(Quick note for those of you unfamiliar with the Slovak language--the letter č is pronounced /ch/. Carry on.)
Last weekend we went back to Bratislava (often called "Blava" because, let's face it, we humans are lazy and Bratislava has far too many syllables) to visit with some of our fellow teachers and to celebrate some birthdays. We arrived on Friday evening and when we reached our pastor's apartment there was Mexican food and lots of friends waiting for us. It was great. Once we finished eating there was birthday cake, and after that we retired for the night. I stayed with friends who live at the very top of their building in a cool apartment. It has an excellent view of the castle from their excellent deck.
Saturday morning some of us went to one of the malls. This one had a supermarket inside. It also had a huge revolving door which was rather impressive.
We did not, however, go all the way to Bratislava to go to a mall. No, we had a far more important objective: the Račiankse vinobranie, or Rača Wine Festival. I was told that this was where we were going, although at the time I did not know A) where or what Rača was and B) what one is expected to do at a wine festival. I don't even really like wine, but I was determined to go and have an experience. It turned out to be quite fun.
Rača is about a 20-minute tram ride from the Old City. It's sort of an outlying neighborhood of Bratislava; I wasn't sure whether it was a neighborhood or a separate town, like a suburb, but it belongs to Blava. (I found out much of this information on Wikipedia, so it may or may not be correct.) So it's more of a neighborhood.Unlike some other wine festivals I know of, this one didn't take place in a big field somewhere. It was on two streets in Rača. There were booths with people selling their wine or food, and one or two souvenir booths. There was also a band playing polka tunes on a small stage. Wine, food, polka. What else do you need?
Wikipedia says that Rača is first mentioned in the 13th century as a vineyard. Therefore it's a good place to have a wine festival. The particular type of wine we were celebrating was something called burčiak. Burčiak can be described as "new" wine. It's unfiltered, thus thicker than regular wine, and it tastes more like the actual fruit. It's almost like a wine smoothie. It's not as acidic, and it doesn't seem as alcoholic as regular wine. Of course, it is; but, as we were forewarned, since it tastes like juice, it's easy to drink too much without realizing how much alcohol you're having. It wasn't a problem for any of us, but the warning was nice. I liked the burčiak because I like juice. There were two kinds, červeny and biely (red and white). We all agreed that the red was better. We also had some warm medovina (honey wine).
Instead of hot dogs, you get sausage here, and instead of hamburgers they had cigansky. I think. That may not be the right plural form. Anyway, most of us had a ciganska, or sandwich of a cut of chicken or pork grilled up and served on a big bun with mustard and grilled onions. They were really good. There were also different kinds of lokša, or flat bread with different fillings (reminiscent of a quesadilla), and palacinky. A palacinka is a big, thin pancake, or crepe, that you can get filled with usually sweet things. I shared a nugat palacinka with two friends. The man made the palacinka and then spread a chocolate-hazelnut filling on half of it. Then he folded it, sprinkled powdered sugar on top, and added whipped cream and chocolate syrup. There were no utensils or napkins available, but we managed to eat it without getting it all over ourselves. For me, this was quite an accomplishment.
It sprinkled on us much of the time we were there, but it wasn't full-on raining. Had it actually been sunny and warm, I think it wouldn't have been as comfortable. Sharing umbrellas created more of a feeling of camaraderie between us all. There aren't a lot of pictures to put up, because there wasn't a lot to take pictures of; most of them are just of people I know but you don't, and nobody likes looking at that kind of pictures. The first picture is of a bar in Rača that I should have looked more closely at; the second is of the street just past the end of the festival. There were some carnival rides, but they were off to one side, and didn't seem to be getting a lot of custom. The oddest thing we saw was a group of performers playing (and selling) South American music, the kind with panpipes; but they were dressed as American Plains Indians. One of the performers even had a big feathered headdress on. I'm fairly certain they weren't expecting anyone to see them who had been to quite as many powwows as I have.
Views from our hike up to the cell phone tower this week. The last picture is the tower as seen from my room on the third floor. And here's today's tip: do not trifle with a čuvač, the big white Slovak herding dog. It will not be amused.