Bratislava is for Lovers

Prior to being in Vienna, our only exposure to the city of Bratislava had been from a movie titled Eurotrip. After the success of teen ‘gross-out’ movies like American Pie, there was a period of time where it seemed like movie studios churned out hundreds of stupid movies with no-name actors, all geared towards the pubescent male. From this onslaught sprung Eurotrip, which we rented on other’s recommendations, and to our surprise (or perhaps because of our low expectations), we really enjoyed as a dumb, funny movie. In the film, Bratislava is portrayed as the embodiment of grey, soulless Eastern Bloc society, 20 years behind the rest of the world, but where you can comfortably live off $3 a day. Some of the more quotable moments from the film come from an older man eager to speak to Americans. He says, “America? I LOVE America. Miami Wice – Number 1 new show!” As the kids look around at the drab apartment buildings he says, “It is good you came here in summer. In winter it can be very depressing.”

So it may come as a surprise that Todd and I decided to spend our Saturday visiting the capital of Slovakia. In truth, Bratislava is a mixture of all the stereotypes presented. You feel bad for the city, because for many Americans who had never even heard of it prior to the film, it will forever be the sad image of city stuck behind the Iron Curtain. Their tourism office has begun a concerted marketing campaign in Austria and neighbouring countries, billing itself as “the Little Big City.” Since it’s only an hour train ride from Vienna, you can’t help feeling like Bratislava is the Reno to Vienna’s Las Vegas.

Arriving in the Bratislava train station, you do feel like you’ve entered the Eastern Bloc. Squat, grey, graffiti-covered buildings surround the station. After we go through passport control (twice), we walk into the dilapidated sitting area and look for the restroom. We go downstairs and see that the Kassas (or WC) are right beside the abandoned underground parking lot, and a part of you wonders if a member of the KGB is going to jump out of the shadows and silently snatch you away. After both of us enter the restrooms (whose aroma I can’t even begin to describe), we realize that there is no toilet paper or paper towels anywhere, and I thank my lucky stars that I’ve got Kleenex in my purse. Once I leave the bathroom I notice an attendant in a boxy stall beside the parking lot, and realize that she’s there to sell you toilet paper and paper towels. Ah, it’s the little things in life you take for granted back home. You wonder how many tourists have been stuck in that bathroom (Kleenex-less), cursing Stalinist policies.

Once we get on the right bus and head towards the Old Town Centre, we begin to see the red-roofs and church steeples that were in the Bratislava tourism guide. Collective sigh of relief that we weren’t hoodwinked into going to post-Soviet shitsville. And in a strange twist of fate, on the bus I see a couple holding a Rick Steves travel book. I strike up a conversation with them and find out that they are on vacation (visiting Vienna, Krakow, Budapest, and Prague), and that they are from Berkeley – specifically from the Berkeley hills behind the Claremont Hotel. I still can’t believe that in a run-down Slovakian bus 6,000 miles from home we met two people who lived a mile from our house on Panoramic Way. Too freaking weird.

Arriving in the Old City Centre (which is pedestrian-only), Bratislava truly is adorable. Walking the cobblestone streets and back-alleys of the Old Town, Bratislava is – dare I say – romantic, and not at all the picture of depression it seemed like at the train station. And while you probably can’t live on $3 a day, you can go pretty cheaply. My ice cream cone definitely tasted a little sweeter because it cost a mere 40 cents.

The other thing we couldn’t help noticing while we were there were the numerous weddings taking place, with brides and grooms taking their pictures beside various Slovakian monuments. In particular, we noticed (and Todd helpfully pointed out) just how beautiful the brides were, especially relative to their soon-to-be husbands. Our roommate Vera had told us before that in Bulgaria there is a 5:1 ration of women to men. This is largely due to the number of men (often the ‘better ones’) who leave the country for the EU or elsewhere in search of better jobs and opportunities. Single American men take note: as a result, there are significantly more women there than men, and women are grateful to find a man, because it’s strongly discouraged to be without a boyfriend or husband. According to Vera, Bulgarian women will often end up with balding, overweight, cruel, and abusive men (who publicly keep mistresses on the side) but must be grateful they have these fine specimens of man. While I can’t speak to the character of the grooms we saw, I will say that every one of them was marrying a stunningly gorgeous woman, and the men were…not so hot. Here’s hoping their inner beauty outshines their outer beauty, and they buck the stereotype.

