next apache is the name

Life feels as it should today. I’m in Bratislava in a slightly smoky, cozy tucked-away café (that gets extra points for having a roomful of used books—in English--for sale), and I’m typing away, working to tell the story of a great London-based charity, wishing I could spend more time with their clients and have more space for words to tell their stories. The room I’m in was mostly empty until just a bit ago. Julie is in another room meeting up with some women for a Bible study. The main room of Next Apache has filled up, but since the other patrons are speaking Slovak to each other, I’m not so distracted as usual as I try to block out the conversations around me. In this cozy space, Slovak sounds prettier than it has to me most of the time here.

Two other quick anecdotes before I jump back to what I should be working on…

My Italy travels produced a new entry in the story of my crazy job. Thursday afternoon after my arrival and after one hour of sleep the night before, I was doing a quick email check in my friend’s office while she shopped for retreat food. Then I planned to take a nap to shake off a bit of the fog of small sleep. Well, the email account I check less frequently contained an email from a Nashville acquaintance-friend asking if I did musician bios and if there’s any chance I could write one for his new band by the next day. They’d decided last minute to apply for a music festival and Friday was the deadline. I generally don't turn down assignments unless there's really just no way to finish them on time, and I've been on a working holiday more than a vacation these past two weeks. So with a couple email exchanges we decided to go for it.

I collected a bit of info from him via email, took a quick little nap until my friend returned to her office, emailed Jeremy her office phone number, and then participated in a conference call: me in Italy, Jeremy in Nashville, and his bandmate in Canada. Then, between that night and the next morning before Jessica and I left for the retreat, I whipped out the fun assignment. And it was more fun for the fact that I had to get it done so quickly that it never even made it onto my to do list, so I could never feel behind on it. :-) And it was nice to have a connection back to Nashville for a few hours.

Anecdote #2

Sunday was a really lovely day here. After church Julie and her roommate-ish/co-worker-ish/friend Heather and I went to lunch at the home of some friends of theirs from church. Karen is from New Jersey, and Lubo is from Slovakia. They have a nine-year-old daughter Alexa. They live in a lovely house outside Bratislava in the village of Marianka. Our lunch party was rounded out by Nick, an Australian ESL teacher, and Roger, a British businessman in Bratislava for a week who found the church on the internet. So it was quite an international collection of people.

We had a really delicious and leisurely lunch followed by our choice of coffee or caramel espresso. I chose the espresso courtesy of my week in Italy (not courtesy of my five years behind the Starbucks bar). Then late in the afternoon as dusk was arriving we all went for a walk to the village center, stepped inside one of the oldest churches in Slovakia, and toured the stations of the cross set up along a path bounded by tall, old trees. We returned to the house and sat around on very comfortable couches enjoying hot drinks and good, thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation. Such a nice, leisurely way to pass a Sunday.

However, Heather, Julie and I thought we’d been trapped in the Slovakian Bermuda Triangle on our way home. The buses and trams we needed seemed not to be working, and what should have taken us an hour tops took about 2.5 and included multiple walks back and forth between different bus and tram stops. Not so lovely, but it ended well since we got home eventually. :-) Oh, and by then it was raining. And cold. Everyone’s favorite end to a really nice day. :-)

Okay, that’s all for now. Next entry will be posted from London. I’m off to pack up for my evening flight. (Oh, yeah, I’m no longer at the cute, cozy café. A few hours have passed since the beginning of this entry. :-) )