The dream.

I had a weird dream last night. Those of you who specialize in dream interpretation feel free to enlighten me. I was at work, at the mail table, unwrapping a book that had just come in. (BTW, I usually work with serials as opposed to books.) I have no idea what the book was about but it looked interesting. Some guy whom I don't know, not one of our staff, was walking by and saw that I was taking a look at the book. Next thing I know I am at this person's office and see that he is holding my sister hostage, she is sitting in a chair, I see handcuffs, and he wants the book in exchange for my sister. That's where it ends. Needless to say I would have given him the book.

This dream may be related to the story my sister told us about her recent visit to an aesthetics shop that I recommended where she had a manicure and pedicure. She was quite happy with the outcome of her visit but told us that while there she came close to being electrocuted.

She was sitting back in her chair reading, with her feet soaking and the aesthetician out of the room. She gradually came to realize that her feet were getting quite uncomfortable, the temperature of the water seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. She called out to the young woman who had set her up in the room and then left her alone. It took a little while to get her attention but finally she came in, took in the scene and exclaimed "Oh, my God!" Water was still running into the basin and also cascading onto the floor on which there was a tangle of electrical cords that were plugged into various outlets. Also on the floor were my sister's sandals which were already getting wet. My sister asked the young woman to rescue her shoes from the flood, but she was so intent on cleaning up the water that she just said "Oh they will be fine" but my sister insisted, they were a relatively expensive pair of sandals.

The aesthetician thought that the flood was caused by my sister, that she had somehow knocked the tap loose but my sister doesn't think so, she said it would have taken a conscious effort and some foot maneuvering to turn the tap on. My sister laughed off the whole episode but I was horrified, especially since I had recommended that she go there. Thankfully, it all turned out all right but perhaps this is why I had a dream with my sister sitting in a chair, in danger. But the part about the book as the ransom?

Lessons learned and remembering my first week: Slovakia

Lessons learned.

#1 Pack light.

#2 Only bring essentials.

#3 Pack food on travel days.

#4 Bring two plug adapters for charging electronics. (They are small and light hence not a contradiction to #1)

Apart from tomorrow's journey home, this is the last day of my month-long trip to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Toronto and Nashville. Before this trip, I had not been back to Europe for 20 years and I had not travelled for a month at a stretch.

I found out that I have recovered sufficiently from a severe injury to be able to manage a trip such as this one and that I am capable of travelling on my own but I do think that it would have been more fun to travel with a companion: spouse, sister or a friend. I don't know when I will have the opportunity to go to Europe again, but when I do, I plan to rent an apartment, to have the freedom to shop and to cook, to feed myself more healthfully than staying in hotels allows.

The first few days in Bratislava were emotional. I liked staying in the old town but at the same time I regretted not being closer to my sister's place which is out in the suburbs, especially since she had just had surgery. My hotel was near the statue for which my mother, in her youth, was the model; walking past it several times every day made me feel closer to her. My cousins took me to visit her final resting place in a beautiful cemetery in Bratislava, where she is surrounded by her family in a peaceful park-like setting, with trees shading her family's plot and the birds chirping all around. I am glad that I was there and can see in my mind where she is.

In Bratislava, I also had the pleasure of meeting a young man and his mother to whom I am related on my father's side. The young man I met is my father's cousin's son. Does that make him my second cousin? My father's cousin passed away about 11 years ago. My own father died in 1985, I never saw him again after we left Czechoslovakia in 1968. My second cousin and his mother were wonderful to me, on my first day in Bratislava they tok me to Malacky, where my grandfather's family used to live, they showed me around the 300 year-old house and garden that they still own there and use as a summer get away, they took me to the cemetery to visit the tomb of my great grandfather and his family, they showed me several of the buildings that great grandfather had built, including the synagogue from 1886 which is now a cultural centre. A part of the house that my grandfather had grown up in still stands though it is now a shop, it was closed so I could not go in but even so I felt a connection to the place. They also took me to a lovely working farm where a number of rescued animals are now happily living and where they also make and sell traditional sheep's cheeses and also make and sell freshly baked bread. We had a wonderful lunch there of traditional Slovak food.

I also had a wonderful time with my nephew and his wife and sons. They fed me home cooked meals, took me to the ruins of Devin castle, we visited family in Svätý Jur and went wine tasting there, and we all watched hockey together, a game which Slovakia won. My nephew and his wife took me to see their garden plot, not far from their apartment, in a beautiful country setting. The plots are rented from the railway and people cultivate vegetables, fruit trees, flowers, build small or larger abodes on them and generally use them to get away from the city. It is a beautiful spot and Benny, the chihuahua, took the opportunity to run away, at least for a time.

While in Bratislava, I also enjoyed a visit to and tour of the University Library where I met and spoke with several librarian colleagues. We had a great lunch at a local pub and we watched the start of another hockey game, the outcome of which I don't remember or perhaps don't want to remember.

Double vision.

I am hoping that not many people at the conference have noticed but I have been compensating for the loss of my bifocals by wearing both my reading and my distance glasses at the same time. I perch the distance glasses on top of my reading glasses and I am actually able to see quite well and it's not even all that uncomfortable. For the first time at a conference, I am taking notes at the session on my laptop, hence the need for both sets of glasses.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Yesterday, I attended the second part of the RDA workshop. Again, there was good content but I also found it a little depressing because it is clear that I have a lot of work ahead of me.

After the workshop, a friend and I took a cab to downtown Nashville to find some lunch and to experience the atmosphere. The 2012 CMA Music festival is on right now meaning that there are about 65,000 people attending a variety of events around town.

We found a place to have lunch that was not too too noisy, then went for a mingle with the throngs of people in the street. It was very warm, I was overdressed and before long my head was spinning and I started to feel unwell. All around us there were crowds of people, bands playing, music blaring from the restaurants, with people weaving in and out of shops and restaurants and various entertainment venues. We decided to stop for an ice cream after which we meandered back and hailed a cab to the hotel. It is difficult to describe the noise, the crowds of people and the clash of loud music coming at us from different directions. Add to that the intense heat and escape back to the air conditioned hotel seemed like the only answer. We did stop at a place that was selling boots "buy one pair and get two free". My friend tried some on but they didn't fit so we left.