After a hike up to the Bratislava castle (where you can get an expansive view of the communist apartment buildings that stretch as far as the horizon), we hiked back down to the Old Town and later made our way ‘home’ to Vienna. I’m not sure if Bratislava can sell itself as a place for lovers, but it does possess some surprisingly quaint corners that make the Little Big City worth visiting for an afternoon.

Breaking the Silence

I’ve been debating whether to write about this because I fear I may create political waves, but I can no longer keep silent about this problem. Here it goes: I have been subjected to discrimination in my workplace. Yes, it’s true. The General Assembly and main conference rooms are discriminatory against left-handed people.

It should be known that I have never been one of those whiny left-handed people who complain when they don’t get left-handed scissors, or a left-handed desk. In fact, I am fairly ambidextrous. I would happily take a left-handed desk in school, not because I prefer them per se, but because my right-handed peers hated using them (not realizing that I had to deal with using an “opposite desk” most of my life…sigh). I also try to be conscientious in restaurants, taking the seat on the left so that my offending elbow will not get in the way of someone enjoying their meal.

I am quite accustomed to being a southpaw in a right-handed world, but this week my frustrations came to a head in what is ironically one of the most PC rooms in the world. The General Assembly and all major conference rooms are designed to be equitable to all parties involved – seeking to provide the same ‘view’ from each seat, the exact same size chair and table, etc so that no one member state gets an advantage over another. It is in the issue of dexterity, however, that the room falls short.

For the past week there has been a major conference here focusing on crime, and so in part on human trafficking. As a result I have been asked to attend a multitude of meetings, plenary sessions, and panel discussions to take notes and simply learn more about the latest legislation and global discussions around human trafficking. It is extremely important to get a seat for meetings and sessions in the largest conference rooms because they enable you to listen to the translators who translate for the numerous languages spoken during these sessions. In fairness, at least 50% of the delegates speak in English when they address the assembly. Nonetheless, if you’re taking detailed notes for your supervisor, you need to hear everything that is being said.

(Note: I’ll step out of the narrative here for a moment to make clear that I am not complaining about taking notes at an assembly meeting. In fact it’s surprising cool, especially watching the formalities, listening to the various translators, and essentially viewing the diplomatic ‘dance’ that plays out. I realize how special it is and don’t want to appear ungrateful, because I certainly am not.)

Entering the meeting yesterday (which was already in session), I and one of my colleagues manage to grab two of the last seats in the row that is used for observing sessions. To hear the translators, you have to hook a grey, egg-shaped device over your left ear, and plug the tightly wound cord into the headphones plug in front of your left armrest. The language channel changer for your earpiece is also on the left.

I put the earpiece on, and realize that I have a semi-faulty seat, and that my headset will only work if I’m holding the plug piece in place and don’t move around too much. For a right-handed person, this could be done pretty easily – hold the plug in place with your left hand, write notes with your right hand. For me, it means that I have to have my right hand cross my body to hold the plug in place on my left, and then I must try to write with my left-hand, which at the moment is getting tangled in the spiral cord for the headset. I look like I’m in a self-imposed straight jacket, and the older gentleman from the New Zealand delegation who is sitting beside me is practically convulsing as he tries to keep his laughter in. He leans over and says, smiling, “Left-handed? That could be a problem here.” I smile weakly and realize he’s right.

Because my left-hand keeps getting tangled in the spiral cord attaching the earpiece to the left arm of the chair, I try to shift in my seat further to the right to escape its coils. Like an invisible nun enforcing the law, the spiral cord pulls me and my offending ear back to the left, and I have to keep my yelp of pain in so as not to interrupt the session. The kiwi beside me almost can’t take it anymore -- he’s shaking with laughter. He says to me good-naturedly, “I’m sorry, it’s just that this is far more entertaining than the proceedings.” Too true, too true.

