Having Brats in Bratislava

What changes are afoot in the world. Just fifteen years ago crossing into Slovakia would have been a trial and a hassle. Entering the old Soviet empire would have required a visa, hard questions, close scrutiny and a border crossing as bad as they get (well that's not exactly true--crossing from Jordon to Israel in 1978 required me getting naked). With the new openness of the European Union no one even checked our passports--Not once--Either entering Slovakia or coming back into Austria. My heck we Americans don't belong to the European Union and no one bothered to cause us a fuss. They did stamp our tickets with an entering Slovakia stamp, but we could have been from anywhere, even America, and they would not have known. We had our passports and our green cards with us (yes and they really are green although they call them Legitimation Cards here, but we are official working aliens) but no one wanted to see them, which if the truth be told we were a little bummed because we wanted to have a cool stamp, but no one cares over here where anyone goes. So while Americans are holding up Canadians at the US-Canada Border, Americans can slip in and out of Slovakia and Austria without even a glance. Now that is something to think about.

So the first thing I noticed upon arrival was that Lori is a model. There are often surprising things that you learn about your spouse but that Lori was a famous model in Eastern Europe came as quite a shock. Not that fact that she is a model, that's an obvious career move, as anyone who has seen her knows, but that fact that she never mentioned it to any of us was surprising. Look at this photo and there she is in a large poster on the side of a tram her hair blowing in the wind with the other girl's in the picture. It's astonishing what you can learn even after 25 years of marriage.



Next it is important to have goals in life. One of my goals is to eat foods in their name sake. Now notice I'm not talking about sampling regional cuisine. I mean eating the cities name sake even if it has nothing to do with the city. But it is an important goal for me, hence I've had a hamburger in Hamburg, a frankfurter in Frankfurt, a Wiener Schnitzel in Wien (which actually is a regional cuisine too so it was really really cool, as was my Peking duck in Beijing), and French fries in France. So I had a brat (as in bratwurst) in Bratislava. Here is proof:



My goals to eat Romain lettuce in Rome, turkey in Turkey, a Sandwich in the Sandwich islands, brussels sprouts in Brussels have yet to be fulfilled).

We went to this castle:




(Which is surprisingly reminiscent of the Manti temple and there is a legend that Moroni visited this site and dedicated it on the way back from Commorah).

Where we heard a burst of machine gun fire and came upon a battle with these solders:



One was wounded:



I took my picture with them:



After scaring and impressing them with my prowess:




Now you may wonder why they are wearing World War II uniforms. It ether speaks to the poor condition of Slovakia's military or they were making a movie. No one spoke English so we could not ask and the question must ever be masked in obscurity.

Unfortunately, most things were closed today. After we arrived I pulled out my guide book that said, "On Saturdays things are open from 8 until noon." Which when I read out loud Nathan said, "Could you have not, like, read that before we came?" Which was a good point, especially because no one else in the family would even think about going into a museum, which were open, despite my pleading. After begging and whining on my knees, they let me pick one museum to go visit. I picked the Jewish Museum in the old town by the castle. Now the more astute among you will recognize that I had played into their hands and they must have been winking and smiling at each other as we marched to the site of my one, hard earned, concession. It was closed of course, because, Hello, it was the Jewish Sabbath. Oh they hooted in laughter as they left me standing stunned before the locked door, my lips quivering in shock that they had pulled this trick on me. We did not get to go to any museums.

We did see cobblestoned streets:



Old Clock towers:



Great views of Bratislava (note the old Soviet style block housing stretching across the Danube).



And a lecture on the truth of UFO:



No just kidding they wouldn't let me go to that either.

I also learned how Adam felt in the Garden of Eden when temped by Eve. We popped out of a tram and there was a KFC and Emily screamed in delight, Lori said, "We are going." We had not eaten in about 5 hours and, well, I wanted to eat something Slovakian but they pressed me into the restaurant, "And I did Partake."




It was a long day.



But we've been to Slovakia.