Photos from Slovakia

Leaving for Laos in a couple of days...... but before that, had a chance to spend some time with Aunt Olga in rural Slovakia. Some photos follow.

I missed this dish for 23 years. Traditional Slovak food. Tiny dumplings with goat cheese and bacon on top. DELICIOUS.

Dad with Aunt Olga. A picture is worth a thousand words. :)

Sheep pasture on a hill.

A view to the side. Slovakia has beautiful nature, thick woods, lots of green..... great day.

Today

A guy goes to an AA meeting looking bedraggled and unhappy. Someone asks him, “What’s the matter with you?” He says, “My wife was killed, my house burned down, I lost my job, and now I’m bankrupt.” So the other guy says, “Yeah, but that was yesterday.”

What's Next?

I am cutting the Euro trip short here, as I've had quite enough of Europe for a long time.... and returning to Asia in early June. :)

I will be landing in Vientiane, Laos... and looking forward to exploring the Mekong and the Golden Triangle. On June 10, I will be back in Thailand.... which is something that I am VERY happy about. :)

Empty

I noticed walking around town that it seemed fairly empty. It became clear today why...... There's 25% unemployment here, anybody who can leave, leaves. Slovakia joined the EU... but at a great cost. The only people you find here, it seems, are retirees or children. Slovaks have become day laborers across Europe, something that was the case 100 years ago.... a sad state of things.

Back to My Childhood.... After 23 Years

This morning I boarded a bus from Prague to a small town in central Slovakia where I grew up... and where I haven't been for 23 years. I was quite curious (and anxious) how it would feel to see it again after such a long time.

To my surprise, the place looks a lot better than I remember (the 40 year old broken sidewalk notwithstanding).

But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about how the place is DIFFERENT...about how time changes and disintegrates everything.

Everything that made this place dear to me is gone (friends are gone, family is dead....etc.). I returned a stranger to a place that I once loved. I still love it. It is beautiful and even though it is different, there are many memories everywhere and also that familiar feeling that assails me every time I turn a street corner.

But the place of my childhood, the place of my earliest memories, does not exist. I am a completely different person... and even if some things have not changed, the meaning it has for me has.

I am feeling a gamut of emotions. I am amazed, delighted, sad, jaded, and incredulous all at the same time. And something is dissolving in me, a very early attachment... the sentimentality and the glow of childhood, the mythical land of my earliest memories that was always just that, a myth...

You cannot step into the same river twice.
Damn right.

I sat by the river where I spent my childhood in a haze for a long time... feeling sadness and delight at the same time.

Cold vs. Heat

Cold kills 20 times more people than heat. Article here. So there may be a scientific basis to preferring heat to cold.

The New Poor... in Canada

Article here.