We decided to go for a dip in the outdoor pool after we got back. That was refreshing, the water fairly cold but we spent a little while splashing around in the late afternoon sun. After that we had a rest before dinner and the opening session of the conference. Today we had our first full day of the conference program and this evening we are off to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum for dinner and a tour.

The pre-conference.

This afternoon, I attended part 1 of a pre-conference session entitled "RDA and Serials: Theoretical and Practical Applications." From the RDA website: "RDA (or) Resource Description and Access is the new standard for resource description and access designed for the digital world. Built on the foundations established by AACR2, RDA provides a comprehensive set of guidelines and instructions on resource description and access covering all types of content and media."

The session was excellent, given by an expert in the field, attended by an audience eager to learn. It is clear to me that I have a lot of homework to do to really learn the material and become comfortable with it. For the most part though I was able to follow the speaker, understand the material, do the exercises, and enjoy the ambiguities and the overall complexity. I made note of a few "quotes" from our speaker. I say "quotes" in quotes because I might not have caught the words exactly as spoken.

"We all know that we are getting many more things to catalog and fewer people to do it with. We need to work smarter, more efficiently and still be able to exchange data."

"We have never done a good job of displaying serials data in the OPAC but is it worth trying to fix it (the soon to be obsolete system) now?"

"You know you don't just jump in. You need to make some (serials pre-cataloging) decisions."

"We'll have a lot of hybrid (AACR2 and RDA) records for a long time."

"There are so many more ways that the publishers can mess us up when material is in electronic format."

"Thomas Jefferson cut things out of the bible and then rearranged them. I would like to do the same with RDA."

"We'll talk about the creator (not that creator!) again."

As we came to the end of the session, I realized that I am woefully behind on my study of RDA and especially on section 19, the creator part. So, tonight, I had a look at section 19, after struggling to log in, after many months of inactivity, and I realized that I'd better just start at RDA Section 0: introduction.

First day in Nashville and the day before.

I am here in Nashville. It looks like a pleasant day out there, not too hot and not too muggy, not so far, anyway. Not that I have spent much time outdoors yet, I've been busy changing rooms.

I had about half a day yesterday in Toronto so I decided to go back and see Picasso one more time. After breakfast, I walked back to the AGO and got there about 10 minutes before opening but as the doors to the building were already open, I went inside and waited at the members' desk to get a free ticket. A few minutes before 10, one of the staff came to the desk and served the person ahead of me and then it was my turn. I could tell the fellow was in a good mood so when I gave him my membership card, I told him that I became a member on Sunday and that this was my third time coming to see Picasso before I leave town that afternoon. I had to show photo id along with the membership card so I handed him my passport. He took it, looked at it, looked at me and said "Lovely." I said "But it is just a horrible passport picture." He laughed and said something like "You transcend the medium!" I laughed and said "Can I quote you on that?" and he laughed and said "Yes, and you have it on good authority because I work at the Art Gallery!" I told him that he had made my day and went off in a good mood to the coat check to unload the two jackets I had with me, one of which was a jacket for indoors and, the other, a light rain jacket.

At the coat check, I showed the lady working there that I was a member, since members don't have to pay the one dollar fee, and I handed her my two coats. I said they could probably go on the same hanger. She looked at me dubiously, looked at the two jackets, put them on the same hanger, thought about it some more and then said I had to pay a dollar for the second coat. I was surprised and thought it was funny that my membership only covered one free item. It seemed a bit petty but I gave her the money. The woman had a kind of a sour look on her face throughout this whole encounter and I felt like I'd just been given an antidote to the wonderful feeling I'd experienced a few minutes earlier. I gathered up my possessions and turned to walk away in the direction of the exhibit. Next thing I know, the attendant is running after me and asking me if both of those items were mine. Surprised, I turned around and said yes, they were both mine. She explained that she thought that the woman who had been standing near me at the coat check was with me and that the second coat was hers, the implication being that we didn't want to pay the dollar to have my friend's coat checked separately. She realized her mistake when the other woman and I walked away from the desk in opposite directions which is why she ran after me, explained, apologized and gave me my dollar back.

The exhibit was worth it even for the third time. I seemed to get more out of it each time I went. The first time I felt overwhelmed, the second time I paid more attention to the second half of the exhibit and the third time I was able to absorb more of the whole experience and was starting to see some influences on Picasso's work that I had not clued into the first two times, mainly that his later work was influenced by Mattise, the only artist that Picasso considered to be his equal. With each room, I found it difficult to leave to go on to the next one, I wanted to spend more time looking, I wanted to spend more time with the art.

Now back to the trip to Nashville. I got in yesterday around 7 in the evening. The hotel provides a shuttle which I managed to catch almost immediately. The shuttle driver was pleasant, asked me where I was from because I had said "please" to something he had said to me. He wanted to know where such polite people lived. He was kidding around of course. In the shuttle there were also a couple of other people, one of them an airline employee who started talking about the differences between experienced and inexperienced travellers. The inexperienced travel with up to three carry ons, I was clutching three, as well as a big checked bag, mine was in the back, heaved in there by the nice driver.

I checked into the hotel and got a nice room, but after staying in it overnight I realized that the freeway traffic noise was more than I wanted to listen to for a week so this morning I asked for a different room, one that faced the courtyard. The very pleasant and helpful woman at the desk gave me another room but when I walked in the quality of the air didn't appeal to me and it would have been difficult to let fresh air in as there was no window just a door to the courtyard. I was reluctant to ask for another room so I thought I would tough it out but when I came back from breakfast I decided that I had to at least ask. I did and now I have a room on the second floor that I am happy with.

