Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own personal opinions, not those of the Fulbright Commission or the U.S. Department of State.
Back in September, I titled a post "Life in Bratislava, Part I," and promised further updates. This seems like a good time for another post talking about the accumulated life details and events that aren't big enough to warrant a headline but might be interesting for those reading from abroad.
Fog
There has been a lot of fog lately in Bratislava. Those who have been reading the blog all along may remember the dinner we had on my sister's visit in October in which the tower restaurant with the great view was completely submerged in dense fog. We get foggy weather a lot.
This morning dawned to a thick layer of frost on all of the cars and a remarkable display looking south from our kitchen window. Although much of the city was foggy, the skies above the apartment were blue. The rising sun was hidden behind a dense, dark, low cloud over the Danube (about 1/2 mile from us). As we watched, billows of white cloud---like steam from a giant smokestack---would rise out of the fog bank and then dissipate and vanish as the sun heated them. I couldn't take my eyes off this amazing natural display as I munched down my daily "Natural Fit" cereal with dried cranberries and mlieko.
Slovenská Filharmónia
A week ago we made our third trip to a concert of the Slovak Philharmonic, this time to hear a program of Čajkovskij and Šostakovič (Tschaikovsky and Shostakovich to Americans). The concert was conducted by a young American woman named Keri-Lynn Wilson.
(Interestingly, the name Wilson is very special here. Princeton may be trying to disown him in a fit of retrospective political correctness, but Woodrow Wilson is revered here for his central role in the founding of the Czechoslovak nation after World War I. In fact, I have been told that when they were considering what to name this city after it was no longer to be the Austrian Pressburg or the Hungarian Pozsony, one of the final name candidates was "Wilson." It's probably good that they chose the old Slovak name of Bratislava.)
Ms. Wilson conducted the whole concert from memory without a score and really brought the best out of the orchestra, especially on the Šostakovič First Symphony after intermission. She received the longest ovation we have heard (for a conductor) from both the audience and, remarkably, the musicians. Given the professional restraint that is standard for orchestra members both here and at home, they must have been very impressed to have applauded her with such gusto.
They began the concert with a pleasant Čajkovskij symphonic fantasy called Búrka (Tempest, in English). Then they presented a marvelous Italian cellist Umberto Clerici doing Čajkovskij's Variations on a Rococo Theme. They really do get wonderful soloists here; every one we have heard has been amazing.
I also discovered this week that the Slovenská Filharmónia posts videos of every concert on their Web page. If you are interested in hearing a sample, you can stream any of the concerts at http://stream.filharmonia.sk/. They also have video of the organ recital we attended, so if you want to help me figure out all the themes that Herr Ebenbauer used in his improvisation, go to the 23:00 mark on the second-half (lower) video at http://stream.filharmonia.sk/video/?v=KS201511151600. In particular, the theme that starts at about 31:00 is very familiar but neither Suzanne nor I can place it. What fun it is to go back and hear that piece again!
Our next musical adventure is a trip to see Puccini's La Bohème at the Slovak National Opera on Thursday. This is Suzanne's favorite opera and not far from the top of my list as well, so we are really looking forward to it.
Language class
We are sad that our Slovak language class is about to end. We have learned so much! Our test was last Monday and will get it back next week. I know that I made several mistakes (two vocabulary words I didn't remember and a REALLY STUPID mistake on the word order of a reflexive verb), so I'm not very confident of my performance. We still feel pretty helpless when someone starts speaking to us, but we now know a lot of words and can usually make ourselves understood, even if our grammar is not correct.
Tomorrow we get to sing Vianočné koledy (Christmas carols) in class. Oh boy. :(
One of the modules in our textbook (which we did not reach in class, but, being a diligent student, I read ahead) talks about the words for family members. Some of them are just fun words, like vnuk for grandson (and the corresponding vnučka for granddaughter, which would be a great name for a little dog). The word for brother is brat; I'm sure that there are many sisters out there who would not disagree! But my personal favorite is the word for daughter, which is very easy for us to remember: dcéra. If you swallow the d-t sound at the beginning it's pronounced just like Sarah with an elongated first syllable.
Regal Burger
During the first week we were in Bratislava at the beginning of September, we visited the Eurovea shopping mall near the old city in order to get Slovak SIM cards for our phones. After we finished our telephony business it was time for lunch and we decided to try our luck at the food court. (At this point, our Slovak was "please" and "thank you" and not much else.) Exploring the choices, we found Regal Burger tucked back in a corner almost behind another food stand. The person working the counter spoke excellent English and their menu offered two veggie alternatives, a "burger" and a "special."
