temporarily unavailable

Sorry that i have not been updating frequently lately, unfortunately we have lost the Internet connection at the flat, so for now, it is only possible to get on the net occasionally at the Internet cafe. Be assured that when i can i will get back to regular updates on our progress here in Czech

Czech Lesson

Yesterday I had my first Czech lesson, and it is really hard. I hope it will get easier, I have started the course late so I am about 3 weeks behind (6 lessons). Each class is 1.5 hours but the time goes really quickly. Just as well yesterday because I had a terrible headache by the finish. I think it's because I am having to listen so hard, the teacher is Czech of course and speaks English, but not clearly. She also speaks a lot in Czech to the class so that makes it even harder. The lesson was the beginning of studying verbs, and the 3 groups of verbs, we started with the 'a' group and 'i' group, and the changing end of the word. We get homework each night we have class. So last night when we got home I sat and did mine. Petra helps me of course, but there are somethings that she cannot explain, and I'm the sort that needs to fully understand something, but it was really good. My next class is wednesday, so I will try to catch up a little by then.

Foreigners Police AGAIN

I wouldn't want to repeat today in a hurry, one of those frustrating but necessary days. we were up at 6.45 am so that we could get an early start over at the Foreigners Police, I had everything I thought I needed ready. We jumped on the Metro at about 7.30 am and went to Pankrac stop, then we got onto a bus for what turned out to be an unnecessary one stop. We arrived at the FP at about 8.00 am or so and joined an already long queue. This we expected because of previous stories and research, The building was pretty crappy not the sort of place you want to spend much time, not even any seats to speak of to rest your legs whilst waiting. whilst standing gazing around I realised from looking at a couple of posters that we had completed the wrong forms, Petra didn't agree because the forms we had, were given to us by the other Foreign Police office in Prague 3 but I bullied her a bit and we could see by others in the queue and by the fact that the form we didn't have clearly had printed on the top 'To be completed by European Union Citizens' that part gave it away a bit to me. So Petra started again on completing the new form whilst I stayed in the queue to keep our place.

oh, one other point about the form, the other night when I was working on it as I got to the end I come upon the instructions for completing the papers, at this point it said quite clearly 'to be completed in Czech' not a great deal of help having instructions like these at the end rather than as the front sheet!

We stood for a total of 1.5 hours and it bloody felt like it. As I anticipated, one of our prepared forms got rejected, the form completed by the lady whose flat we are living in had to be signed in front of the staff at the FP. so we got sent away to either bring her with us to wait for a couple of hours or get her to complete the form again and then go to a solicitor and have it stamped and signed off as authentic. We were told we also had to go to the registration offices for property and get a document from them to show that the flat was actually owned by this lady.

We trundled back to Old Town and started the process of obtaining the bits we needed to go back. Firstly a trip to the lady, who helped us and came with us to a magistrates building on Narodni, here we paid 30 Kc (about 75p) to have the signature and document authenticated, then we jumped back on the Metro again and went to the end of the line C, Kobylisy. This is where we would find the building for property registration.

In the CR when you go to many businesses or companies you have to wait to be seen by way of number order on a ticket you take from a machine in the reception or main hall. We have had to do this 3 times now, here at the property registration building, at the insurance company and at the post office. We picked our ticket up and had 129, we looked around to see what number they were up to and it was 52!!!! So we had another long wait to look forward to, we settled ourselves down for a bit. just under a hour later we got to the desk and the lady printed the document that we needed for the princely sum of 100 Kc (about £2.50). When I saw the paper I could see that the flat was on there but it did not have any names to it. So I questioned this with Petra asking how this was proof that the lady owned the flat we were staying in? Petra tells me that the building is under co-operative ownership so the tenants become members but don't own it. So I start to say that we are back to square one because the papers won't be good enough for the FP, Petra disagrees and we make our way all the way back to Pankracs Metro station and back to the FP.

We were told this morning that when went returned to the FP just to take the papers straight to the desk and not wait in the queue, can you imagine the confusion this causes for everyone standing in the queues. Petra got verbally attacked when she went to the counter by a lady a few spaces back, but we didn't get too annoyed because we had seen this several times this morning because whilst we were in the queues it was happening to us to. Anyway, we gave the girl our papers and she rejected them again, as I had suspected, we now need the manager of the co-operative to sign the registration document to acknowledge that the lady whose flat we are staying in actually owns it (or at least is a member of the co-operative).

We left and caught the Metro back home, the time was now about 2.00pm and Petra had to get ready for another interview, this time with HSBC in Prague 1 behind where World Class is. As soon as she was dressed she shot off again and I caught up with my correspondence by email.

