It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...Thanksgiving? Christmas? Holidays, Anyway

This little guy frequently meets us as we go from the bus stop to the school. He has nothing to do with the blog, but he's cute so his image comes to you. He has a couple of siblings and the mother apparently lives one street over.


Has it really been since November 7 since we posted last? Well, it has been busy. We went to the Slovak Wine Institute and got a tour, including tastes of ten wines. The institute is housed in an old castle that was used as a winery in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The Soviets, of course, had to try to make it more efficient with steel barrels for aging. Nevertheless, the Slovaks preserved several of the old wooden barrels, some of which had religious carvings on them. Many had wooden bungs; one had a glass stopper, so we had to take a picture.

The hunt was on--for sweet potatoes. What are they called in Slovakia? Sladke zemiaky, translated--sweet potatoes. Tesco had them, and then they didn't, and then they had them. Not exactly a widespread phenomenon here, but of course they have them all the time now! Maybe we'll get some and bake them. Paula made two casseroles, the first for
the American teachers' Thanksgiving, held in Bratislava on November 20, the Saturday before Thanksgiving Day. ELCA teachers came in from schools in Central Slovakia and Poland, and the American teachers in Bratislava invited guests as well. There were about 26 people there. The cook at the school prepared the turkey and cooked the potatoes; we mashed them. Paula also made green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup from Marks & Spencer, the British department store, and French's dried onions from Janna Haug, wife of the pastor. Janna usually has coordinated the food and participation, but this year she was taking a river cruise with her father and brother, so Paula got that privilege. She also made the display with stuff from our flat, the open-air market, and Tesco. We also learned about the "It" game. Everybody contributes gag or white elephant gifts (wrapped). Each player has dice and rolls, and passes them quickly to the right. If the player rolls doubles, he or she claims a prize. After all of the prizes are claimed, winners open and describe them and then comes part 2. Players roll and pass as before, and if they roll doubles they "steal" a prize from another player. If the player rolls double sixes, the player calls "it!" and gets a soft toy thrown to them. The one who ends up as "it" at the end of the game gets a special prize, in this case, 20 euros.On Thanksgiving Day, after classes, the Student Council hosted a Turkey Party for the American teachers (and, truth be known, for the students themselves). One of the posters is pictured above; in case you can't read it, the little guy in the corner is saying, "Save a turkey--Order a Pizza!" Other posters will undoubtedly show up on Facebook. This was the occasion for Paula's second sweet potato casserole, which got eaten up post-haste. Needless to say, the spread for this party equaled the first feast; once again, the cook made the turkeys. Six in two weeks, in an apartment-sized oven! Some of the students did a "man (person?) on the street" video asking if their interviewees knew what "Thanksgiving" was, what got eaten, and whether Slovakia should adopt the holiday. Pretty much universally, the Slovaks interviewed said, "No." The sentiment would be lost. (Nobody ever takes a picture of the guy who takes pictures--hence the "deer in the headlights" look).

Then last weekend the Bratislava Christmas Festival Market opened. The Vienna market opened the weekend before, but we've not gone yet, so perhaps we'll devote a future blog to that. This is the night of the second Stuzkova event too, so that also will be a future topic. It's not as if we lack for things to write about; we just lack for the time!

Oh--Paula continues teaching, and Jim in the library. We spend most of our time doing that, truly we do! We got our first snow today; just a dusting, the sun came out, and it was gone by noon.

A Visit to Prague

Prague to English speakers, Praha in Slovenska and related languages, Prag to the eminently practical German speakers--whatever it's called, a beautiful city. We went there last weekend during Fall break, Friday to Tuesday. Prague has nearly 2 million inhabitants of the metropolitan area, about four times the size of Bratislava. Compare Denver to Chicago; each has its own flavor, but size does make a difference.

We'll let pictures do most of the communication. We stayed in a boutique hotel, the Dom Henrici, about a half kilometer from the castle, which means we climbed up stairs after each time we went to the center of the city. You will see the hotel, the stairs, the castle including the changing of the guard, the Charles Bridge over the Vltava River, and the parts of the city that we saw--the Old Town, the "New (from the 14th Century) city, and the Jewish Quarter. A few words will accompany the pictures to keep you oriented, but this is not a travel blog, so if you have questions, you'll have to ask us.

The church in the castle is named for St. Wenceslaus (as in the King o' the song, except he was a prince, not a king). You'll see a statue of him also in front of the National Museum; he's the patron saint of the Czech Republic (of Bohemia, actually). The Swartzenburg Palace, on our way to the castle from the hotel, has sgraffiti on it; no, not bad words or slogans. It's trompe l'oeil painting or etching meant to fool you into seeing stone.

