I have only been once and thought it was great but a couple of things surprised me was the graffiti ..it was everywhere and the local council have to apply to get it removed ( don't know why but tour guide told us) and as soon as its removed its back again and the other thing was the amount of young people smoking ..it appeared to be the majority of them
Yes, aerosol paint is big business in the Czech Rep.
Strangely enough, the Czechs are very artistic and creative. There are plenty of communist era concrete panel flats and buildings to decorate. A poor man's canvas.
Another reason I like it there, apart from the freedom to let rip with a Glock 9mm, is you can have a cig with your pint. Smoking is virtually compulsory in the C R.
Some call the graffiti art, that Banksy fella does well out of it. Not my cup of tea though.
They have been clever to corner the gun market here to get the tourists in. Gun laws are relaxed because there is a massive hunting culture and they have had a big weapons industry for years, the Bren gun from ww2 was a copy of a machine gun from Brno. But the gun clubs are good because its well controlled, a few Jan Koller type characters around if anyone goes silly. Whats interesting is that with all the guns there isnt that gun gang culture like Manchester, Nottingham, Liverpool. The only people who get shot are usually drunk hunters mistaking each other for a deer or some poor herbert walking by, apart from the odd Russian or Vietnamese mafia hit.
I hope they ban the smoking though, they will soon in line with EU, the smoking laws are creeping up from nothing, to restaurants and soon to the pubs. My local is that bad, there is a fog when you walk in, the smoke hurts your eyes and gets in your hair. Even if its snow and -20 in the winter I dont always take a coat as it will need dry cleaning after a couple of hours in the pub, sometimes take an old working coat.
I wouldnt say it is that free here, more then UK maybe without the cctv but we have to carry ID everywhere and car docs, not just produce them at a police station. It might look free when your on holiday but to live here its all permits, stamped docs, lots of tiny taxes on property and so on and days wasted at the state offices its impossible to live here without the language, or money to get a translator to navigate you through. These taxes and docs arent expensive but its knowing what to do, companies make a living from working the foreigners through the system(some of us just have a mrs who is a lawyer). Its a bit of a joke but there are many American, British and other illegal immigrants here mostly on the teaching circuit who dont bother signing in, they are gap year types doing it on the cheap or dont know the script. Thats the difference where Britain makes it easy for the foreigner and bends over backwards for them, here you need to want to live here.
