4th Stop - Prague

After finishing up a translation on Monday morning, I hit the road again for Prague. As I got closer to the city center, I felt more and more lost. For some reason, I decided not to follow my printed out directions. Big mistake. An hour or so later and a spin through a parking garage by accident, I ended up getting pulled over.

Apparently, I turned down the wrong road. As I was following the patrol car, I must have missed the sign. Fortunately, I didn’t have a Czech money on me for the “fee” and the policeman let me off with a warning.

I met up with Milan Condak, another Wordfast Trainer from the Czech Republic and we talked about training and the future of Wordfast. Milan also showed me some machine translation software that works with Wordfast called PC Translator. Thanks Milan for traveling 8 hours for our meeting; it was a pleasure meeting you and I wish you lots of success for the future.

Milan and I parted ways and I went on to the Corporate Social Responsibility Powwow I had planned via ProZ.com. Generally, a powwow is an informal gathering of translators to network, share experiences and have fun. During this powwow, we talked about values and how to transform them into concrete actions via your business. I also invited local members of JCI Prague to talk about what they are doing in the community to create positive change and network with the translators in attendance. A special thanks to Ewen, Anthony and Adeline for joining us and sharing with us what you’ve been doing in JCI Prague. Thanks as well to Pavel for helping with the organization of this powwow. Pavel is going to be organizing a ProZ.com International Conference in Prague in early October and I know he is going to do a great job! I hope I can make a special detour for it... Finally, a tremendous thanks to the everyone in attendance. Together, we all chipped in a raised enough money to purchase 5 bednets!

During the rest of my stay in Prague, I mostly visited with Marika, Ewen, and Adeline. I learned that there is no tolerance for drinking and driving in the Czech Republic (0.0%) despite being the country with the highest consumption of beer per capita in Europe (the world?). Marika also showed me a really cool video on YouTube of a Spartakaida in 1985. Imagine 240,000 people coming together in a stadium with enough room for 6 soccer fields and performing a synchronized dance routine... if you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself!

Thanks again Ewen and Marika for hosting me in Prague! I bought 2 bednets in your name which will help protect two families from malaria for the next 5 years. Looking forward to a weekend in Prague next time ;-)

Next stop: Berlin!