MY FALL 1997 TRIP TO SLOVAKIA

Well, here I am again, flying. This is my third trip to Slovakia this year. I am flying Canada 3000 Charter airline. Checking the flights I found this charter airline with unbeatable price of CAD $ 579.00 or $641 with taxes. I was so overwhelmed with the low price that I booked the flight on the spot right on the phone. I learned later on that there are some big time restrictions on the weight of the luggage and that alcoholic beverage and the headphones aren't complimentary. Until the day I picked my tickets, few days prior to my departure, I was under impression that I am allowed two suitcases of 44 Lbs. each. Well it was still two suitcases, however 44 Lbs. together. Shocking. I had to leave 50 % of my luggage at home. As this is a charter airline, they have only three wickets for check in and ask the passengers to start checking in three hours prior to departure.

I got up at 5:30 in the morning and arriver at the airport 7:00 AM. Check in took five minutes. The last hurdle I had to go through was being allowed to board the plane with three carry on bags, instead of the officially allowed one. There was no problem. This flight on Boeing 757 that can carry 226 passengers had stops in Calgary, Alberta and than in Keflavik, Iceland. The crew was very pleasant, the seats were comfortable, the free soda water that I was drinking instead of my usual Gin and tonic, was just fantastic. The lunch was shepherds pie; it wasn't bad, however it isn't my favorite meal. The complimentary wine with the lunch was good. The final analysis was that I feel that with the weight restrictions and the extras, when you add it all in, the price should be much lower. When I fly regular schedule airline I get the mileage points and every fifth trip is free. The way I look at it because of the points they give you the real price is really $200.00 less. The weight restrictions if I would take the same weight as on regular airline the extra weight would cost me $ 220.00 more. So if I add the real values I get $ 979.00 not much difference than with scheduled airline. I think this would be a terrific deal if the ticket were priced at $ 379.00 instead of the $ 579.00. But that is just my opinion.

We arrived in Munich 25 minutes ahead of schedule; got my car, this time it is Ford Fiesta. Small, fast, clean and economical and soon I was cruising the German Autobahn at 170 Km per hour. What a smooth ride. The weather couldn’t be better; it was sunny and warm.

I arrived in Bratislava early afternoon where I learned from my cousin Jozef Simonovic that our friend, choreographer and folklorist Slavka Ondriskova has passed away after a short illness. The funeral was later on in the day, attended by hundreds of folklorists from around Slovakia. She was only 43 and for more than 27 years she was involved in folklore.

Next day I attended wedding of our correspondent Maria Rybarová's brother in Bojnice's castle Golden room.

From time to time you may read some praise of some services for some businesses in Slovakia. I would like to state at this time that these are unsolicited and unpaid endorsements and they express my view of the services and I do NOT get any special deals to do these endorsements. You may have read that recently I mentioned a restaurant Charlia in Bojnice as my favorite place to have dinner while in Bojnice. Well this is a sign of past as I recently made my last visit to this establishment. I feel sorry for the owner who is fantastic cook and her daughter a great and cheerful waitress who is both very nice and very professional. The two servers they had the last time I was there do deserve to be mentioned. They were so slow and so arrogant and bossy, the food was not too bad, however the vegetables had almost mildew on them; well aged soggy and bad tasting. This restaurant was never inexpensive, but the food used to be god. The prices have stayed the same, the portions have shrunk, and the food is not as it used to be. The most noticeable shrinkage was the Ice cream glass for $ 2.00 that has shrunk in half and price stayed the same. Another shock was the beer. They serve the Czech beers Plzen and Budvar and Slovak beer made in Nitra, Corgon. I refuse to drink anything Czech in restaurants as I feel I like to help at least in this way to the Slovak businesses. The surprise was the charge for Slovak beer was the same as for the Czech import and that is wrong. It surly shows that they do give preference to the Czech product. That would be fine with me too, however the Corgon beer is half the price of Czech beer in the grocery stores. 
My friend the master potter Rastislav Haronik was busy with his Christmas creations and picking up apples for Calvados to be made later on in the winter. I left Vysehradne for Bratislava on Thursday morning. When I seen the sign to Pobedim, I couldn't resist and drove in the additional 3 Km as this is the village where our local priest and friend Father John Kadlec S. J. was born. I continued to Piestany and after a while I finally found the connection to the freeway. I have no idea about the guy that made decisions on highway signs in Slovakia, but I can tell you he had no idea of how drivers think. The highway directional signs are really something to contend with. Even I get lost many times and I can safely say that I do drive a lot in Slovakia, but sometimes the markings just doesn't make sense and if I didn't have the army map I would be really lost many times. For instance at the main intersection that would connect you to Bratislava you have sign pointing you to Myjava, that is true, but first you have connection to Bratislava's freeway and that isn't shown anywhere. So you continue past this intersection until you get out of town and realize that you’ve must missed something, like the real turn to Bratislava, but it isn’t shown on any sign. I could confuse you even more, but I wont, all I can tell you take really good look at the map before you start your traveling by car.

