Out amongst the natives

Bratislava, Sunday 20 September

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own personal opinions, not those of the Fulbright Commission or the U.S. Department of State.

This week has started to see us get into something of a routine. Although classes don't begin until next week, I spent three mornings in the office, getting accustomed to the work environment, meeting a couple of new people, and working on my syllabi.

The week

Commuting here is quite pleasant. I take the #6 električka (tram) from the station just below our apartment (5 minute walk down the hill). After a ride of about 10 minutes, this connects to the #88 bus, which crosses the Danube south into the district of Petržalka and winds its way to the university after about a 15-20 minute trip. Depending on the connection, it takes 30-40 minutes total. The map below is a little small, but I start at Molecova in the top left and end up at Ekonomická univerzita in the lower right, changing under the bridge at Most SNP. Driving would be a bit faster if there is no traffic, but it is so much more interesting to get out into the milieu of the locals rather than isolating myself in a car.

Petržalka, at the east end of which the university lies, was the largest "Socialist Workers' Paradise" in central Europe. Communist workers needed housing, and the state obliged by erecting this giant community of drab apartment blocks, which we have heard from those who live there were hurriedly and poorly built, some in as little as 3 months. They are now being renovated, with some color added to relieve what used to be endless gray cinder blocks and with some internal upgrades as well, but the overwhelming impression I get as we drive through them on the bus is "I'm really, really glad I don't live here!"

Socialist Workers' Paradise

I now know my teaching schedule, which is about as research-and-travel-friendly as one could imagine, though perhaps not ideal for student learning. I teach the masters macro course on Wednesdays from 17:00 - 20:00 (that's right, 8 in the evening) and the doctoral course on Thursdays from 9:00 - 12:00. So all of my teaching occurs in a 19-hour interval in the middle of the week. Those of you who know me from Reed know that this is totally not my style. (Although I can imagine that a lot of Reed faculty would find such a schedule very attractive.) You'll doubtless hear much more about classes once they have begun, so I won't comment any more now except to say that I'll do the best I can to teach effectively on this schedule.

Saturday: The market

This weekend has been more fun. On Saturday, we took the #9 electrička from our stop directly to the large farmers' market on the other side of the city at Trhovisko Miletičova. It's not so different from the markets in Portland, except that it is many times as large and is open 6 days a week. It is good for us to get into places away from the tourist zones, where people usually do not speak English. We are beginning to be able to communicate functionally with our limited vocabulary and lots of gestures. Fingers are good for counting! (Except that the Slovaks start counting with the thumb, not with the forefinger, so even that can be misunderstood.)

Suzanne in line to buy paprika (peppers)

This is a great market and we'll be going back regularly for fresh veggies and much else. (I even won an informal bet with Suzanne: you can buy toilet paper at the farmers' market ... though we didn't.)

Sunday: Harvest Festival in Pezinok

This weekend is the annual vinobranie or vintage harvest festival in the small wine-making city of Pezinok, about 20 miles northeast of Bratislava.

Today, Sunday, we drove to Pezinok in the morning. We arrived near the end of the festival parade, which featured all manner of entries not unlike American parades: vehicles old and new, people young and old in traditional Slovak costumes, soldiers old and new (but mostly old), musicians of all sorts (even a real marching band), and various groups of archers, twirlers, youth football teams, and martial arts groups not unlike the Portland Rose Festival Junior Parade. I wish we had arrived a few minutes earlier because what we saw of the parade was really interesting.

Twirlers young and not so young (any future economists?)

The twirlers don't seem so excited up close!

Marching band sounded great!

I've never seen a camel in a U.S. parade, even with the Shriners

Grape-themed float abandoned at the end of the parade route

Some people in native (or just different) costumes

Tired soldiers after the long march!

Speaking of soldiers ... Seeing groups of Slovak soldiers of different ages in a variety of uniforms raised a question in my mind that I found intriguing. The American veterans that we see in parades, whether from World War II, the Korean war, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, basically all served the same republic and fought on the "same side," regardless of which war it was. Over this same historical period, Slovak soldiers have represented the Nazi-Slovak state (against Russia) in World War II, the Russian-dominated Communist Czechoslovakia (against NATO) from the late 1940s through the 1980s, free Czechoslovakia for a few years after the Velvet Revolution, and the independent Slovak Republic (now a member of NATO and the EU) since 1993. I wonder how all the "changing sides" over the decades affects the patriotic solidarity of the various generations of veterans when they see all the different uniforms from the various eras. Maybe some Slovak historian or anthropologist has looked into this.

After the parade, we walked the streets of Pezinok, which were filled with an enormous array of booths offering food, crafts, and the young, unfiltered wine from the harvest. We feasted on the food and bought quite a few souvenirs, but the wine really looked disgusting. Given the attitudes of the locals toward drunk driving (and the police checkpoint on the way out of town that we saw coming in), I managed not to drink any this time. I'm waiting for opportunities to taste the real thing rather than the uncellared version.

The scope of the festival was mind-boggling. We must have walked the equivalent of 20 blocks of closed-off streets all completely filled with stalls and swarms of people. Slovakia is a small country, but it seemed like every Slovak converged on Pezinok today! Here are a few selected photos from the streets on what was a very fun day.

Seriously big loaves of bread (note woman's head on the side)

Wooden wares

Cookies with messages

Future Reedie???  Future Lois???

Glass-blower (with tacky shirt logo)

The fujara, a traditional Slovak shepherd's flute

Side view of the fujara

Wall sculpture of a shepherd playing the fujara (This one is coming home with us)

Woman in old-fashioned finery

Woman in traditional Slovak peasant dress

Trdelník (pronounced almost like "turtleneck" ): a wonderful Slovak fried pastry in shape of hollow cylinder

Lokša (pronounced loke-sha) are like Norwegian lefse, except they taste really good!

Making lokša

Zemiakové pľacky are large, flat, fried potato and onion cakes

Making zemiakové pľacky

So that was our week. We are having a lot of great experiences and creating great memories. I hope that these blog entries give you at least a little flavor of what we're doing, though until they figure out a way to add scratch-and-sniff or scratch-and-taste to Web pages, you won't really appreciate the "flavors." I'll leave you with one final video from the festival. Maybe this is how I should spend my retirement (if I really practice a lot!) ...

(Video is 2MB large. It might be slow to load, but it's worth it! And the drinks in the background on the right are the newly harvested wine.)