I sent an email to Nationwide my car insurance company, to cancel my policy. I included all the necessary information, Policy number, Car details, and name, address and DOB etc. They replied by telling me that they cannot accept an email to cancel the policy and that I have to call them to do it. I thought about it and wondered why, they would have no better proof that I am who I say I am from a telephone call, than they would over my email? So, I replied to this effect and told them that as I now reside in CR it was too expensive for me to call them and they could call me.

By about 5.30 we were ready for some exercise, so we took the bikes down the cycle path again from our flat in Chodov to the edge of Prague 1, Nove Mesto (new town) and took a right turn at Tancici Dum (Dancing Building) heading up to Vinohrady where I had seen a couple of flats for sale in the streets behind the National Museum. It gets dark pretty early now so by 7.00pm we were ready to come home. we grabbed the train at I P Pavlova Metro and headed home. By the way you can take a bike on the Metro, as long as you go the the last carriage and there is only meant to be 2 bikes on the carriage.

It was my turn to cook, so I cracked on with it as soon as we arrived home. mmmhhhh Pasta tonight with vegetables and funghi Omackou (mushroom sauce).

see you tomorrow.

Wacky Wednesday

We tried to get off to any early start this morning, but I am really struggling to get out of bed here. We have an alarm set for 7am and usually I would consider this late. Our first appointment was at the hair salon, petra had a cut at 9:00 am and mine was at 10:00 so first I went for coffee at ‘Coffee Heaven’ on Parizka. During my appointment, Petra had to shoot off to another interview, this was just with an agency though, she had 4 Agency interviews and 3 proper ones. DHL, Recruitment company and a major Czech insurance company, each as a PA to the MD or a Director. She has another interview tomorrow with HSBC bank, similar position, and she should begin to hear from the others whether they are offering her any position. So, it will be tough times for her to decide or choose a new job. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for her.

We also had to take a bus to Kladno today, so that Petra could go to the employment people, a bit like our DSS and sign-on. This will allow for her health insurance to be paid until she finds a job. We waited for ages in one dingy office, and then had to grab a taxi and make a mad dash to another office for the second part of the process. Seeing as we were in Kladno, we stopped off at her parents and got some dinner. Then had to jump on a bus again to get back to Prague so that we could catch a Kodak photo store and get some passport photos ready for another trip to the Foreigners Police tomorrow morning for the application for Residency.

Then a dash back home to watch the football, Czech v Ireland!

Foreigners Police and Supermarkets

Today we thought we would try and tackle the Foreigners Police. They are notorious here for being nothing but a pain in the arse. Long queues, unhelpful staff, delays and red tape. So to try and help ourselves, I looked up as much as I could on the internet and got all the papers together I could in readiness. We checked with our solicitor and on the net where to go, which is Prague 3, Olsanska. So we set off this morning firstly on the metro, then tram and walked a little way after that. Petra went into what she thought was the building and asked where we should go, and the staff said….. “Prague 4!” It turns out that they now deal with EU citizen residency applications in a different location over the other side of Prague. As usual, this doesn’t seem to be known by anyone else accept them. We took the opportunity of having a member of staff in front of us to ask exactly what we needed to have available. Marriage certificate, passport, Petras ID, 2 photographs of me, confirmation of accommodation, and my EU NHS medical card. All of which I have except the confirmation of accommodation, by this they mean a rental contract. We don’t have one of these because we are staying at the flat of a friend. I got Petra to question this telling the employee that we are staying with a friend until we buy our own flat. Glad I asked the question, because she produced another form, which will cover this eventuality.

So we decided to postpone for a day or two on the Foreigners Police. Besides this, Petra had a couple of interviews; she has been really busy with these.

Supermarkets, ok, I expect them to be a little different to ones back home, but a couple of things I cannot explain. In the local one we go to there is everything you can imagine, including DIY, Motorcare and Clothing etc. You can easily walk around with your trolley grab 4 new tyres for your car, a bench saw maybe some overalls and paint, chuck them into your trolley and make your way to the checkout. However, if you want a battery operated toothbrush, a whole different story. They are locked up like a fortress and there is a sign on the cabinet that you have to find a telephone and call for assistance. So we did, and a young man came running with his bunch of jailers’ keys, to fetch a toothbrush from the cabinet. So, not really thinking anymore about it, I attempted to take the toothbrush off him and put it into my trolley. Oh no matey, I was sternly told I must pay for the item immediately! Not wishing to upset the locals or draw any more attention, we followed the lad to a till and paid for the toothbrush. From this little episode I concluded that more battery-operated toothbrushes are stolen in the Czech Republic than any other product.

