Showing posts with label Practicalities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Practicalities. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
I think you'll find, pal...
In the space of a week my dealings with public transportation left me with a handful of dollar coins (two Susan B. Anthonys, two Sacajaweas, and seven assorted presidents, to be exact): I often forget that the Metro North ticket machines give dollar coins in change, and the parking-payment machine at the Alewife T station did, too. I don't mind the coins too much, but I'm often a bit hesitant to use them in situations where money needs to change hands quickly; even the gold-colored ones are often mistaken for quarters, as one was today at the movie theater, and I don't relish the idea of having to explain to some harried cashier that yes, it is real money and yes, I have given you what I owe. In those times a line from one of English comedian Michael McIntyre's routines always runs through my head. Have a look and see for yourself.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Practicalities #4B: The Train
The other public-transportation option for getting out of Tisovec is the train. The same website gives train information, including international trains. (It does used to lie about one particular train, though; there really isn't one that leaves Brezno and goes south at 16:29 on Saturdays.)
Trains are rad. I prefer taking the train to taking the bus. It's a bit more expensive (€1.38 for the train between Tisovec and Hnúšťa and about €.80 for the bus), but worth it: There are usually fewer people on the train, and it's more fun to look out the window, and you can ride backwards. The train from Tisovec to Brezno goes through one tunnel, where if the lights don't come on you can harass your friends in the dark; and over a few bridges that pass over the road, which is fun until your train unexpectedly stops in the middle of one and hangs out there for a few minutes.
In Tisovec there are two stops, Mesto and the main station. Mesto is the closer to us; the main one is about 15 minutes' walk to the north. Neither Tisovec stop has any kind of ticket office, nor do many small-town stations. You buy your ticket onboard from the conductor. From bigger towns and cities you buy your ticket at the station.
There was no graffiti on the station when I first got here. :(
Also, at small stations (even Brezno, pictured below) you might have to walk over one set of tracks to get to your platform. This is considered acceptable and safe. Why wouldn't it be?
The trains that go through Tisovec are two cars at most. Usually there's only one. For this reason I call it the "tiny train."
Here's a tiny train passing by my apartment yesterday evening on its way south to Jesenské. The drivers always blow their horns around this point—that's the only way I knew when to start recording.
Slovak trains also encourage you to throw things out the window and jump out.
Most of the trains that pass through Bystrica are full-sized ones, with more amenities. They have compartments, just like in "Harry Potter" (but without the Dementors), although whenever I'm sitting in a compartment I get nervous about when my stop is and how much time it'll take me to gather my things and disembark. Of course there are overnight compartments, too. When you get up in the Tatras and other more-touristed areas, the station announcements are in Slovak, German, and English, but 'round here they're only in Slovak.
Trains are rad. I prefer taking the train to taking the bus. It's a bit more expensive (€1.38 for the train between Tisovec and Hnúšťa and about €.80 for the bus), but worth it: There are usually fewer people on the train, and it's more fun to look out the window, and you can ride backwards. The train from Tisovec to Brezno goes through one tunnel, where if the lights don't come on you can harass your friends in the dark; and over a few bridges that pass over the road, which is fun until your train unexpectedly stops in the middle of one and hangs out there for a few minutes.
In Tisovec there are two stops, Mesto and the main station. Mesto is the closer to us; the main one is about 15 minutes' walk to the north. Neither Tisovec stop has any kind of ticket office, nor do many small-town stations. You buy your ticket onboard from the conductor. From bigger towns and cities you buy your ticket at the station.
There was no graffiti on the station when I first got here. :(Also, at small stations (even Brezno, pictured below) you might have to walk over one set of tracks to get to your platform. This is considered acceptable and safe. Why wouldn't it be?
The trains that go through Tisovec are two cars at most. Usually there's only one. For this reason I call it the "tiny train."
Here's a tiny train passing by my apartment yesterday evening on its way south to Jesenské. The drivers always blow their horns around this point—that's the only way I knew when to start recording.
Slovak trains also encourage you to throw things out the window and jump out.
Most of the trains that pass through Bystrica are full-sized ones, with more amenities. They have compartments, just like in "Harry Potter" (but without the Dementors), although whenever I'm sitting in a compartment I get nervous about when my stop is and how much time it'll take me to gather my things and disembark. Of course there are overnight compartments, too. When you get up in the Tatras and other more-touristed areas, the station announcements are in Slovak, German, and English, but 'round here they're only in Slovak.
Riding the train here is nothing like riding Amtrak at home. It's far, far cheaper, for one, but Europe just has a completely different idea of what train travel is than North America does. I'll really miss taking the trains here, and I hope train travel becomes more inexpensive and efficient at home, so I can enjoy it there, too.
