“These are your cousins. You will probably be spending the night
with them.” These words came from our Slovakian translator as we
stood outside a small yellow house in the village of Bytca - home of
Brian’s grandfather. I should start from the beginning…
When Brian and I looked at where to go for our next European
adventure, we knew we wanted to go to Eastern Europe. The dollar is
so crushingly low against the Euro we needed to go somewhere we
could afford on a tight budget. We had talked for a while about
trying to look up his Slovakian roots, and decided this was the
time.
We built the trip around a drive through Slovakia, and coerced
Delta into actually letting us redeem our frequent flyer miles. We
were at their mercy as to where to fly in and out of, though I
strongly insisted on Budapest. Thus we planned a 9 day trip
beginning in Hungary, and concluding in Vienna Austria. With the
reality of our poor currency, we looked for even more ways to
stretch our budget. We typically stay in small 1 star hotels or
pensiones (private homes with rooms rented out) but even these were
not at the kind of price we like. As we were planning the trip, we
kept seeing headlines like “Slovakian Koruna reaches record high
against US dollar”. So we turned to an alternative means… after
reading a little online, we decided to try Priceline for Budapest.
We bid the amount we’d pay for a small private room with a bath down
the hall a 20 minute walk from the city center, and won a room at
the Marriot on the Danube! This was encouraging. Plus it was prepaid
in US dollars, so we were protected from further declines.
We checked Expedia for Krakow Poland, and found (drumroll
please….) an actual palace! Outside the city, but we planned to have
a car anyway, and it was a real, honest-to-goodness palace. We
booked a basic room in their “granary” and hoped for an upgrade.
Vienna was the most challenging… anything we could afford was listed
in our guidebook as being in a “seedy area” over a sex shop, for
example. They are on the euro, and as a major capital, prices are
high. It occurred to us at one point that Brian had an awful lot of
Hilton points from the last couple years of stays at Hamptons when
he travels for work. We called Hilton, and couldn’t believe our luck
when we learned he had enough points to book 3 free nights at the
Hilton Vienna Danube - a value of 280 euros a night (though we could
never dream of actually paying that much). So we were settled except
for the overnight in Slovakia, but we decided for once to play it by
ear and decide when we got there.
With several months before our April 28 departure, we began to
try to track down someone in Brian’s grandfather’s family. Born in a
country village in Slovakia as Edmund Zental, out of wedlock, he was
raised by his grandmother Maria Zental when his mother went to
America as a mail order bride to a Hungarian man in Michigan. He
grew up in poverty, frequently given food by his best friend Ivan
Haranta, son in a wealthy family. As a teenager he left his
grandmother and Slovakia behind and sailed alone to America, where
he changed his name to Edmund Horvath, after his stepfather. He
struggled in an America school where they placed him with small
children because he didn’t speak English. He succeeded, however, in
making a place for himself in the American dream, with a long career
at the GM plant in Flint which allowed him to provide a modest, but
sufficient income for his wife and four children - one of them
Emily, Brian’s mother.
In the summer of 1972, shortly before Brian
was born, Edmund traveled back to Slovakia with his wife Mentie. It
was a long arduous ordeal to reach Bytca, but once there he visited
his cousins and his long-time friend Ivan. The family was struggling
under the communist regime, and by their standards, his factory job
in America made him comparatively wealthy. He and his wife stayed
with family for 2 weeks before returning home on a Cunard ship…
becoming a grandfather to Brian before he even reached American
shores. Edmund died when Brian was only ten, so when we began to
look for his family, we turned to his grandmother, now 86. She has
kept all the letters from over the years Edmund received from his
friend Ivan, and we took the address from the last one and sent a
letter to it, explaining our story. We had it translated after
running an ad in the Slovak Spectator
, asking for a volunteer for this purpose.
Two months went by, when a letter written in Slovak arrived. We
were on pins and needles until the translation was complete. It was
from Elena, daughter of Ivan Haranta, Edmund’s best friend. “I am an
old woman at 73,” it said. She went on to warmly welcome us to
Slovakia, and tell us how pleased she would be to meet us. Our
excitement for the trip immediately doubled. Continuing to use a
translator, we replied and told her the date we would visit, and
received a letter in response again advising us to bring a
translator. Finding a translator to accompany us to a small town in
the middle of Slovakia was a bit of a challenge, but we finally
accomplished it after I wrote emails to professors at nearby
University of Zilinia, and a professor offered his daughter’s
services. We arranged with her to meet in Bytca for our visit with
Elena. Brian’s grandmother gave us a letter and box of chocolate to
take to Elena. In the letter she named several relatives.
