Alligator in the bathtub

Bratislava, Sunday 1 November

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

OK, I've resorted to sensational headlines in my shameless quest for page views! :)

We have a very nice bathtub in our apartment. It's also very slippery, which makes it hard for old people (like me) to get out of it. So we really did need a bathtub mat to provide better traction. But did she have to buy an alligator???

It will probably work out fine, but if I feel even a tiny nibble I'm getting out fast!

Mexican restaurant in Bratislava!

After two and a half months without any Mexican food, the marginal utility of enchiladas was astronomical (gastronomically astronomical?). After hearing complaints from some other Americans about the absence of Mexican cuisine and after failing to find many of the raw materials in grocery stores to make Mexican food ourselves, we had just about given up. But one of the Americans we met recommended a little Mexican restaurant on the east edge of the old city, so on Monday after our Slovak class we stopped in at Delicatessen Los Mexikas for lunch. We were not disappointed. The food was good and recognizably Mexican (with a few compromises), and the service was excellent.

The man who waited on us (and seemed to be an owner) spoke perfect English (in addition to Spanish and Slovak) and was very forthcoming in responding to all of Suzanne's questions about ingredients. This has been a problem: Suzanne makes some very good Mexican-based dishes, but when grocery stores in Bratislava have a Mexican aisle it has usually seemed pretty pathetic: tortillas, some taco sauce and a few jars of peppers. We still haven't seen tomatillos or black beans in any form, fresh, dried or canned. Although Los Mexikas imports most of its non-perishable ingredients directly from Mexico City, our waiter offered some suggestions about where we might find some things in local stores. 

He also agreed to sell us one kilogram of masa harina from the store's supply so that Suzanne can make homemade tortillas and empanadas. Carrying a kilo of white Mexican powder home in a plastic bag on the tram made us think seriously about how we would try to explain the situation in Slovak to a policajt if for some reason we were questioned. :)

The food was very good and we will return there again. But there were clearly some compromises to the local cornucopia. For example, beans and rice were noticeably absent from our lunch plates. And the usual Monterrey Jack or cheddar cheese was replaced with feta and other local cheeses (which we have found to be excellent). There is no question that Nuestra Cocina and Xico will be high on our list of priorities when we get back to Portland!

Slovak class

We have now attended four of our weekly Slovak class sessions. This is a real university class (though we are just auditing), required for international students who don't know Slovak or a closely related language. There are students from Russia, Romania, Germany, France, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Mexico in the class. Some of them seem quite serious about learning the local language, but others are clearly there because they have to be; we sit in the front row to avoid distractions. Although we are not in the class officially, our teacher Roman has been very gracious about including us as full participants. Being in the front, he calls on us a lot. (Maybe because he knows that we have done the homework!)

Although we still can't really put together coherent sentences, every lesson brings us a little bit closer to being able to express ourselves. I knew that I was getting more comfortable when we saw a sign for a BRGR restaurant and I didn't even hesitate to add the missing vowels mentally.

Last week's lesson included learning directions. Now English has its own issues with left and right. Many times have Suzanne and I had a variation of the following dialog in the car:

Driver: I should turn left here, right?

Navigator: Right!

Driver: You mean turn right?

Navigator: No, turn left.

Driver: But you said right.

Navigator: I meant you were right to turn left.

Driver: Damn, I just missed the turn!

But Slovak directions present their own special difficulty: left and right sound very much alike. Left is vľavo, right is vpravo, and straight ahead is Volvo. (OK, I made the last one up, but it might as well be!) Both left and right start with "v," end in "vo,"  and the vowel in the middle is "a." These can't be easy to distinguish when your navigator is guiding you through the narrow, winding streets in a noisy car. 

Cleveland Agreement ... and Woodwinds

If you know your 20th century Central European history, then you know that the outlines of post-World-War-I Czechoslovakia were drawn in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1915. Just in case some of you may need reminding, I'll review the highlights. 

There were hundreds of thousands of Czech and Slovak emigrants living in Ohio from the late 19th century. Cleveland had become the capital of the Czech and Slovak ex-pat world. 

At the time, both countries were part of the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire, but not happily so. The Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia were part of the Austrian Empire; Slovakia was in the Hungarian Kingdom and subject to "Magyarization" as the Hungarians sought to stamp out Slovak language and culture. 

With World War I, both nationalities saw the opportunity to throw off rule by their southern neighbors. So 100 years ago last week, in late October 1915, representatives of the Czechs and the Slovaks met in Cleveland to draft an agreement (the Cleveland Agreement) presenting a blueprint for an independent, united, but federal Czechoslovakia. Although this agreement had no legal standing at the time, it was (along with the follow-up Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918) the basis for the creation of Czechoslovakia when the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dismantled at the end of the war.

Because of the significance of the Cleveland Agreement and the concentration of Slovak emigrants there, Bratislava and Cleveland are sister-cities.

So why have I included this arcane bit of history in the blog? Because we were invited on Friday to a special concert marking the 100th anniversary of the agreement, at which a woodwind quintet drawn from the Cleveland Orchestra performed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Primate's Palace in Bratislava. (This palace is not a monkey's house, despite the English name. It was originally the home of the archbishop of Bratislava, then was sold to the city and is now the mayor's seat. The Hall of Mirrors was the site of the signing of the Peace of Pressburg---Bratislava's German name---in 1805, which for a time established peace between Napoleon and the Hapsburgs.)