Practicalities #4A: The Bus
I'm always saying how I took the bus or the train from here to there, so I thought I'd elaborate on what "the bus" and "the train" mean.When you want to leave Tisovec, you must first figure out how you're going to go. This involves going to http://www.cp.sk/, where you fill in when and from where you're leaving and where you want to go, and it tells you what buses, trains, or combination thereof you can take. (If you're leaving Slovakia, you usually also check a private company like Eurolines.) Then—and this is VERY IMPORTANT—you write down not only the times that you want, but all of the other times in the general vicinity of the ones you want. This is so that when you miss a bus or one just doesn't show, you have a backup plan. You also write down the route the bus is taking and where you have to make connections. I usually have pieces of paper in my bag that say things like
6:08-8:39 Z
9:10-9:50 pl 3
(bus leaving Tisovec at 6:08 and arriving at Zvolen in 8:39, then subsequent bus leaving Zvolen from platform 3 at 9:10 and arriving in Banská Štiavnica at 9:50)
or
13:35-15:05 BB
15:50-16:40 B pl 21
16:49-17:54 t
(bus to Banská Bystrica, bus from platform 21 there to Brezno, train from Brezno to Tisovec).
If you don't have these things, then you must have a cell phone and a friend with an internet connection to check cp.sk for you, or a place to stay the night, or all of the above. This is the Voice of Experience talking.
The main bus stop in Tisovec is in front of the church, but there's one to the north on the way to Brezno and two to the south on the way to Hnúšťa. Here's the catch (one of many): it has to be a local intercity bus to stop at one of those stops, or you have to be able to explain in Slovak where you want to get off and hope that the driver is obliging.
Speaking of obliging, sometimes the bus will stop and instead of actually getting on, someone will talk to the driver and give him a bag or a box and then get off. Then at another stop someone will collect the parcel from the driver. I seem to remember once the thing that was being delivered was eggs.
On long trips there's often a stop, usually in a town. These stops, which are not marked on the schedule, can range from 10 to 45 minutes. Big bus stations like Bystrica, which is probably the most frequent stopping-point, have restrooms and food stands, with "burgers" and langoš (Slovak frybread; sources report that the best langoš is at the Bratislava bus station). If it's a long break, the driver may kick people off the coach.
The long-haul buses, like those going from Košice to Bratislava, for example, are usually nice big coaches, Volvos or Scanias or the like. The two pictures above are the Scania coach we took to Hungary. The shorter-range buses can be nice, but they can also be pretty cruddy. Both the very first picture and the one below are shorter-range buses. It's really a crapshoot what kind of bus is going to show up. 
It seems like the drivers own their own buses, because some of them have done a lot of interior personalization in the front windows. There's often Slovakia memorabilia, sometimes garlands of fake flowers, saints or crucifixes, and small stuffed animals (keep in mind the great majority of drivers are men). The best decoration was probably one on a bus that Bear often rode last year: a tiny novelty t-shirt that said "Sexy Boy."
The worst things about the bus are that it's easy to feel motion sick, especially going to Brezno or Muráň, and there's often not much legroom, and sometimes you get the smelly drunk dude sitting next to you, and on occasion the bus you're waiting for just doesn't show up, and every once in a while it's really crowded and you have to stand up for a bit. The good things are that the buses are pretty frequent, especially between Tisovec and Brezno, so there's always a good chance of getting home as long as you can at least get to Brezno, and they're mostly cheap, and pretty safe, even if the driver seems a little reckless. Riding the bus: all part of the adventure.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Practicalities #3: The Naming of Slovaks
I've always been interested in names and naming things, and being in another country offers ample opportunity to learn new styles of names. In this post (for which I've done a lot of informal research and which is being posted on an important person's name day) I'll say a little about both given names and surnames, but I'm far from being an expert on Slovak naming conventions.
Preface: Pronunciation
I was getting frustrated over my inability to clearly express how certain letters and special characters ought to be pronounced, but then I found this lovely table. (I can see a few places where the pronunciations don't match up across the table, but overall I think it will help.)
Personally speaking, I cannot pronounce anything with a ch as it ought to sound, so any names with that combination automatically default to the nickname. Furthermore, it takes too much time for me to try to pronounce things correctly, so in class, nearly everyone gets the anglicized pronunciation of their name.
I. Given Names
Here are most of my students, past and present.