Finally
the day came to set out on our trip. We flew out of Cincinnati as
usual and had a decent flight to Paris. With a 6 hour layover, we
decided to go into Paris on the RER train, and enjoyed wandering
around the Left Bank of the Seine. We made it back in plenty of time
for our flight to Budapest, and landed a little before 6 pm local
time. A taxi took us into the city. We noticed everywhere the
overabundance of advertisements. Even to Welcome to Hungary sign was
sponsored by T-mobile. Capitalism has really taken hold in a big,
big, way there. At our Marriot
, a big
ugly Soviet looking building right on the Danube, we were happy to
be upgraded. (Brian’s seven weeks in the Marriot apartments in
Chicago last fall earned him “gold” status). We got a beautiful room
overlooking the Danube on the top, executive, floor with access to
free internet and a lounge full of goodies like free soft drinks,
waters and cappuccinos! Also free breakfast. That really helped with
the budget, as we drink a lot of water. We stocked our daybag with
their Evian every day.
Though worn out by the long
travel night and day, we were determined to stay up until local
bedtime so as to get adjusted, and went out to Central Kavhaus, a
café from the 1800s. We walked Vaci Utca to get there - their
pedestrian-only boulevard. The next day, Friday, we went to the
thermal baths early. Széchenyi baths are located in the city park
just a few metro stops from our hotel. The system of pay and
receipts and various people and entrance points was a bit confusing
but we managed to get to our changing cabin and down to the soothing
mineral baths. We went from one to the next, enjoying the warm
mineral waters, and then discovered the outdoor pools. We each had a
vigorous massage from strapping young Hungarian men… Brian’s first
massage ever. It would be easy to spend the day at the baths, but we
stayed just a couple hours and set out for the rest of the day.
We visited the great Market Hall for
lunch, where Brian discovered his favorite new junk food - langos… a
deep fried concoction of potato and bread dough, topped with a
generous slathering of cheese and sour cream, all for about a buck.
After attempting to cross the famous beauty Chain Bridge to get to
the Buda side of Budapest - which was closed for a beer company to
film a commercial or something (remember what I said about
capitalism?) we took a long roundabout way by foot, tram and
funicular up to Castle Hill where we enjoyed stunning view of the
Pest side - including the fantastic parliament building.
We had a nice dinner in a restaurant all to ourselves early that
evening before heading out on a pub crawl. Recommended by Rick
Steves, it turned out to be a 6 hour progressively more intoxicating
evening concluding with our guide deserting the remaining 7 of us at
2 am at our 5th pub. I still don’t know how, with no map, in the
middle of the night we made it back to our hotel but we did.
The night was fun, but it got us off to a rough and late start
the next day, and we missed much of what we wanted to see and do in
Budapest. So we decided just to return to the baths. When we left
the baths, we encountered a huge festival/flea market/carnival which
we wandered around for quite some time.
We
had an early morning the next day - we had to catch the 6:20 AM
train to Bratislava. Unfortunately the lounge didn’t open that early
so we had to leave with no coffee. We had the train practically to
ourselves, in a 6 person compartment with no one else. Brian went to
check out the dining car and returned to tell me he’d seen a rather
large man sitting at a table in boxer shorts, shaving his underarms.
He turned out to be our waiter - a very happy guy who liked to play
his music. Good thinkg we had a lot of Forints left over because
they certainly price gouge on trains for food. Our waiter
recommended one of the meat platters of course, and hung his head in
disappointment when we explained “vegetarian”. I had a nice big
plate of camembert cheese and bread - my first of many bread and
cheese meals to come over the next few days.