A mini Kafka-esque experience.

I woke up at 4 am, tried to go back to sleep but nothing doing. Then I remembered that I need to check in for my flight to Nashville. So I get my computer out and find the Air Canada website and put in all the information using my reservation number. I get a message saying they can't process my request. So I get a little worried-am I still booked on the flight to Nashville? I double check everything and try again using my Aeroplan number. OK, now the system found me. I am relieved.

Somewhere in the beginning, the system told me not to worry if I don't have a printer, I can print my boarding pass at a self check-in kiosk at the airport or I can send it to my mobile device. So I proceed with check in. Soon, I find out that I am not allowed any checked baggage. Or wait, I am allowed if I pay, so I go ahead and pay my $22.50 Can.

Next, I have to verify my personal details, then provide the details of the hotel in Nashville. At each step, I have to get out of bed to get my hands on either the credit card, or my passport and now my hotel reservation. Just as I am about to finish inputting all the information about the hotel, the system interrupts me to ask if I need more time. I say yes and discover that all of the detail about the hotel I have just input has disappeared and I have to re-enter it.

At one point, I am also given the option of changing my seat so I say yes because I would like an aisle seat. I click on 'change seat' and find out that all the other seats are taken. OK, I'll keep the window seat assigned to me but I realize from the minuscule number of seats showing on the plane schematic that we will be flying on a very tiny plane. From past experience I know there is not much room for hand luggage on these planes, both the overhead compartments and the spaces under the seats tend to be quite small. Now I am worried again "Do I have too much hand luggage? Will it be too bulky for the cabin? Will I have to check a second bag? Will they make me leave it on the tarmac?"

When I finally get to the end of the check in process, I fully expect that instead of printing it, I will be able to send my boarding pass to my phone. But, no, the only option available is to print.

Toronto/Picasso.

This morning, my path to breakfast was intersected by masses of humanity, with each person focused on getting to work. In the afternoon, I had to dodge the same Niagara Falls of humanity going in the opposite direction now even more intent on getting home after a long day at the office.

It has been overcast and gloomy here in Toronto in the last few days, both outside and inside, and literally and metaphorically. My hotel room does not get much light at any time of day which is strikingly different from the room I had in Prague. Also I can't open a window here which I could do in Prague. So it is interesting how one's perspective changes, even though this room has more amenities, in a couple of respects it is not as good as the hostel-like room I had in Prague. The Prague room was flooded with light already at 5 am whereas here there is barely any light at that time of day.

The city is reeling from the shooting on Saturday, the day I arrived, in the Eaton's Centre. One person died and a couple of people including a young boy are in critical condition. Several other people were also injured.

And on Friday, Union station flooded with water and sewage following a heavy rainfall, shutting down subway service for a period of time in parts of the system.

I went to see the Picasso exhibit yesterday, not once but twice. I saw most of it in the morning but didn't get through it all before I had to go and meet a friend for lunch. After lunch, I decided to go back to the gallery to see the rest of the collection. There are about 150 pieces, including a number of sculptures. I have not seen many of Picasso's pieces before and I had no idea of the wide range of his work or how it evolved over the years in reaction to the women in his life or the changes in both his and world circumstances. His pieces from just before and during WW2 have a darkness and a kind of insanity about them that reflect the terrible circumstances of that time. According to the information provided at the exhibit, Picasso had been interrogated a number of times by the Germans but ultimately they left him and his work alone.

Today, the AGO was closed so after breakfast I went in search of a post office, I wanted to ship some things home instead of lugging them to Nashville tomorrow. I ended up mailing 8.6 kgs of mostly books and a few other things, which has thankfully lightened my suitcase for the next leg of the journey, the NASIG conference in Nashville. I hope to have one final look at Picasso tomorrow morning, before I leave in the afternoon.

Travel day.

My head is rebelling against the treatment I subjected it to yesterday and I am paying for it with a migraine that has been with me for about 24 hours now. Yesterday, I had an early start, up before 5 am, to get to the airport. No proper breakfast, just a couple of crackers with peanut butter and protein powder mixed into mineral water. Not as bad as it sounds and it gets all foamy, like beer. It reminds me of the "Beer bad" episode of BTVS in which the one lesson that neanderthal Buffy learns about beer is that it is "Foamy!"

The Lufthansa flight to Munich was short and pleasant. The German countryside looked pretty and orderly, reminding me of the two years we spent in Göttingen in the late 70's, early 80's. Though the flight was smooth, we all got a little jolt when the flight attendant told us we were about to land in Copenhagen. As we were about to leave the aircraft, we were instructed that those of us with connecting flights to the US should proceed to our gates immediately as the process of getting through security will be particularly lengthy. As I was leaving, the flight attendant asked me if I had another long flight ahead of me. I said yes (I wonder what expression I had on my face) and I asked whether the lengthy security process also applied to flights to Canada; she didn't know but seemed to think so. I had a fairly short connection in Munich so after I got off the plane, I rushed through the airport seeing but not stopping to buy some of the tempting tasty-looking sandwiches and salads available there. As it turned out, all I actually had to do is get through passport control and then find my gate, there was no other prolonged security procedure. After a long treck from passport control, except for some chocolate and nuts and water for sale at the duty-free shop, there was no food of any kind available at the gates. To add insult to injury, the flight was delayed so I would have had time to pick up food to feed my hungry brain and I could have also got something for later to have in the plane.

Anyway, we did get a small lunch on the plane and then after about another six hours, a small snack.

Apart from the hunger-induced headache, the flight from Munich was pretty good. I had been assigned a seat between a young woman and her grandmother, one seat in from the aisle. The strangeness of this arrangement was explained to my by the young woman (whom I initially took to be a child because she was so petite) with the words "I tend to get on her nerves." My expression must have let on that I really wanted to switch with her so I could have the aisle seat because she immediately offered it to me and I gladly accepted.

