Bratislava bound
A few months ago, I happened upon the Ryaniar website and decided to check out some routes for super cheap tickets. Minutes later, I’d purchased two return flights for Antoine and I to Bratislava, Slovakia, for the princely sum of £3.32 each (plus, of course, £26.93 each in taxes and levies). I called Adriana Cronin-Lukas to tell her about the fares, as her mother still lives in Slovakia (where Adriana, despite being a Londoner through and through, was born and raised). And that’s how it turned out that, tomorrow, the three of us will be sharing a flight to Bratislava.
Adriana is going to show us around a bit, and her mother has promised us a slap-up meal. But for the most part, Antoine will be taking me to all of the places he knew, and introducing me to some of the friends he made (including Liberty Dad, aka Tom Grey), when he worked in Bratislava in the early 1990s. That’s where he first met Adriana, when he was working in the Prime Minister’s office as an adviser to the Finance Minister and she was also employed there. (While they have been close friends for many years, I met both Antoine and Adriana on the same night in November 2003, at this party.)
This will be my first trip to a former Communist country, and I am both dreading and looking forward to it. I already find it difficult enough to live in a city with so many people who think Communism is harmless and, indeed, downright stylish. Adriana’s tales of what growing up under such a nightmare was really like has not made that easier. Being faced with physical proof of the destruction and horror that people were forced to endure will be, I suspect, somewhat harder.
Although I’m mostly Polish, I do have some Slovak blood in me, too. So this will be my first visit to a foreign country of my ancestry. But quite apart from that, and apart from seeing a place that has meant so much to Antoine, I am really excited about not having to set an alarm clock or keep (m)any appointments for a few days. This is what adulthood does to us, I suppose. All I can say is - and I mean this in every sense possible - lucky us.
Filed under: Life