It was a short train ride,
just a couple of hours. We took a taxi to the Avis office and picked
up our rental. We had selected an economy car with no AC, because
the average temperature was supposed to be in the 60s. Of course the
weather turned out to be hot and sunny. We couldn’t have the cute
little Nissan Micra, because Avis doesn’t allow their Nissan to go
into Poland, so we got the Opel Corsa, a bumpy, rough-riding little
pokey car. We rolled down the windows, allowing the enormous
quantities of fumes and emissions to come in, and headed out for
Bytca. We had read that Slovakia has some of the highest death by
auto rates in the EU and it was soon apparent why. Drivers pass with
absolutely no regard for loss of life or limb, and it got even worse
off the auto way.
We enjoyed the scenery though, and made
it to Bytca by about noon. We had an hour before we were to meet our
translator Sandra. So went into the cemetery, with a photo of
Brian’s grandfather standing at his grandmother’s grave. Before long
half a dozen Slovaks were clustered around, trying to help us,
without a word of English. Sandra showed up and was able to tell us
that one of the men knew where the grave was - it was at a nearby
cemetery, and we all went over there. An older gentleman took us
straight to the grave. Edmund had sent money over for the grave, so
she had a very nice tombstone compared to other women of her time.
We took photos to bring home to Brian’s grandmother, and left with
Sandra to go meet Elena.
Her building was a sad,
ugly block apartment building near the square in Bytca. We went in
and took the elevator with no door to Elena’s floor. A smiling,
happy older woman nicely dressed opened the door and greeted us
enthusiastically, as the translator tried to keep up. She ushered us
into her apartment - spotlessly clean, and about the size of my
kitchen. She sat us down and immediately began bringing out food and
drink. It kept coming the whole time we were there. She loves to
entertain, and when her husband was alive, he was an important
person at a local beer company, and she used to entertain a lot. She
didn’t sit much - going back and forth from her hotplate and tiny
refrigerator to the coffee table which doubled as a dining table,
but in between we got some snatches of conversation. We learned that
Edmund’s mother was a maid in Elena’s mother’s house. Elena was very
kind and so welcoming. It was a little odd speaking through a
translator, but not as strange as I’d feared. Her apartment was so
tiny - the toilet was in a closet and there was no kitchen or
bedroom. She was planning to move to Czech with her nephew, she
explained, this apartment was only temporary. She presented us with
a beautiful photo book about Slovakia, inscribed with her name and
the date. She next brought out a lovely handmade embroidered
tablecloth meant for Brian’s grandmother. We looked at the photos we
had brought of Elena’s father with Edmund in 1972. And she told us
the story of Edmund’s friendship with her father.
When Brian gave her the letter his
grandmother had written, she came to the names at the bottom of
relatives, and exclaimed that these people were still alive and
living a mile away. Next thing we knew we were waiting outside their
house as Elena went in to tell them their cousin from America was
there! Sonja and Bozena are sisters living next door to one another
- daughters of Edmund’s first cousin. Edmund and Mentie had stayed
with their parents during their visit in 1972. Soon Elena returned,
and through the translator told us that these were Brian’s cousins
and they wished us to stay the night! Sonja and Bozena appeared,
beaming with pleasure and welcoming us profusely. Bozena was
practically dancing with joy as she took us both by the arms and led
us into her home. She ushered us, along with Elena and Sandra into
the living room, poured a celebratory drink, sat us down, and went
to the kitchen for food. When she returned, the door somehow locked
and then wouldn’t open. We were stuck in the living room! Not to be
deterred, she brought juice and water in through the living room
window. After several minutes of Brian working on the door from the
inside, and Bozena’s husband on the other side, and jokes about
making us spend the night, they got the door open, and we all got to
talk. They immediately brought out their photos, and one of the
first ones we saw was Brian as a baby. “This proves you are family!”
they said. They also recognized the handwriting of Brian’s grandma’s
letter. Even without the translator, it was obvious how thrilled and
surprised they were at our arrival. Unfortunately our translator
wasn’t going to be able to stay - her boyfriend was in the car, and
he was “very busy”. She was not willing to go much beyond the time
we had planned for, and so, too soon, she left us with no way to
talk to the family.