Another most disconcerting practise is the selling of fresh fish straight from tanks in the store to the customers’ trolley. Basically, you pick which carp you fancy eating for your tea that night after watching him gently and hypnotically going about his business, the minute you pick one out, it is scooped from the tank, whacked on the back of the head and wrapped in paper for you to take to the checkout. The part I disliked most today though was seeing the poor carp still wriggling a bit whilst the happy shopper continued down the aisles grabbing the last few bits from her list. You can’t really get fresher that that!

Monday on Mars

Life is like a maze, don’t you think, as you walk down different paths hoping to make progress and reach your goal, you find that you continually walk straight into a dead end, walls all around except the way back, until you take a different route as you press on toward your original goal.

Can you believe that I am still struggling with my solicitors and mortgage company to pay off my mortgage that should have been closed out 10 days ago. I have spent endless time on the phone at national rate because I am here and they are in the UK, trying to help them to resolve the issues. Trouble is with companies these days, is they cock up then try and pass the buck, it seems that no one will ever hold their hands up and say sorry, we made a mistake. At the end of last week, my mortgage company told me that they had received a cheque to pay my mortgage but I needed to wait 5 working days for the cheque to clear funds. So, I emailed my solicitor on Friday asking her to check on the transaction, as I was not entirely happy with it. Today I called the mortgage company in total 3 times, only to be told that they had not, in fact got a cheque from the solicitor, just a letter regarding a cheque. Then I got an email form my solicitor asking me to see if I had any strange entries on my bank account. Now I already new what this was for, it’s because my solicitor had erroneously paid all money to me instead of part to me and part to my mortgage. Only now are they realising that they have massively ……..up! She tells me to save time and pay the mortgage company off directly, so I ring the mortgage company again and try to do this, they tell me I can only do this by paying them a cheque or making a telegraphic transfer by going to my bank offices. I can’t go to the offices, because they are about 800 air miles away. If I pay by cheque it will take about 10 days to fulfil the transaction, which I don’t favour as I get interest added daily on the account. She also tells me to pay by BACS over the Internet, which I reply this is also not possible because there is a maximum transaction limit of £10,000 on personal accounts. I made a call to my bank and after spending at least quarter of an hour in another automated system, I spoke to a lady in India about the problem I am having trying to pay my mortgage off can I please arrange a telegraphic transfer, she says certainly I can, if I go to my banks offices! I try to calmly ask her if she could pop over the my banks offices and have a little word with them, and of course this sounds absurd to her, and I am able to clarify my point to her that neither can I. She puts me back on hold so that she can ask her supervisor if it is ok for her to put me through to my branch. Great I think, now I will be able to sort this out. Unfortunately not, because for 3 attempts the branch is busy and cannot take my call. The nice Indian lady tells me I’ll have to call back later. Has she really not been listening to me? So I can neither pay the mortgage off nor return the money to the solicitor at any great speed. I get the message I’m on my own with this one; even though I pay other people to take care of it for me.

Finally I got an apology from the solicitor for their mistake and the inconvenience it has caused me, I also had assurances that I would be reimbursed for the overpayment I would have to make for the added interest. I wonder how true to this they will be? So I now have posted a cheque to the mortgage company, which will take at least 3 days from Czech to UK, then it will take about 6 working days to go through the banks system, in the mean time the normal payment date of my mortgage will have come and gone so I can expect a letter telling me that I have defaulted on my mortgage payments, yippee!

The next annoyance I had today was the response I got from Mid Kent Water regarding money they owe me. Last week they emailed me telling me they had sent a cheque to my Czech address on the 28^th September, when I chased them today they tell me they sent me the cheque on the 6^th October, So the question is, why lie in the first email, surely they know the difference between send a cheque last week or this week, they must have records of such things?

Further to this, O2 has still not reconnected my UK mobile after erroneously cutting me off due to an error at their end, which they hope to resolve soon?

