Words with Feet

"And in every place she abandons she leaves something vital, it seems to me, and starts her new life somewhat less encrusted, like a lobster that has shed its skin and is for a time soft and vulnerable."

- E.B. White

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Location: Washington, DC

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Okay. Lots to catch up on.

Let’s start with this—yes, I exist, I got here safely, and I love it so far.

I’ve been in Slovakia for exactly a week as I write this—arriving late last Monday night, after an interesting detour through the Roman airport. By the way, in case any of you Americans plan to travel abroad: Delta closes its counter at around 1:30 p.m., so if you miss your connecting flight, improvising is key. Before that, of course, you can allow yourself the brief moment of panic—in my case, this came at about the time the representatives at the neighboring airline carrier told me Delta would be in tomorrow, and I should come back then. Many pleading looks and customer service hotlines later, I discovered that I somehow actually already had a seat reserved on the next flight to Prague—lucky, as it left just 25 minutes after the Italian check-in man told me about it.

But, you know how travel goes. If you miss one connecting flight, you miss them all. And I was running quite a strike thus far, only riding aboard one of my anticipated four aircrafts. So, by the time I got to Prague, my flight to Bratislava had already left. Probably three minutes before I got there. Again with the service counters, the pleading looks, the sensation of having overused my passport in the last 24 hours, though at least this time I was on the right part of the globe. I somehow managed a ticket on what was supposed to be an overbooked flight. And then: Bratislava. (The one advantage of taking the scenic route through Europe? My bags were waiting for me when I got to my final destination.)

We’ll skip past the first night, because that was tainted with a case of the travel grumpies. (I did, however, encounter the first offender in what would become an ongoing battle with doorknobs). And immediately upon checking in to Hotel Tatra, I fell asleep for the better part of the next day.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning, Day One of orientation. The other grantees begin to trickle in. Most of them, I discover, have actually been in country for several weeks now. Police Jon, Cathy and I are the newbies.
Our cast of characters: Jon, Jon, Josh, Joan, Janelle (the J names are popular in our bunch), Nicole, Mark, Betsy, Cathy, Chuck, Susan, plus me. Police Jon, Josh, Nicole and I are the ETAs, and the nocturnally inclined of the bunch. Joan and Math Jon are exchange teachers, which means they have Slovak counterparts in the states, teaching at their respective schools. Janelle, a professor of art history, is working with university administrators at a Bratislava school, and leaves in January. Chuck, a lawyer, is teaching at a local law school, and brought his wife Susan to SK as well. Mark teaches linguistics in a different department (faculty) of my university, and his wife, Betsy, is having a baby during their stay here.

That’s the very basic breakdown of our little collective.

I can’t give a full account of the past week, or I’ll lose what few readers I actually have. So, in short, from Wednesday to Friday, here’s what happened: We met the fellow Fulbrighters. We took three intensive Slovak lessons.
We attended a ballet at the National Opera House, and a reception in our honor at the home of the American Ambassador to Slovakia. We learned to use a post office, a bus, and which Slovak alcohols to try or avoid. We learned that the Slovak police can arrest us if our papers are not in order, and that it’s wise to always carry a passport. Some of us tried the Slovak solution to vegetarianism: fried sheep’s cheese in tartar sauce. We crowded in Josh’s tiny hotel room and drank wine and watched a film about bank robbery. We marveled at the hare krishnas dancing in the ped zone, made jokes about the Primate Palace, went grocery shopping at 21:00 for chocolates, scavenged for a WiFi café, sampled takeout falafel, walked by the Danube, sipped pivo in a jazz bar, and snuck a stowaway into a very bijoux hotel room at 1:00 after a failed attempt at crashing a Dracula party. And then, on Saturday, three of us—Mark, Betsy, and I—dragged my gargantuan luggage to the station and caught a bus to Nitra, which is hereafter home.


My flat is in the complex Klokocina, which is a very soviet, very concrete forest of buildings brushed to one side of Nitra. Each room has a different shade and pattern of floral wallpaper covering the cinderblock walls, which clashes endearingly with the furniture and carpets. I like this. I enjoy the Brooklynesque lift, graffitied, doorless, the kind that groans and shifts when you step onto it, with buttons that one must force in with a hard thumb. Why do I enjoy this? For the same reason I enjoyed the botchy electricity in the Dominican Republic, and the try-your-luck plumbing. Because these are authentic parts of life here. Four of my UKF colleagues live in similar buildings in this district, so I know this is the lifestyle granted to most academics in the area. It’s not glamorous, but functional. And unlike comparable American housing complexes, it is safe. (I even have a guest bed and a very comfy sofa, if anyone happens to be in the area.)


The only problem I’ve encountered so far was a bit of technical difficulty with the door.


Now, I’m not a person who often considers doorknobs. One might say I take them for granted. You turn the knob, the latch retracts, and VOILA! The door swings open. Cause and effect, simple as that. But on my first day in Nitra, after Joey took me to the Tesco for some weekend supplies, I returned to my flat, unlocked the top and bottom, tried the knob and—no dice. Let’s just say that an hour later, when my door was still fixed stubbornly shut, my groceries splayed in their plastic bags on the floor, I had to ask a neighbor on her way to the lift if she could give me a hand. I’m sure she thought I was nuts. After all, what idiot can’t open an unlocked door?


And I felt like an idiot, but I had to ask Joey or forever be stranded in the entranceway outside my flat.

I suppose that’s the segue into my work life. So far, it’s a juggle of professionalism, academia, and ridiculous questions.


Though I only met them yesterday, my colleagues are lovely. I’m crashing the proverbial boys’ club: there’s Joey, the temporary head of the department, who speaks with a British affectation; Tony, another English professor, and highly fluent; Vlado, new to the school’s faculty, who was kind enough to both find a map of the city for me and escort me home via public transport. Also the German instructor, Petr, who speaks about as much English as I speak Slovak—so our conversations have been brief.


Today is the first day of classes—two conversational English courses, first thing in the morning. (That’s 7:30 a.m. – a true test of whether I’ve overcome the time difference, as in the states that would be 1:30 a.m.) But the early morning is no problem; as it is, my schedule has me teaching only 3 days a week: I have Wednesdays off, and Fridays too, which will come in handy for travel purposes.


And speaking of travel. Two of my New York lovelies are coming to visit for a weekend in October, and, hopefully, we’ll manage a little excursion to see a favorite poet in the following week. (If we succeed, I will have traveled to four foreign countries with them—we’re a company of nomads.)

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

it's so good to hear from you! please send your address so i can occassionally have an unpostmarked card or random thing that i want to send you and agonize over when the office is open, eventually getting it to you at approximately 6 weeks exactly before you leave.

Lauryn

8:00 AM  

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