Košice-Don't forget your Slavic blood

Everything must come to an end and this film festival was no exception. The festival was certainly coming to an end, but it had not reached it quite yet. There would be two more days and two more nights of films and then everyone who had come for the festival (mostly the filmmakers themselves) would leave sometime the next day.


We saw many more films, many more people, and I sat through (without understanding) many more Q and A sessions. As is common when something like this comes to a close people want to party and have fun.


After the films ended for the day everyone went to have dinner. Everyone was responsible for their own dinner and went to go buy some food somewhere. After dinner everyone was going to meet at this place called "Madrid" for beer.

Yummmm

Madrid was a pub. The door was locked the first night when we came and one of the people already inside had to come and open the door for us. We shuffled slowly one by one through a extremely narrow but relatively short hallway. We rounded the corner, and came into a small room, the light and even walls in the room were red, not bright red, but the same color as red sand or red stone. There were two rows of small tables pushed together to make two extremely long tables there were chairs all around the tables, many of them already occupied. All the people in the that room of the pub had some connection to the festival and my father knew many of them.

Left to right: Jan Gogola, Mišo Suchý, Marek Šulik

Mišo and Jan

Smoking is much more common and publicly accepted in Europe so people were allowed to smoke in the pub. Since people were allowed to smoke in the pub they did, when we arrived the air was thick and hazy from cigarette and hookah smoke. We sat down at one of the tables and ordered kofola (coke only better) and looked around.


My father started talking to one of his fellow filmmakers, who I have no idea but I know he did. Šimon started talking to someone to, if you wanted to know who you would have to ask him. Eventually I started talking with a man from Prague, (Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic) we talked about all the differences between the United States and Europe. Although he did not speak good English nor do I speak any Czech we were able to communicate fairly well, we only had to use hand signals once or twice.

Šimon

After our conversations ended and our glasses emptied we figured it was about time we went to the hotel and went to sleep. When we got back to the hotel it was around 2:45 in the morning, fortunately there was still a receptionist at the desk and we were able to get in. Everybody showered and then went to sleep.


The next day was very similar, we saw a lot of films then in the evening went to the pub "Madrid" as we had the night before. The only difference there was that we sat at the other table on the other side.
Everybody started talking, I had a conversation with one filmmaker named Adam that was very.....inspiring and interesting, I'll give you a summary.


This conversation was a while ago and very confusing, even at the time so this may or may not be in chronological or an other sensible type of order but I think that's okay.

Me and Adam

We talked about the different regions of Slovakia, how if you travel just short distances you will be in a completely different place with its own pronunciation of words and its own customs and traditions. We compared and contrasted this to the USA. The USA is similar but definitely not the same.


According to Adam western Europe is more logical and progressive, while eastern Europe (Slovakia is in eastern Europe) is old and traditional often disobeying simple rules of logic or common sense in tradition.


We also talked about how people work together and become friends. Conflict is a problem, just by its definition. Since conflict is a problem it must be solved or bad things will happen. Conflict can come in any size or shape, but when it is big it usually involves many people. These many people must solve the conflict and by doing or not doing this they form bonds that we know as friendship or any relationship like it. At the time that is was spoken this made perfect sense, if  you don't understand what you're reading that's okay, I don't understand what I'm writing.


This is an example of tradition, I mean the thing about conflict. There are some very old conflicts in Europe that have been existent for a very very long time. Two people will unite to conquer a common conflict and then become friends, maybe. This is the theory, this theory applies to everyone with Slavic blood, that means me and maybe you.


This theory is not mine, and I'm not going to tell you what my opinion is on it because right now my opinion is very confused.


As we were leaving the pub Adam out to me "Myko, don't forget your Slavic blood". Since then Slavic blood has been an interesting topic to my father, Šimon and me. All I know is that most certainly, not now or ever will I forget my Slavic blood.


We came back to hotel after braving the streets which were full of drunk hockey fans (The world championship was to be partly held is Košice and is going on there right now). After we came to the hotel we were greeted by the same man as the night before. It was about the same time as we had gotten back the night before (2:45) and we went to sleep gladly.

Šimon asleep next to a nun.

The next day we left the city. We went by train, it is a five hour trip from Košice to Bratislava by train and five hours on a train suck. We were in a cabin with two middle aged ladies and a nun. I tried the whole way to fall asleep but alas my attempts were in vain, I couldn't sleep because it sounded like somebody was trying to saw through the floor of the cabin with a metal filer. Soon, well not so soon actually we were in Bratislava.