanks to some creative downloading we had American football (not soccer) but that didn't go over so well because no one could understand it. However, everyone really enjoyed watching "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving".

After lots of food everyone was fat and happy. I got a kick when Monika said that now she understands what a "turkey coma" is. We later decided to walk off some of the food and headed in to the city center for the Christmas market. I'll post about the market later.

The market was fun and about half of the group headed back to Bratislava that night. The rest of us went back to my flat. Later, we all went out to a club where we ended up dancing until the wee hours. By the time I made it to sleep, I had been up for over 25 hours. The next day I felt as if I had been hit by a truck but it was so worth it. This had to be one of the all-time best Thanksgivings ever.

Lots more pictures are already up on Flickr. Just click on the photostream on the right hand side of the blog.