We had her explain to them before she left that even as happy as
we were to meet them and visit with them, we did not feel that we
could stay all night with no way to talk. We stayed a while though,
with a constant flow of food coming at us, and sat in their garden
smiling at one another, laughing now and then. Bozena got up at one
point and hugged Brian, patted his head and rubbed his cheeks,
saying “Slovensko, Slovensko!”. They were, like Elena, so very
hospitable and genuinely welcoming. When we indicated that we needed
to leave before dark (by pointing at the sun, motioning sunset and
pointing at Brian’s watch, they grew sad, and wrote “2006?” on a
sheet of paper. We promised to write, and went to our car, followed
by Sonja and Bozena and assorted other cousins, who all kissed me
and shook Brian’s hand goodbye, then all waved as we drove away. I
just can’t imagine what they said after we left! What an amazing and
unusual experience. I was so happy for Brian to have met his family.
We drove about an hour as darkness
approached, to a spa town called Rajecke Teplice. I had read about a
spa called Aphrodite
, and
we stayed there. It was much more expensive than we would have
liked, but we didn’t want to be driving around on those roads after
dark looking for a room. We enjoyed the mineral baths after such a
long day, and had dinner at their restaurant. Mine was, no kidding,
translated as “moldy cheese in puff pastry”. I was starving after a
day of nothing but snack foods.
We left the next morning for our drive to Poland and decided to
take a scenic route rather than the direct auto way. First we
stopped at Tesco in Zilina to pick up food for a picnic lunch. The
employee Brian found who spoke a little English was mystified by his
request for ice to keep our drinks cold, until she made the
connection and exclaimed, “Oh - Fish ice!“ She then packed him a bag
of crushed ice from the seafood department and we were on our way,
water, coke and cheese staying cold on our fish ice.
We drove through some
beautiful country, unfortunately marred periodically by hideous
factories. We passed horses on the road, saw people working their
fields, and school children crossing the street. We stopped in a
town to admire a beautiful old castle atop a cliff, and both had an
ice cream cone for 12 korunas. (Less than 50 cents for both). Not
long before we reached Poland, we came up a hill and saw a lady with
her two small sons leading her horse to the field. I so wanted to
take their photo so we stopped the car in the road and asked (by
pantomiming snapping a camera). She seemed agreeable so I hopped out
and took the photo, then took a package of cookies over, which the
boys seemed delighted to partake of.
We
crossed into Poland and got just a glimpse of what borders in
Eastern Europe may have been like once upon a time. They thoroughly
inspected our passports, auto documents and car. We drove to Auschwitz
through the rain which
began in Poland, and spent an emotionally difficult couple of hours
there. It’s so hard to fathom, even when there, the atrocities that
took place. Seeing the piles and piles of eyeglasses, suitcases,
shoes, and even crutches of the victims made it so real, as if it
happened last year, not last century. After walking though the gas
chambers, I felt I’d had enough, and sat down while Brian visited a
couple more exhibits. We still had a bit of a drive following that,
and came upon an accident. The cars are so tiny, and the roads are
so harrowing there, that I was in constant fear of having a wreck.
The one we encountered couldn’t have had a good outcome, and Brian
drove even more carefully after that.
We
arrived at Palace in Paszkowka and were very pleased to be
upgraded to a palace chamber room. Evidently a Japanese tour group
had taken all the rooms in the granary. I was as excited as a little
girl to be staying in a palace - our room had at least 14 foot
ceilings, and we had a private bath with a Jacuzzi no less! I went
straight for that while Brian went down for some wine. As we were in
the middle of nowhere, and didn’t want to drive at night, we had
dinner at the palace restaurant. Nothing to write home about, but it
was filling.
We got up early
the next morning to a downpour, and tried to take the local bus into
Krakow but missed it by standing on the wrong side of the road.
Luckily the palace owner gave us good directions into Krakow and
told us where to park, so we made it with no difficulty. It poured
rain all day, which kind of cut short our sightseeing. But we did
take in the square, the medieval Cloth Hall market, and Wawel Hill,
as well as seeing the late Pope’s former church and an impromptu
memorial to him. We had a great lunch at a vegetarian restaurant
which I was thrilled to see. Soup, salad, and
pierogies for me, and Ukrainian pancakes and salad for Brian, two
mineral waters, and a juice came to about 19 zlotys - around six US
dollars!
We decided to visit the salt mines next, mainly
because they were indoors, and took a bus out to the mines. Miners
hundreds of years ago had carved out of salt innumerable statues and
hundreds of underground chapels. It was quite astonishing, as well
as tiring, climbing down over 800 stairs is hard! We arrived back in
the city in time for dinner. We had noticed a place with fondue
earlier in the day, so went there. It was a bit posh, and we were
worse for the wear, after a day in the rain and the mines, but we
had a nice meal of cheese fondue and bread (notice the recurring
bread and cheese theme?) despite my soaking wet socks.