The plane was quite cold so I was glad that I had a shawl I could wrap myself in. Ever since I cut my hair really short and let the grey grow out, two things happen: my head gets cold and some people at first glance mistake me for a man. I experienced both on the flight; there was cold air blowing on my head and one of the flight attendants was about to call me sir when she realized her mistake. The flight was fairly smooth, which I like, I didn't get any sleep, which was too bad, but overall, it was fine.

After a bit of difficulty, I found the hotel shuttle bus and made it downtown to the hotel here. It is no five star establishment like the one I treated myself to in Bratislava but it has more aaahhh-menities (that's for you Zuzka) then the hostel-like Hotel City Centre in Prague. I can make tea here and I can access the internet from my bed.

I did finally have a decent meal for supper yesterday, poached cod with yummy vegetables and roasted potatoes and now it is time to get up, get cleaned up and dressed so that I can go and forage for some breakfast which will hopefully get rid of this headache.

I hope to blog more about my experiences in Prague and also post some pictures, but at the moment, my camera and my computer refuse to communicate with each other and I have to figure out why.

The last few days.

On Monday, we went to the Municipal Library of Prague and attended a lecture at the Library at Nostic Palace. Yesterday, we had an outing to Liberec, about 90 km northeast of here, situated close to the German and Polish borders. The history of Liberec goes back to the 13th century but we were there to tour the Regional Scientific Library which also functions as a public library and provides services to all age groups and interests. It is housed in a gorgeous modern building built about 10 or so years ago. Next door to it is the Building of Reconciliation which houses a Jewish community centre and prayer room in the spot where the old Liberec synagogue used to stand which was burned down on November 9-10, 1938 in the Kristallnacht pogrom.

After lunch in a family run hotel in Český ráj (literally Czech paradise) we visited Prachovské skály in the region Jičín. We had an opportunity to walk up to the top of the sandstone rocks to see the spectacular view of the surrounding countryside.

The last person to join our group has arrived. She was ill last week but is glad to be here for the second week of the program and we are enjoying her company as she is getting to know Prague and the rest of us at the seminar. On Monday evening we had dinner in a very lovely vegetarian restaurant, Maitrea, and yesterday, three of us had a late dinner of appetizers at an Italian restaurant not far from the hotel. On the way back, we stopped in to see some of the interior of the spectacular Municipal House. We are planning to go to a concert there tonight if we are able to get tickets. Today, we'll be attending lectures at the National Technical Library, followed by an afternoon tour of the premises. Tomorrow, we have an early start at 6 am to go visit Kroměříž and tour the Archbishop’s Chateau's Library, followed by wine tasting at the Chateau's wine cellars.

I seem to be having difficulty with getting this post to recognize that I have reset the clock on my computer, so just for the record, this is Wednesday morning, May 30th. As has been the case most days here, I woke up before 5 am, but I don't mind because it gives me a chance to get an early start to the day. Now, it is almost time for breakfast. And, if you are reading this, then happy birthday Katherine! P.S. As heard in one of our tours: In Europe, people think that 100 km is a long distance. In North America, people think that 100 years is a long history.

A connection to the National Library.

Yesterday we visited the National Library and the Strahov Monastery Library. We could choose one of three libraries to visit on yesterday morning's outing and although I initially wanted to see the new Faculty of Arts Library I changed my mind and went to see the National Library. We were given an interesting talk on the history of the library and also a tour of the historic buildings in which it is housed. The highlight for me was searching the catalogue and finding that they held both father's book "Jazyk, kultúra a hlbinná psychológia" and several of mother's publications including "Správnou výživou k dobrému vysvedčeniu" which loosely translated means "With good nutrition to good grades," a booklet my mother wrote in 1955.

Last week in Bratislava ...

Last week in Bratislava, I saw Zdenka Trvalcova perform French retro. She was in Prague last Tuesday night at a club called Popocafepetl so a couple of my new friends from the seminar and I decided to go.

I thought I could find my way to the club because it was along the same route that we had taken in the morning to visit the Czech Parliament. Turns out all I remembered correctly was the metro part and I didn't remember how to get from the metro stop to the right street car. After unsuccessfully trying to find the no. 22 street car stop, we decided to walk. We were more or less going in the right direction but were having trouble finding the bridge we needed to cross. I asked for directions a couple of times but the streets are so convoluted here that it was still taking us a while to get to the river. By now it was getting close to 8 pm when the concert was supposed to start so when I saw a taxi by the curb, I asked him how much to get us there. "150 crowns," he said. The price was reasonable so we piled in. He was a polite, sympathetic young man, we had a nice little chat about where we were from and he told us that he had a relative in North America but that he had not yet visited there. Anyway, he found the club without a problem, we paid, gave him a bit of a tip and found our way into the club. It looked like a typical former wine cellar, dark and dungeon-like. There were young people at the entrance to take our money, with just a few customers sitting at the tables. The band was on the stage milling about, getting ready. We found a table and sat there for a little while just enjoying the atmosphere and checking out the offerings. We ordered drinks and nachos with salsa and sour cream. The salsa turned out to be sweet and sour sauce.

The performance started at 8:30 and didn't disappoint. The club filled up and a number of people brought their chairs up to the front, to be nearer the stage. Zdenka mesmerized this audience with her voice and performance, just as she had the audience in Bratislava. At one point, she told a story about the song they were about to perform. She said that the last time they played it was at midnight at one of the town squares. As they were playing, the police pulled up and told them that they were disturbing the peace. But they were also curious about the kind of music they were playing. A member of the band explained that it was French retro. "What's that?" a policeman asked. "Well, we can play some for you, quietly," they said. "This song needs a bit more accordion," one of the policemen said after they started to play, and "Could you play some Edith Piaf?" Anyway, the band extended an invitation to the policemen to come and hear them here at the club but we don't know whether they actually showed up.

No time! No sleep! No elevator!