At this point, an intelligent person may be thinking to themselves, “Why doesn’t she just use the plug in the chair to her right, and then she can listen to everything on the right side and stop all this straight-jacket, ear-pulling nonsense?” Indeed, in a perfect world, this would be a good solution, except that seating is premium at meetings, and there aren’t groups of unoccupied seats anywhere where I could break the mold and go right instead of left. I’m a cog in the diplomatic wheel, and circumstances force me to join the group and go left. Eventually I managed to get functional and simultaneously write notes while listening to the translators. It’s just another trying day in the life of a southpaw.

To anyone reading this from the UN: This post is all meant in jest, and I won’t be filing a discriminatory lawsuit or anything like that. Please don’t send INTERPOL to come get me. Please.

Adventures in German Appliances: Part One

It’s funny how being in another country forces you to relearn the most basic of tasks and ways of doing things. You spend most of your day at the UN trying to convince yourself that you are a smart, talented, and competent individual, only to be taken down later by a microwave or washing machine. It’s a humbling moment when two Berkeley brains can’t figure out how to start a load of laundry.

Some of the greatest challenges we’ve faced in our time here have been in conducting simple activities that are a part of everyday life. Back home, for example, I would often bring my lunch to work and heat it up in the microwave. Seems easy enough, right? Oh no, not so fast grasshopper.

Bringing your lunch to work here is uncommon, since most people go to the cafeteria for food. As Todd and I have discovered (and which will be featured in a later post), going to the UN cafeteria is sort of like gastronomic roulette – and Todd in particular is a regular victim. So for reasons of money, flavour, and waistline, I’ve been trying to bring my lunch to work at least twice a week.

Which brings me to the issue of the microwave. Going into our floor’s kitchen (which feels like a cross between a bathroom and a dungeon) the microwave is situated beside the refrigerator, and only one outlet exists – meaning that if you want to microwave something, you have to unplug the refrigerator in order to plug in the microwave. It’s a minor inconvenience, but as a result you have to bend down to the ground and duck under a table to unplug one appliance and then plug in another. This is hard to do gracefully, particularly in a skirt. Since I seem to have a talent for being walked in on while in compromising or embarrassing situations, I’m just waiting for someone like the Distinguished Ambassador from Japan to saunter in while I have my butt in the air, trying to plug in an appliance.

Once I’ve managed to plug in the microwave without flashing the entire diplomatic world, I have to actually get to the task of heating my food. Unlike microwaves in the US, which come with numbered keypads that allow you to easily select the amount of time you would like to heat your food, German microwaves utilize a series of knobs that you turn in a seemingly random order if you wish to heat your food. From what I gather from the pictures, one knob allows you to select what you are cooking. However, the pictures are so vague that you’re not entirely sure what you’ve selected. One time I turned the knob a few times and picked a square with squiggles, and I think it tried to defrost my not-frozen lunch. Another time I picked what looked like a drumstick, and I thought my lunch might explode.

After you have selected your picture with the first knob, you move to the second knob, which based on the picture you selected, auto-populates a specific time and -- I think-- temperature. In a most German fashion, you must accept the time given to you (nay, you should be grateful that it gave you a heating time at all), or else the microwave starts beeping loudly and seemingly without end.

You consult the German-English pocket dictionary you brought with you and realize that it doesn’t provide you with German microwave etiquette. Slight panic ensues. The microwave is still beeping, and it will soon draw a crowd if you can’t get it to stop (hey, maybe you will have a chance to flash the Ambassador from Japan after all!). You begin to swear in German (because of course those are the German words you have no problem mastering), thinking that perhaps if you speak the microwave’s native language it will truly understand the frustration it brings you. Finally, you resort to frantically pushing buttons and hope that the microwave will stop beeping and just heat your damn lunch, which at this point you don’t really care about because all you want is a stiff drink. Then, miracle of miracles: The microwave starts working. Fifty seconds later your lunch comes out practically glowing and you think, “Gosh am I glad I brought my lunch. This is so much better than eating the food in the cafeteria.”