We both ordered the burger and were pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a traditional ground-vegetable "garden burger," but instead a sandwich with large pieces of spicy eggplant, sautéed mushroom, tomato, lettuce, and their special home-made mayonnaise sauce on a delicious fresh bun. We have had a lot of veggie-burgers in the last 15 years---some good and some terrible---but this was one of the best.
It took us a long time to get back there, but it was equally good the second time. When we looked them up online, we discovered that their main restaurant was not the one in the mall, but instead was on the side of the same building as the orchestra hall. All those times that we had gone to the Reduta and we'd never noticed their little place literally next door to the ticket office!
So a couple of Mondays ago after Slovak class we decided to head to the city and try the main location. This time I tried the "special," which is also excellent, featuring local white cheese and sliced beets. The man who took out order turned out to be the head chef, Roman. We complimented him on his wonderful veggie burgers, and when he brought our food he sat and talked with us for at least 15 minutes. (There were no other customers.) He shared stories about alternative veggie burgers he had tried or was thinking of trying and Suzanne told him about a few of her more successful veggie-burger creations. His wife is also a chef and has a cooking blog in Slovak, so they are really into food. He told us about some possible sources for ingredients that Suzanne has had trouble finding and helped her further clarify the bewildering local selection of flours and sugars, of which none is quite like the American varieties. She has now connected with him on social media, so she can ask more questions when she needs to.
Miscellaneous photos
The beanSome of you regular readers may be wondering about the status of "the bean." If you don't recall, Suzanne planted a couple of already-sprouted beans from a bag of giant red beans we bought at the farmers' market in early October. He grew and grew and now is about 7 feet tall, having grown up the full-length window and along the top. He has produced only one blossom and no beans, so I'm afraid that he is destined to die childless.
Here's what he looks like today. I've been trying to get Suzanne to hang the little white light strings that are currently on the kitchen shelves up along the bean stem for the festive season. It would be the closest that we'll get to a Christmas tree this year. And we could sing O Tannen-bean, O Tannen-bean to mark the season. She's not buying it.
Christmas market
Like most cities in this part of Europe, Bratislava has a Christmas Market, in which the central city squares are filled with small kiosks selling festive food (more trdelník!) and crafts. There is a lot of cheap, tourist junk, but some really beautiful items if you look carefully.
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| Christmas Market booths on the Hlavné Námestie |
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| Small rink on Hlavné Námestie |
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| Bigger rink on Hviezdoslavovo Námestie |
My office phone
One more picture: Remember these?
This artifact sits next to my office desk. It's been a while since I've seen a phone with a dial. Some of the younger readers of this blog may never have seen one!
I've never used it to make a call, but it has rung twice while I've been in the office. Both times I answered in English and both times the caller hung up.
Counting our blessings
Finally, I'll close with an introspection that has been growing on me almost every day since we have been here.
We are really lucky!
For the most part, the Slovaks we have met are just as talented and hard-working as Americans. They have put in as many years of schooling and training. But their standard of living is so much lower than what we are accustomed to at home. As an economist, I know that statistics: The Penn World Table tells us that per-capita GDP in Slovakia in 2011 was just under $20,000 (converted at purchasing-power parity) compared to over $42,000 in the United States.
But somehow the difference gets through in a much more personal way when you live here and get to know local people. We think nothing of spending 13 euros to attend a concert or 20 euros to go to the opera. It almost seems free compared with U.S. (or Western European) prices and I feel a little bit guilty, like I haven't paid enough for the benefit that I'm getting. But for a lot of the young scholars and faculty here, that's a big expense that they can only afford once in a long while.
I don't know exactly what the salary scale is for faculty here and have been too embarrassed (or maybe too tactful) to inquire. But I was told by one of the more senior professors at EUBA that when they hire one of their own PhD students for a faculty position, the starting salary is lower than the scholarship stipend that they had been receiving as a student. Plus they no longer qualify for big student discounts on the transit system and almost everywhere else. (Students and pensioners ride inter-city trains for free, for example.) I know even less about the salaries of senior faculty, but word of mouth suggests that many of them actively seek out second teaching opportunities to supplement their incomes.
So every time I casually pull out a 20 euro bill (they are the blue ones) to pay for a rather fancy lunch, I think about the fact that by local standards we are rich. Not just prosperous, which is how I would characterize our status at home, but actually rich. And really lucky, because we have attained this level of material comfort not by slaving away 60 hours a week at jobs we hate, but by (mostly) doing what we love and getting paid well for it.
I guess maybe this is one of the things that this adventure is supposed to teach us, and it has taught me well. Every time I start to complain about things in Portland, I'll think about our friends and acquaintances in Bratislava (and further east) who will likely never achieve the standard of living that we have, even though they are just as smart and working just as hard. We have a lot of blessings to count.
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