Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own personal opinions, not those of the Fulbright Commission or the U.S. Department of State.
This has been a week of great uncertainty, anticipation, anxiety, and ultimately disappointment. It culminated in the cancellation of our long-planned trip to Sweden and a weekend of staying in Bratislava ... wishing we weren't.
After receiving word that my residency permit and ID card were ready on the 4th of November, we were waiting anxiously for Suzanne's residency to be approved and her card issued. We picked up my card this week on Wednesday morning and talked with the facilitators at ERI about hers.
They could not provide any details except to say that her application had been sent to the head person for the final signature/approval. Once that approval was in place, it would take time to print the card. They said that it might be possible for the Slovak authorities to issue a letter confirming her residency status in the interim; they would request such a letter and let us know.
There was some urgency about this because we were planning to leave at noon on Thursday on a six-day trip, starting with two days in Prague, then on to Gothenburg so that the nice people at Volvo could put winter tires on our car, and then back to Bratislava in time for my Wednesday class. This was the most convenient week for us to do this because (1) Monday is my birthday, so we could kind-of celebrate by traveling and getting winter tires, (2) Tuesday is Fight for Freedom Day in the Slovak Republic, so my Tuesday office hours would be canceled anyway, and (3) the winter tires need to be on by December 1st in Austria and Sweden (and of course we need to drive into Sweden to get them), so we don't have many more weekends.
Traveling anywhere without full documents is uncomfortable, but under normal circumstances travel documents are not required when traveling with the Schengen Zone of Europe. It's just like crossing state borders in the United States; there's a sign saying "Welcome to The Next Country" but no need to stop and show documents.
But these are not normal circumstances. Because of the swarms of Syrian/Afghan refugees coming into Schengen, countries have begun to close borders, requiring people to show documents to move into their countries. As you probably know, Hungary, the south-most of the contiguous Schengen countries, has erected a wall on the border with non-Schengen Croatia. Austria has instituted border checks at the Hungarian border. And Germany has done the same with parts of the Austrian border.
Except that on Wednesday, as we were waiting for Suzanne's permit and anticipating a next-day departure, Sweden closed its borders.
Most likely the Swedish (or German) border guards would just look at us, maybe glance at our American passports, and wave us through. After all, there aren't many refugees who look like us and drive new Volvos. In fact, I don't know of any American refugees currently looking for asylum, though that could change if any of several current contenders were to be elected president. But if the border guards just happened to go through our passports in detail and look at the visa stamp saying when we entered the Schengen Zone, they would discover that we had exceeded our allowed 90 days. We have no idea what would have happened in that case, and we didn't want to find out.
Another alternative would have been for me to drive to Sweden by myself with my precious Slovak ID card, but 30+ hours of solo driving in 4-5 days is too much even for a dedicated long-haul driver like me.
Not hearing any good news on Wednesday, we canceled the Prague reservations. But we hoped that the situation might be resolved by Friday so we could still leave on Saturday morning for Sweden.
No such luck. But we get a call from ERI on Friday with the proverbial good news and bad news.
The good news: Suzanne's residency permit has been approved, although her ID card will not be available for some days. She is now legal, but we can't prove it. The staff at ERI indicated that we should not have any trouble traveling because her residency status is officially documented in the online immigration system, so any curious border guard could look her up and find out that she is legitimately in the Schengen Zone. But we are very reluctant to travel without physical documentation of that. So the trip is off for this week.
Now the bad news: the entire staff at ERI are taking ten days off, so they cannot procure the ID card for us until the 25th even if the Foreign Police have it available.
Volvo was very gracious about postponing our installation to the following Monday morning, but we are running out of weeks to travel. If we either obtain the ID card somehow (perhaps battling the Foreign Police bureaucracy on our own?) or are satisfied that it is safe to travel without the physical ID card, we will be heading north next weekend. If not, it will have to be the last weekend in November. Stay tuned ...
Concert
Because we expected to be out of town, we hadn't arranged any activities for this weekend and had even turned down a party invitation. We knew that the Slovak Philharmonic was playing a program of some of our favorite music on Thursday night, but of course we had not gotten tickets. When we canceled our travel plans, I immediately went online to order tickets ... only to find that the hall was sold out.
But Suzanne has inside connections!
Shortly after our arrival in Bratislava, we found a little sheet-music shop called Music Forum on a tiny cobble-stone street called Na Vŕšku in the old city near the music school. Suzanne wanted to find flute music that is unknown or unavailable in the United States, so she was anxious to explore their collection. When she went in, the owner, Igor Valentovič, adopted her like an old friend. He and his wife sat down to have coffee with her at a table at the back of the store, and engaged her in a far-ranging conversation about music in Bratislava and elsewhere. She has been back many times and has found and bought quite a bit of interesting music.