Girls: Adela, Adriána, Alena, Alexandra, Alžbeta, Andrea, Anežka, Barbora, Beáta, Bernadeta,* Bianka, Bibiana, Blanka, Daniela, Denisa, Diana, Dominika, Dušana, Eliška, Emília, Eva, Evelýn, Hana, Ivana/Ivona, Iveta, Jana, Jaroslava, Júlia, Karina, Karolína, Katarína, Klaudia, Kristína, Laura, Lenka, Linda, Lívia, Lucia, Ľubica, Ľudmila, Magdalena, Mária, Marianna, Martina, Michaela, Milica, Miroslava, Monika, Natália, Nikola/Nikoleta, Patrícia, Paula, Paulina, Petra/Petrana, Renata, Romana, Ružena, Sabina, Simona, Stanislava, Stela, Soňa, Svetlana, Tatiana, Terézia, Timea, Vanda, Veronika, Viera, Viktoria, Vlasta, Zdenka, Zita, Zuzana, Žofia
Boys: Adam, Andrej/Ondrej, Armand, Benjamin, Branislav, David, Denis, Dušan, Erik, Filip, František, Gregor, Jakub, Ján, Juraj, Karol, Kristián, Lukaš, Ľubomír, Marcel, Marek, Marián, Marko, Maroš, Martin, Matej, Matuš, Maxim,* Michal, Mick,* Nazarij,* Patrik, Pavel, Peter, Richard, Róbert, Roman, Stanislav, Šimon, Štefan, Tomáš, Viliam, Vladimír
Multiples aside (4A this year has three Simonas), this also shows that we have a lot more female students than male. In addition, this year there are two sets of siblings with paired names: Ján and Jana, and Kristína and Kristián.
Ia. Name Days
At some point, I know not when nor by whom, a Slovak name day calendar was created. It seems the majority of Slovaks have names that are on the official calendar, although some names of foreign provenance are used, like those starred above (Max and Nazarij's parents are Ukrainian, and Mick is Dutch). Your name day has no correspondence with the day you were born--that is to say, if you're born on January 20th, your name need not be Dalibor, but if your name is Dalibor, then January 20th is your name day. On your name day you usually get a little treat, some chocolate or cake or something. Name days aren't as important as birthdays, but they're still remembered.
Name days sometimes correspond with saints' days in the Catholic calendar, but not always. For example, Valentin, Andrej/Ondrej, and Štefan all celebrate their name days on the saints' days (that's February 14th, November 30th, and December 26th, respectively). But Juraj's name day is April 24th, while St George's Day is celebrated the day before.
Ib. Two Names or Three?
Most Slovaks today only have two names, their given name and their surname. Only two of my students have a middle name. One was allowed to legally add her second name when her baby sister was born, and she is very proud of it. Some major figures in Slovak (/Czechslovak) history have had three names, though. These include Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Štefan Marko Daxner, Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, took his wife's maiden name as his middle name when they married). I have talked with one of my students about this, and he was able to offer the following insight: In some villages, there are many families with the same last name, and therefore they may adopt family nicknames in addition to their legal surnames. My student said that his family's nickname is Gajdoš, and that if he introduced himself in his village with his legal name, that wouldn't help anyone to place him; but that if he introduced himself with his first name plus Gajdoš, that would be more specific. In part because there are not a huge variety of first and last names here, people have used their family nicknames or other nicknames or pseudonyms (like Hviezdoslav, above, which means something like "celebrating the stars") to help set themselves and their names apart.
II. Nicknames
Almost every name has what I think of as a "secret Slovak nickname." The pattern seems to be: when in doubt, chop off the end of the name and add -o for a boy and -a for a girl (Ján→Jano, Miroslava→Mira). The -ko/-ka ending is diminutive, so calling a Jan "Janko" is like saying "little Johnny."
A few kids have anglicized nicknames, like Nyky for Veronika. I started calling Bernadeta "Bernie" based on sheer laziness (I also persist in spelling it the American way and will not be swayed otherwise; I don't think she or any of her classmates realized that Bernie is mostly a guy's name until sometime last year). Some students introduced themselves with anglicized nicknames at the beginning of the year, so one Michal was Mike (and often Mikey), and one Katarína is Katy.
III. Surnames
Males and females have different last names. A daughter has the feminine form of her father's last name until she marries and gets the feminine form of her husband's last name. The feminine ending is usually -ová. So if one of my coworkers, Pán Hudec, ever gets married, his wife will be Pani Hudecová. If the masculine form ends in - ý (like Kamenský), the feminine changes to -á (Kamenská).
My first year I had two girls in the same fifth year class whose last names are Medveďová. I assumed that two students who are the same age and in the same class must be twins, but they were not. They just had the same last name.
Not all Slovaks have surnames of Slovak origin. Remember, modern Slovakia used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and there were significant populations of German immigrants in the area as well, besides the obvious Czech, Polish, and Hungarian communities. I was surprised last year at the number of students with surnames of German origin; while I've been here there have been a Schmidt, a Šnider, and a pair of siblings who are Kirsch and Kirschová.
