Best and Worst

In honor of my friend Max, whose life and writings should serve as an example to all whose keels sometimes roll sidewise, I am taking a page from his book, and pausing to ponder the best and worst things that comprise my life. Drumroll, please . . .

(Note to any and all - ok - probably any, because very few people ever read my gibberish - the followng list is likely to be under construction for some time, as I doubt I can honestly come up with 10 things in either category without a lot of thought.)

10 Best things about my life (in its present incarnation)

10. Sunshine
9. Languages
8. Travelling
7. My job(s)
6. The internet
5. Books
4. Living out of the US
3. Excellent food
2. Friends
1. Cynthia


10 Worst things about my life (in its current stage)

poking my shit with a stick every morning
Polish food
Polish students
Not having all the money I want
No scuba diving
Inability to speak Polish
Rejecting people
Making friends
No good wine
No sunshine

Gotta go - more later

Slovakia and Castle Stara Lubovna

Yesterday we went to Slovakia for the first time. Now that we have been to the Czech Republic as well as Slovakia, we have seen both halves of former Czechoslovakia, even if only briefly.

The trip was organized by some students of mine. We took two cars, and there were nine of us altogether. It took about an hour of driving to get there. We stopped to change money at one point (I had already taken care of this the previous day, and enjoyed how the 1,000 Krony note was the size of a dinner-plate,) and stopped later to take pictures of some mountains. I had been told many times about the "mountains" of this region, but never having seen them, had decided that people were probably confusing the biggest thing they had ever seen with a mountain.

But no, sure enough, they have some whopping big mountains out there, a range of sharp, snow covered peaks that gave me shivers just looking at them. (See foto above.) Apparently they are good for skiing on. Not that I ever hope to find out. The further I keep from snow, the more fortunate I consider myself.

After a wee bit more driving, we were on the Slovakian border. Everything went like clockwork until the blue passports came out. We were told to pull over to the side, so that other cars could be processed while they phoned President Bush. Well, I assume that is what they were trying to do, anyway. Judging from the amount of time it took, they must have caught him at dinner, or snacking on pretzels. Our friends in the other car had already made it through, so they had to stop on the far side, and sit and wait. In the end it was only perhaps 15 minutes before they let us through, so I have to assume that they believed me when I told them that the arms-running charge that came up was a different Matt who just shares my last name.

In all seriousness, though, it came as a bit of a surprise to our friends that holding a blue passport was not the hassle-free ticket to anywhere except the middle east that they thought it was. It seems the perception is widely shared, (and why shouldn't it be, since little here is actually seen of Americans) that we enjoy every single advantage on the planet, and not a single drawback. One of our travel companions later took the opportunity over dinner to point out that Poles are required to undergo much worse beauracratic hassling if they wish to visit our country. To which I replied that I have to undergo worse bureacratic hassling than this when I enter my own country. And this is true. I have never been treated with less professionalism and courtesy, scrutinised more and had my luggage dissassembled like in the US. And this includes prior to our catch-all-justification, 9-11.

From the border we made our way directly to the small town that housed the castle, Stara Lubovna. Stara means Old, and is a commen prefix on towns. I live in a Nowy (New) and nearby is the Stary (old) version of the same town. Before venturing up the hill, we had to stop and fortify ourselves properly by testing the local brew. I was told that this was where the world's cheapest beer could be bought. I considered this carefully, and decided that it would be a shame not to buy a pint o' the local at the world's cheapest spot, if this was indeed true. According to what I was told, the beer was 75 cents per half liter (pint = .47 liter.) The more nationalistic of our group immediately asked if I could recognise that the Polish beer was better. I told him it depended on the brand of Polish beer he was comparing it to, but I thought this was a fine brew, which made some at the table nod their heads sagely, and seemed to disappoint him somewhat.

We were repeatedly invited by a tall skinny man with a long, grey beard sporting nicotine stains under his nostrils to partake of breakfast, lunch or dinner, and he repeatedly listed all the specialties of the house. Every time he stopped speaking, our companions would inform us about his accent, or the fact that he was speaking a muddle of half-Slovakian/half-Polish, or that here they liked to eat "wet-bread" (dumplings) or some other piddling detail that the traveller often notes with wonder upon entering foreign realms, and to a large extent comprises the main joy of both classical music and travelling from place to place, which is noticing all the minor variations upon a major theme. The final entreaty to eat at his establishment was accompanied by the detail that the food was prepared by a very beautiful woman, who sadly was never allowed out of the kitchen, but we could take his word for it. Unfortunately, I never did find out the price of the beer, since it was paid for by one of our companions.