On her first visit, she asked Igor about performances in Bratislava. He gave her suggestions about concert series and said that he often is able to get special access to tickets to the Philharmonic and that she should inquire if there was a concert that was of interest. So after finding out that the concert was sold out, she went to visit Igor on Thursday. He called the orchestra office but initially didn't think that anything was going to be available. Then at 4:00 an email arrived from him: Two tickets available. Call me if you want them.
She called immediately and we had two tickets (in the back row of the balcony) reserved for us when we arrived at the hall at 6:30.
The concert lived up to our high expectations. They started with the overture from Mathilde von Guise, an opera by the most celebrated of Slovak composers.
And who would that be? Hmmm, let's see. In the Central European music world of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, Austria had Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, and Mahler (and Beethoven and Brahms lived in Vienna for most of their music-making lives); Hungary had Bartok, Kodaly, and Liszt; the Czech Republic had Dvořák, Janáček, and Smetana; and Slovakia had ... Johann Nepomuk Hummel! Hummel's house in the old city is now the a museum in the Bratislava city system. For a mere 3€30 you can tour all two rooms and see some old instruments, a few pieces of his manuscripts, and a death mask.
And who would that be? Hmmm, let's see. In the Central European music world of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, Austria had Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, and Mahler (and Beethoven and Brahms lived in Vienna for most of their music-making lives); Hungary had Bartok, Kodaly, and Liszt; the Czech Republic had Dvořák, Janáček, and Smetana; and Slovakia had ... Johann Nepomuk Hummel! Hummel's house in the old city is now the a museum in the Bratislava city system. For a mere 3€30 you can tour all two rooms and see some old instruments, a few pieces of his manuscripts, and a death mask.
Hummel's trumpet concerto is quite well-known (at least among trumpet players, I played it in high school), but none of his other works figures regularly in the American concert repertoire. This particular overture from one of his many obscure operas was a very nice piece of music and was well played by the ensemble. A good opener.
The second work was the Čajkovskij violin concerto. Yes, that's how Slovaks spell the name of the Russian composer we know as Tchaikovsky, but since neither spelling can really claim authenticity without using the Cyrillic alphabet and since Slovak is a lot closer to Russian than English or German is, it seems appropriate to use the local spelling. (I find it amusing that although his Slovak name does not begin with the letter "T," it does begin with the Slovak word for "tea," čaj. Maybe that's a little geeky, but I'm easily amused.)
The violin soloist was a young Korean-American woman named Fabiola Kim. She rendered an extraordinary performance, bringing stunning volume and tone out of her instrument and shining in her technical virtuosity. Suzanne characterized it is a "fabiolous" performance. (It wasn't me! She actually said this!) And it was.
The final work on the program was Dvořák's Seventh Symphony. In our two Slovak Philharmonic concerts so far, we have heard them do two Dvořák symphonies, the third and the seventh. Maybe it's in their blood: they really do well with these works. It was a truly enjoyable evening, one that assuaged a bit our disappointment over not being able to travel, and we are so grateful to Igor for making it possible for us to attend.
And that isn't even our only concert of the weekend. On Sunday we are going to hear an organ recital on the brand-new organ in the Philharmonic's concert hall. I'll give you a full review in the next post.
Bratislaviana
Our latest breakfast trek took us into a neighborhood to the east of the old city that we had not much explored. We encountered a beautiful building that turned out to be a gymnasium (academic high school). And the blue flag flying to the right of the front door would bring a smile to the face of anyone mathematically inclined.
One of the things I will truly miss about our hilltop perch in Karlova Ves is the magnificent sunrises and sunsets that happen almost every day. None of our photos do them justice; we just couldn't bring ourselves to drag along a bulky SLR on this trip. But I keep trying and every once in a while I get one that will give you a taste of what we get to see every morning and afternoon.
It's not really related to Bratislava, so maybe it doesn't belong under Bratislaviana, but I got the most surprising and wonderful early birthday present on Friday: an email from my brother! That might not sound special, but it truly is. Steve takes great pride in avoiding email and the Internet, though he admits to reading these blog posts occasionally and to letting his wife Lois act as his email and Internet proxy when something important needs to be done online, like ordering more Aardvark hot sauce from Portland! But to get an email that he actually typed with his own hands is remarkably special. On top of that, he is the best letter-writer that I know. It was truly a memorable treat!
Finally, in case you forgot, I want to remind you that next Thursday is World Toilet Day! How do I know this? I just got my reminder from one of our favorite charities. SOIL is a non-profit that is doing terrific work building and installing sanitary composting toilets in parts of Haiti that have no plumbing. They collect the material from the toilets regularly and process it into compost, which they sell cheaply to support the gardening efforts of the local citizens. The organization was founded and is run by a young Reed alumna; we know enough about them to be confident that donations have a high impact on their actual mission, not just on their staff salaries or their fund-raising budget. So, when you "go" next Thursday, be thankful for your plumbing! (And if you want to send a few dollars to help those in Haiti, it will definitely go to a good cause.)
We'll all just have to wait and see when and from where the next post happens. If we're traveling to Sweden next weekend, it might be delayed; if we're here, it's bound to be pretty grumpy!
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