Scribbling #32: We. Love. Hockey.

There is at least one thing that really connects Slovaks, Canadians and Americans, and it's not the distance apart from one another.  All of those countries, especially Canada, really, really, like hockey.  The World Championships are being held here in Slovakia, where the little big country is hosting a lot of great teams.  Currently, games are split between Kosice in the east and the country's capital, Bratislava, in the west.

My first (and only, so far) ice hockey game was watching the Calgary Flames vs. The Edmonton Oilers.  I was surprised how fast it was, and how good the guys were on the ice.  It's even more aggressive than rugby, as people are practically thrown over barriers and across the ice to get at this little puck thing.  There was also a great synergy to the crowd, and really felt that the best man should win, with supporters poking fun at each other, rather than swearing and fighting with each other like that other great English export, football hooliganism.

Quite recently, Slovaks and sport are doing pretty well for themselves on an international level.  In football (or 'soccer' for those exotic creatures known as 'Amer-eee-caaans'), Slovakia quite soundly defeated Italy, the 2006 World Cup champions.  It was looking a little sketchy towards the end, but in all, Slovakia caught them with their collective pants down.  During the Winter Olympics, they gave the Canadian team a run for their money, making a population six times greater than theirs all sit on the edge of their sofas, clenching their buttocks.  Of course, after that amount of body-slams, the Canadian team eventually won, and went on to win gold.  Hey, if the team that wins against yours ends up being the overall winner, then it doesn't sting as much, right?

Slovakia is still a young country, since it split from the Czechs back in 1993.  It has a thousand-odd years of history, sure, but as a country now it is still pretty young.  Unfortunately for them, it meant that the country's team had to play against a bunch of real no-hopers before they were allowed to play with the big boys.  Winning against Sweden in 2002 put paid to that, and as a team, they do have hope.  And after playing with the Canadians earlier this year, they may be a little more aggressive...

Scribbling #31: British? Really? I'm So Embarrassed...

There's been a couple of comments made to me (from Slovaks) recently about how they view most British people as arrogant, cold and rather self-serving.  This seems to be especially true when said Brits find themselves in a foreign country, so I'm thinking there may be some sort of post-colonial pseudo-Empire complex going on there.  Let's face it, us Brits had a pretty big plot of what we could call "land" for a number of years, and there have been many stories about British people travelling the world and how they've been told by the country's native inhabitants in what ways the UK has ruined them, since they are official representatives of ol' Blighty, and may therefore offer an apology on behalf of the Queen, the British Government and the producers of Coronation Street.

But there are some horrible instances which happen right in front of you where you wish that you weren't British at all.  Toe-curling situations do happen.  We are, unfortunately, the Americans of Europe.  We're loud, we don't care, we get drunk, we believe that we're in some sort of Eastern European hellhole where everyone is an idiot, we wear clothing that should need a licence, and we're continually amazed that people don't speak English, even when we yell at them very loudly, clearly and distinctly.  

Case in point.  There was an instance where myself and Mrs. C had decided to go to the cinema together, for a nice date night.  We sat down, then three British girls flounced in, walked past us and sat down on the other end of the row.  Basically what they said was:

1st Idiot British Lady: 'Awwwraght.  This is totally basically the worst cinema I've ever been in!'

2nd IBL: 'Where are the drink holders, where are the drink hold... they got no drink holders!'

3rd IBL: 'They got drink holders on the end of the seat things.'

1st IBL: 'Arms.'

3rd IBL: 'Yeah, arms.'

*pause*

3rd IBL: 'Stupid country.'

So, after insulting an entire country based on drink holders and a cinema (which was fine), they sat down, the film started shortly after, and then the film had a problem and stopped.

1st, 2nd, 3rd IBL: *sighed all at once very loudly*

Apologetic-Looking Slovak Technician: *in Slovak he says that he's sorry about the delay, and that the film will resume shortly*

1st IBL: 'ENGLISH!!'

My toes gripped the bottom of my shoes so hard I thought they were going to break through and grip the floor like an eagle grasping an enormous vole.

2nd IBL: 'Why doesn't he speak English!?'

I'm not with them.  Saving grace, I'm not with them.  Mrs. C is suppressing laughter.  It's coming out in small, disjointed snorts.  She pulls herself into the crook of my arm so that even those are muffled.

Friendly Person Sitting Next to IBLs: *translates what ALST said*

3rd IBL: 'Thankyoooou.'

The film went on, it ended, the girls left, and I still felt embarrassed by being near to them, in like a five-mile radius kind of way. 

The island culture is so ingrained into us nowadays, that we show off by saying what countries we've been to, and how much travelling we do.  Seriously, guys, when you live in a Central European country you can pretty much go anywhere, and the history is way more interesting in some places.  From our house, we can reach Vienna in two hours by car, Budapest in two and a half, and Prague in four.  We can reach four capital cities pretty easily, and Slovakia also has mountains only a few hours away as well.  It's a whole lot cheaper than Switzerland, that's for sure, and you get the same sort of mountains, like ones that are tall and have snow on them.

But Slovaks, don't get too smug.  There may be comparisons drawn between Slavic cultures later down the the line, and it's not in your favour...

Scribbling #30: That's My Business

Those who can't do, teach.  Well, that's how the saying goes anyway.  Those who get made redundant from a factory job in a foreign country also have to teach, so to me that phrase is a very sweeping statement.  Happily, all is not lost for prospective EU types that wish to work within Slovakia, as they can get a trade licence quite easily, if they fulfil the criteria of not being a mass murderer and don't mind going through the hassle of obtaining one in the first place.  For Canadians and other exotics, the process is similar to varying degrees.

What I had to do first was to get a notarised statement of saying that I, JC, has lived in an English-speaking country for more than ten years so that I, JC, could teach there in the first place.  Never mind the actual teaching qualification in the first place, of course, but so long as you've lived there for that period of time, that's okay.  The next part of it is showing that you do not have a criminal record.  According to the British Embassy, they don't send criminal records overseas to people like me, so instead you have to write out another statement stating that, no sir, I have not got a criminal record.  This is given to the guy at the Embassy, he changes the wording a bit, and then you have to read it out loud like an oath.  This is one of the weirder experiences that I had to deal with in Slovakia, as having to state that you do not have a British criminal record to a Slovak who is behind an inch or so of bulletproof glass was rather ironic.  Seventy-ish euros were paid, and I got a bit of paper saying that I didn't have a record.  It was nice paper though, presented in an equally nice folder.

The other weird experience that we had to get used to was that the people at Sala's council were nice.  In all of Mrs. C's experience, the pen-pushers were always brisk, prejudiced and in some cases downright mean.  But this bunch were nice.  They chatted amiably to Mrs. C, surprised that there was a Brit and a Canadian standing in front of them speaking broken and fluent Slovak respectively.  After wondering whether or not to send me to Bratislava in order to do some more paperwork, one of them stated that, "no, he's our Brit!".  After giving the payment in stamps, I had my licence within a week, saying that I could teach, with the tax card following along soon after.

And, I like teaching.  Thank goodness.  Instead of standing around waiting for something to happen, I'm standing, teaching young and old minds examples of the English language.  For me, it was something I wanted to do when I was here, but circumstances... At any rate, I gain more experience everyday, and it's something I'm getting good at, since you're re-learning your own language in different ways.  Conditionals? Fine.  Passive voice? No problem.  Students switching from Slovak teachers to a native speaker?  Ummm.... we're working on that. :-)