With radioactive Wiener schnitzel in hand, it’s time to unplug the microwave and plug the fridge back in with something resembling grace. As you leave the kitchen and head towards the cafeteria, you try to tell yourself what a responsible adult you are for bringing your lunch, but your thoughts drift away at the sight of the UN Bar.

A Palpable Absence

Being a Sunday (when nearly everything in Austria shuts down), Todd and I decided to go out to the Zentralfriedhof, or Vienna cemetery, on the outskirts of the city. It is here that Todd’s family (the Bosel’s) have a large mausoleum, and we wanted to visit it. On our last journey to the mausoleum in November, it had been a cold and very wet day, which didn’t afford you the luxury of spending time at the cemetery.

The Zentralfriedhof is utterly immense -- larger than the entire 1st District of Vienna-- and, with over two and a half million “inhabitants,” it boasts a larger population than all of Vienna today. In addition to the many ordinary citizens buried here, the Zentralfriedhof contains a veritable ‘who’s who’ list of classical composer remains. Strauss, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert are all buried within the confines of the cemetery.

When you arrive at the first of the cemetery’s three gates, which houses the old Jewish section of the cemetery, the Bosel mausoleum is quite literally the first and arguably the largest mausoleum you see. It suggests the prominence of the Bosel family (which is likely why they were targeted by the Nazis). The mausoleum itself is beautiful, and is unique because the grounds surrounding it are still well maintained, relative to the graves and mausoleums that surround it. This is because Todd’s Aunt Julie ensures that the mausoleum and the ground around it are maintained, and it shows. The mausoleum shows some wear and tear – in fact, we noticed that the head of one of the gargoyles has come off, and Todd was able to retrieve a part of it from the surrounding weeds – but all in all it is in good condition.

Being able to spend some more time there on this visit, it became apparent the true sense of loss and absence in the Jewish section. While tourists and visitors walked by the mausoleums and gravestones, appreciating their beauty, what struck me was feeling complete isolation and abandonment. Many of the gravestones have broken or fallen down over time, and weeds climb high, obscuring the gravestones and making it difficult to walk to specific gravesites. There is no family to pay to care for these gravesites, and no one to visit them. The Jewish community is all but gone from Vienna, being either killed or forced out of the country by the Nazis.

In contrast to the well-manicured Christian sections of the cemetery, with fresh flowers or plants growing on top of the grave, there are no flowers on the graves in the Jewish section. Indeed, the flowers that Linda placed in front of the mausoleum in November were still there yesterday, dried and dead but oddly not looking too bad. To add insult to injury, the Jewish section of the cemetery was also bombed during World War II (no peace even for the dead), and perhaps because no family sought to repair those graves that were damaged, a memorial has sprung up beside the tall pile of rubble, yet another demonstration of a palpable absence.
We saw many people coming to visit the graves of their loved ones, but in the Jewish section we saw no one. Several graves had stones placed on top of them, and we did see some post-humous memorial sites (sometimes with the person’s death date followed by a question mark) but all in all what remains with you is a sense of loss, and sadness for these thousands of people who have no one left. I wish had the money to put a flower on every one of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of gravestones, to show that all of these people are not forgotten, and that we honour and respect the lives of these everyday people. One can only hope that the world doesn’t forget again.

Doing wonders for cross-cultural dialogue

It's been a few days since I have posted, but a lot has been happening and I find it hard to fit everything in after work hours (living life and then writing about it!), so I apologize. When I started at the UN last week I signed a slew of paperwork -- which may have included giving up my first born child -- so I'm a little apprehensive to write about my work in great detail on a public blog. If you're interested in learning more, shoot me and e-mail and we can talk one-on-one.

This past Friday night proved to be one of the more memorable evenings we've had in quite some time. We are becoming good friends with the seven or so other individuals in my department (who come from Spain, Tanzania, France, Canada, Ghana, Germany, and Australia) and regularly go out with them in the evenings. On Friday we were invited to a 'Multi-Cultural event' at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, where several people at the UN are doing their graduate work. With the promise of free food and wine, we all happily went to the Academy after work.