I went to see Gateano Donizetti's opera Lucia Di Lamermoor and later visited the newly opened Café Mayer at Bratislava's Korzo. I wanted to do a really nice story on this café, however the manager was so arrogant and rude when I was asking for permission to photograph, so I won’t do it.

Next day I went for a walk and visited my friends the Vais family whom I know from Lucnica at Expo 86 in Vancouver. They are finally making their move to freshly restored apartment. Their planned move was July 15, but it took until end of October to get the place ready for occupation. Still not 100% finished, but they are all glad that they can live there. In their old place the water was turned off in February and they had to carry all water to their old apartment by hand every day for 8 months.

Later I spent few days as usual in Vitaz and on the weekend I attended yet another wedding in Okruzna near Presov, where brother of my friend Bohumile Onasisse Jaroslav Biros, Marek, was getting married. On the way to Vysehradne from Vitaz I made long overdue stop at Krivany and visited folklorist Jan Lazorik, who recently published book titled: "Our Traditional Shepherding."

Few days later I returned to Bratislava again, visited few friends. Later I stopped by the National Cultural Center and said good bye to my folklorist friends. We had few beers, then went to work on the computer, had some more home distilled pear brandy, then I wanted to drive to Vysehradne, which luckily I wasn't allowed to do, and I ended up sleeping at my friend Vladimir Kysel's place after tasting really fantastic sauerkraut soup.

So I went to Vysehradne day later. From here I went on a short trip visiting Banska Bystrica, Horna and Dolna Micina, Detva, Zvolenska Slatina, Zvolen, Ziar nad Hronom, and Chrenovec.

Next day I returned to Bratislava. I packed my 20-Kg of luggage that was done in a flash, as my suitcase is practically empty and at 10:30 PM I was at the Austria's border. Smooth sailing until about third or fourth village past the border where I was stopped by the police, apparently doing 77 Km per hour in 50 Km per hour zone. I was surprised, as I wasn’t rushing anywhere since I had over 10 hours to get to Munich, and that didn’t pose any problems even if it was snowing. I had allocated twice as much time as usual. So I asked the officer why didn't he stop all the cars that have just passed me? He had no answer and said that I did in fact was going 77. He asked if I had any Austrian Shillings, which I had about 150 and 40 Deutsche Marks. I don't know, but perhaps it wasn't enough or I was nice and he had a heart and let me go asking me to go slower. I did and made two resting stops the second one just past the Austrian border in Germany. I slept for few hours and arrived and the Munich airport around 7 A.M. here I got the great news that our charter flight with Canada 3000 is delayed for over 10 hours. What a shock. We all got breakfast vouchers for 16 DM and now we got the lunch vouchers for 30 DM and are still waiting for the plane to arrive. I guess that would be another negative factor of flying charters, you will never know if the plane will be at the airport for its departure on schedule. I don't know yet for sure, but it must have something to do with Calgary weather and the recent snow storms. We departed Munich at 6:00 PM and arrived in Vancouver safely.

GO BACK TO TRAVEL

Published in the Slovak Heritage Live newsletter Volume 6, No. 1, Spring 1998
Copyright © Vladimir Linder 1998 
3804 Yale Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5C 1P6
The above article may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or redistributed by any means including electronic, without the express written permission of Vladimir Linder. All rights reserved.