Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own personal opinions, not those of the Fulbright Commission or the U.S. Department of State.
Someone much smarter than me must once have said that "the best way to learn about the place you live is to spend time living somewhere else." I am certainly finding that to be true, and as our time in Bratislava nears its end I have begun to reflect on what I have learned about Reed College, Portland, Oregon, and the United States through living somewhere else.
Here are a few of the things I have missed most about our former---and future---lives in Portland.
Living in a familiar place where everyone speaks English. Well, of course not everyone in Portland speaks English, but everyone in "my Portland" does. We were told that most people in Bratislava would speak English, especially the younger ones. That is generally true, and of course all of my students and most of the faculty at the university do. But many people with whom we need to communicate do not and it makes us feel very helpless, frustrated, and embarrassed. The staff at the university have little or no English, which makes if difficult to get classroom doors unlocked, check out the remote controls for the computer projectors, and order lunch in the cafeteria. The language barrier makes many things that would be simple at home one step more difficult. We can ask simple questions in Slovak, but usually cannot follow the response. And if the routine of daily life is made inconvenient, I can't imagine how we would cope with an emergency such as a serious illness or an auto accident.
Reed College. I miss almost everything about Reed College. I miss teaching at a selective institution that attracts able and motivated students. I miss Reed students who care more about learning than about how many points they get on an exam and who actually come to my office so that I can teach them more than I have time to do in class. I like my Slovak students very much; they are wonderful in their own way. But they are a different kind of student: usually working outside the university and much more focused on getting the degree than on learning economics. I miss students with both the desire and the opportunity to devote themselves 100% to learning.
I miss my comfortable, quiet office that is available days, nights, weekends, and holidays. I miss the beautiful campus, always looking well-tended and without graffiti. I miss my friendly colleagues with open office doors who are available for a quick chat now and then. I miss the Reed staff who are uniquely and passionately devoted to making life better for Reed students and faculty. Although I don't miss the clouds of foul cigarette smoke around the campus, I do miss the community that is willing to address the problem and establish policies to make the situation better. And I miss working and teaching in a community that is financially well supported, where problems get solved, and where ideas for improvements are rarely dismissed as impossible just because they might be expensive.
Friends. I often think of myself as having rather few friends, and it is true that there are only a handful of people who would probably regard me as a close friend. But as much as I miss my closest friends, this experience has also made me realize that I have many, many casual friends and that my routine or occasional interactions with them make my life is so much richer. I'm thinking about the dozens of people I don't see every day or even every week, but whom I really enjoy seeing and talking with when our paths cross. Reed people, neighborhood people, marimba people, soccer people, Suzanne's friends, restaurant waiters, ... the list goes on and on ... all kinds of people who bring a warm feeling of familiarity and friendship when I see them.
Our house. As most of my readers know, we live in a modest house in Portland ... not a mansion by any estimation. But over the 27 years we have lived there, we have made the house "ours," changing the things we didn't like and adding to the things we did. Our Bratislava apartment is very nice---no complaints whatsoever---but you cannot make a space your own when you don't own it and when you live in it for only five months. I miss our wonderful kitchen with a real gas cook-top and a large refrigerator and freezer. (But I don't miss the kitchen nearly as much as Suzanne does!) I miss our soft, king-sized bed. I miss our fast and reliable Internet service. I miss our garden (at least in the months that the weather allows us to use it). I miss having a clothes dryer so my underwear doesn't come out like cardboard.
Familiar retail stores. One of the most disorienting things about living here is that we just don't know where to find items we need or how to get things done. For example, my watch battery died recently and my immediate reaction was that I would probably have to get along without a watch until we got back to Portland because I had no idea where one would go to find a watch battery in Bratislava. (Suzanne ended up finding one rather easily in this case.) In most cases, it is possible to find what we need, but it often required considerable effort. In some cases, we have pretty much struck out: black beans, corn syrup, flour ground at a consistency equivalent to American "all-purpose" flour. I miss being in a familiar place where I know how to satisfy most of my needs and how to find out when I don't know.