IV. Titles
Pán translates to "Mr." or "sir," pani to "Mrs." or "ma'am," and the less frequently-used slečna to "Miss." Here at school we often hear students calling their Slovak teachers Pani učiteľka, more or less "Mrs. teacher." The headmistress is very often addressed as Pani riaditeľka. It's similar to the German form of address so well-known from the movies, "Herr Doktor" or what have you. I would assume that a doctor would indeed be addressed as Pán doktor/Pani doktorka, especially since pastors are called Pán farár/Pani fararka.
V. Conclusion
Last year I read something about Katarina von Bora Luther, and I immediately thought of her as "Katka Luther." This is a sign that I have been in Slovakia too long.
Appendix: Nicknames
For extra credit, match the nickname to the given name from the list above.
Girls: Ady, Aďa, Baška, Betka, Dada, Danka, Dena, Dia, Domča, Duška, Eli, Hanka, Ivka, Janka, Jarka, Kaja, Katka, Kaťa, Kika, Kiki, Lucka, Ľubka, Magda, Maja, Majka, Maťa, Milka, Mima, Mirka, Miška, Monča, Nati, Nika, Paťa, Pauli, Peťa, Romča, Sabi, Saška, Sima, Sisa, Stanka, Sveťa, Terka, Viki, Zuzka, Žofka
Boys: Benjo, Braňo, Fero, Jano, Juro, Kubo, Ľubo, Maňo, Maťo, Mišo, Paľo, Peťo, Puky, Rišo, Robo, Stano, Števo, Vilo, Vlado
Preface: Pronunciation
I was getting frustrated over my inability to clearly express how certain letters and special characters ought to be pronounced, but then I found this lovely table. (I can see a few places where the pronunciations don't match up across the table, but overall I think it will help.)
Personally speaking, I cannot pronounce anything with a ch as it ought to sound, so any names with that combination automatically default to the nickname. Furthermore, it takes too much time for me to try to pronounce things correctly, so in class, nearly everyone gets the anglicized pronunciation of their name.
I. Given Names
Here are most of my students, past and present.
Girls: Adela, Adriána, Alena, Alexandra, Alžbeta, Andrea, Anežka, Barbora, Beáta, Bernadeta,* Bianka, Bibiana, Blanka, Daniela, Denisa, Diana, Dominika, Dušana, Eliška, Emília, Eva, Evelýn, Hana, Ivana/Ivona, Iveta, Jana, Jaroslava, Júlia, Karina, Karolína, Katarína, Klaudia, Kristína, Laura, Lenka, Linda, Lívia, Lucia, Ľubica, Ľudmila, Magdalena, Mária, Marianna, Martina, Michaela, Milica, Miroslava, Monika, Natália, Nikola/Nikoleta, Patrícia, Paula, Paulina, Petra/Petrana, Renata, Romana, Ružena, Sabina, Simona, Stanislava, Stela, Soňa, Svetlana, Tatiana, Terézia, Timea, Vanda, Veronika, Viera, Viktoria, Vlasta, Zdenka, Zita, Zuzana, Žofia
Boys: Adam, Andrej/Ondrej, Armand, Benjamin, Branislav, David, Denis, Dušan, Erik, Filip, František, Gregor, Jakub, Ján, Juraj, Karol, Kristián, Lukaš, Ľubomír, Marcel, Marek, Marián, Marko, Maroš, Martin, Matej, Matuš, Maxim,* Michal, Mick,* Nazarij,* Patrik, Pavel, Peter, Richard, Róbert, Roman, Stanislav, Šimon, Štefan, Tomáš, Viliam, Vladimír
Multiples aside (4A this year has three Simonas), this also shows that we have a lot more female students than male. In addition, this year there are two sets of siblings with paired names: Ján and Jana, and Kristína and Kristián.
Ia. Name Days
At some point, I know not when nor by whom, a Slovak name day calendar was created. It seems the majority of Slovaks have names that are on the official calendar, although some names of foreign provenance are used, like those starred above (Max and Nazarij's parents are Ukrainian, and Mick is Dutch). Your name day has no correspondence with the day you were born--that is to say, if you're born on January 20th, your name need not be Dalibor, but if your name is Dalibor, then January 20th is your name day. On your name day you usually get a little treat, some chocolate or cake or something. Name days aren't as important as birthdays, but they're still remembered.
Name days sometimes correspond with saints' days in the Catholic calendar, but not always. For example, Valentin, Andrej/Ondrej, and Štefan all celebrate their name days on the saints' days (that's February 14th, November 30th, and December 26th, respectively). But Juraj's name day is April 24th, while St George's Day is celebrated the day before.
Ib. Two Names or Three?
