What a Difference a "K" Makes

My brain is currently thinking mostly in nonsense words. Most of the time when I imagine myself speaking in a different language and I run out of words, my mind switches into Spanish and fills out my thoughts that way. But now, on this overnight bus from Bratislava to Zurich, my mind can't even manage that. Perhaps it the overload of hearing Slovak while mentally practicing my Swiss German, but I have begun formulating nonsensical syllables instead of real thoughts.

But yes, that mythical time known spring break has begun. In fact, at this point it's nearly half over. Rather than head to Ibiza or some other popular beach destination where I could flash my tits at foreigners, last Friday at around three in the morning I began my journey to Slovakia. I almost ended up at the wrong airport in London (Stansted instead of Luton) and almost ended up at the wrong town in Slovakia (Stiavnicka instead of Stiavnica) but by some fucked up happenstance, four buses and one plane later I met my friend Andy at the bus stop in Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia.

Now, as I fill myself on food and drink of indeterminable ingredients and awkwardly apologize to the passenger behind me for not being able to speak Slovak as he tries to engage me in conversation, I have found the time to at least begin updating my blog without the aid of internet. I have also found the time to write incredibly long sentences.

Stiavnica is beautiful in an odd sort of way. Perhaps the flatness of London and the overwhelming wash of gray there has colored my perception of other places, but the hillsides and jumbles of pastel houses along with the glorious woods that occasionally lined the roadside seemed incredible. From different places in Stiavnica you can see both New Castle (built in the late Middle Ages to protect the town from Turkish raids) on the hillside and the skewed cement housing build by the Soviets. Rather than attempt a complete account of my adventures there, I've selected a few (hopefully) more interesting moments to capture my time there.

New Castle

Saturday, Andy and I were in a neighboring town at a cafe with Andy's friend Norbert Sr., who has very strong if not altogether clear political beliefs that apparently include high opinions of both Glenn Beck and the United States in the late nineties. Go figure. While sipping away at my green tea, I learned that the day before there had been a rash of political violence in Bratislava. I was suddenly glad that I had at least found the right buses from the airport to the bus station and hadn't ended up near parliament the day before. I continued to drift in and out of focus on the conversation, and I was especially jarred out of it when the strains of “Sexy and I Know It” started washing out of the speakers over the restaurant.

Sunday, Andy gave me a more complete tour of Stiavnica than he had managed to give me Friday night after I arrived. There are a lot of clock towers that look strikingly similar in the center of Stiavnica, but Andy pointed out one in particular.

“It's quarter to three. What's wrong with that clock?” Andy asked as we looked up at it.

“Uh, well the hands are kind of shaped like penises,” I replied, true to form. “But I wouldn't say that's something that's wrong with it necessarily...”

12:27 beneath the cock clock.

Andy smiled and said he'd noticed that first too but led me away to continue our tour. I'd apparently get a better view of the clock once we were by Old Castle.

“Okay, it's ten after three now,” Andy said. “What's wrong with it?”

I couldn't figure it out. The hands were pointing at the Roman numeral three and the Roman numeral two. I shrugged and gave up. The minute hand and the hour hand are apparently switched, with the short arm for minutes and the long hours. The story goes that the master clock maker had been drunk when it was time to assemble the clock, so his slightly less drunk apprentice was put in charge and messed it up.

Monday morning, as Andy had to teach, I was unleashed on the streets alone with only my stupefied smile as a means of communication. After a vaguely awkward encounter with a supermarket clerk when trying to buy a nutella filled croissant, I made my way up to New Castle. After several windy minutes up by the old structure, I headed back down into town and wandered around the campus of the Mining and Forestry Academy, which was the first technical university and is now wonderfully overgrown.

After Andy got out of school, he began cooking a Czech goulash for dinner, and we headed out to a tea house. The tea house has 150 kinds of tea (we counted) and also offers hookah for those who are so inclined. Andy and I each settled for some tea and drank our respective pots of it as some boys at a table nearby struggled with their water pipe. Something may have been wrong with it, but, and I think this is far more likely given their giggly nature, something may have also been wrong with them.

That about brings us up to today, especially given how long this entry has already become in my word document. With this update at least vaguely taken care of, I can turn my attention to trying to practice a bit more Swiss German. Or – and this is more likely – I can doze off while trying to ignore what appears to be a dubbed movie about snakes, warriors, and Angelina Jolie.