Here I am in the lobby of the hotel (no internet access in my room) at 6:51 am on Friday, May 25th, 2012, at the end of the first week of the Prague Summer Seminar. I've been up again since before 5 am, don't seem to be able to sleep much here. There is the noise from the street, there is the light coming in the room and there is my "I can't sleep in" physiology. The street wakes up quite early here, by 5 am the trams are zipping by in the square outside my window. It also goes to bed quite late, I think the garbage collection happens late in the evening and the night life here in general seems to go on into the wee hours.

This morning we start relatively late, at 9:30 am with a visit the the Faculty of Arts Library and in the afternoon, we will visit the Strahov Monastery followed by a guided tour of the Strahov Library.

I am way behind on my "reportage" but here are a few notes.

On Monday evening we had a three hour walking tour of the old town and dinner and boat tour on the Vltava river. On Tuesday morning, we went to see the Parliament and had a tour of and a lecture about the Parliamentary Library. The highlight was being shown the guest book of the Parliamentary Library that includes signatures of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first President of Czechoslovakia, then a signature of Alexander Dubček and also Václav Havel. I was practically in tears. We were all also asked to sign the guest book

The Czechs have done great job of digitizing historical documents, there is about a thousand years' worth available online and the project includes documents from other neighbouring nations.

The afternoon was spent touring the oldest building of Charles University, the Carolinum and also included a couple of talks on the history of the Czech nation. On Tuesday, we also dropped into the public reading room of the American Embassy where we had an interesting impromptu talk from the librarian there. He was brimming with enthusiasm for the work they are doing and was happy to talk to us about it.

Wednesday was a full day of lectures at the school. Again very interesting. We had lunch on site ad after a couple more lectures in the afternoon, we visited the Libri Prohibiti library and were told about Samizdat, literally meaning "self published." During the time of Communist censorship, people wrote or translated many works that could not not be published otherwise. A translation into Slovak of the Lord of the rings was one of the books we were shown.

Yesterday we had a wonderful trip to Klášter Zlatá Koruna and Český Krumlov. On the way there we passed by a place called Příbram where my father spent three years as a political prisoner forced to work in the uranium mines.

From five star to no star.

Yesterday, I arrived at my hotel in Prague. The bus ride over was hellish, both because the roads were really bad and because of the overwhelming heat. It was 28 degrees Celsius outside but much warmer in the bus. Of course, I was overdressed thinking I would be cold from the air-conditioning but instead I was just about passing out from the heat. At some point, the woman sitting next to me asked the driver to turn up the air and he did, but just marginally. After an hour and a half of this, we stopped in Brno, I went to the washroom, poured cold water on my head, got my t-shirt wet in various places and returned to the bus. There I found out that the air-conditioning was working better at the front of the bus so I moved and the rest of the trip was better.

I took a cab from the bus station to the hotel. It is in the centre of the city but it is more of a hostel than a hotel, no amenities, not even a kettle in the room to make tea or coffee. I met most of the people involved in the program last night including several faculty members from Charles University.

After the introductory session, we walked over to a restaurant/pub nearby to have a meal. The pub was getting ready to show the Slovakia-Russia gold medal hockey game; they pulled down a couple of screens for people to watch the game on. Just as we were leaving the restaurant, Slovakia scored the first goal and everyone cheered. I was happy to hear the Czechs cheering for the Slovaks. Unfortunately, Slovakia eventually lost the game. But a silver medal in a world championship is a pretty good accomplishment.

Even though it is as basic as it gets, the hotel seems pretty popular. Wireless internet is only available in the lobby, we have no access to the internet in the rooms. The lobby is where I am sitting right now surrounded by a large group of people speaking I am not sure what language.

Today was free to do as we wished. I mostly conserved my energy. I talked to a couple of people who were around, I walked the neighbourhood a bit, found one of the main squares and took a couple of trips to the shopping mall next door to pick up a few things. I took it easy because the program starts in about half an hour with a 3 hour guided walking tour of the old town followed by dinner on a boat on the Vltava river. Tomorrow, we start at 8:45.

Wine-tasting in Svätý Jur, Thursday May 17th, 2012

On Thursday evening, my nephew and his wife came by my hotel sometime between 6 and 7 in the evening. The plan was to go to Svätý Jur to visit A.'s parents. There had been a glitch, however. That afternoon Slovakia was playing Canada in the hockey championship and Slovakia was losing, the score was 3 to 2 for Canada. When my niece was making the arrangements, her father asked "And where is she from?" "Canada" she said. "I don't know" he said, shaking his head, "I don't think she can come."

In the meantime, my nephew had been working on a plumbing job which turned out to be much bigger than he anticipated. As soon as he fixed what he thought was causing the problem, he discovered a much bigger problem that was causing the first. R. and A. had planned to pick me up at 3 but arrived at least three hours later. By then Slovakia had won the game and my niece's father magnanimously declared "Yes, yes, she can come!"

For my nephew and his wife's two grown sons, I had brought several hockey jerseys and T-shirts, each with a big logo of Canada across the front. As I was showing these to my nephew, we got the idea that each of us would wear one to Svätý Jur. So we donned our Canada shirts and off we went. A.'s father got a good chuckle out of our outfits when we arrived.

After stopping at the house and having some cake and tea, we went wine-tasting. I tried each of the 10 or so different wines, from white to red and an ice wine in between. They were all excellent. I didn't have a headache the following morning, which speaks to the quality of the wine here. Afterwards, we strolled through the beautiful town and saw the church where the "kids" got married. All in all, an enjoyable evening.

Visiting with relatives - May 16th, 2012

I had a wonderful day yesterday visiting with relatives present and past. My cousins offered to meet me at the cemetery Slávičie údolie where various members of the family are buried. I ordered another taxi to take me to the cemetery and was driven there in style in another shiny sleek black Mercedes-Benz.

I waited at the main entrance for a little while because I was early. There at the gate I saw, in quick succession, three young, mangy looking cats. I felt bad for the little creatures because they were clearly not getting enough to eat and I wondered whether they were having to fend for themselves.