Most Slovaks today only have two names, their given name and their surname. Only two of my students have a middle name. One was allowed to legally add her second name when her baby sister was born, and she is very proud of it. Some major figures in Slovak (/Czechslovak) history have had three names, though. These include Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Štefan Marko Daxner, Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, took his wife's maiden name as his middle name when they married). I have talked with one of my students about this, and he was able to offer the following insight: In some villages, there are many families with the same last name, and therefore they may adopt family nicknames in addition to their legal surnames. My student said that his family's nickname is Gajdoš, and that if he introduced himself in his village with his legal name, that wouldn't help anyone to place him; but that if he introduced himself with his first name plus Gajdoš, that would be more specific. In part because there are not a huge variety of first and last names here, people have used their family nicknames or other nicknames or pseudonyms (like Hviezdoslav, above, which means something like "celebrating the stars") to help set themselves and their names apart.
II. Nicknames
Almost every name has what I think of as a "secret Slovak nickname." The pattern seems to be: when in doubt, chop off the end of the name and add -o for a boy and -a for a girl (Ján→Jano, Miroslava→Mira). The -ko/-ka ending is diminutive, so calling a Jan "Janko" is like saying "little Johnny."
A few kids have anglicized nicknames, like Nyky for Veronika. I started calling Bernadeta "Bernie" based on sheer laziness (I also persist in spelling it the American way and will not be swayed otherwise; I don't think she or any of her classmates realized that Bernie is mostly a guy's name until sometime last year). Some students introduced themselves with anglicized nicknames at the beginning of the year, so one Michal was Mike (and often Mikey), and one Katarína is Katy.
III. Surnames
Males and females have different last names. A daughter has the feminine form of her father's last name until she marries and gets the feminine form of her husband's last name. The feminine ending is usually -ová. So if one of my coworkers, Pán Hudec, ever gets married, his wife will be Pani Hudecová. If the masculine form ends in - ý (like Kamenský), the feminine changes to -á (Kamenská).
My first year I had two girls in the same fifth year class whose last names are Medveďová. I assumed that two students who are the same age and in the same class must be twins, but they were not. They just had the same last name.
Not all Slovaks have surnames of Slovak origin. Remember, modern Slovakia used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and there were significant populations of German immigrants in the area as well, besides the obvious Czech, Polish, and Hungarian communities. I was surprised last year at the number of students with surnames of German origin; while I've been here there have been a Schmidt, a Šnider, and a pair of siblings who are Kirsch and Kirschová.
IV. Titles
Pán translates to "Mr." or "sir," pani to "Mrs." or "ma'am," and the less frequently-used slečna to "Miss." Here at school we often hear students calling their Slovak teachers Pani učiteľka, more or less "Mrs. teacher." The headmistress is very often addressed as Pani riaditeľka. It's similar to the German form of address so well-known from the movies, "Herr Doktor" or what have you. I would assume that a doctor would indeed be addressed as Pán doktor/Pani doktorka, especially since pastors are called Pán farár/Pani fararka.
V. Conclusion
Last year I read something about Katarina von Bora Luther, and I immediately thought of her as "Katka Luther." This is a sign that I have been in Slovakia too long.
Appendix: Nicknames
For extra credit, match the nickname to the given name from the list above.
Girls: Ady, Aďa, Baška, Betka, Dada, Danka, Dena, Dia, Domča, Duška, Eli, Hanka, Ivka, Janka, Jarka, Kaja, Katka, Kaťa, Kika, Kiki, Lucka, Ľubka, Magda, Maja, Majka, Maťa, Milka, Mima, Mirka, Miška, Monča, Nati, Nika, Paťa, Pauli, Peťa, Romča, Sabi, Saška, Sima, Sisa, Stanka, Sveťa, Terka, Viki, Zuzka, Žofka
Boys: Benjo, Braňo, Fero, Jano, Juro, Kubo, Ľubo, Maňo, Maťo, Mišo, Paľo, Peťo, Puky, Rišo, Robo, Stano, Števo, Vilo, Vlado
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Practicalities Issue 2: Nemocnica
Because I just took my second trip there in 10 days, today's "Practicalities" is about going to the hospital. Please don't fret; I'm fine, though stupid and clumsy, and I will certainly live through this particular injury.
For that story, let's journey back in time to the Sunday before last. A group of us went to the salaš at Zbojská on Sunday afternoon, and, due to events conspiring against us, had to walk back to Tisovec. It was light when we started, and we were expecting about a 45-minute walk. About two and a half hours later I stumbled into a ditch in the dark and turned my left ankle rather badly. (I could feel it start swelling right away. By the time we got home it was huge. I'd include a picture, but my feet looked pretty manky.) Luckily, I was with a wilderness guide, an Eagle Scout, someone with athletic training instruction, and a kid who dresses really well,* so they got me home in once piece and wrapped my ankle up.
