Czechs on Friday excitedly awaited President Bush's arrival on a history-making visit coinciding with the first anniversary of the "Velvet Revolution" that toppled communist rule.
On the eve of its first-ever U.S. presidential visit, Prague officially renamed its railway station in honor of President Woodrow Wilson, who encouraged a much earlier Czech push for independence.Within the citadels of power in the post-Cold War Prague government and among the populace at large, excitement - even exhilaration - was in the air.
In anticipation of Bush's arrival Saturday, Czechs donned buttons showing a smiling U.S. president with the inscription, "Thank You!" American flags fluttered in the breeze, mounted on elegant buildings alongside Czechoslovakia's national flag of matching red, white and blue.