Paula took a beautiful picture from the balcony of the cafe in the Lobkowicz Palace in the castle. Not heard of the Lobkowicz family? Neither had we, until we saw their stunning collections. Google them. Oh, by the way, we ate well, not only in the Lobkowicz (a little something pictured) but all five days.

We also seem to collect Frank Gehry buildings. The one(s) shown (there are actually two in the picture, not one) are called the dancing buildings, known locally as "Fred and Ginger" for Astaire and Rogers.

The bottom line is, we found, you can't compare the two cities. Both had important roles in former days, in former empires. One never had much of an industrial base, but even as it faded a little, kept its beauty for the tourists. The other had many industries, and outside interests pushed them at the expense of its beauty. In an era, and under a regime focused on industry, one stayed a tourist mecca and the other became even more a haven for industry. Now, when nations covet ideas more than ideologies, the smaller city encourages tourism and works to make up for lost time. We're glad to be here and watch it all happen. And we're glad to be back to meatloaf in our favorite restaurant.

Living in Bratislava (Part 3)

A couple of entries ago the first part of this "Living in..." series ended with a photo of the back end of a paparazzo, or what might have been one, or a performance artist, or something. We asked you to guess. Well, here's the front end, and it is indeed a sculpture! Do you feel shot?

If the temperature soars to 60 degrees in your area on October 24, do you think about shorts and a t-shirt? Well, Fahrenheit thermometers did get to about 60 today, and that led to an excursion (with the photographer properly attired in a jacket) to get some more photos of some of the outdoor art, mostly in the historical center of town amid the museums, shops, and restaurants. Of course, the restaurateurs in Bratislava prepare for the cool weather. Some restaurants roll up the sidewalk tables and chairs, while others just put blankets out on the chairs. Even 60 degrees, though did not tempt people to sit outside at the Irish pub. Some of outdoorsmanship has to do with the ordnance limiting smoking in restaurants. One pizza place we patronized has about three tables in the non-smoking section, but the pizza was good and we think their business consists mostly of carry-out.

But enough about food--on to art. Bratislava's fame comes in part from the sense of humor shown in the public sculpture. You can see pictures in guide books and on line. But only here on this blog can you see some of the rest of the story. You may have seen the Napoleonic soldier, but can you imagine what tourists do to him? Some sit right down without even asking permission. Others, like the guy in our photo, lean on him or cozy up. Or how about Schone Naci? He stays happy and tips his hat to the ladies even when tourists (or locals) are rude. Cumil, even if he acts like a letch by popping up from his manhole to look up ladies' dresses, still attracts performance artists (who are none too good if you ask me, even if the tourists tip them).

Bratislava has its fair share of serious outdoor art as well. For example, the Holocaust Memorial is right by the cathedral, as well it should be. It may be worth mentioning that the only active synagogue in Slovakia is right across the busy street from the cathedral, and both are connected by an underpass and an overpass. On the memorial, in Slovak and Hebrew, is the word for "remember." Tour guides take their charges to see it before they go into the cathedral. Most of those serious sculptures and monuments, however, will have to be a topic for another post.

Next week, Fall Break begins after a church service at about noon. We intend to take the train to Prague on Friday morning and prowl around, and that, likely, will be the subject of yet another entry.

Living in Bratislava (Part 2)

We claim to be living in Slovakia, right? And this is baseball, right? All true. Two of our American teachers play in the Slovak league, and Jon told us that they'd be playing an American team a couple of Saturdays ago, so we went. It was the Slovak League All-Stars against an American fantasy league team made up of some Minnesota Twins fans and some Boston Red Sox fantasy campers, all, ahem, older gentlemen. Actually, though, a couple of them were former major leaguers. In the picture above, our American lead teacher is coaching third base. We sat behind some women who came with the team and one of them turned out (small world) to be from Le Mars, Iowa, where Paula went to college. Westmar has now gone out of business, so they spent part of the time catching up on what was happening to the former college. Le Mars is now best known for being the home of Blue Bunny Ice Cream. The Slovaks won, 10-3, but the Americans may have been jet-lagged and didn't use their best pitcher.

We've had two concerts by the Slovak Philharmonic, last Friday and yesterday. Last night's was excellent. They are playing in the National Theater while their own hall is being renovated. As you can see from the picture, the substitute hall is not shabby. Today we took a trip to Trencin, a small city about 120km from here. It is famous for its castle; they closed the main section for renovation, but we walked around the grounds and the old city. A Roman inscription dated CE 179 indicates that this area formed the Northeastern-most boundary of the Roman Empire. As you can see. the castle has an ecologically friendly lawn mower; we even found the place where the lawn mower is kept.

