Such a random story – for my Czech friends mostly. Today, we were invited to a house of one of our clients for lunch. She is a very well respected architect and her husband, daughter and father were also present. Her father was a very quiet gentleman (86 years old), extremely well dressed and only speaking French. He sat next to me at the table. As he was leaving, in about 2 hours of sitting next to each other quietly, he approached me and asked if I was Czechoslovak. Noone really understood what he was saying – except me as my ear is trained for hearing Czech-o-slovak.

And he says: “About 60 years ago, I made one of the best friends with an athlete called Emil Zatopek, I ran with him at a world competition – I admire him so much, do you know of him?” I was absolutely stunned. Emil Zatopek is probably the most famous runner in Czech history, winning 3 gold medals at the 1952 Olympics – the 3rd one in marathon which he never ran before. Real star and everyone knows him!

I had to take a picture with someone who uttered a name I haven’t heard in a very long time, in Africa of all places – and brought back some memories from school lectures. #ibmcsc