When we arrived, we saw that a series of events were planned prior to the food, including speeches from former ambassadors, as well as the current Ambassador to Malaysia, and performances by students of their respective cultures. It all started well enough. The speeches from the ambassadors were interesting if a little dry, and they were followed by a student playing violin pieces from her native Belarus, later accompanied by a Japanese student on piano. Both were accomplished musicians and the music was beautiful.

The programme started taking a downward turn when the Bolivian dance troupe began their three-dance set. I've never seen Bolivian dancing before, and I can honestly say there isn't anything like it. The costumes alone are impressive -- huge headdresses, masks, and bright, hand-embroidered costumes. The dancing is a little basic, but still very pretty and obviously means a great deal to the people of Bolivia. Their final dance number consisted of two girls dressed in the tiniest of dresses, and in what can only be called Bolivian go-go boots, surrounded by three girls dressed as elderly women, and a man dressed in an elaborate devil costume chasing everyone around. The girls in the tiny dresses were supposed to wear small, stiff slips under their broad petticoats to cover up their 'stuff.' Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) one of the girls forgot to put on her slip, so was in fact spinning around with her little Bolivian ass hanging out for the whole time. I don't even think she knew. You were mortified for her.

The Bolivian dance group was then followed by an Israeli student doing Arabic belly dancing. I don't mean to be critical, but as belly dancers go, she wasn't very good. Her first dance was a dance of seduction, and it came off more awkward than seductive. However, most of us couldn't focus on her dancing because we were entranced with her right breast, which appeared ready to burst out of her bra at any moment, creating yet another international wardrobe malfunction. Needless to say, for the 82-year old former ambassador in the front row, this was probably the most fun he's had on a Friday night in a long time. It did wonders for cross-cultural dialogue. She then decided it would be a good idea to bring up the various ambassadors to the stage to dance with her. It could have been cute. Instead it ended up embarrassing for all parties involved -- though I must say that the Ambassador to Malaysia does have good rhythm.

The true low-point in the evening came from none other than a fellow American. After an evening filled with otherwise respectful displays of cultures from around the world, an American student came up and gave a presentation on the most revered of American festivals -- Groundhog Day. The presentation could have been done for laughs, since its a silly American tradition anyway, but instead this schmuck decides he'll give a dry 20 minute presentation where he couldn't even say the name of the town correctly. He made it appear that Americans all across the country actively participate in Groundhog Day and base our weather expectations on good ol Punxatawney Phil.It was painful and many people stood up and left. Todd and I physically slunk down in our chairs as everyone looked around saying, "Is this guy for real?" Even our friends from the UN talked to us later and said, "I had no idea Groundhog Day was such an important cultural day in the US." Oy-Vay. Cross-cultural damage control done.

The good thing is that after all of this we did get to eat some incredible food from all over the world that I never would have had before, and the wine was plentiful. It is likely to be one of the more memorable evenings we have here!

Gotta run, but please e-mail or post comments! Love and miss you all!

I report to Floor Negative 1?

It's hard to begin to describe the last two days, and I can't possibly describe all of it, but I'll try to keep it brief for today and throw out some highlights since I don't have a lot of time. I'll elaborate more in the next couple of days over a series of posts:

1) Walking into the UN each morning? Yep, it's as yippee cool as you would imagine. I'm a damn lucky girl and I'm trying not to take it for granted.

2) Defining cultural barrier moment of Day One: I ask one of the people I share an office with (who is French) if is there is a water fountain or water cooler nearby. He turns to me and says, "No, but the water in the toilets is a nice temperature. You can drink that."

I stare at him wide-eyed for a moment, wondering if this is some cute joke or if is he just insulting little monolingual me. Then I realize that when he says toilets, he means the restroom, and that I could drink water from the faucet. International crisis averted.

3) While the UN is incredible, it doesn't come equipped with a Bat Cave full of nifty technology to save the world. In fact, they use the same e-mail and database system I used at ACS, and they put most of their docs on a massive shared drive. And you can't find a stack of post-it notes or file folders in there to save your life. Kofi Annan must have taken them with him when he left.