You might expect a "hall of mirrors" to have lively acoustics, and that was indeed the case---ideal for a woodwind quintet. The flutist (from Minnesota!) played on a wooden flute, which matched the needs of the hall perfectly. This ensemble was not the doddering principal players from the Cleveland Orchestra, but instead the lively young understudies of the woodwind section. They performed four works, of which only one existed at the time of the Cleveland Agreement. The performance was excellent and very well-received by the audience of about 150 Slovak and American guests. I found the Ibert work particularly nice. And the final movement of the Danzi was more "Presto" than "Allegretto," a real showpiece for technical virtuosity.

All in all, a delightful event and one that it was a privilege to attend. We are grateful to the embassy staff for including us in the invitation list.

Day in Laxenburg

We have been in Bratislava for two months now and we still had not made the short trip over the Vienna, so yesterday we decided to head west and visit some of the places that we had worked and lived in 1980. We had a splendid day in the warm sunshine, but first we had to get there through the dense morning fog...

Motorway tolls in central Europe are paid by purchasing a "vignette," a sticker for the corner of the windshield that provides unlimited access until the expiration date. We had bought a two-month vignette for Austria as we came to Bratislava in August, which (of course) expired on Friday, just before our Saturday trip. So the first item on the agenda was a new Austrian vignette. They are usually available at the border crossings, so as we reached the border we exited the motorway. The buildings were deserted, so we crossed to the other side (over a one-lane, tunneled overpass) where it was also deserted, and totally eerie in the Halloween-day fog. The one door that was open (a small shop) had a sign on the outside saying that they did not sell vignettes and that one should go to an OMV gas station in Slovakia or to an office in Austria to buy them. 

We were a little nervous about actually going into Austria before buying a new vignette, so back into Slovakia we went. The gas station was supposed to be at the first exit, but when we got off there was nothing there. Oops. So we backtracked to the motorway and continued back toward Bratislava. We found the OMV gas station at the next exit. Of course, we were on the side heading into Slovakia, so the clerk had to be convinced that we really wanted an Austrian vignette rather than a Slovak one (which we already have through the end of the year). We finally got our sticker and installed it on the windshield. 

Then we got back on the motorway into Bratislava and started looking for a place to turn around. That turned out to be very difficult, but after three mistakes we finally got back onto D2 heading toward Vienna. It turns out that had we gone just another 200 yards past the border station where we initially stopped, we would have arrived at the Austrian border station, where Austrian vignettes are sold. We made an easy five minute stop into an hour-long ordeal.

We had decided to start the day by visiting Laxenburg, a village south of Vienna where a Hapsburg hunting palace---Schloss Laxenburg---is the headquarters of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), a multinational think-tank where I worked in their "Young Scientist Summer Program" in 1980. In 1980, IIASA was noteworthy because it was one of the few scientific institutions that mixed first-world and second-world scholars. The YSSP program in 1980 had scientists in various fields (a lot of environmental people) from Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, etc., in addition to the US, Britain, the Netherlands, and other western countries. I suspect that the enthusiasm for IIASA in the US has diminished considerably since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the integration of most of Europe. But the Schloss is still lovely on the outside (even if the windows really need a new coat of paint!).

IIASA was closed on Saturday, but the adjacent 700-acre park was open and magnificent, with vivid fall colors glowing in the bright sun that had followed the morning fog. The park was established by the Hapsburgs 200+ years ago as a royal hunting ground and is now maintained by the Austrian government as a natural park. At the back edge of the park is the quaint Franzensburg Castle, which was built on an artificial island in the park's lake in 1800 in the style of a medieval knight's castle.

We walked for two hours in the park, stopping for a quick lunch at a outdoor cafe in Franzenburg Castle. Pictures can tell the day's story better than words:

Parish church on the Schlossplatz, across from the Schloss

Front of Schloss --- Entrance to IIASA

Schloss conference center and dining room

Schloss from the park behind

Trees in the park

Swan on the lake

Franzensburg Castle from near the ferry landing

Back side of Franzensburg Castle

Franzensburg Castle tower

From bridge behind Franzensburg Castle

Jousting arena with royal viewing platform in distance

Amazing "horizontal oak tree" in the park

Walking around the park and the Schloss brought warm and happy memories of 1980 flooding back to mind. It was a magical summer and yesterday was a magical day recalling it. Being there in the summer, we had not experienced the wonderful fall colors in the park. We plan to return for a snowy experience during the winter.

After spending far longer than we had expected getting to and touring Laxenburg, we ended up cutting short our Vienna excursion. But we did get into the suburbs for one stop. Suzanne had heard about a wonderful arts and crafts store that was supposed to have yarn, fabric, and other supplies of interest. So we trekked a labyrinthine route (thanks to the GPS!) through the southeast suburb of Simmering to a street called Unter der Kirche (Under the Church). We did indeed find a huge store filled with everything an artist could want---even big boulders presumably for sculpting. We did not, however, find any yarn, fabric, or other supplies for the crafts Suzanne does.

By the time we had toured the art store, it was well after 2pm and we decided to head back to Bratislava rather than doing our planned walkabout in central Vienna, including a pilgrimage to our old apartment building. That will have to wait until the next trip.

Curiosum

A variant of this sign appears in the front of tram cars.

I get that the car can seat 29 and has room for 135 standing. I understand and appreciate that they don't allow smoking and that the tram is not allowed to go faster than 65 kph. But what's the thing about licking people's ears on the tram?

I'll post again next week with news about my first exams (which I'm putting off grading to write this) and, we hope, with good news from the Foreign Police. Until then, dovidenia!