Some family friends, Laszlo and Marc, are over visiting my family here in Slovakia for the New Years visiting, from Hungary, and being as that English is not their first language, nor even their 2nd necessarily, we have some interesting conversations...since Hungarian is not a language spoken by anyone in my family yet.
So we were discussing a film to watch, and The Peacemaker (Nicole Kidman, George Clooney) was brought up as an option. Or at least as an object of mirth... You know the parts of it that take place in Vienna? Well, they were filmed here in Bratislava, Slovakia. In fact, friends of mine watched its filming. So we laugh at that. And of course, the part where the CNN reporter is on TV from Bosnia? That's also actually Bratislava, in front of one of our universities here. Even the train scenes were from Slovakia. So our question is... is the film actually a good film, or just plain bad?
My sister (very opinionated, I might say) said that the film is tacky.
"What, what does this word mean?" Laszlo asks.
"Um, you know... lame. cheesy. corny." she answered.
Of course, he does not know what any of these words mean outside of their usual context of a maimed person, cheese, and the vegetable corn.
"Tacky is just, well... junky, I guess. Mom, what's the original meaning of it?"
"Ah, and lame?"
"Well, if it's lame, it just means..." my Mom explains.
"Ah, yes--we have similar meaning in Hungarian." Marc says.
"And cheesy? This is just something with much cheese?"
"No, it means it's dopey!" my sister answers, grinning wickedly at me as Laszlo frowns.
"Dopey? What does this mean?"
"Well, dopey is from being all drugged up," I say. "So that when people are all drugged up, they do certain things and we say that they are dopey. Because they are probably on dope."
"Drugged up, this is something like being dragged up from the ground?"
"NO! You understand, on drugs?"
"Oh, like a joint, yes?"
"Yes."
"Ah. So, this movie, it is lame, and cheesy--how do you spell cheesy?
"C-h-e-s-y" my sister spells.
"C-h-e-e-z-y" I spell.
"C-h-e-e-s-y" My Mom says. ("That's what I meant!" my sister cries)
He writes them all down, with our names in brackets.
"(Cheezy is the 'teen' way of spelling it,)" my sister explains.
"Ok, ok. So, someone who watch this film, they are dopey?"
"No! But if the film is dopey, then they are dopey if they watch it, but the film is dopey anyways."
"Why?"
"Because they didn't film it in the right places!"
"But many films do that!" My mom protests.
"Yes, and isn't it awful?"
"Well, no one who lives in the States knows the difference!"
And so our conversation goes. The word "goofy" got in there somewhere, too, but I can't remember where it fit.
I went yesterday for a walk with my youngest sister and my dad in the city... Here in Bratislava, there are many places to walk, including a whole park sprawled over the hills Bratislava sprung up around. Koliba is the hill we chose to climb, despite the fact that the weather grew frigid overnight. I know in this country we like to "get out in the nature" a lot, but even so I found myself rather surprised at the number of faces we passed on the way.
At the top, you could not see a thing for the clouds--in fact, if we walked a few meters away from each other, we could barely see one another!
Of course, having reached the top, we enjoyed a little rest... There is a nice little overgrown kiosk at the top, with a log-cabin like room off to the side complete with picnic tables and a fireplace. We very happily settled down there with our kofola and varene vino, as well as my hot-dog with jemne (sweet) ketchup before heading back down again.
200 SKK (Slovak Krown) bill... we have beautiful money here in Slovakia.
I went the other day with my mum and younger sister to visit Incheba, which at Christmastime is a building set up as a big indoor marketplace. So wonderful. It was my first time in two years to visit, as I always arrive here (in Bratislava, Slovakia) the day after it has closed. They have an area of the building set up with a stage, and we had the delight of being there while a special programme was performed. Actually, the daughter of one of my father's collegues was part of it, which was a second pleasant surprise.
Here is a small taste, then, for you, of Slovak folk tradition, as performed by children...
Enjoy!
Oh, and I don't know why, but for some reason once I put it on youtube, the sound doesn't synchronize to the video anymore. If anyone knows anything about that, I'd love to be informed... but meanwhile, I apologise for the inconvenience.
Here's something I typed out earlier, when I didn't have internet access...thought I'd go ahead and post it now, anyways.
And just to note, I finally did get out of Bufallo at 11am, landed in Philly at 1pm, and left Philly (after an hour delay) at around 11pm.
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15 December 2006, 10:00am
So, it’s Friday, 15 December 2006, and I am still sitting in Buffalo Airport, NY. Yes, you did read that right. Still sitting.
By all accounts and all original plans, I ought to have been traipsing the streets of London at this exact moment. But no.
This month marks nearly a whole year since I have last flown, and apparently one can forget in a years time all the uncertainties of travel.
There are several rules of travel, rules that will never, ever change. And some of these rules are 1) Expect the unexpected 2) Be flexible 3) Travel light. I seem to have forgotten the first two, though I have the third one down rather nicely. All of my possessions for the next six months are packed into a large (duffle bag) backpack weighing 34 Lb, a little carry-on, a purse, and my laptop case. Which, granted, is still quite a lot for one person to lug around. Besides that, I am wearing several layers of clothes and carrying two coats, two scarves, and two hats.
Now why am I still in Buffalo, when I ought to have left here yesterday afternoon? Right. About that unexpected? Well, it happened. According to our ticket assistant today, yesterday was one of the top ten worst travel days with this airline ever. The entire East Coast of the USA was pretty much shut down.
I lined up for baggage check-in at 1:15 pm, with my flight scheduled to leave for Philly at 3:05 pm.