The weather was not the most pleasant, it was windy, overcast and cool so I went into the flower shop to ask if the lady who had been having a smoke at the entrance and was clearly the main occupant would mind if I waited inside. Well, the shrug of her shoulders and expression on her face told me that she would mind so I walked around and waited outside and took a few pictures. Then I decided to wait further away from the gate, closer to the main road and it was a good thing because my cousins who were also early spotted me and recognized me even though we had not seen each other in 20 years. Another cousin joined us shortly and then we all walked through the cemetery to the place where my maternal grandparents, uncles, cousin and my mother all rest in peace together. It is a beautiful, peaceful spot, with lots of trees and fresh air. After visiting several other graves in the cemetery to light candles and say hello to relatives who are also interred there, we took the street car to a restaurant in Karlova Ves to have lunch. Karlova Ves has a special significance for me because in the summer we used to go swimming in the Danube as well as camping there.

I had a new experience on the street car, as we got on, one very polite and well brought up young woman stood up to give up her seat for me. I appreciated it but it made me feel old.

After lunch we took the street car to my cousin's apartment where we had coffee and cake and looked at old family photographs. Then, my cousin Ivan, whom I met for the first time since childhood, took me home on the trolleybus.

I really enjoyed spending time with my cousins, sharing family stories.

Canada vs Slovakia May 17, 2012

SLOVAKIA ELIMINATES CANADA AT WORLD HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP - THE CANADIAN PRESS - HELSINKI

"Michal Handzus tipped in a shot with 2:32 to play in regulation as Slovakia eliminated Canada with a 4-3 quarter-final victory at the IIHF World Hockey Championship. The goal came just five seconds after Canadian captain Ryan Getzlaf was given a five-minute major for kneeing Juraj Mikus. Tomas Kopecky, Miroslav Satan and Milan Bartovic also scored for Slovakia (6-2-0). Evander Kane, Jeff Skinner and Alex Burrows replied for Canada (6-1-1). The Slovaks move on to face the winner of the Sweden-Czech Republic quarter-final, which will be played later today on TSN at 2pm et/11am pt. Canada is going home early for the third straight year."

I was trying to find out the score of the game and came upon the above article. Congratulations Slovakia. This morning, I had the pleasure of visiting the University Library of Bratislava.

Quoting from EOD digital on request:

The University Library in Bratislava is the apex of scientific, informational, cultural and educational institutions of Slovakia.

Established in 1919, with collections dating back to the 17th century, it served until 1954 as the national library of Slovakia and became an independent, universal research library offering complex library and information services for the general public; carrying out high level bibliographic research, publishing, cultural and educational activities and holding several national and international responsibilities.

It fulfils its mission as

* the depository and conservation library of the Slovak Republic

* the depository library for the United Nations, UNESCO and NATO

* the office for the national retrospective bibliography

* the provider of the national union catalogue of periodicals

* the national ISSN agency of Slovak Republic

* the co-ordinator of the international interlibrary loan service

* the centre for digitisation, conservation and restoration and

* the integrator of cultural information systems.

Its main aim is to safeguard the cultural heritage and vast documentary wealth and to make it accessible to the general public and for future generations.

I was given a tour of the three beautiful historic buildings in downtown Bratislava in which the library resides. One part of it is located in a former Gothic monastery of the Poor Clares Order where coincidentally my grandfather went to school with Bela Bartok in the 1890's when the monastery was being used as a catholic school.

I felt a real pleasure and had a distinct feeling of connection with family and the past when I was walking through this beautifully restored building. The two other buildings the library occupies are the baroque palace of the Hungarian Royal Chamber, also referred to as the Palace of the Hungarian King, and the Leopold de Pauli Palace. The buildings were renovated from 2001-2006. The library also functions as a cultural centre with a great variety of programs offered weekly for the general public.

The case of ... well, you name it.

