Selected Miscellany Between Games.

So, picking up chronologically, I took my only-marginally-clean bloody face back to the hostel and, as mentioned, the Irishmen took a liking to me. One said, "holy shit! I'd hate to think what the other guy looked like!" We talked hockey and football for a bit, and they were excited that I'd never been to a professional football match. They just happened to have an extra ticket, so I went with them and an Aussie girl. One of the craziest places I've ever been, without a doubt. I thought UT Vol fans were crazy. I had no idea. The gentleman (?) in front of me was dressed in a cassock and mitre. He had a snake around his neck. Yes, that's right. He was Saint Patrick. He'd also jump up and down, hit people with his snake, and scream "BOLLOCKS!!!" every time Ireland did something unadvisable. There were also numerous leprechaun sightings. The Irishmen were very impressed, since I knew all the Irish soccer chants already...they're all just old drinking lays (big surprise), and god knows I listened to my share of Irish drinking songs in college. I also came away from the 2-2 draw with a nifty scarf. One side has the Irish flag, the other has the Slovakian flag. It's neat. We walked home, but I got a nice picture of the trams packed with folks in green. 7,000 Irish came to Bratislava to see the match. It was crazy. The next day came, as it often does, and my Irish friends left. I was lonely, and I finally picked up and finished Choke (which is amazing, by the way), but I had a compulsion to get some books--one book I could read and pass on to someone who needed it more than I, and something that could stick with me. I went to my local English language bookstore in search of the new Delillo novel. It was the tenth, and I thought something concerning the eleventh would be fitting. Big surprise, they didn't have it. But I got "Heart of Darkness" for my pass-along book. The "Stay with me" book was harder to determine. I was looking for something heady, something at least peripherally concerning travel, something multifarious, something I could read in any mood. You know, I'm not picky or anything. The more I looked, the more I realized only Ulysses could fit all these criteria. So I got it, and it has helped. It's been really helpful to get my literary faculties working again. I've been working so hard on keeping up with other languages that I've really started longing to be challenged by my own again. Speaking of other languages, I finally found a Slovak language textbook. It's helping.
On Tuesday, I watched youtube archive footage of 9/11 for about half an hour before making breakfast. The rest of the day was bizarre. I decided to set out for a rural art museum, the Danubiana. When I say rural, I mean a solid 18 km into South Bratislava, and then another 4 km on foot. So said my "Let's Go! Eastern Europe!," anyway. But beyond distances and the bus stop, I had a lot of guesswork to do in terms of in which direction I should walk 3.5 kilometers. The book also mentioned that the building was interesting--silver, blue, and red. I walked around Cunovo (THE most distant Bratislava suburb) in hopes of seeing a sign. Anything. But I found above all that the place was beautiful, quiet, and I got three "dobry dens" from total strangers. The only noise was the occasional car or dog. I followed a main road out to a highway, and saw a gleaming silver, blue and red building in the distance. The wind started to get cold as I walked down the road, and I noticed that half the sky was turning black; the other half was pristine. I turned around and saw at once the most intimidating sky and the most incredible rainbow I've ever seen. Rainbows would be more accurate. There were about five of them. I tucked my shirt into my plastic bag, knowing from my last cold rainy adventure that it's better to be bare-chested than covered in wet slimy fabric. I continued walking along the road toward the building until I noticed that the road would be an extremely serpentine course. To my left was a big, bare farm field. It looked like a straight shot, so I walked, sandal-shoon. And the hail began. I guess it's a good thing I like golf balls when there's no sign of shelter for 500 meters in any direction. Gross. As the ground got wet, my flip-flops became mudshovels. I had little choice, so I kept walking. I walked until I was on another part of the highway, and close enough to tell that the building in question was definitely not an art museum. It had semi trucks and cars driving through. I was also right in front of "Club Happy End Erotic Parlor." Not my idea of an oasis, but good for a funny picture. I saw spires in the distance and walked toward them until I saw a set of signs: "POZOR! STATNA GRANICA!" From my knowledge of Russian, I could approximate this to "Beware! National Border!" I grinned to myself and walked a bold six meters into Austria, just to say I'd been.
From a goal-oriented standpoint, the trip was a failure. From a climatic comfort standpoint, the trip was miserable. But it was a fantastic day, really. A) the only expectations I have this year are to play hockey, learn pan-European (but especially Slavic) culture, and learn Slavic languages. B) a few bruises and a little cold never killed anyone. I stopped at a roller hockey rink in another Bratislava suburb and watched some neighborhood kids playing with a tennis ball. I stopped at still another suburb and peeked through a gate at the ruins of a Roman military garrison camp.
And today I saw Hamlet. In Slovak. Correction: I ran a solid mile and a half to make it to the show in time. I went in an L-shape, it turns out, but in addition to making the show in time, I got my exercise for the day. The sweaty neckband of my shirt is unhappy with me, however. As for the play itself, the staging was fantastic, and I could tell the acting was stellar, even though I only understood 20% of the dialog. I filled in the rest with English, reciting the soliloquies word-for-word in my mother tongue with the black prince. He was a damn good Hamlet. The more I look back on it, the more I detest the production I saw at Rhodes College as a prospective student. They set the soliloquies to shitty guitar music. Shakespeare's great tragedy became a maudlin Jack Johnson song...as though there's any other kind. That's a non sequitur, but nonetheless. At best I'll have three games this weekend, at worst, one. Then I'll close the book on Bratsvegas and move on to Kosice, which looks like it will be about a week of nonstop...well, not much, really. Do be in touch and do comment.

All the best.

Josh