Clothes. I am utterly unfashionable. I probably spend 30 seconds a day (at most) thinking about what to wear. My wardrobe at home is functional and not particularly large. Clothes are just not a big deal to me, but I am really tired of the same five shirts! Needing summer and winter clothes here, as well as semi-dressy clothes for teaching and dressy clothes for the occasional more formal event meant that I could not bring very much of anything. By the time it started getting colder, I was really tired of the 5 short-sleeved shirts I brought. Now I'm really, really tired of the five long-sleeved shirts. It will be good to be home where I have some different choices.
Portland restaurants. We have found a few good places to eat in Bratislava, and most of them are very inexpensive (at today's exchange rate). But eating out is a challenge here because the food culture is so strongly meat-based. Every restaurant has a couple of token vegetarian items---usually a couple of salads and one or two risotto/pasta items---but most of the creativity (and, I assume quality) goes to the meat dishes. The language difficulty adds to this problem because unless we can communicate effectively with the waiter we cannot even ask whether the soup or pasta is made with meat stock. As I have said before in this blog, I'm convinced that the best vegetarian restaurant in Central Europe is Suzanne's kitchen. Luckily, I get to bring all the delicious specialties of Suzanne's kitchen home with me and return to Portland restaurants, too.
Northwest wines. Some of you might have thought that this would be higher on the list, but we have found quite a number of good Slovak wines and can buy the occasional French or Italian bottle very cheaply. But I really, really miss my cellar full of Northwest wines and all of the visits to regional wineries that are involved in collecting and maintaining it. Syncline, Lemelson, Cowhorn, Domain Drouhin, and Walla Walla Vintners can all expect visits from us in February or March to collect our accumulated wine-club purchases, and I'm sure we'll be stopping at dozens of other favorites on the way.
Happy people. I think that Reedies and Portlanders are happier than my EUBA students, colleagues, and the general population of Bratislava. The people with whom I interact, even casually, in Portland seem much more relaxed, secure, optimistic, and generally satisfied with their lives than those I see here. (Well, maybe not Reed seniors during the week before the thesis deadline...) One of my students (a visiting student from Montenegro) sent a link to this letter from a frustrated student in Macedonia, which she says reflects the attitude of most students in Balkan countries, and in Slovakia as well. The World Happiness Report indicates that Slovaks on average report less happiness (5.995, 45th out of 106 countries, but higher than Japan, Korea, Italy, of Slovenia) than the United States (7.119, 15th) in general. It may be because people here are so busy trying to make a decent living in a place where wages and salaries are low. (Teachers are striking and protesting next Monday because the government refuses to consider increasing their salaries. The government claims that teachers earn almost 1000 euros per month, but most teachers scoff at this and say that their salaries are much lower.) Whatever the reason, I miss the "ambient satisfaction" that seems to pervade Portland.
Non-smoking society. Nobody in our Eastmoreland neighborhood seems to smoke. I'm sure that some people do, but walking around the streets it is truly rare to encounter someone other than the occasional construction worker smoking. (This is not, of course, true of Reed, but Reed continues to get better.) Other than students and a couple of faculty and staff members, I struggle to think of anyone I know in Portland who smokes. Throughout Europe (and worst in France and Italy), smoking is everywhere on the streets. The outdoor seating areas of restaurants are enveloped in a foul smog that makes it distasteful even to pass through to the less polluted interior, where smoking is forbidden. I miss living in a place where smoking is rapidly becoming an aberrant behavior that one simply does not see in public.
Composting and recycling. I've studied the economics of recycling and composting. I know that most of the recycling we do makes no economic sense, especially the way that Portland does it. I have long ranted that there is enough landfill space available at near-zero opportunity cost in Eastern Oregon to bury the entire city of Portland 100 times, or maybe 1000 times. But recycling feels good! Bratislava recycles glass, plastic, and paper (but strangely not metal, at least that we have been able to figure out) and we diligently separate our streams and haul them down to the bins, which are locked in an outdoor cage near the parking area, 30 yards from the building. Although it's irrational, I miss our backyard compost bin, the weekly city compost collection, and the confidence (even if it is sometimes misplaced) that most people are using the recycling system in the way it is intended and that most of what we put in the blue bin is actually recycled.