I thought about calling this post "Colossal idiot" and fessing up to that being me but as you can see I decided on a different title. Not that I don't deserve the one that first came to mind. Last night I had a ticket, arranged for me by my sister, to attend a concert at 7 pm. The program was called ŠANSÓN NA LODI literally songs on a ship. To make it easy for me, my sister suggested that I arrange with reception to order a taxi to take me there, the idea being that I don't know where it is and that the hotel will call a reputable company that won't rip me off. So I went down to reception and asked to have a taxi called for 6:15 because it would only take 10 or 15 minutes to get there for 6:30. Meeting me at the venue at that time would be my sister's friend and a friend of hers. I went down to reception and the young woman there asked me what time and where. I showed her the ticket, she looked at it and zeroed in on the edge of the ticket where she found an address in Pezinok. At about 6:10, I went downstairs, sat down on the couch to wait and immediately got up again because my driver was already there. I followed the driver outside and there I found a sparkling clean black limousine waiting for me. "This is a taxi?" I thought, then "it doesn't look like one" and then I got in. I showed the driver the ticket and said something like "it is an address in Pezinok." He looked at the address that I pointed out to him at the edge of the ticket and said "ok" and off we went. It was a pleasant sunny evening and I sat back to enjoy the ride in the limo. As we got going, I felt the tiniest, teensiest niggling feeling of discomfort, of something not being quite right, but I ignored it. After some time, driving out of town and on the highway, through the green sunny countryside and rush hour traffic, I start to think "this is a long way, I wonder how much it will cost" but still we drove on. The driver asked me if I spoke Slovak and I said yes, a little. Then he asked me where I was from and the conversation got going from there. He complimented me on my Slovak, he was a very nice guy, sympathetic, he told me about the changes that had happened in Slovakia in the last 20 years, both politically and economically, he explained how the country had changed, how the people were managing, what the people are like now, how difficult it had been for the country to go from a communist country one day to being a western-style democracy the next, and so on. Taxi drivers, or limo drivers in this case, can be so interesting to talk to. He explained that the government that took over after the communists had sold off much of the industry that had once been making the country prosperous and he said that since then most of that industry has disappeared. He was articulate and knowledgeable and we quickly developed the kind of rapport that comes from two people agreeing on a point of view. He told me how difficult it was for retired people to live on pensions of 300 Euros a month, how awful it is for older people, who have worked hard all their lives, to not have enough money to live on in their old age and also how people from other countries were coming to Slovakia to spend their holidays there because they got more for their dollar or Euro than they would elsewhere. I asked him about the vineyards we were driving by and he explained that we were in the Lower Carpathian Mountains in a wine making region. He explained that often the people who made quality product in the wine-making industry started to raise their prices too much when their product came to be in demand, and eventually the prices were so high that they put themselves out of business, then repeated this cycle a number of times. I enjoyed the conversation and we kept driving further away from the city and I wondered from time to time how much the ride to the 7 Euro concert was going to cost me. Are we cringing yet? So, when we finally arrived, at ten minutes to 7, at our destination in Pezinok, 25 km from the city and far, far away from any kind of body of water that could accommodate a ship on which to hold a musical program called "Songs on a ship", when we ended up at that address on the edge of my ticket, in a residential neighbourhood, in a dead end street with no possibility of there being a ship to be found anywhere, he asked to see my ticket. I handed it over without looking at it and as he looked at it, the light finally went on in both our heads, right at the same time, and I asked "We are in the wrong place, aren't we?" and "It is back in Bratislava, isn't it?" and he said "Yes." I have to say that neither of us got upset. He said he knew where it was and that he was going to have to drive fast to get me there and he did. Needless to say, there was no interesting conversation on the way back, except for him saying that at least I saw some nice country side, e.g., Svaty Jur, aka Saint Jur and how during communism it had been called Jur by Bratislava because the communists would not allow to the word "Saint" to be included in the name. I replied that "Yes, and this was about as much adventure as I could take." I noticed he was driving pretty fast so I told him not to push it to the point where he would risk a ticket, he had mentioned that possibility on the way there and we were going to be late anyway as it was already 7 pm. Then, he took an exit to a destination that made me wonder where he was going and whether this was when I would find out that I was being kidnapped by a psycho (that morning I had woken up from a strange nightmarish dream that ended with a little girl revealing a crime scene-don't asked me where that came from, I have no idea what is going on in my head) at which point, as if he had read my mind, he said that he was taking a short cut which would take us to our actual destination faster. I said ok. Here and there, on the ride back, we wondered how this could have happened. But I know exactly how it happened. I had not paid attention to the information on the ticket. I just went along with what the person at reception who was booking my taxi, who needed to know where I was going, concluded was to be our destination when she read the address on the edge of the ticket. And I had perpetuated that error by saying to the driver, without really looking at the ticket, that our destination was an address in Pezinok. On the ride back I did finally remember that my sister had told me that the event was being held in Petrzalka. I have known since childhood where Petrzalka is, it is on the river Danube, in a location that can accommodate many ships. The actual ship turned out to be within maybe a 25 minute walking distance from the hotel I am staying at, just on the other side of the river. (Katy, my good friend, I hope by now you are laughing uproariously, at least I can hear you in my head.) Anyway, the driver found the place easily, he parked the car in this huge empty parking lot and said that he would come with me to find the right ship. In the meantime, I was also concerned whether Marika's friend would still be waiting around for me. The driver and I were hurrying along to check out the ships and we passed by a solitary lady who caught up with us and asked my name. She was my sister's friend and her friend was holding our spots on the ship at which we finally arrived. As for the concert, it was fabulous. The ship was packed, with lots of young people in the audience. There was also a well known Slovak director in the audience, pointed out to me by my new found friend. The band, called Voila and the singer, Zdenka Trvalcova, had just started playing as we got there. It turned out that we were only 10 minutes late. Zdenka sounded more like Edith Piaf than Edith Piaf. Zdenka is an amazing singer with a gorgeous voice and her French is fabulous. She has this incredible, powerful way of performing, yet she is sweet and relaxed and full of joy. Each of the guys in the band had this endearing way of looking and smiling at her. It is difficult to describe but it was absolutely wonderful. It was a lovely evening, pleasant, the Bratislava castle, the bridges and the riverside were beautifully lit, and a luxury cruise ship sailed by under us as we were crossing the old bridge on our leisurely walk back to my hotel. We even detoured to see the big new shopping centre and I stopped by a parking lot to take a picture of it at which point the guard at the entrance came out and yelled at me to stop taking pictures because it was not allowed, apparently one of the buildings was some kind of a ministry. Perhaps I could have got myself arrested at the end of a somewhat eventful evening.

May 15th, morning/early afternoon

I walked around the old town this morning after breakfast. The temperature didn't seem very high so I layered on the clothes only to have to strip and carry two layers by the afternoon when the sun came out. The old town is very pretty and lots of people and tourists were out and about. I looked into a number of churches, went down some very steep steps into a crypt/catacomb, and accidentally found and then walked into the Bratislava City Library. I searched their online catalogue and found that they have 2 copies of mother's translation from English into Slovak of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, and a 2003 edition of father's Jazyk, kultura a hlbinna psychologia. I had lunch at a place recommended by the hotel and this time instead of English I used my Slovak. I sat in a very pleasant courtyard and had broccoli soup and a pork cutlet with salad. I do wish that Zuzka had been able to come with me, it seems strange to be here more or less on my own what with Marika recovering from surgery and out of commission as a result.

But at least I get to say hello to mother (or at least her statue) every time I go into the old town, it is very close to where I am staying.

