Episodes
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We invite special guest-guide expert Filip Huta. We discuss the life of Bohemian Jews throughout the centuries, and how it leads to Terezin, or "Theresienstadt", a concentration camp in an old Austrian fort, designed to trick the Western forces and the Red Cross.
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This week is Scottless as Ryan travels to Krakow, Warsaw, Gdansk, Poznan and Wroclaw. With a recorder in-hand, Ryan talks to others and himself through a beautiful and history-burdened country.
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Missing episodes?
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Scott and Ryan discuss Hungary, and Budapest in particular. The war-ravaged place caught between world powers has seen genocide, opera houses, funny hats and hot springs.
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In this edition, Scott and Ryan discuss the life of an "expat", and are lucky enough to be joined by Chris Westergaard: an American in Prague for over 15 years who has founded a TEFL-training school, The Language House. Thousands of English teachers have been forged in its hallowed halls, putting Chris in the center of this strange and ever-changing community.
Has Prague changed? Have the people who come to Prague changed? What even is an expat, anyway - we're not being problematic, are we?
If you want to follow in the footsteps of Scott, Ryan (and Chris) as an English teacher in Prague https://www.thelanguagehouse.net
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World War II (writing "2" seems weird) doesn't get a lot of attention, does it? This week we discuss this pivotal era in Czech history, where the First Republic gets destroyed through political machinations of the Munich agreement, Nazis occupy Prague and after the dust settles, the country begins to lay the groundwork for another totalitarian regime.
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The guys discuss the history, sights of Portugal - Lisbon, Sintra and Porto. Killer bakers, fortified wine the Age of Exploration.
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We present you one of the all-time greats: TGM - Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk! The father of Czechoslovakia, we talk about his academic career, early feminism, and his favourite horse. Learn about the 87-year journey of the Old Man of Europe.
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Full of holiday spirit(s), Scott and Ryan go on a Christmas adventure though Prague, drinking 12 different beers in 12 different bars throughout the city. Some touristy places, some traditional. Some authentic Pilsners, some craft brews. Listen as the progress (regress) over the course of a fun-filled evening.
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Halloween has come, and we're celebrating by inviting our friend Jirka Styblo to help us discuss Kutna Hora and the Sedlec Ossuary known for it's BONE CHAPEL. We also discuss less spooky stuff, like the composition of silver coins and the propaganda value of baroque architecture.
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Scott and Ryan get into the history of France, focusing on all the sights that make Paris the most iconic city in the world. It's a pretty literal "guided tour of" this episode, as they discuss all the main sights.
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This time, the guys enjoy (also don't enjoy) three of the cheapest beers available in the Czech Republic, which makes them some of the cheapest in the world. The low-quality chemicals begin to get to their heads...
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As the guys travel Europe, they create a travelogue of Vienna. Is it hip? Is it stodgy? Is it imperial or punk-rock? The guys can't seem to agree with each other, or even themselves.
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Scott and Ryan dig deep, investigating the names, dates and nefarious actions of All the President’s Men. Imagine a world, 45 years ago, where shocking headlines reverberate through the papers every day, implicating the innermost circle of the President of the United States, and maybe even going…all the way to the top. Hard to imagine.
The guys try to do what they try to do best: going through history to help try to explain and frame (exframe) the current world. It’s long, it’s complicated, but at the other we come out knowing what it means for a conspiracy to form, and maybe what it means to tear it all down.
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This week we carefully put away our reading monocles, fold our tweed jackets and only make one Proust reference. Tereza Lavičková, half of the band band Teepee (probably the “Tee” half) joins us, and shares stories of a working Czech club musician, playing in Prague, touring the country, getting into love triangles while busking in Italy. She plays a live track and jams with one podcaster as another holds a rabbit. Enjoy the righteous chops as we stretch the concept of this show for a little bit, and you’ll even hear Ryan’s rendition of Rudolph II in ballad form.
Check out Teepee, they’re good!
They’ve got videos too!
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This week we have Janek Rubeš, Prague’s Honest Guide, sitting across the table from Scott and Ryan. We discuss the videos that have made him something of a local celebrity, his feelings on the changing nature of Prague, being scammed, and we reflect on what it means to be Prague as a native, an expat, a tourist, and what we can do to improve this city we all love.
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We've delved into beer - the Beverage of Bohemia - and this week we're poring (pouring?) over the morass of Moravian wine. To assist, we invited Ryan's friend and roommate, Josh Buchsbaum. A licensed sommelier and restaurateur.
(Want proof? See Proof, his restaurant in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa.)
We discuss the history of winemaking in the region, the kings and regents who brought the cultivation methods to Moravia. We also drink (lots of) wine, as Josh provides tasting notes. Ryan's always asking about its "legs" as Scott audibly rolls his eyes.
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Scott and Ryan leave for seperate vacations from Prague, accidentally booking the same flight to Naples. From there they visited Pompeii, and explore the ruins of a destroyed city, and dicuss the lifestyle, history and destruction of a perfectly preserved Roman town. (episode image by Ryan's girlfriend, Lindsay)
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Food and culture seem inextricably tied. A nation’s cuisine is its history, the ingredients local to the region, the techniques by the people. All of that is unfortunately nonsense. Thanks to the Columbian exchange, the Irish have potatoes, the Italians have tomatoes, the Swiss have chocolate and the North American aboriginals have a bacterial apocalypse and bananas. This episode we explore “Czech Cuisine”, and how that fits into one of the most important aspects of human history.
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This week we invited fellow guide Sára Zeithammerová, an expert on Operation Anthropoid, in which two Czech paratroopers performed the most important assassination of the Second World War. Reinhart Heydrich was the aryan spawn of a hateful opera composer, and efficiently executed some of the darkest atrocities in history's bloodiest war. This week we e spend a double-length episode exploring the context, timeline and ramifications of the chaotic few minutes on the outskirts of Prague in June 1942. In a refreshing change of pace, Sara actually knows stuff!
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This week we discuss the life and works for Czech Filmmaker Milos Forman. A man who thought his parents were Holocaust victims, except one turned out to be a survior. A man who got his creative spark from the orphan's school, which was incidently the best school in the country. He left Czechoslovakia due to the collapse of the Prague Spring, and proceded to gain enough Academy Awards to become arguably the most well-known modern Czech artist.
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