The luxury restaurant market in the Czech Republic is apparently looking for new, creative ways to cater to their clients and be "distinguishable from others."

The strategy? Putting insects as an item on luxury restaurants menus, the Prague Daily Monitor reports. The Brno restaurant manager Martin Kobylka says: "We want to shock people. A lobster, a crab or a crawfish are offered everywhere, but a cricket in caramel or a chocolate cake with a cockroach are unavailable in this country for now." (I love that the name Kobylka actually means grasshopper in Czech. It is about the coolest name for a guy who wants to market mainstream insect-eating.)

Chocolate cake with a cockroach sounds like a delightful way to end a first date. Especially if you are really not that into her.

God help us! Prague has unveiled its latest desperate attempt to find a new identity and market it to tourists. I hope you are ready. The punchline, in essence, is: Come here because we have beautiful women. (And architecture, but really, who cares. Too many syllables in that word.)

As you can see from this video ad, the Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova and last year's Miss World, Tatana Kucharova, with a kitschy backdrop of the Prague Castle, are trying to tell you that you should come to Prague because--quite frankly--everyone here looks like this and lives like this.

Before you buy your ticket, let me warn you:

Perhaps never before has the Czech Republic been so divided over a piece of architecture. The winning proposal for a new National Library in Prague, which is supposed to be built in Letna, in the Prague 7 district, not far from the Castle, is a source of major controversy in the country.

The purple-and-yellow building proposal (see photo) has been designed by Jan Kaplicky, an architect of the London architecture firm Future Systems. Yes, it is an extremely bold design, for a city known for its Gothic and Baroque architecture.

People call it all kinds of things...octopus, jellyfish, blob, phlegm are among the nicer ones. I personally like it. But I like cities that mix and match their architecture, like New York.

What about you? How do you like it?

The world is definitely about to get fully automated any day now. Just yesterday, I blogged about a German restaurant that's based solely on automated service: no waiters, no tipping.

Today, I have a new culinary efficiency concept for you: the self-tapping pub. Leave it up to the Czechs--the world's biggest beer consumers per capita--to invent a pub, where you don't even need a waiter to get your beer. What waste of time!

The customers at "The Pub", as the automated pub is actually called, can tap Pilsner Urquell beer from brewer Plzeňský Prazdroj at their tables, and a computer device on the tap keeps track of the standings of all tables in beer drinking. The scores are then projected onto a screen in the bar, Czech Business Weekly reports. The system enables customers to keep track of the beer drinking scores of all tables not only in the bar they are in, but also in all bars of the same chain across the Czech Republic. So far, they have branches in Prague, Pilsen, Hradec Kralove, Brno, Liberec, Karlovy Vary and Tabor.

The bars have Web cameras so that customers can see their competitors in different bars in the chain. They can also select which bar they would like to be in a beer drinking contest with and can send short messages via small screens on the tap. Needles to say, being able to see how much everyone else is drinking only promotes the competitive spirit among the pub guests. And that, I guess, is the idea.

The concept, started by two 24-year-old Czech men three years ago, has been been a smashing success in the Czech Republic. The chain might apparently soon be expanding to Poland, Russia and Italy.

It is still a fairly common cliche in Prague: a backpacker with a beat up copy of Milan Kundera's 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, trying to discover the Prague Kundera once described.

That Prague--desperate amidst the Russian invasion--does not exist anymore. The locals don't want it to exist. I always sense a little disappointment when tourists find out that Prague is not at all the exotic, gloomy city that Kundera wrote about. It has--like it or not--become free and commerce-driven. No Russian soldiers, no interrogation, just free market capitalism. The literary scene is not great, despite foreign media and guidebooks' keeping on "selling it" as the city of uber-intellectuals, such as Kundera, Kafka and Havel. Understandably, it is a much more appealing brand than "just another up and coming Eastern European city."

With that in mind, I found it amusing to read today's article in the travel section of The New York Times entitled "Milan Kundera's Prague: Trumping the Unbearable Darkness of History." Oh no, here we go again, longing for the way Prague felt under communism. Kundera has actually had a very troubled relationship to the post-communist country. He has lived in France for the last few decades and hasn't even wanted his books to be published in Czech. The idea that his is the Prague being sold to tourists wouldn't be particularly appealing to him, I don't think.

As the author of the article pointed out, The Unbearable Lightness of Being is no love letter to Prague. That is an accurate observation. It is a great book, don't get me wrong. One of my all time favorites. However, to think that it will make you understand the Prague you are seeing today is silly.