Early rising again the next morning to make the drive back to
Bratislava. It was a long tiring drive on mainly 2-lane roads,
trying to avoid meeting a fiery death with the maniac drivers.
Passing was a game of chicken, often with the black belching fumes
of the truck we were passing blocking our view as we putted by. We
finally made it to Bratislava, and got to the train station in time
for the 4:14 train to Vienna, less than an hour away.
We made it without incident to our Hilton
by
Ubahn and tram, and for the third time were upgraded. The room was enormous,
with a bathroom bigger than some hostels we have stayed in. Unfortunately, the staff
was not very friendly, and the other guest no better. Oh well, we
were just there for the free beds.
We were about 10 minutes by tram from the main part of the city,
and went to the old amusement park Prater for dinner at a beer
garden. Both exhausted after the long day, we went right back to the
tram stop afterwards. We had a red light at the crosswalk, so took
the convenient underpass under the busy 4 lane street. When we
resurfaced, we immediately heard a horrible sound and Brian told me
to stay put, Of course I followed him, and we saw a girl who had
been struck hard by a car while crossing the same street we had just
crossed under. Brian saw her actually get hit, and I won’t provide
details, but it was horrible. She was screaming and screaming, and
her male companion was shouting at the driver… I forgot they don’t
have guns there, and feared someone would be shot. Very fortunately
the police showed up in less than 30 seconds, with an ambulance
right behind. I didn’t want to be a gawker, so we left, but that
accident haunted me the rest of our time in Vienna. It’s easy to
forget to be careful when traveling, but you need to be even more
cautious than at home when you don’t know the driving habits.
We spent
the next two days sightseeing in Vienna, seeing the Hofburg Palace,
the Haus der Musik (where a film crew was shooting - I think I was
frequently in their view), the Opera (standing room tickets for 2
euros each) and the Lippizaner stallions morning exercise. Vienna is
very easy to get around on public transport and has many beautiful
buildings. Unfortunately it is quite expensive. Two cappuccinos cost
what our entire lunch in Krakow did. Our last dinner of the trip -
our tradition being a nice meal to conclude the trip - was at Wrenkh
, a mostly vegetarian
restaurant. It was the best food of the trip,
by far. I didn't know bulghur could be so delicious!
As always, the trip had to come to an end, and Sunday morning we
began the arduous journey back home, nearly missing our connecting
flight in Paris. 20 hours of travel later, and we were back in
Cinci. We crashed for the night near the airport - couldn’t have
possibly driven the hour and a half home, and arrived back home the
next morning, anxious to pick up our puppy!
Finally
the day came to set out on our trip. We flew out of Cincinnati as
usual and had a decent flight to Paris. With a 6 hour layover, we
decided to go into Paris on the RER train, and enjoyed wandering
around the Left Bank of the Seine. We made it back in plenty of time
for our flight to Budapest, and landed a little before 6 pm local
time. A taxi took us into the city. We noticed everywhere the
overabundance of advertisements. Even to Welcome to Hungary sign was
sponsored by T-mobile. Capitalism has really taken hold in a big,
big, way there. At our 
Though worn out by the long
travel night and day, we were determined to stay up until local
bedtime so as to get adjusted, and went out to Central Kavhaus, a
café from the 1800s. We walked Vaci Utca to get there - their
pedestrian-only boulevard. The next day, Friday, we went to the
thermal baths early. Széchenyi baths are located in the city park
just a few metro stops from our hotel. The system of pay and
receipts and various people and entrance points was a bit confusing
but we managed to get to our changing cabin and down to the soothing
mineral baths. We went from one to the next, enjoying the warm
mineral waters, and then discovered the outdoor pools. We each had a
vigorous massage from strapping young Hungarian men… Brian’s first
massage ever. It would be easy to spend the day at the baths, but we
stayed just a couple hours and set out for the rest of the day. 
We visited the great Market Hall for
lunch, where Brian discovered his favorite new junk food - langos… a
deep fried concoction of potato and bread dough, topped with a
generous slathering of cheese and sour cream, all for about a buck.