Here are a few of the things I have missed most about our former---and future---lives in Portland.
Living in a familiar place where everyone speaks English. Well, of course not everyone in Portland speaks English, but everyone in "my Portland" does. We were told that most people in Bratislava would speak English, especially the younger ones. That is generally true, and of course all of my students and most of the faculty at the university do. But many people with whom we need to communicate do not and it makes us feel very helpless, frustrated, and embarrassed. The staff at the university have little or no English, which makes if difficult to get classroom doors unlocked, check out the remote controls for the computer projectors, and order lunch in the cafeteria. The language barrier makes many things that would be simple at home one step more difficult. We can ask simple questions in Slovak, but usually cannot follow the response. And if the routine of daily life is made inconvenient, I can't imagine how we would cope with an emergency such as a serious illness or an auto accident.
Reed College. I miss almost everything about Reed College. I miss teaching at a selective institution that attracts able and motivated students. I miss Reed students who care more about learning than about how many points they get on an exam and who actually come to my office so that I can teach them more than I have time to do in class. I like my Slovak students very much; they are wonderful in their own way. But they are a different kind of student: usually working outside the university and much more focused on getting the degree than on learning economics. I miss students with both the desire and the opportunity to devote themselves 100% to learning.
I miss my comfortable, quiet office that is available days, nights, weekends, and holidays. I miss the beautiful campus, always looking well-tended and without graffiti. I miss my friendly colleagues with open office doors who are available for a quick chat now and then. I miss the Reed staff who are uniquely and passionately devoted to making life better for Reed students and faculty. Although I don't miss the clouds of foul cigarette smoke around the campus, I do miss the community that is willing to address the problem and establish policies to make the situation better. And I miss working and teaching in a community that is financially well supported, where problems get solved, and where ideas for improvements are rarely dismissed as impossible just because they might be expensive.
Friends. I often think of myself as having rather few friends, and it is true that there are only a handful of people who would probably regard me as a close friend. But as much as I miss my closest friends, this experience has also made me realize that I have many, many casual friends and that my routine or occasional interactions with them make my life is so much richer. I'm thinking about the dozens of people I don't see every day or even every week, but whom I really enjoy seeing and talking with when our paths cross. Reed people, neighborhood people, marimba people, soccer people, Suzanne's friends, restaurant waiters, ... the list goes on and on ... all kinds of people who bring a warm feeling of familiarity and friendship when I see them.
Our house. As most of my readers know, we live in a modest house in Portland ... not a mansion by any estimation. But over the 27 years we have lived there, we have made the house "ours," changing the things we didn't like and adding to the things we did. Our Bratislava apartment is very nice---no complaints whatsoever---but you cannot make a space your own when you don't own it and when you live in it for only five months. I miss our wonderful kitchen with a real gas cook-top and a large refrigerator and freezer. (But I don't miss the kitchen nearly as much as Suzanne does!) I miss our soft, king-sized bed. I miss our fast and reliable Internet service. I miss our garden (at least in the months that the weather allows us to use it). I miss having a clothes dryer so my underwear doesn't come out like cardboard.
Familiar retail stores. One of the most disorienting things about living here is that we just don't know where to find items we need or how to get things done. For example, my watch battery died recently and my immediate reaction was that I would probably have to get along without a watch until we got back to Portland because I had no idea where one would go to find a watch battery in Bratislava. (Suzanne ended up finding one rather easily in this case.) In most cases, it is possible to find what we need, but it often required considerable effort. In some cases, we have pretty much struck out: black beans, corn syrup, flour ground at a consistency equivalent to American "all-purpose" flour. I miss being in a familiar place where I know how to satisfy most of my needs and how to find out when I don't know.