So, back to the business at hand here in the Czech Republic, Petra is getting a good response to her CV at several companies through the agencies. She has a couple of interviews tomorrow and one on Wednesday. One of the things I must do if I wish to stay in the Czech Republic permanently is register with the foreign police, within 30 days of arriving, but to do this, I must have one missing piece of paperwork that is Foreigners health insurance. So we went to buy this but find that as usual with most insurance it has a list of exclusions as long as your arm. These would include sporting activity! Any of you who know me personally, will know that I like to be active and will regularly cycle, run, swim, occasionally play sport, or skate and like to go skiing once or twice a year, so having sporting activity excluded makes the insurance as useful as a chocolate fire guard! So we asked for an insurance upgrade, to something that includes the exclusions. This is available we were pleased to hear, as long as I go to a doctor and have a medical. So now we have to go for the medical, to get the insurance, to enable me to get the residency permit. It’s reassuring to know they are as fucked up in the CR as we are in the UK. Once I have the residency permit, it will be easier to do many other things, like open a bank account or obtain a work permit.

We have tried a second language school, but they too were full for this term, I can enrol in February if I want to. I really wanted to get a course straight away though, so I will continue looking.

not sure how many of you will have made it to the end of this post, it is rather long.

Photos of our flat

This blog is for the writer in me, however, just for now i want to share some photos with you

Thursday

Been out in the forest again this morning, for a little bike ride. Made a better effort than the other morning to, went further around the outside, it’s beautiful. Interesting sight though, we saw a couple of Czech park rangers collecting dead deer. They were carrying one towards the car, whilst the boot of the car already had one in. Couldn’t tell you how they died, maybe people go into the woods and shoot them, or maybe they die of natural causes?

It’s going to be interesting and challenging trying to get a residency permit, a lot of red tape to get through. I apparently have to have a reason to be here, eg work. Although having read a few documents regarding residency permits there is ‘to maintain a family’ as a reason for applying, so I reckon this could be the one. My application will have to be accompanied by a number of papers. Like, passport, driving licence, marriage certificate, health insurance certificate, proof of place of residency, proof that I can support myself financially for the term I wish to stay.

We have an appointment with our solicitor tomorrow morning so we can ask some questions then. Petra has an interview on Monday morning for one of the agencies, ready to put her out to companies. We’ll have to go and buy her a nice new suit today.

Got myself a Czech o2 SIM yesterday, doesn’t seem o be a problem getting one of those, however, the kind of tariff I am used to is not available here, well not without great expense, so I will have to lower my expectations!

Opening a bank account shouldn’t be too hard although some of them have far more conditions than other, for example KB bank ask for almost the same papers as applying for a residency permit, so I doubt I will be going with them, 2 others we have enquired at, Reifaissen and eBanka just require 2 forms of ID (so they say). Ebanka is possibly the best for low charges, however, they are a young bank and my concern would be the security of my money. If you pay 15,000 Kc per month into the account you can get basic banking free. With a small maintenance charge for the Visa card.

Anyway, Petra is hovering around me to go out, so I’ll update again later.

Tuesday

The days are going so fast I feel like I have entered a time warp. Yesterday we needed to do a lot of research on different bits and pieces, banks, insurance, schools, mobile contracts etc so we were running all over the place.

Can’t get used to the Czech bank system, you only have to sneeze inside a branch and you’ll get charged for it. You have to pay to have an account, you have to pay for a visa, and for maintaining that visa, and you have to pay to send money or transfer it. You have to pay to withdraw money and to have direct debits drawn on your account, every single thing they can think of they charge for.

We received our first post this morning, both companies managed to address them incorrectly, typical. Only, one of them was the Royal Mail re-direction service!!!

This morning we thought it would be nice to have our first jaunt into the forest behind our flat. Petra had a run, I took the bike out, the forest is fantastic but unfortunately it rained whilst we were out, and now I have to bring a wet dirty bike back into the flat. Something I’ll have to get used to.

Petra has gone off by herself to do some things today, she had to go to the town she lived in before to transfer her insurance to the offices in Prague, she’ll go to see her mum and catch up with a few friends. I had a walk around Prague and took a gamble on the trams myself; it turned out ok though so no worries there.

I’m feeling bloody knackered but that’s to be expected considered the lack of sleep I had over the past 2 weeks.

We took a look at a couple of gyms, but I reckon it will be best to see where we settle in the future to decide which will be the best gym to go to. We’ll have to make do with running, cycling and swimming for the time being.

I had a real pain in the arse with my own mobile, I changed the contracted SIM to a PAYG but I didn’t realise it would not allow the previous services I was used to, like email and internet on the move. Then the call and text charges were so high I run out my credit in 2 days but couldn’t to up because they only accept payment cards registered to a UK address, which of course I changed at my bank when I moved. So I have to buy a phone card and ask my brother to go top up my phone for me so that I could then sort out all the other issues I mention. I think I am pretty much there now, just can’t get Internet on the mobile anymore.

So I am going to catch a few zzzzzz’s now and maybe later go out for another walk or to the cinema, or something?