After attempting to cross the famous beauty Chain Bridge to get to
the Buda side of Budapest - which was closed for a beer company to
film a commercial or something (remember what I said about
capitalism?) we took a long roundabout way by foot, tram and
funicular up to Castle Hill where we enjoyed stunning view of the
Pest side - including the fantastic parliament building. 
We had a nice dinner in a restaurant all to ourselves early that
evening before heading out on a pub crawl. Recommended by Rick
Steves, it turned out to be a 6 hour progressively more intoxicating
evening concluding with our guide deserting the remaining 7 of us at
2 am at our 5th pub. I still don’t know how, with no map, in the
middle of the night we made it back to our hotel but we did. 
We
had an early morning the next day - we had to catch the 6:20 AM
train to Bratislava. Unfortunately the lounge didn’t open that early
so we had to leave with no coffee. We had the train practically to
ourselves, in a 6 person compartment with no one else. Brian went to
check out the dining car and returned to tell me he’d seen a rather
large man sitting at a table in boxer shorts, shaving his underarms.
He turned out to be our waiter - a very happy guy who liked to play
his music. Good thinkg we had a lot of Forints left over because
they certainly price gouge on trains for food. Our waiter
recommended one of the meat platters of course, and hung his head in
disappointment when we explained “vegetarian”. I had a nice big
plate of camembert cheese and bread - my first of many bread and
cheese meals to come over the next few days. 
It was a short train ride,
just a couple of hours. We took a taxi to the Avis office and picked
up our rental. We had selected an economy car with no AC, because
the average temperature was supposed to be in the 60s. Of course the
weather turned out to be hot and sunny. We couldn’t have the cute
little Nissan Micra, because Avis doesn’t allow their Nissan to go
into Poland, so we got the Opel Corsa, a bumpy, rough-riding little
pokey car. We rolled down the windows, allowing the enormous
quantities of fumes and emissions to come in, and headed out for
Bytca. We had read that Slovakia has some of the highest death by
auto rates in the EU and it was soon apparent why. Drivers pass with
absolutely no regard for loss of life or limb, and it got even worse
off the auto way. 
We enjoyed the scenery though, and made
it to Bytca by about noon. We had an hour before we were to meet our
translator Sandra. So went into the cemetery, with a photo of
Brian’s grandfather standing at his grandmother’s grave. Before long
half a dozen Slovaks were clustered around, trying to help us,
without a word of English. Sandra showed up and was able to tell us
that one of the men knew where the grave was - it was at a nearby
cemetery, and we all went over there. An older gentleman took us
straight to the grave. Edmund had sent money over for the grave, so
she had a very nice tombstone compared to other women of her time.
We took photos to bring home to Brian’s grandmother, and left with
Sandra to go meet Elena. 
Her building was a sad,
ugly block apartment building near the square in Bytca. We went in
and took the elevator with no door to Elena’s floor. A smiling,
happy older woman nicely dressed opened the door and greeted us
enthusiastically, as the translator tried to keep up. She ushered us
into her apartment - spotlessly clean, and about the size of my
kitchen. She sat us down and immediately began bringing out food and
drink. It kept coming the whole time we were there. She loves to
entertain, and when her husband was alive, he was an important
person at a local beer company, and she used to entertain a lot. She
didn’t sit much - going back and forth from her hotplate and tiny
refrigerator to the coffee table which doubled as a dining table,
but in between we got some snatches of conversation. We learned that
Edmund’s mother was a maid in Elena’s mother’s house. Elena was very
kind and so welcoming. It was a little odd speaking through a
translator, but not as strange as I’d feared. Her apartment was so
tiny - the toilet was in a closet and there was no kitchen or
bedroom. She was planning to move to Czech with her nephew, she
explained, this apartment was only temporary. She presented us with
a beautiful photo book about Slovakia, inscribed with her name and
the date. She next brought out a lovely handmade embroidered
tablecloth meant for Brian’s grandmother. We looked at the photos we
had brought of Elena’s father with Edmund in 1972. And she told us
the story of Edmund’s friendship with her father. 
