What he does

"What a writer wants to do is not what he does."

— Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), author.

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Pillows

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow."

— Lin Yutang (1895-1976), writer and inventor.

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Wild blue yonder

I've always rather liked the phrase "wild blue yonder." Anyway, today is a travel day. It's early Saturday morning in Bratislava. I am waiting to be whisked to the airport in Vienna, Austria. Total travel time, door to door, should be about 23 hours.

“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”

— George Edward Moore (1873-1958), philosopher.

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Spare time

"I got to thinking about the point in every freelancer's life where he has to decide whether he wants to a), have a social life, and do art in his spare time; or b.), do art, and have a social life in his spare time. It has always seemed to me that if you have any hope of making a living as an artist — writer, musician, whatever — you absolutely must learn to tell people to leave you alone, and to mean it, and to eject them from your life if they don't respect that. This is necessary not because your job is more important than anyone else's — it isn't — but because a great many people will think of you as not having a job. 'Oh, how wonderful — you can work whenever you want to!' Well, yes, to a point, but generally 'whenever you want to' had better be most of the time, or else you won't have a roof over your head."

— Poppy Z. Brite (b. 1967), author.

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Communication

"Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother."

— Richard Peck (b. 1934), novelist.

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I just want to write

"I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to write."

— P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975), author.

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Swept away

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.'"

— Gandalf, via J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), author, teacher and traveler.

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This is a church, here is the steeple...

Bleah. Caught a mild cold. I travel to Prague tomorrow for 2-3 days, so I hope this doesn't get any worse. I used up all of my Airborne tablets earlier this week to stave off a scratchy throat when it began snowing.

So I am spending this cold Slovakian Sunday afternoon in my hotel room bed, reading the latest from Sophie Kinsella (I know she's dedicated to her craft, but she makes it look soooo easy...). I could really use some comfort food, some greasy pizza or a big bowl of pasta. God bless Slovakian cooks and entrepreneurs, but so far the pizza in Bratislava is the pits. However, I remain optimistic.

When I went for a post-breakfast walk this morning, for whatever reason I paid real attention to small, burnished bronze discs inlaid with a crown embedded into the cobblestones every 15 or 20 feet. I've seen them every day, of course, but paid them no mind. Well, this morning I noticed the discs followed a path up a shadowy and winding alley. I followed them as they curved right through a crumbling, centuries-old neighborhood. Locals glanced at me in surprise; this was off the regular tourist path.

The discs eventually led me to a massive old church, the intimdating Gothic St Martin's Cathedral, whose steeple I've seen towering over the city, but have never visited until now. Back in my hotel room, I did some Googling and discovered those bronze discs do have a purpose:

"In a city brimming with appealing architecture and numerous religious monuments, the undisputed centrepiece is the Gothic St Martin's Cathedral, built into the city fortifications, with cannons embedded in its walls. It is most famous, however, for hosting the coronations of 19 monarchs and royal consorts of the Austro-Hungarian empire during the Turkish occupation of Hungary. Maximillian II was the first ruler crowned here in 1563, with Maria Theresa, in 1741, the most notable among the others.

A metre-high replica of the crown of St. Stephen sits atop the cathedral spire, recognising the building's status. Of the crown’s 300kg bulk, eight are of solid gold used to plate it. Every September, the Coronation Bratislava festival remembers the succession of rulers by means of a parade through the city following the path of bronze discs set into the street that indicates the route taken by the regal processions.

Construction on the building itself began in the 14th century, but the church wasn't consecrated until 1452 and even then building work was still not finished. That said, churches in Slovakia can rarely be regarded as complete until a familiar sequence of destruction and reconstruction has been observed throughout the middle ages, and St Martin's is no different. It has been ravaged by fire, lightning, earthquake and highway construction, as well as by the hands of domineering architects, eager to stamp their period motifs on the structure.

Originally the site of a Romanesque chapel, the present building has appeared as a Gothic and Baroque structure, before being re-Gothicised once again in the 19th century. Its foundations are currently undergoing restoration to compensate for the vibrations generated by the traffic passing over the nearby bridge. It's good to know where your Sk40 entrance fee is being spent." [Source].

Not a bad discovery for a blustery Sunday morning, eh? The photos on St. Martin's Wiki page are kind of underwhelming, but this night shot I think more properly conveys the Cathedral's stern, dominating personality (click to embiggen).

By the way, my hotel is a few hundred meters up a short and steep hill, stage right, from the vantage point of this photo.

After poking around the perimeter of St. Martin's — and discovering a kind of sepulchre jutting out from the wall and guarded by the crumbling statue of an armed soldier tucked into one dark corner that I am going to have to investigate later — I just followed my feet around the winding path behind the Cathedral and came upon a small arts festival that was just setting up. Food, crafts, artisans, and so on.

The very first table I approached belonged to a woodworker. And on his table? Turtles! A whole herd of 'em. I bought two.

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Nerozumím Slovensky

Thursday and Friday, there was a sudden influx of American tourists in Bratislava Old Town. I was startled to hear to hear the slangy sentence construction and flat consonants of American English as I walked to work Thursday morning. It was a real pleasure to hear American-accented English after nearly two weeks abroad.

I've been forcing myself to use a few Slovakian phrases like "thank you," "please" and "good morning." However, this has prompted a startled response, three or four times now, from a cashier or barista. One male cashier at a supermarket actually scrunched up his face with such disgusted confusion when I said dakujem ("thank you"), I thought I might have also farted without realizing it. My host later explained that Slovakian (or Czech) words spoken with an American accent sounds extraordinarily odd to locals.

This is my third trip to Europe, and when you are immersed in a non-English speaking culture it's easy to allow oneself to be drawn into a kind of cocoon. And it's not like I don't spend time in my own head enough already. I don't know if it's considered rude to faze out when you're part of a conversation where your language is not automatically spoken; I try not to stare off into the middle distance and instead attempt to follow the thread of conversation by the others' voice inflection and body language.

This has all given me a fresh perspective on the immigrant experience in Los Angeles, to say the least.

Apropos of nothing, I stumbled across an Ed Hardy store in Old Town. Talk about cultural whiplash.

And I heard from the people running a Twitter account for travelers to Bratislava. Small world. CLICK HERE to follow it. I submitted three tips and they chose two of them; as of today, they are still near the top of the queue, linking back to my GPTimes adult-biz Twitter account.

Off to Prague, a city with which I have fallen in love, on Monday. "Prague is an easy city to love," my guide said. This will be my fifth country in three weeks: the U.S. of A. (natch); Vienna, Austria (just to and from the airport); Bratislava, Slovakia; Budapest, Hungary; and now Prague, Czech Republic.

Weather took a turn towards snow for a couple of days — huge, wet flakes that fell in clumps from low-hanging grey clouds and melted instantly. I remarked to my guide that I would like to visit Bratislava when it is warm. He replied, with what I've come to recognize as customary Slovakian dourness, "This has not yet happened."

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Sheep lice

"We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little."

— Anne Lamott (b. 1954), author and activist.

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