We made our way up the hill to the castle, and at the entrance lined up for tickets. I was happy to be first in line, so I could be assured of the opportunity to pay for our own tickets, (which I could already sense might require a bit of planning and foresight with this crowd,) and have the opportunity to pay for the couple in whose car we had come, as a small way of saying thank you. We received English language brochures, which one of our group happily christened "leaflets," as he had just learned the word last week, and was anxious to use it.

Other linguistic highlights of the day included the word "gutter," "thresher," and "reaper." Which leads me to a question - if a thresher is the machine that separates wheat from the stalk, which I assume it is, what is the machine that separates corn from the cob? This question, as well as the finer points which might distinguish a brochure from a leaflet, probably give you some insight into the issues that torment my day-to-day professional life.

The castle itself had been built between 1301 and 1308 to protect Polish trade roads. They have reports written from the castle as far back as the early 14th century. Apparently the area was traded to the Polish as a guarantee for a loan. As long as the Poles ran the area it was relatively prosperous, as the king liked his little frontier post, and granted the village the right to host a weekly market. However, when the Polish term expired the area was handed back. The area was neglected under its new rulers and suffered, and the castle fell into disrepair. The castle survived and was restored a number of times. Even now there are places that are still crumbling.

Mixed throughout were exhibitions of exciting things like rooms full of . . . period chairs. Not every room was as exciting as the chairs, though. There were rooms with furniture arrangements as well, depicting the best in 18th and early 19th century furniture arrangements.

Fortunately, we also found a cellar-type room, which had a board with iron hoops on it that would hinge open so you could lockdown someone's hands, feet and midsection. Naturally, I had to try it out. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that it was so uncomfortable. But I actually pulled muscle in my neck trying to get into the thing. Despite the stabbing pain shooting up my spine and into my skull, I managed to stay on rack long enough for Marek to snap a picture.

After finishing seeing the castle, we made a bee-line for the nearest refreshment stand, from whence we went to an open-air museum of sorts. It was a collection of old Polish houses made at different periods, with period furnishings. Most of them were quite reminiscent of the images that floated in my head when I read the book Heidi as a child. Small, snug, two-room log cabins, decorated with very humble craft-work items. They were, on the whole, extremely cozy, attractive dwellings. However, that opinion might change if I actually had to live there.

There were about 12 different houses all told, and in different ones they also displayed the items or decorations which would normally be associated with certain events in the lives of the folk who lived there. So in one we see the typical wedding decorations they would make, a large hanging mobile made of straight sticks bound with white feathers and colored beads. In another the bed was separated from the rest of the house by a white wool embroidered curtain, which would separate the newborn and mother from the rest of the house for 7 days. They also told of the rituals which would normally accompany a birth, such as the naming ceremony, rubbing the baby with butter, etc, all of which served to insure that the child would grow up to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.

There was also a blacksmith's shop, and a flour mill, which was interesting to see the mechanics of. And what village would be complete without a church? This church was in the Orthodox style, with the iconostasis, or wall that separates the space where God truly lived, (the holy of holies, the sanctuary) where only the priest (and helperboys under certain circumstances) should go, where the alter is located, and the vestements and such are kept, from where the believers could stand, in the nave of the church. I always find different takes on religion interesting, and the orthodox-grown version is no exception.

In this particular church an interesting circular object hung in the center of the room, which I took to have some sort of function of symbolism. Upon consulting the brochure it divulged that "the wooden object hanging in the center of the church is connected with a local legend." I thought it a bit annoying that they didn't bother to tell us what the legend was, so I asked, and our companions said that while this had hung near the front of the church, a plague had come to the north end of the village. When the priest, either by fortutituous chance, or suspecting something, moved the object to the far end of the church, the plague shifted to the south end of the village. So the wise priest moved the object to hang from the center of the church, and the plague stopped.

This story naturally led me to ponder how the lives of the people who lived in these houses and attended this church were, in the end, governed by a body of superstitions to help explain the unknown, such as germ theory. Eventually these would naturally entwine themselves with the local religious traditions, until something like a local brand of the religion would emerge. If it became popular enough, it would become a heresy, and if it survived, eventually it could become a doctrine in its own right. It came to me quite suddenly, there and then, that the dividing line between heresy and doctrine is popularity and possibly military might, and the dividing line between religion and superstition is science. What science has thoroughly debunked becomes a superstition, only entertained by the weak-minded. What cannot be explained is retained by the realm of religion, and remains sacred to the believer until it, too, is slowly and painfully dismantled by the believer's acceptance of ever-encroaching science. In other words, there are three stations on the continuum of belief, the unsubstantiated belief of the few being superstition, the unsubstantiated belief of many, religion. Once substantiation is obtained, it ceases to be religion, and becomes science.

As I left that small, wooden church in Slovakia, for the first time I understood Oscar Wilde's saying "Science is the record of dead religions."