On Monday morning it was less swollen, but it hurt pretty badly; and while we knew it wasn't broken, I still felt it best to see a doctor. The school called the hospital, arranged the car, and rounded up a student to translate for me. We only went to the small hospital in Hnúšťa, so the drive wasn't long. I'd like to note that when I describe the hospital and my experiences there, I'm not trying to be condescending and all "This would never happen in the U.S." I'm just telling you what happened.
The horror-movie-waiting-to-happen theme from our long walk in the dark continued at the hospital. At best, the outside of the hospital looks uninviting and in need of work; at worst, it looks like there are homicidal maniacs lurking inside. There are uneven steps leading up to the front door, and the overall architecture is Communist-Gothic. Inside, there are yet more steps. Once you've made it into the hospital, there is a sign directing you where to go: radiology, the emergency surgery, and some other places that I can't remember. The emergency surgery is, you guessed it, up a short flight of stairs. There is an elevator inside the building, but I don't know how much it's for patients and how much it's just for moving things. The interior is decorated in classic green and white.
We went to radiology first to x-ray my ankle. Natália, my translator, gave someone there my insurance card (yes, I have Slovak insurance, so I didn't have to pay to visit the hospital) and some other information, and then we waited. After maybe seven minutes they called me in. I hesitate to estimate as to the x-ray machine's age, but it wasn't new. Once the x-rays were taken, we went upstairs to wait outside the emergency surgery. This is what you do: You go up to the door and knock, and then you wait. Then the radiology tech will come up and hand you your x-ray, and you'll peer at it and determine that all of the bones in your foot are indeed sound and unbroken, in your expert medical opinion. Some people will go in and out of the door without asking you what you need or if you've been helped. More people will show up and sit on the benches in the hall, some of them definitely looking worse off than you. After some period of time someone will open the door and take whatever information you have for them, and then go back in. And then you wait some more, and finally they call you in.
We probably waited twenty minutes or half an hour before they called me (and I was the first one). I went into the examining room, which was part examining room and part office. A doctor, two nurses, and an orderly were in there. I sat on the table and took off my shoe and sock and the wrapping, and displayed my swollen, discolored foot to the room. They looked at my foot for about two seconds before proclaiming that I had torn a ligament, and promptly got me a brace out of a cabinet. They told me to elevate it, rest, wear the brace, use some topical analgesic cream, and come back in 10 days. I for one doubt that I actually tore the ligament, just for the record.
When I went back this afternoon we only waited outside the closed door for about five minutes before the nurses came back from lunch and checked me out. Again, once I was actually inside it was a very short visit. The nurse asked me a few questions, looked at my foot (which is more or less back to the proper colors now), and told me to keep elevating it and wearing the brace. I'm supposed to go back again in two weeks, but we'll see if that's necessary.
Perhaps part of this is the fact that I don't understand the language, but I found it very odd going to the hospital. It seems to be almost deliberately obtuse, like they don't really want you to find out where you should go and who can help you. Even Natália said today that she wouldn't want to have to go to the hospital in a real emergency, and that "even if you were dying, they would make you wait." Of course, not all hospitals in Slovakia can be like this. And I have no real reason to complain, since, as I said earlier, I wasn't paying for any of it, and my complaint was nothing life-threatening. But I also feel that I don't really want to risk having a big-time medical problem while I'm here. In that way it's just like rush hour in the Bronx.
*It should go without saying that I have absolutely no skills that would help in this kind of situation, except for my long hours getting iced and taped and whatnot in the training room.
For that story, let's journey back in time to the Sunday before last. A group of us went to the salaš at Zbojská on Sunday afternoon, and, due to events conspiring against us, had to walk back to Tisovec. It was light when we started, and we were expecting about a 45-minute walk. About two and a half hours later I stumbled into a ditch in the dark and turned my left ankle rather badly. (I could feel it start swelling right away. By the time we got home it was huge. I'd include a picture, but my feet looked pretty manky.) Luckily, I was with a wilderness guide, an Eagle Scout, someone with athletic training instruction, and a kid who dresses really well,* so they got me home in once piece and wrapped my ankle up.
On Monday morning it was less swollen, but it hurt pretty badly; and while we knew it wasn't broken, I still felt it best to see a doctor. The school called the hospital, arranged the car, and rounded up a student to translate for me. We only went to the small hospital in Hnúšťa, so the drive wasn't long. I'd like to note that when I describe the hospital and my experiences there, I'm not trying to be condescending and all "This would never happen in the U.S." I'm just telling you what happened.