May 15, 2012 at 0:00

My room has generally been very quiet but tonight there are people out on the terrace even at this late hour. I can hear someone talking and also some impressive cackling. But it is good to hear people enjoying themselves especially since I am not at all sleepy. I'll be up for a while yet what with having had a 4 hour nap in the afternoon, now technically yesterday. After finally meeting my nephew at the airport, we drove to Bratislava to visit my sister Marika who had back surgery very recently. It was a warm sunny morning. I took in the scenery, now completely foreign to me, through the haze of my up-all-night-travelling fatigue. Once we arrived at my sister's apartment, the excitement of seeing her and also the sight of her post surgery made my fatigue temporarily disappear. We had some bread and cheese (that I had packed for the plane) and grapes, etc., and spent a couple of hours catching up while my niece prepared lunch. Lunch was an excellent soup with dumplings, the best schnitzel I have had in a long time and 2 different kinds of very tasty potato salad. And yummy dessert. Then, in the afternoon, my nephew drove me to my hotel. The hotel is lovely, the people are very nice, the location is great, and the breakfast plentiful. I recommend the place highly. I unpacked and, though I was practically fainting with fatigue, I decided to go for a short walk to get some mineral water. I headed in the direction of a big shopping centre. On the way, just around the corner from the hotel, I came upon Comenius University, where my mother studied for her PhD in English. It reminded me of our second day in Canada, when after spending the morning at the Department of Manpower and Immigration, we all piled into a taxi to go and talk to the people at the Board of Education because my mother wanted to find out right away how to get a job teaching. She tells the story that when she told the people there that she had a degree from Comenius University, they corrected her by saying "no, no, it's not comenius university, it's communist university." I guess we couldn't expect people to know about Comenius and the university in Bratislava that is named after him.

Up early.

My second day in Bratislava. The birds are chirping, the sun is out and I can hear sirens in the background. But mostly, my room is very quiet, it faces a lovely courtyard, called the summer terrace. After being up for three hours in the middle of the night I managed to fall asleep again and slept till 5:30 am. Feeling a bit off kilter but no major headache, which is a bonus after the last 10 days or so. Breakfast starts at 6:30 on weekdays at the very lovely Hotel Marrol's where I am staying. I woke up hungry so I decided to get myself down to the dining room. I was not disappointed. Now that I am finally here, I am starting to get excited about the trip and emotional about being back in Bratislava. Before the trip, in the last few weeks,I could not muster much enthusiasm for this month-long excursion, what with just being back from China (after recuperating from a nasty viral bronchitis prior to that trip) then dental surgery immediately after China and having to take time off work to recuperate, then being super busy at work for three weeks and finally coping with my usual pre-trip preparation and packing anxiety. The flight to Toronto was fine and didn't seem particularly long though it was its usual 4+ hours. We were a bit late arriving-the flight was delayed because a flight attendant didn't show up for work (though she did finally get there) so some time was spent looking for three volunteers to relinquish their seats so that they could reduce the number of passengers. Once we arrived, I had about three hours to wait. This time also passed relatively quickly, I talked to my sister and had some food and then it was time to board the Austrian airlines jet. There was a bit of a surprise waiting for people on the gangplank just before the door to the plane. A stern Austrian flight attendant was pulling people out of the line because they were taking too much or or too large a carryon. I don't know what they did with the excess and I was a bit worried but she looked at my bags and waved me on. Once on the plane, we were welcomed with the traditional "Grüß Gott" greeting, background waltz music and colours of orange and yellow and green and pale blue. I was flying economy and I could see the problem with the stowing of large items, the plane was so old it still had ashtrays, with tiny overhead compartments and no entertainment system in the back of the seat. Fortunately, my bags were fine and fit into those tiny spaces. Speaking of tiny, the seat and the leg room allowance were minuscule and, of course, I had a burly, youngish German-speaking gentleman sitting beside me. This leg of the journey, with its 8 and a half hours of flying time, seemed interminably long. I wanted to but could not sleep and I had neglected to charge up my iPod and I had not brought any reading material. They were playing movies on the overhead tv monitor but I just could not get enthused about any of them. Making the trip more unpleasant was the constant nagging migraine/hedaches that I'd had on and off since Thursday. Anyway, we eventually landed safely in Vienna. The route from the plane through passport control to the luggage seemed a bit long and labyrinthine, but I did finally manage to get my bag and go through "nothing to declare" to the exit where I expected to see my nephew waiting for me. No one resembling family came forward to greet me so I hung around to see if he would show up. I texted my sister to see if she knew where he was, wondered whether he was waiting somewhere else, kept looking around at the various guys who were standing around but still no Roman. My sister texted to assure me that he was there so I took another look around and finally saw a young man who could be him sitting down, looking a bit worried. I called his name, he looked up and recognized me. It turns out that he was waiting for a woman with shoulder-length brown hair and I am now sporting a very short, not brown, hairstyle. Anyway, we were both happy to finally make contact, he'd been waiting for me since before 8 am and was worried that I had not made the plane or who knows what. He hadn't brought my flight information with him so he was not sure what flight I was coming in on. But he heard some Slovaks talking and found out that the flight from Toronto had just come in and was going to wait for another 15 minutes. So neither one of us gave up on the other and we finally met!

Jet lag.

I woke up wide awake over two hours ago, midnight to be precise, after finally going to bed sometime around 8 pm. I'd been up for over 30 hours without any sleep and my head was vibrating with exhaustion. I didn't sleep much the night before the flight. When it was clear that sleep was not going to be on the agenda, I got up to do a few things and got ready for the taxi to pick me up at 5 am. The driver was a man in his late 60's who was financing his trips to Las Vegas by driving a cab on weekends. He told me that he'd been a student at UVic in 1964 majoring in wine, women and song. I am not sure if he graduated but later he trained as a pilot in the Air Force. He never got to fly because the Liberals came to power and cut the program. That same year, the government that nixed his flying career also took in thousands of political refugees from Czechoslovakia, my mother and I and brothers and sister included. Later I wondered whether he has ever voted Liberal. Tomorrow morning, I will be meeting my father's cousin's son, and his mother, who are taking me to Malacky to see where my family used to live. I am looking forward to it.