At somewhere around 4:10 pm, we finally boarded, and no sooner did we board but we buckled, and no sooner had we buckled but they said Nevermind! We can’t leave until at least until 6 pm. So we deboarded.
Then again… finally, at around what, 7 pm, maybe? I don’t remember exactly, we lined up and boarded again. Buckled up again. They started the engine and the propellers went round and round. We moved to the end of the runway and—they cancelled our flight.
Absolutely brilliant.
So, I spent about 15 minutes in line waiting to rebook my tickets, and then the next hour trying to get them rebooked. There were no more flights out that night. They rebooked my flying Buffalo to Boston to London to Vienna—and then they realised I was only flying their airline to Philadelphia and then switching to an unaffiliated airline. So again, nevermind.
I tried really hard to be fine. Really, the ridiculousness of the situation was striking. But it kind of struck the wrong way, and once my eyes got a little teary, it just didn’t stop.
So, travel rule #4: tears can work wonders.
I always knew it’s okay to cry. I move around a lot, and that is one of a nomad’s golden rules. (or at least, it ought to be). But I never realised how effective unaffected tears can be on ticket agents. Four agents later and I worked with one who bent over backwards to help me.
“It must be a silver tongue,” he said, after managing to sweet talk British Airways into protecting my flight for me and just moving it over until tonight. “You know we really have no obligation except to get you to Philadelphia, right? But we’ll see if we can get this mess figured out.” And he did.
So I *should* arrive in London a full 24 hours later than I was supposed to.
Everyone else had their tickets rebooked a full 20 minutes, at least, before I was set.
Then I got to go and claim my luggage (I checked in the duffle-back-pack) downstairs, wash my face, go back upstairs, and crash on the floor of Burger King.
I’ll just doze off and on, I thought. Riiigghht.
I slept like a rock. When I sat down and situated myself, the chairs were all up on the tables. When I woke up two hours later, they were all down on the ground except the table closest to me. I hadn’t heard a thing.
And I promptly fell asleep again, only to be abruptly woken up at 3 am. When I say abruptly, I really mean it, too. Some nice, undoubtedly very weary gentleman was using one of those enormous vacuum machines that you ride around on, and may I just say, waking up to that? I think I just about jumped out of my skin, and I definitely leapt up to my feet despite the fact that I had been sound asleep. I had no idea where I was, either, but it was perfectly terrifying.
When I recollected everything and realised what the racket was, I just sat back down and laughed and laughed. And then I fell back asleep.
This time, I woke up at 5:30 to a man saying “Excuse me? ‘Scuze me… Miss?” And someone nudging my feet. I managed to squint my eyes open a bit for a peek, and saw this kind, dark face leaning over me. “Miss, do you know the time? Did you miss your flight, miss? I don’t want you to miss your flight.” I hadn’t missed my flight, but I thought that was the sweetest thing, ever. It’s nice to wake up just knowing that God really is taking care of you and watching over you.
So, I got up and waited to check my luggage back in (45 minute process, to be exact), and sang Christmas carols the whole time long. People were pretty grumpy looking, so I sang softly, but it was nice. Refreshing. Then I grabbed a bagel and some water. Best meal ever. (Well, not quite, but considering…)
Oh yes! And I went over to talk with one of the women who was working on our flight, and the man with her (also airport worker), and they gave me a whole container of fudge. That was so nice.
Airports are such a world apart. And while, like in life we are all either common friends or common enemies, we all know a connection exists between us… even when the connection is a missed flight!
This morning as I sit here, many familiar faces from last night’s twice boarding experience look back at me when I glance around. And we exchange smiles, or skeptical looks as they announce still more delays, and sympathetic smiles for matted hair and clothing that begins to feel as though it might start growing on you.
I love this life. It excites even as it exhausts. You talk with people whose names you never ask, and discover resources you did not know, or at least forgot, existed. It makes such an excellent study of humanity and communication. And excellent for remembering the important things in life.
My plans are rather battered right now. I discovered the night before I left home (college) that my trip to Wales was cancelled. So I rearranged my plans and scheduled myself to go home earlier. Very disappointing. Good preparation for today (no, yesterday’s) experience. Because now with the delayed, cancelled, and missed flights, my second biggest plan for in the UK is void as well.
But I think I am starting to feel excited a bit, because I am more and more curious just what will happen next. What will happen next?
It is 10:36am and I’m still waiting. We are supposed to know at about 11 am as to whether we will board soon after that or not. Of course, we were supposed to know that at 9 am, and at 10 am, too. So who can say?
The idea of spending 24 hours in this airport does not appeal to me much, but… they *say* we should be able to head out relatively soon.
Hello friends! This is the blog I intend to keep for the next six months time as I do some more globe trotting. I’m rather excited at the prospect just now, actually. I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to keep in touch with you one on one if I know you… and if I don’t know you and you are just randomly reading this, then I’m sure I won’t be keeping in touch with you at all… but either way, this will hopefully be a forum where you can keep abreast of my adventures and as Bryana said to me the other day, “steal my eyes” a bit. See what I see, hear what I think, that sort of thing.
It’s a pub. Storytelling…pictures… thoughts you might not hear otherwise… all that good stuff. Enjoy it. Comment. I don’t like traveling alone; nomads always prefer to travel together, or with their families. If I gave this site to you, it’s because I consider you someone I want to travel with, stick with, and share my life with as much as possible, despite being “away.” Also, email me, write me, call me, …because I want to know what’s going on with you, too, and not just be like a TV newsflash in your house or a one-way infomercial…
This past Spring I read the published travel journal of a woman who was the wife of the first Spanish ambassador to Mexico after the independence there. And there was a particular line that struck me, that I will use to close this little note…
“…with a remembrance behind, and a hope before us…”
