Trifter

It was July forth, a day I thought I would not be celebrating given the fact that I was not in America, but, rather, in Bratislava, the capitol city of Slovakia. I ended up in the castle overlooking the city with outsiders from the Chamber of Commerce watching Elvis and Marilyn Monroe impersonators dance around like morons as the World Cup played on flat screens in tents, people road mechanical bulls, and fireworks exploded to celebrate our independence from England…

When planning my trip earlier that summer, my mother had mentioned that one of her friends had a son who worked at the embassy in the “up and coming” formerly communist city. Considering I was low on money (one of the many appeals for traveling to Eastern Europe in the first place) and not knowing much about the place other than what I had seen portrayed in “Eurotrip,” I thought it might be a good idea to stop halfway through my excursion to stay with someone who had been living in the unknown city for a while.

I should have realized when Chip–yes his name was and is Chip–explained in brief communication via Email that he could offer a real bed, very appealing when traveling for a month while sleeping on trains and in stiff hostel bunks, was also offering, “quality American cooking,” from his wife Valaria–yes her name was and is Valaria–I was not going to have the normal traveler’s experience in Bratislava.

Upon arrival to the city center, the first thing I felt was exhaustion. Not so much exhaustion from travel, which may have had something to do with my state of being, but, rather, an exhaustion of a peoples. A culture who, after struggling for generations to lift an Iron Curtain, had no energy left to live the life they had struggled for so long to obtain. Or maybe, more likely, those who were still alive had never understood or wanted this abstract entity called “Democracy”.

I, having lived in the US, a “Democratic Country“, have had–and still do–a hard enough time describing what exactly the term democracy is and means…then again, you never know the value of something until it is taken from you…Regardless, by the end of my rant, you will hopefully understand how Democracy has become contorted or what it means to the people of Bratislava.

Democracy to them: “A six inch wall was torn down”…1000 miles to the north…? Where’s Berlin again?

When I entered the “whatever” Square, (there were no signs, there was nothing). I had expected to see a flourishing market with art and music; a place God shown down light even on rainy days, just because of the previous trials the city had undergone. I expected to see artists painting, as on the Charles bridge in Prague, or children laughing, as in most of the newly liberated Eastern European streets of the world, as in Krakow. Or, even, looking at architecture, rivers, and churches as I had while wandering the streets of Ljubljana, basically the Paris of Eastern Europe, something…well…something moving or breath-taking, to say the least….I…

I expected, naively (perhaps because of the travel magazines I had read on the train), a miniature, tourist-free Prague. Free from communism. Full of life. Full with expectations for the future. Something…

These misconceptions must have been fueled from just having spent five days in Krakow, a city overcome with the lust for LIFE, ART, and BEAUTY. (The only city, mind you, which Hitler had deemed successful in “solving the Jewish Problem”. Hence, why I expected so much, I guess). Regardless,

Bratislava is not Prague. It is no Krakow. And, by no means, Ljubljana.

I thought when leaving, however, of the people I met. The unexpected experience. The way of life…that is the beauty of travel and the ignorance of man…Do not expect. Do not trust what you have been told or what you have read. Just sit, have a drink, eat something new, and talk to someone who lives there…experience the culture, the people, and theirand way of life…

And please, for my sake and the sake of the people you’ll meet, don’t make the same mistake I did; Don’t be an Ignorant American.