4) I'm beginning to have a seasonal love affair with Vienna. I know I'll be cursing when it gets bloody hot in a couple of months, and I was cursing when it was snowing in November, but honestly right now it is some of the most beautiful weather I've ever been in. It makes the city even more breathtaking, and the fact that it is incredibly walkable makes it even better.

Gotta run for now, but I hope to put a big long post on here in the next day or so.

The past 48 hours

Well, we've officially landed in Vienna and are settled in our apartment. Traveling here was a bit of a traumatic adventure, but all in all we're here. Our travels began Friday at 3:00am when Justin picked us up to take us to SFO. Unfortunately for us we found out United's desk doesn't open until 4:15am, which actually turned out to be 5:00am. I wasn't very impressed with United, other than the fact that they managed to get all of our luggage to Vienna. Beyond that, not thrilled. But that's a whole complaining rant/sotry I don't feel like writing about.

The misadventures for me began on the flight from JFK to Vienna, when the mild nausea I'd felt since 3:00am (which I had attributed to nerves) turned into strong, almost violent waves of nausea smack dab over the Atlantic Ocean. You know you've hit a low point when you're praying to God hunched over an airplane toilet thousands of miles from land. Apparently it was a flu bug that Todd picked up about 12 hours later and has since run its course through both of us. Thankfully I had one Compazine packed in my purse, and the flight attendants also gave me some sort of medicated liquid that managed to make the nausea tolerable though not cured. Todd forever gets the boyfriend/partner of the year award for staying by my side through the whole ordeal, speaking to flight attendants, giving up his seat so I could try to lay down, etc. I don't know what I would have done without him.

Driving into Vienna was truly breathtaking, as the entire city is in bloom and the weather has been fantastic -- about 80 degrees yesterday, and 75 today. It really is one of the great European cities to visit. After three months I'll hopefully have a greater sense of what living here is like too!

We share an apartment with two students, Vera and Marlene (very nice), and our room is absolutely huge. It has 20-foot ceilings, with large windows overlooking Neustiftgasse and the "Bombay Indisches Restaurant" directly across the street. The room is furnished with a king-size bed, a computer desk and chair, couch, coffee table, etc. It's been easy to settle into, and we're within walking distance of most of the major sights of Vienna. That's what we've been doing the past two days really -- just walking around the city, exploring new parts and visiting old haunts. Austria is a very Catholic country, everything (and I mean everything) is closed on Sunday, and most businesses (including grocery stores) are closed by 5:30pm Saturday. On the one hand I admire their ability to 'take a day of rest' on Sunday, but honestly it can be a royal pain in the ass to an American who's used to doing errands when they want and not having to worry too much about closing hours. I'll just have to adapt.

Today Todd and I got 12 fantastic hours of sleep (after nearly two days with no sleep), then went to the Kunterhistoriches Museum, which is one of the best art museums in Europe and we missed on our last trip. Nearly all of the contents of the huge museum -- ranging from Renaissance and post-Renaissance art to Egyptian and Greek artifacts -- came from the private collection of just three Habsburg empire rulers. Makes you realize just how powerful and huge the Habsburg Empire was at its peak. Then we walked throughout the city, enjoying a nice lunch in the Bundesgarten, sunbathing with all the Viennese who are just as pale as me.

Tonight we're grabbing dinner with our roommate Marlene (Vera comes back from Bulgaria on Tuesday and we'll meet her then), and then maybe we'll watch another episode of "Deutschland Super Star" aka German American Idol. It's too weird to even describe. I may end up devoting an entire post to it.

We're trying to work on our German, because it became pretty clear to us yesterday that when you leave the tourist areas English is not nearly as common. Plus not speaking the language can make you feel pretty isolated...like being on the U-Bahn (subway) today and Todd telling me that the two people across the way were clearly talking about me, but neither one of us could understand it. We'll keep working on it, though the process has been a little harried. All part of the adventure. Gotta go to grab dinner in a little while, so I'll sign off for now.