The sun kept us company all day; it was about 56 or so by noon, and we had lunch outside on Ludovit Stur Square. If you don't know who he is, Google him! Then we walked around the city some more and visited the restored Early 20th Century synagogue; it had been desecrated at the beginning of World War II. While the city has provided a small worship room, there was little or no Jewish population left in Trencin after the war. The city now uses the space as an art gallery.


In brief, while we like Bratislava rather a lot, several nearby places recommend themselves as well. And last, lest you believe Bratislava has a corner on humorous statuary, we offer this Dickensian person climbing out of a well on the square where we ate lunch. If this leaves you wanting more, Paula promises to put additional pictures on Facebook soon, and we'll be back with new facets of the adventure in a couple of weeks or so. Ciao!

Living in Bratislava (Part 1)

We've been here more than a month now, and that makes us instant experts, right? Well, maybe not, but we're getting more and more comfortable, and we do know where St. Michael's Gate is. Perhaps that's because we're in the midst of Indian Summer right now, with highs in the 70s and lows around 50f. That's much better than the weather as we first began our commute to the school, when the temperature seldom got much above 60f.

So what's life like here? We've shown you some things, like chocolate at the "Old Square," folk art festivals, and so forth, and Paula's put some pictures of our apartment on Facebook. But here are a few other visions of Bratislava.

First, public transportation gets us wherever we want to go. What you see here is a tram, which runs on rails and is powered by electricity. The trams were shut down in our neighborhood when we first arrived because of work on the tunnel which carries them underneath the castle. Now, however, the work is done and we jumped for joy when we heard them running again, the very day that school started, September 2. Our excitement diminished a little when we heard the squealing sound they make when they round corners. Generally we ride buses. This is the Number 80 at the Zochova stop, where we catch it in the morning destined for the other side of the Danube, where the school is now. This morning the red sun was just coming up as we crossed the river, and the harvest moon was just setting. There is also a third type of transportation, the trolley bus, which runs on tires like a bus but gets its energy from electric wires. So take the picture of the tram, cross it with the bus, and you have the trolley bus. No underground here as in Vienna, where the U bahn gets you around quickly--if you happen to be where it runs and want to go where it goes.

We've posted pictures of Ikea, and shopping for food is just as plentiful as you could want. There are some things that we've hunted in vain for, but that may be because we've just not looked in the right place. Not every store has every thing, and one of the challenges will be to find where foodstuffs are located that we want. We've not taken pictures of the huge malls, the ubiquitous McDonald's, KFC, or Burger King. On introduction day, Paula let her classes play "twenty questions" with her--yes/no answers only. One question was, "do you like McDonald's?" Her students, jaded as they are, urged us to go to Prague for our Fall break. "The shopping is better. There are the same stores, but better selection."

We're pretty sure that the best Slovak cooking happens at home. Oh, Bratislava has a plenitude of great restaurants, but when Slovaks want to eat out, they choose Vietnamese or Chinese or Italian--yep, you guessed it, pizza. We had some delicious pizza in a local place called "Pilgrim's" and brought our leftovers home in this box. We've been mostly eating at home, partly because cooking is therapy for Paula (so Jim believes), and partly because it's just too darn much hassle to go out. One of the other American teachers, Sue, wants to go to the Moroccan restaurant, and she'll convince us one of these days.

Tomorrow we go to the school director's house for a cookout, so that will take care of Saturday. There is also a new wine festival in her town (a Bratislava suburb), but we found out when we went to another of these festivals a couple of weeks ago that new wine is nothing to be sneezed at; it tastes like a wine cooler but with more alcohol than it will have when its aged. Phew! We won't drink before we go to the boss's house.


The familiar mixes with the unfamiliar. For example, pictured is a "lokse" stand. Lokse is, you guessed it, familiar to those of you with some Scandinavian heritage, a big potato flat bread, lefse. Paula took a picture of the ladies making them. The unfamiliar comes when they put goose fat and grilled onions on it. Uff da. But there are some wonderful traditional specialties as well, including wheels of bread that garlic butter is poured on--yum! Eat your heart out, Papa John! And fresh potato chips, cooked in oil and put up in little cones. Aaah.

Slovakia is a very traditional Roman Catholic country. Church bells ring out at regular hours like calls to prayer in Fez and Istanbul. Like Fez and Istanbul, Slovakia is a very secular country. Bells ring, and a few folks (but only a few) respond to them and go to mass. We observed a holiday on 15 September, Our Lady of Sorrows, Slovakia's patron saint, so it was a national observance. For most folks (including us, admittedly) it was a day to shop. Big stores all gladly took your money, holiday or no.

We'll tell you more about where we live in Bratislava, and more about the city, in future posts. Here's a teaser. Is this a live tourist? Performance art? A tabloid photographer? Nope, it's one of several whimsical statues in downtown Bratislava. More of that, and of those, later. Now it's bedtime!