When Brian gave her the letter his
grandmother had written, she came to the names at the bottom of
relatives, and exclaimed that these people were still alive and
living a mile away. Next thing we knew we were waiting outside their
house as Elena went in to tell them their cousin from America was
there! Sonja and Bozena are sisters living next door to one another
- daughters of Edmund’s first cousin. Edmund and Mentie had stayed
with their parents during their visit in 1972. Soon Elena returned,
and through the translator told us that these were Brian’s cousins
and they wished us to stay the night! Sonja and Bozena appeared,
beaming with pleasure and welcoming us profusely. Bozena was
practically dancing with joy as she took us both by the arms and led
us into her home. She ushered us, along with Elena and Sandra into
the living room, poured a celebratory drink, sat us down, and went
to the kitchen for food. When she returned, the door somehow locked
and then wouldn’t open. We were stuck in the living room! Not to be
deterred, she brought juice and water in through the living room
window. After several minutes of Brian working on the door from the
inside, and Bozena’s husband on the other side, and jokes about
making us spend the night, they got the door open, and we all got to
talk. They immediately brought out their photos, and one of the
first ones we saw was Brian as a baby. “This proves you are family!”
they said. They also recognized the handwriting of Brian’s grandma’s
letter. Even without the translator, it was obvious how thrilled and
surprised they were at our arrival. Unfortunately our translator
wasn’t going to be able to stay - her boyfriend was in the car, and
he was “very busy”. She was not willing to go much beyond the time
we had planned for, and so, too soon, she left us with no way to
talk to the family. 
We left the next morning for our drive to Poland and decided to
take a scenic route rather than the direct auto way. First we
stopped at Tesco in Zilina to pick up food for a picnic lunch. The
employee Brian found who spoke a little English was mystified by his
request for ice to keep our drinks cold, until she made the
connection and exclaimed, “Oh - Fish ice!“ She then packed him a bag
of crushed ice from the seafood department and we were on our way,
water, coke and cheese staying cold on our fish ice. 
We drove through some
beautiful country, unfortunately marred periodically by hideous
factories. We passed horses on the road, saw people working their
fields, and school children crossing the street. We stopped in a
town to admire a beautiful old castle atop a cliff, and both had an
ice cream cone for 12 korunas. (Less than 50 cents for both). Not
long before we reached Poland, we came up a hill and saw a lady with
her two small sons leading her horse to the field. I so wanted to
take their photo so we stopped the car in the road and asked (by
pantomiming snapping a camera). She seemed agreeable so I hopped out
and took the photo, then took a package of cookies over, which the
boys seemed delighted to partake of. 
We
crossed into Poland and got just a glimpse of what borders in
Eastern Europe may have been like once upon a time. They thoroughly
inspected our passports, auto documents and car. We drove to 
We
arrived at 
We got up early
the next morning to a downpour, and tried to take the local bus into
Krakow but missed it by standing on the wrong side of the road.
Luckily the palace owner gave us good directions into Krakow and
told us where to park, so we made it with no difficulty. It poured
rain all day, which kind of cut short our sightseeing. But we did
take in the square, the medieval Cloth Hall market, and Wawel Hill,
as well as seeing the late Pope’s former church and an impromptu
memorial to him. We had a great lunch at a 
We decided to visit the salt mines next, mainly
because they were indoors, and took a bus out to the mines. Miners
hundreds of years ago had carved out of salt innumerable statues and
hundreds of underground chapels. It was quite astonishing, as well
as tiring, climbing down over 800 stairs is hard! We arrived back in
the city in time for dinner. We had noticed a place with fondue
earlier in the day, so went there. It was a bit posh, and we were
worse for the wear, after a day in the rain and the mines, but we
had a nice meal of cheese fondue and bread (notice the recurring
bread and cheese theme?) despite my soaking wet socks.
Early rising again the next morning to make the drive back to
Bratislava. It was a long tiring drive on mainly 2-lane roads,
trying to avoid meeting a fiery death with the maniac drivers.
Passing was a game of chicken, often with the black belching fumes
of the truck we were passing blocking our view as we putted by. We
finally made it to Bratislava, and got to the train station in time
for the 4:14 train to Vienna, less than an hour away. 
We spent
the next two days sightseeing in Vienna, seeing the Hofburg Palace,
the Haus der Musik (where a film crew was shooting - I think I was
frequently in their view), the Opera (standing room tickets for 2
euros each) and the