After five days of not keeping up with the blog, it’s hard to know where to start. I guess I’ll start by recounting our car accident driving Martin’s car the day after Martin left, four days ago. Most importantly, no one was hurt, and secondly, it wasn’t our fault. We were slowing down for a traffic light a kilometer from home and then bang, someone hit us from the back. It being Martin’s car and knowing that we don’t speak Slovak, I expected trouble. The young man driving the car who hit us agreed to pull into a parking lot just ahead, carrying both our license plates that had fallen to the ground due to the collision.
Both Chris and I tried to contact Martin, since he could have conversed in Slovak with the driver, who was driving a car with Slovak plates. No answer…but finally Martin called. He wanted to understand what happened and so we explained and showed him the damage on WhatsApp. After that, I entered “can you give me your insurance card?” in Google Translate and showed it to the driver. He motioned me to hold my phone still, and then took a picture of my phone screen with his phone using Google Translate, translating the Slovak to UKRAINIAN! OK…the driver is Ukrainian, not Slovak! He speaks as much Slovak as we do. We had some pity for the guy. He and his countrymen have way more problems that simply running into the back end of a car. And we could just as easily translate from English to Ukrainian, saving the extra steps.
Another car appeared…and we hoped it was the owner of the car, who might speak Slovak or even English? Nope on all counts…but he seemed able to keep up chain-smoking cigarettes with the young driver to keep him company. The Ukrainians might die of lung cancer before they succumb to Putin’s war.
Martin’s mother was on the way. She’s an attorney and she’ll do what needs to be done to document things appropriately. We’ve met her before and she’s a dynamo. And the damage is less than €3,000 and so the police do not need to be called. This seems to be a big relief to the Ukrainians and us. One less group to deal with!
A third car pulled up, and it’s an older man that resembles the driver…his father? He also is Ukrainian and can speak limited Slovak with Martin and no English. The temperature was dropping and the Ukrainians donned sweatshirts but I didn’t have one so I shivered and waited for Martin’s mother, who arrived in due course. She hand wrote a chronology of the event and then read it to the father, since he understands Slovak but can’t read it. Or maybe it’s her handwriting. He signed it and then with many smiles everyone dispersed. All done! A couple hours have passed. We drove home and headed for a glass of wine.
Luckily, Doris was not in the car with us when we have to happened. Of course, she might’ve been freaked out by the collision but I think the bigger issue was that we would’ve had to deal with her in the car for a couple extra hours. As it was, she was in her crate waiting for us at the house.
I’ve discovered a nice 25 mile loop for us to do on bikes. One day, Chris took care of Doris and I rode and then the following day we swapped roles.
Our friends Jay and Erya arrived for a three night visit on their way to Budapest.
We took them to “our” neighborhood place, a Italian place called Emilio’s that we’ve been to 3 times already. But it’s good and we can walk there from the house. Slovakia has zero tolerance for drinking and driving so we can all have a drink with dinner if we walk. I had an amazing garlic soup that reminded me so much of my trip to Slovenia where that’s a staple. Erya and I had a halloumi salad and Chris/Jay had fish.
We toured Bratislava, hiked in the woods and got drenched in a thunderstorm, ate a fabulous goose dinner and went to hot springs. It was a lovely visit!
A goose dinner is a traditional meal in some of the near villages. It’s comprised of goose soup, goose liver pate, roasted goose, potato pancakes fried in goose fat, and then sauerkraut, purple cable slaw, pickles and then dessert. You get the idea – it was a calorific feast! Martin recommended it, not for our waistlines but for the experience. It was very tasty.
One of our daily tasks is to take Doris on long walks and attempt to teach her manners or at least to not spoil her so that Martin has to start all over with training when he gets back. We are doing our best!
For those that have lasted this long…Google Translate is an amazing tool. And it’s mostly correct. You can point your phone camera at any text, like on a supermarket package, and Google translate will instantly translate the text on the object into your target language. It’s helped us a lot with everyday things like identifying foods and products in stores. Chris pointed it at a spray bottle of granite and marble cleaner (that’s what it actually was) for a countertop, and it was translated as gravestone cleaner! Close enough, right?
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