There is a lot more to Prague than its communist past. Try looking back longer than 20, 40 years. Prague has a great Gothic and Baroque past that--in the grand scheme of things--is a lot more relevant that its 40 years under communism (20 years ago).

So I actually made it to Cleveland for Easter. It was not exactly easy, but I guess Easter is all about suffering so I am not complaining. The flight from Prague to New York was delayed and the flight from New York to Cleveland was three hours more delayed because Ohio got hit with 8 inches of snow. Yes, snow on Easter. Long story short, I made it here in time to find what the Easter bunny left for me (iTunes card, dark chocolates, paddle ball set....it was a cool Easter bunny, I must say.)

It has been three and a half years since I was last in Ohio. Snow was on the ground then, too. The weather here is about as bad as the weather in Prague. What Prague lacks though, is the drive-thru Easter story. Only in America!

A church in Middleburg Heights, Ohio has developed a creative way of telling the Easter story without the inconvenience of having to get out of one's car. You simply pull your car up to the last supper, and see the story dramatized by live actors. In their church parking lot, the actors stage Easter scenes-like Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, writes wkyc.com.

Pastor Mike Wengerd says "What a wonderful, safe way for people to say-i don't have to leave my car and do this."
Members say their drive-thru attracts people who don't normally come to church, and it also strengthens the faith of those who make it happen.

You gotta ask, what would Jesus say about this?

They don't call the D1, the major Czech highway, a "death trap" for nothing. Yesterday morning amidst a surprising spring snow storm which brought down as much as one inch of snow within minutes, the D1 turned into a bloody mess. Lucky me, I drove to Prague from Moravia just hours before the accident happened.

It all started with two semi trucks getting stuck mid-hill (summer tires?) about halfway between Prague and Brno and no less than 106 cars couldn't stop in time and ended up building the most impressive car pile up in the country's history.

Both directions of the highway, which is a major international artery in this region, were closed the entire day. Twenty thousand people got stranded on the side of the road in the freezing cold. Amazingly enough, nobody was killed, although 8 people were seriously injured.

If you ever want to rent a car here and drive around the country, please remember the D1 is not for the faint of heart.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, to all of you aside from the guy who sat next to me on an EasyJet flight from Prague to London a couple of years ago (the morning after St. Patty's day) and almost threw up in my lap.

He had a black eye and body odor of a dying donkey. I am trying to make peace with you man, I really am. I also hope I never have to be stuck next to you for 90 turbulent minutes.

Tomorrow morning must make one of the worst days to fly anywhere, especially around Europe and especially on a budget airline from a destination known for its cheap liquor. Honestly, I don't think i will ever fly out of Prague on March 18 ever again.

Thanks, kittyroara, for the lovely photo. By the way, do you ever fly budget airlines to or from Prague?

On Friday after a hearty Czech meal, my Mom popped the question. She asked me if I could somehow manage to get her a hemp plant or two. At first, I thought it was a trick question. What do you answer? So I said what any good Czech daughter would say. "Sure Mom. I think I can manage that."

I know she has no intentions of actually using it for "marijuana-smoking purposes," but her request still surprised me. She explained she wanted to use hemp for medical purposes, because she believes hemp products have magic powers. I don't know about magic powers, but I do think it is kind of cool to be the daughter of a Czech hemp grower.

Drug possession has been top of mind in the Czech Republic in the last couple of weeks. Historically, the laws here have been very vague. Until now, it was illegal to carry "more than a small amount of drugs." Yes, you get the point. The definition of a "small amount" varies greatly and opens doors for all kinds of bribery.

Finally, it looks like the Czech Republic will settle on limiting punishment to a fine for growing up to three hemp plants or carrying up to 20 joints, a gram of hashish or 0.5 grams of methamphetamine (pervitin). Any caught exceeding those limits would face criminal prosecution and a possible prison term, the Prague Daily Monitor reports. Soon, I might be the daughter of a woman who had to pay a fine for drug possession.

The days when foreigners could simply drift in and out of Eastern Europe, staying in Prague for 6 months, Budapest for 7 and Krakow for a year, might be over.

With the Schengen agreement now applying to some Central/Eastern European countries, it has gotten more difficult to do all this with just a tourist visa. One now has to apply for Schengen visa, which is a bit harder to obtain.

To add to things, the Czech Republic will probably impose a Czech language test for anyone who is applying for a residency permit here. Starting next year, foreigners applying for residency will be required to speak Czech at level A1( the ability to communicate and to manage basic day-to-day living situations). Those applying for citizenship will have to pass a harder, A2-level language test.

Free first Czech lesson for gadling readers: "Strč prst skrz krk." (Put your finger through your throat). This is a famous Czech no-vowel tongue twister.