Clothes. I am utterly unfashionable. I probably spend 30 seconds a day (at most) thinking about what to wear. My wardrobe at home is functional and not particularly large. Clothes are just not a big deal to me, but I am really tired of the same five shirts! Needing summer and winter clothes here, as well as semi-dressy clothes for teaching and dressy clothes for the occasional more formal event meant that I could not bring very much of anything. By the time it started getting colder, I was really tired of the 5 short-sleeved shirts I brought. Now I'm really, really tired of the five long-sleeved shirts. It will be good to be home where I have some different choices.
Portland restaurants. We have found a few good places to eat in Bratislava, and most of them are very inexpensive (at today's exchange rate). But eating out is a challenge here because the food culture is so strongly meat-based. Every restaurant has a couple of token vegetarian items---usually a couple of salads and one or two risotto/pasta items---but most of the creativity (and, I assume quality) goes to the meat dishes. The language difficulty adds to this problem because unless we can communicate effectively with the waiter we cannot even ask whether the soup or pasta is made with meat stock. As I have said before in this blog, I'm convinced that the best vegetarian restaurant in Central Europe is Suzanne's kitchen. Luckily, I get to bring all the delicious specialties of Suzanne's kitchen home with me and return to Portland restaurants, too.
Northwest wines. Some of you might have thought that this would be higher on the list, but we have found quite a number of good Slovak wines and can buy the occasional French or Italian bottle very cheaply. But I really, really miss my cellar full of Northwest wines and all of the visits to regional wineries that are involved in collecting and maintaining it. Syncline, Lemelson, Cowhorn, Domain Drouhin, and Walla Walla Vintners can all expect visits from us in February or March to collect our accumulated wine-club purchases, and I'm sure we'll be stopping at dozens of other favorites on the way.
Happy people. I think that Reedies and Portlanders are happier than my EUBA students, colleagues, and the general population of Bratislava. The people with whom I interact, even casually, in Portland seem much more relaxed, secure, optimistic, and generally satisfied with their lives than those I see here. (Well, maybe not Reed seniors during the week before the thesis deadline...) One of my students (a visiting student from Montenegro) sent a link to this letter from a frustrated student in Macedonia, which she says reflects the attitude of most students in Balkan countries, and in Slovakia as well. The World Happiness Report indicates that Slovaks on average report less happiness (5.995, 45th out of 106 countries, but higher than Japan, Korea, Italy, of Slovenia) than the United States (7.119, 15th) in general. It may be because people here are so busy trying to make a decent living in a place where wages and salaries are low. (Teachers are striking and protesting next Monday because the government refuses to consider increasing their salaries. The government claims that teachers earn almost 1000 euros per month, but most teachers scoff at this and say that their salaries are much lower.) Whatever the reason, I miss the "ambient satisfaction" that seems to pervade Portland.
Composting and recycling. I've studied the economics of recycling and composting. I know that most of the recycling we do makes no economic sense, especially the way that Portland does it. I have long ranted that there is enough landfill space available at near-zero opportunity cost in Eastern Oregon to bury the entire city of Portland 100 times, or maybe 1000 times. But recycling feels good! Bratislava recycles glass, plastic, and paper (but strangely not metal, at least that we have been able to figure out) and we diligently separate our streams and haul them down to the bins, which are locked in an outdoor cage near the parking area, 30 yards from the building. Although it's irrational, I miss our backyard compost bin, the weekly city compost collection, and the confidence (even if it is sometimes misplaced) that most people are using the recycling system in the way it is intended and that most of what we put in the blue bin is actually recycled.
This list has been about things I love about Portland and Reed and to which I am anxious to return. Are there things that I haven't missed and to which I will be reluctant to return? Of course! Being away for a few months has not made me yearn for week after week of winter gloom and damp, and the further one is away from the Republican primary campaign the better. But for the most part the experience of living in Bratislava has reinforced to me what a wonderful life we lead at home.
That said, there are also a lot of things that I will miss about living in Bratislava; I will detail some of those in my next post. Until then, čau and (for those in Portland) see you soon!
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