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.