The horror-movie-waiting-to-happen theme from our long walk in the dark continued at the hospital. At best, the outside of the hospital looks uninviting and in need of work; at worst, it looks like there are homicidal maniacs lurking inside. There are uneven steps leading up to the front door, and the overall architecture is Communist-Gothic. Inside, there are yet more steps. Once you've made it into the hospital, there is a sign directing you where to go: radiology, the emergency surgery, and some other places that I can't remember. The emergency surgery is, you guessed it, up a short flight of stairs. There is an elevator inside the building, but I don't know how much it's for patients and how much it's just for moving things. The interior is decorated in classic green and white.
We went to radiology first to x-ray my ankle. Natália, my translator, gave someone there my insurance card (yes, I have Slovak insurance, so I didn't have to pay to visit the hospital) and some other information, and then we waited. After maybe seven minutes they called me in. I hesitate to estimate as to the x-ray machine's age, but it wasn't new. Once the x-rays were taken, we went upstairs to wait outside the emergency surgery. This is what you do: You go up to the door and knock, and then you wait. Then the radiology tech will come up and hand you your x-ray, and you'll peer at it and determine that all of the bones in your foot are indeed sound and unbroken, in your expert medical opinion. Some people will go in and out of the door without asking you what you need or if you've been helped. More people will show up and sit on the benches in the hall, some of them definitely looking worse off than you. After some period of time someone will open the door and take whatever information you have for them, and then go back in. And then you wait some more, and finally they call you in.
We probably waited twenty minutes or half an hour before they called me (and I was the first one). I went into the examining room, which was part examining room and part office. A doctor, two nurses, and an orderly were in there. I sat on the table and took off my shoe and sock and the wrapping, and displayed my swollen, discolored foot to the room. They looked at my foot for about two seconds before proclaiming that I had torn a ligament, and promptly got me a brace out of a cabinet. They told me to elevate it, rest, wear the brace, use some topical analgesic cream, and come back in 10 days. I for one doubt that I actually tore the ligament, just for the record.
When I went back this afternoon we only waited outside the closed door for about five minutes before the nurses came back from lunch and checked me out. Again, once I was actually inside it was a very short visit. The nurse asked me a few questions, looked at my foot (which is more or less back to the proper colors now), and told me to keep elevating it and wearing the brace. I'm supposed to go back again in two weeks, but we'll see if that's necessary.
Perhaps part of this is the fact that I don't understand the language, but I found it very odd going to the hospital. It seems to be almost deliberately obtuse, like they don't really want you to find out where you should go and who can help you. Even Natália said today that she wouldn't want to have to go to the hospital in a real emergency, and that "even if you were dying, they would make you wait." Of course, not all hospitals in Slovakia can be like this. And I have no real reason to complain, since, as I said earlier, I wasn't paying for any of it, and my complaint was nothing life-threatening. But I also feel that I don't really want to risk having a big-time medical problem while I'm here. In that way it's just like rush hour in the Bronx.
*It should go without saying that I have absolutely no skills that would help in this kind of situation, except for my long hours getting iced and taped and whatnot in the training room.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Practicalities, Issue 1
Welcome to “Practicalities,” a limited series in the Mjoksiglandi universe. (I’ve been reading a lot about comic books recently, can’t you tell?) I suppose if I’m going to discuss practical, everyday issues in a foreign country, I should start with something like public transportation or grocery shopping. But today I will be talking about something even more important: going to the movies.
Here in Tisovec there’s a cultural center where we have a lot of school events. On Tuesdays at 7 PM there’s often a movie. These aren’t brand-new movies, but they’re usually only a few months old. It’s more like Temeku than the theater at the mall. The Tisovec kino shows mostly American movies, with a Slovak, Czech, or French movie every month or so. American movies here are either dubbed or subtitled, of course. If the movie is specifically aimed at kids or families (“Madagascar 2,” for example), it’s usually dubbed; but if it’s for older audiences, it’s usually subtitled. Sometimes the dubbing/subtitling is in Czech, sometimes Slovak. The drawbacks of the kino are that it’s often cold, it occasionally smells noxious, there are no concessions, the bathrooms are usually locked, and there have to be at least ten people for them to show the movie. When I wanted to see “Death Race,” only two other people were there, so I didn’t get to see it. Enough people came to see "Max Payne," which was ridiculous, but couldn't show up to see "Death Race," which had Jason Statham in it. It makes no sense. But I digress. The good things are that there is a movie theater, and that it only costs about €1.70 (less than $2.40) for a show. I’ve seen “Wanted,” “Sex and the City,” “Max Payne,” “High School Musical 3,” and “Twilight” here. “HSM3,” for those curious, had dubbed dialogue and subtitled songs. It was hilarious.
