"You only get what you pay for, Guv'nor "
"An eerie picture of what art students think of Vladimir. What's really eerie is what they graffitied on his forehead."
I'm going to tell you something I have never told anyone else before. Many years ago now, and the right accent here is a soft Michael Caine combined with the harsh undertones of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 'I did a bloody runner'. I'm not proud of it, but it happened. I was at Oxford and coming home from some night out in Cowley to my college, St Hugh's, and the cabbie was being a bit mouthy about students - not uncommon. I told him I was out of cash but I would run into my room in college and come back and pay him. I just didn't come back. Honestly, I did have some intention of coming back, but when I got in, I just thought screw him and his anti-studentness. Does this make me a criminal? I'm not sure. Today, for the second time in my life, I did a runner.
I had decided to put my train back from 7:40am to 9:40am to give myself a few more hours in the early morning on Anna's laptop as on this iPad I'm struggling to edit anything and correctly 'post' videos and pictures. Anna and I had become good friends over the last 12 hours as we'd worked on rebuilding this site, and so it was sad to go and say goodbye to her just after 9am. Just as I was leaving she said, "Please do keep in touch though and keep going because you are very inspiring." It was a very touching moment, and even more so because I think there's a very good chance she even meant it. My girlfriend and I have said recently that you can do nothing more worthwhile in life than inspire people, and I think this is the first time someone has ever said those exact words to me. It felt bloody good indeed. I'd like to do it again.
After a slightly longer goodbye that I imagined for all the right reasons, I now had only 20mins to make the train. I found a taxi quickly and we sped off but into traffic. I pointed at the map I had and asked if there was another route as I had only 15mins to be there. The driver then backed up and went down some side streets that I could tell from GPS were going in the right direction but were dicey given it looked like one way territory. We got stuck and he just looked at me in the rear view mirror and shook his head - poor dice. I'd had enough and so I grabbed my bags and got out of the car. He wound down the window and stuck his hand out for money and I announced in my best Vinnie Jones from Lock Stock accent: "you only get what you pay for Guv'nor". It won't take you long to work out that makes no sense whatsoever as I was supposed to paying him, but I was so focused on the accent and, let's face it, he wouldn't have understood a syllable anyway.
I sprinted down the road and then down a passage way finding a main road upon me. Another cab hove (a common mistake is to write hoved) into view and although I was pathetically taking 2 cabs over 1 km I had only a few minutes to play with. A very helpful lady at the counter got my ticket for me miraculously quickly and I sprinted to platform 4. In the Nicholas of time, I let out a enormous sigh of relief as if you'd thought you'd deleted an entire journal but In fact you hadn't. That sort of sigh. (I've read making light of an issue eases the pain: I think that might be right).
Choosing where to sit on the train is always an intense exercise; it's quite the spectator sport if you've ever intently watched someone walking down the aisle where seats lie sporadically open. If you make eye contact with the person sitting next to the empty seat, you're screwed; if you don't sit down it means you didn't like the look of them, and if you do sit down (perhaps even worse), it's because you absolutely did. For me, my main criteria is to look for someone who is very unlikely to use a phone, and that usually means going for someone below 14 or above 70. Avoiding odd glances, the over 70's are by far the best category; they generally just read as they still don't really 'get' mobile phones, due to number limbs they hardly wriggle and the chances of them having the energy to get up and go to the loo are close to zero. They just can't be bothered. The lady I sat opposite was borderline 70 but did look good for her age. Having just left the station her phone went and she answered for a good 5 minutes. Damn it; the swine must have been in her late sixties. Stupid young looking Czechs.
While Ulrick and Ivan just looked into the lens, Stefan couldn't take his eyes off the ghost
I enjoyed this train journey very much indeed, and probably the most of the trip so far. The landscape became increasingly picturesque and more Alpine despite us not changing elevation. 4 hours and change later, we pulled into Bratislava main station.
Of the places I have been so far, probably the least is known about this one. Bratislava is the capital city (and the only one on the planet that borders 2 countries, Austria and Hungary) and industrial hub of Slovakia which itself made up half of the country Czechoslovakia until 1989's Velvet Revolution came about to install democracy after communism. This began a set of chain reactions which lead to parliament dissolving the country officially in 1992 and the one country became two. In fact, literally as I type, the waiter is telling me that both countries understand each other perfectly but that younger Czechs might not understand Slovaks because the media was all in Czech and now the language of each other's media has drifted apart.
Juraj was waiting patiently to meet me despite a marginally late train arrival. Juraj is the Slovak for George and he proudly tells me as at some point in the next hundred years we will have a King George of The United Kingdom. Yes, I suppose we will. After I unpacked I went for a run to do my usual scoping.
The t shirt was extra small unlike their intentions.
A few minutes into the jog, I came across a pack of white t-shirted demonstrators, or what looked like demonstrators. I had to find out more. I stopped and chatted about their plight which is essentially a focus on preventing ethnic, social and religious exclusion across Europe, something they are becoming more wary of as far right political movements are seemingly gaining ground; given the history of this part of the world, you can see their point. Find out more here: http://www.nohatespeechmovement.org. They were from all over Eastern Europe but mainly Montenegro; either way, I know they are reading this and I wish them all the best.
As I continued running around the city and trying to understand the country, I'm so very sorry to say that I just didn't feel inspired at all. I'm going to let you down now and say that I'm going to struggle to put my finger on it. For a start, they don't have a Scrabble Federation based here in the Capital City unlike Poland (legends) but more that that it feels a little bit like this city is rushing things; there is so much beauty and history here with cobbled lined streets leading to castles and picture postcard churches but then you find a bar or restaurant on the corner with waiters dressed in lederhosen, neon lights saying authentic cooking and mock wooden chariots. Down one gorgeous alleyway, I came around the corner to find a DJ blasting techno at about 4pm at a place now called the Nu Spirit bar. Dear Bratislava, stop rushing it. You're going to balls the whole place up and turn it into a European Cancun. Slow down and let it come more naturally. Lots of love, Jamie. I imagine there's good reason that low cost airlines are more to blame that the residents though. What with Ryanair and Easyjet hosting weekly stag parties here, I imagine the correlation between Old Town cheesy club growth and low cost airline arrival is worryingly high.
On my run, I found the quiet and blissful sanctuary of Presporak Cafe run by Veronica. It's interior decor was effortlessly cozy and they have chairs you can sink into to let an hour fly by, which is exactly what I did. Do go and say hi.
Frankly the evening was a bit of a non-event, to use an annoyingly overused phrase from my finance days, but I did the chance to meet a very interesting man by the name of L'ubo Belak. His Wikipedia page reads: Dr.. Lubomir Belak (* 5 January 1951 , Bratislava ) is a Slovak musician, songwriter and television producer. He's the closest thing to Peter I've met, and are both key midfield players in my fantasy Eastern Europe good lad team. On my way home, I saw a bar still open at 11pm (bars outside the Old Town close early) with 3 men having a last drink. I knocked on the window and they welcomed me in. Peto and Andrew are old friends and they grew up here. Peto and I got on well as he is a cameraman for documentaries here in Slovakia and asked if I wanted to join him on a shoot. I said I'd love to but leaving Saturday which was annoying as the next day, Friday, was a national holiday and literally no one works. Peto also mentioned that there's sadly little else to do outside the castle here so wished me luck for the next day.
Being underwhelmed a little, I decided to take the train to Vienna early on Saturday morning and then on to Ljubljana on Sunday evening. That meant I had one full day in Bratislava for the city, or perhaps Peto, to prove me wrong. An anticipatory seven.
