TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

1:13 PM
Posted by jodi rose

it's been a few days, I'll try and retrace my steps chronologically.
thursday night accidentally drank the pain away - just dropped in for a quick g&t but then all these irish people turned up and the lure of sardonic witty conversation was too good to ignore. there are a few foreign business interests emerging - the danish plastic extruding company whose rep is moving here for two years to oversee the operation and irish blacksmith who makes curling sticks also moved production here. they and the visiting hungarian boy home from working in a hotel in ireland gave me a fabulous ego-boost, all vying for attention, while I finally got over my winter crush.

Friday morning was distinctly through-the-looking-glass. Unfortunately started at 7.30am with appointment for the specialist at polyklinik. Luckily a friend of Audrey, she picked me up and whisked me through the slovak medical system in under an hour and a half, including x-rays. Impressive. Could have been lost there for weeks.
Endless blue-tiled corridors and dark wooden doors, dingy rooms full of older people in dark colours and fur hats waiting waiting waiting.. the x-rady lady spoke german to me, don't move! she would shout and then disappear while the light flashed, lying there on the hard cold plastic bench listening to an old typewriter clacking away, felt I had wandered into lars von trier's 'the kingdom' and was extraordinarily grateful to have someone navigating me back out into the feeble sunshine. 7 kinds of hell, the intial pain, hangover, guilt from being queue-jumped relentlessly and having special treatment because of being a foreigner, remorse at my idiotic behaviour hours earlier...

11am hairdresser. that was also bizarre and entertaining, she spoke no english or german, so I pointed to the picture and we both smiled a lot while she did her thing, and I closed my eyes and let the soothing hungarian chatter wash over me. Quite happy with the result, it's a bladerunner - meets milly-molly-mandy blunt fringe with choppy layers. fabulous styling though, straightened and moussed and hairsprayed into immovable perfection.

Equipped with my new local hair-style, Audrey picked me up to speak with two of her english classes at the hungarian secondary school. The first group very shy, only two girls spoke at all, but they were fun and one wants to be a journalist, asked me what my favourite places are in sturovo - thermal baths and green pub - and a bit about australia.
The second class included some of the boys from my previous talk, who I mainly see at the aforementioned green, so we all burst out laughing when I walked in. They gave me a harder time, but again very entertaining, someone asked me if I like my job as bridge guard, and i thought about it - actually, it's the best job I have ever had!

Ran into the gorgeous mary, who is very busy studying for exams and english competitions, so it was lovely to see her, went for coffee and chat. Wish I could be more helpful on all sorts of levels, but she is a smart girl and will do fine.

Terry knocked on the window as I got home to relax, and invited me to the biker bar with the irish contingent, so I wandered across the road for a quick sprite and some blarney with the boys. Then drifted through the green pub, mainly to show off my new hair - which all the bartenders noticed and commented on immediately, they're good lads - caught up with matthew looking stylin' with his fidel castro hat and beard, who told me that was the best english class they'd had, we raved about 'the motorcycle diaries', then danny arrived with effusive greetings in spanish and showed me the excellent photo-file magazine with the work of local photographers, had another brief chat with Mary, and then left for an early night of trashy dvd and sleep. (really trashy - freddie prinze jr in she's all that - love a cinderalla story.)