Last week was a very important event in my life, because “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” came out. I’d been looking forward to this movie for probably close to a year, since I’d heard it was coming out. It was scheduled to be released in the US on May 1, and this was significant cause for concern for me. I wasn’t sure when it would come out in Slovakia, and I didn’t think it would still be on in July, when I got home; but I needed to see it. Imagine my surprise when IMDb told me that the movie was coming out in Slovakia on April 30. Furthermore, last Friday was some kind of national holiday, something like Labor Day, so we had no school, and even further more, “Wolverine” was playing at the theater at the mall in Banská Bystrica. So I and an intrepid coworker headed off to see it (well, M wanted to look for shoes, too).
The first thing we discovered was that the movie theater didn’t open until 2:30 on weekday afternoons. When we returned to buy our tickets, we were able to choose our seats, like you would in a real theater. That way we (by which I mean I) didn’t have to wait around and fight with people to get the seats we wanted. As at any normal cinema, there were concessions, and I bought a medium Coke, which was the size of a “small” Coke at Regal. You could also get nachos and candy and popcorn. The door to the theater was locked until maybe ten minutes before the show started. Inside there were nice stadium seats, and some music playing when we first went in. Then the lights went down and we saw three trailers, all with subtitles: “Terminator Salvation,” “17 Again,” and “Star Trek.” After that the movie started. My major problem with the theater was that there’s an extra scene at the end of the credits, and when it started, they turned the film off, so I didn’t get to see it. That was unfortunate. Other than that, it was a good experience.
So that’s my report on movie theaters in Slovakia. The next issue of “Practicalities” will be something actually practical, like why it takes ten hours to get from here to Krakow when it should only take about four.
Footnote: "Star Trek" was bomb and "17 Again" was good, too.
Here in Tisovec there’s a cultural center where we have a lot of school events. On Tuesdays at 7 PM there’s often a movie. These aren’t brand-new movies, but they’re usually only a few months old. It’s more like Temeku than the theater at the mall. The Tisovec kino shows mostly American movies, with a Slovak, Czech, or French movie every month or so. American movies here are either dubbed or subtitled, of course. If the movie is specifically aimed at kids or families (“Madagascar 2,” for example), it’s usually dubbed; but if it’s for older audiences, it’s usually subtitled. Sometimes the dubbing/subtitling is in Czech, sometimes Slovak. The drawbacks of the kino are that it’s often cold, it occasionally smells noxious, there are no concessions, the bathrooms are usually locked, and there have to be at least ten people for them to show the movie. When I wanted to see “Death Race,” only two other people were there, so I didn’t get to see it. Enough people came to see "Max Payne," which was ridiculous, but couldn't show up to see "Death Race," which had Jason Statham in it. It makes no sense. But I digress. The good things are that there is a movie theater, and that it only costs about €1.70 (less than $2.40) for a show. I’ve seen “Wanted,” “Sex and the City,” “Max Payne,” “High School Musical 3,” and “Twilight” here. “HSM3,” for those curious, had dubbed dialogue and subtitled songs. It was hilarious.
Last week was a very important event in my life, because “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” came out. I’d been looking forward to this movie for probably close to a year, since I’d heard it was coming out. It was scheduled to be released in the US on May 1, and this was significant cause for concern for me. I wasn’t sure when it would come out in Slovakia, and I didn’t think it would still be on in July, when I got home; but I needed to see it. Imagine my surprise when IMDb told me that the movie was coming out in Slovakia on April 30. Furthermore, last Friday was some kind of national holiday, something like Labor Day, so we had no school, and even further more, “Wolverine” was playing at the theater at the mall in Banská Bystrica. So I and an intrepid coworker headed off to see it (well, M wanted to look for shoes, too).
The first thing we discovered was that the movie theater didn’t open until 2:30 on weekday afternoons. When we returned to buy our tickets, we were able to choose our seats, like you would in a real theater. That way we (by which I mean I) didn’t have to wait around and fight with people to get the seats we wanted. As at any normal cinema, there were concessions, and I bought a medium Coke, which was the size of a “small” Coke at Regal. You could also get nachos and candy and popcorn. The door to the theater was locked until maybe ten minutes before the show started. Inside there were nice stadium seats, and some music playing when we first went in. Then the lights went down and we saw three trailers, all with subtitles: “Terminator Salvation,” “17 Again,” and “Star Trek.” After that the movie started. My major problem with the theater was that there’s an extra scene at the end of the credits, and when it started, they turned the film off, so I didn’t get to see it. That was unfortunate. Other than that, it was a good experience.
So that’s my report on movie theaters in Slovakia. The next issue of “Practicalities” will be something actually practical, like why it takes ten hours to get from here to Krakow when it should only take about four.
Footnote: "Star Trek" was bomb and "17 Again" was good, too.
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