Dan Stoll (source: Courtesy of D.S.)
1993
I first entered Slovakia on a bus via the Polish border at Lysá Poľana in a blizzard during the first week of January 1993. The High Tatras with their jagged peaks darting skyward in the morning sun were stunning to someone who had grown up on Lake Ontario in Upstate New York. The bus broke down, a casualty of the extreme mountain cold. An army truck passing by stopped and scooped up the passengers from this ill-fated trip, a handful of grandmas and me.
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We arrived at an army base near Poprad where boyish soldiers in the midst of their mandatory military service brought us to a jedáleň, their version of a mess hall, where they offered us bowlfuls of delicious chicken soup, brown bread and kompót, preserved pears, for dessert. No one spoke English and my guidebook, Eastern Europe on a Shoestring, had a few phrases in Czech, not Slovak, that I couldn’t pronounce anyway. The boys and I did bond over my Sony Walkman, and especially Queen’s Greatest Hits cassette. Through hand gestures, a few laughs, and finger pointing at maps, I managed to communicate that I needed to find a way to Bratislava. Before I knew it, the soldiers put me on my second bus voyage of the day without letting me pay, my first experience of Slovak’s incredible hospitality.
