slovakia and post-communist life
Fascinating, though fruitless, trip. Basically after leaving Diosd at 5:30 this morning, driving two hours, and filling out our paperwork, we were told to come back at 3. We dutifully toured the local sights, including a castle housing a DaVinci exhibition, came back at 3, and were told to come back in two weeks -- they may have visas for us then. or maybe not.
sigh. I'm starting to see the after-effects of communism. Paperwork is crazy and customer service is non-existent (especially at the Tesco in Bratislava. yikes.) Case in point: our director told us a story from a couple years ago. The local CBA, which is like a mini-mart, had these chocolate chip cookies one day, and one of the missionaries found them. You have to understand that chocolate chips do not exist in Hungary, so this is like gold. Word spread throughout the American community here, and the supply would run out in a week's time. After the third sell-out in a month, the cookies disappeared. Finally, the guy asked the owner, who informed him that he was tired of restocking his shelves all the time.
I don't think he really understood the basics of business.
It was kind of sad, really, because the old section of Bratislava is absolutely beautiful. It has interesting architecture and lots of old-world charm. However, it is surrounded by commie condos -- an insane number of buildings that all look exactly the same. It was depressing, really, to stand at the castle at the top of the hill, look out over the beautiful landscape, and see all those horribly ugly buildings.
Fun word of the day: the Slovak word for ice cream is zrmzlina. How in the world do you pronounce that????
posted by Paula @ 12:52 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
hi, just wanted tg say that your comments misunderstand the human need for housing after the second world war in Europe.
American tend to be believers in Jesus but leave people begging in the streets and building malls.
The picture you paint is unfair to bratislava and slovakia.
For the record Europe is MUCH safer than america, people are more relaxed and friendly have real family bonds people respect each other and have all those things that the USA once had but sacrificed to be more entepreneurial and all those good things are particularly true of Bratislava.
I also talk from experience i ve lived in many cities in the world particularly london for the last 14 years and the crappiest city is probably london in the whole of the EU, largely because it wants to be like the US. As matter of fact i am preparing to move to Bratislava as its much better than London as a place to live.
Recently Hollywood also creates these crappy movies like Hostel badmouthing Bratislava to sell tickets and because they are so desperate for making money through people's ignorance.
Bratislava is delightful affordable and friendly. It has history and humanity, and its full of beautiful people, in some ways its a mini Vienna in places.
Dont buy the sick fantasies of holywood morons that are going film anything that makes a buck and they would sell their mother for box office success.
greetings from europe. An infinitely happier and more secure place than the USA and most of the rest of this world.
Tarantino is also completely talentless and has no intelligence emotional or otherwise.
if you want to know about Bratislava
http://www.slovakia.com/
Responce to comment:
"American tend to be believers in Jesus but leave people begging in the streets and building malls."
Have you ever been to America? You haven't taken your stereotype far enough in the negative behavior. We have specials beyond specials that show Americans begging on the side of the road and then climbing into BMW's. The people who really need help can get it here in America. Our Christian organizations have thousands over volunteers who wrok food and shelter banks around the clock. We have groups who will go to their shanty in the woods, get to know them and then help them conquer their problems rather than mask them with a hand out.
Americans do tend to be Christians. They tend to watch outrageous movies and some believe them but more outrageous than that...WE actually go to over countries and fight or diplomat ways to give them freedoms from communism. I am not of course talking about Iraq, I am talking about the many times troops were sent in war or aird tohelp these countries. If I remember correctly the Americans were praised from helping make eastern Europe democracies.
Your comment seems very personal and doesn't seem to catch what she was saying. She was casting a slight negative reality. Yours is true of America in many aspects but hers was about buildings and post communist ideologic damage rather than an attack on our countries "religion." You must not know Paula. SHE IS IN ANOTHER COUNTRY TO DO MISSION WORK! She loves Europe but can't someone speak freely in a slightly negative way for a true persection of Europe rather than HOSTILE you seem to think we all believe. You know we also watch War of Wars, Lady in the water, and the list goes on....we don't know believe evything we see. The majority of Americans DO not go to church regularly or get on their soap box about their faith and we all don't like Bush.
Please reread her comments, they were not pointing out anything the people there probably don't see themselves as the comments you said about Americans.
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