2014-02-14: Ceasing Slovakia

Once again buying train tickets for a male and female travelling together raised eyebrows. I was tempted to point out we checked the logistics of sexy times and decided we are not young or flexible enough for that kind of thing on their kind of beds. She didn't look totally into learning this type of information. Sometimes empirical science just passes people by.

Easier beginner slopes, has black, plus bottom right Red Run Memorial Snow Machine in honour of fractured fibia (or was it Totalled Tibia? can't remember, I'm not a biology nerd.)

We were probably going to stay near this one for the next two weeks. Higher, prettier, less leg breaking.

Anyhow. A round-up of all things Slovakian learned in 6 days. It's a small country, 6 days is plenty to cover it thoroughly. Makes for a long-ish post though.

Tourist Checklist: Slovakian Top 10 Food & Beverages

(For the forgetful amongst us, it is from here)

Zubr was in case Ewa got homesick. Kozel because it is a big bottle.

• Kapustnica. Excellent soup and we only had the hotel restaurant version. So much so I have been reading recipes. Ewa claims we will try the Polish version when we return to Białystok but that would have to be pretty amazing to beat this (especially the way I picture it in my head now with embellishments my reading has encouraged me to consider). I do suspect that Polish bread will be better than Slovakian (admittedly hotel) bread. Rating: Checked. 10/10 (will repeat, may learn to make)
• Tokaj. I have two bottles. I brought them back with me. I will do some science right now. Okay. Tokaj is kind of sour, the young one is not so good. The old one balances the sour with quite a strong raisin sweetness. Not bad. Certainly not cloying sweet like a lot of botrytis wines I have had. I guess my tip for buying a nice Tokaj is going to be "buy the darkest one on the shelf". The young one was $6 a bottle, the old (1989 vintage) was $45. Holy crap I spent $45 on a bottle of wine I know nothing about! I must have been thinking something something science at the time. It is not worth $45 in my opinion. Rating: Check. 5/10 (cheap is bad, nice is expensive, there are better value options out there for my tastes)
• Bryndza: Not so great by itself, excellent in pirogi with bacon bits. Very filling though. Better than any other cheese in a dumpling I have ever had? No, however most cheese dumplings have other stuff in there as well so I will call it semi unique, good and I would eat it again. Rating: Checked. 7/10 (in pirogi)
• Halušky: We did not eat this in a form which I consider close enough to give this a check. I blame over confidence, it looked so easy that I left it until it was too late. Rating: Failed Miserably. I hang my head in shame. I will drink some young sour tokaj to punish myself. 0/10 (and I think I would have liked these too)

Blurry photo due to smart phone, not due to wielder of camera. Honest.

• Demänovka: We got this.. It came with memorial glasses. I drank it before I remembered to take a photo of the bottle. Then there was some in the hotel bar so I took a photo. Then I had a glass of TatryTea instead. Not because Demänovka was awful, just because the bartender recommended the alternative and I hadn't tried it. This one is a, for me, generic "herby bitters". I have had lots of them over the years. To make a differentiation between this one and many others I would need to taste them side by side. In the meantime I will drink it again if I am in the mood for bitters and it is nearby. Rating: Checked. 7/10 (for either drink, plus one for memorial glasses though. At AU$20 a 700ml bottle much better than the Tokaj)

Actually surprisingly good. Usually I expect bartender recommendations are to get rid of crap they can't move. I used to be a barman.

• Lokše: The one I thought would be hardest and turned out to be so easy we got it despite wielding crutches on snow strewn streets.Well made potato pancakes don't taste that different to any other well made savoury pancakes to me. So the filling is what matters. Where the list says that his friends are weird in that they choose specific ones where he can't see the difference? I think he is lucky and I wish I had such friends. The duck ones were great and if I were in that bar I would grab them again definitely, probably while ordering my first drinks. Rating: Checked. 9/10 (for the peking duck version)
• Kofola: Surprisingly good. Off brand cokes are often pretty weird flavoured. This was very Kola nut flavoured but had a touch of dryness to it which worked quite well. I don't drink a lot of coke and so the idea of going for RC Cola instead of Coke has never appealed (Arsey Cola? Really Australia? Come on...) but if this were available I would consider it. Rating: Checked. 6/10 (if I wanted a cola, which I almost never do, but hypothetically it's a 6)

Consider the pink to be a natural warning colour. Like those animals that are brightly coloured and poisonous.

• Horalky: Even in New Zealand we had these. Granted ours were all lurid pink and had no flavour other than sweet; sweet and pink. Nanna biscuits. You have to say thanks but then you try and hide them somewhere instead of eating them. In Poland they have these too, the local shop has a range of maybe 10 different flavours. Slovakia had a good 15 feet of multi shelf aisle dedicated to them. The hard bit would be finding the one you like the most but you can't really go wrong so long as you avoid any imported from NZ in the 70's I guess. Rating: Checked. 6/10 (for the coffee one with chocolate coating)
• Makovnik: Wow I suck. This was at the breakfast buffet each morning and we missed the last breakfast. I am assured it couldn't be as good as the Polish version because the cake looked more like strudel than cake.

  

  Neither of these are Makovnik. The nutty one on the left was okay but I don't know what it is, kind of "French breakfast pastry for dipping in bad coffee".

  I am assured it can't be that good by a (Polish) Pastry Chef and so am glad she slept in the last morning. Rating: Failed but it is Okay poppy seeds don't do it for me so much anyway. 0/10
• Slivovica: Heh. Rating: Checked. Several Times. All good. 9/10 (fortunately even the world wide available ones are pretty good too or I have low standards, maybe both)

Rating: 8/10 (convenient it was ten items, cool that booze won as percentage of successful achievements)

Places Review: Aquacity Hotel Poprad

I have been reading about the failings of Neoclassical Economics according to Steve Keen (I'm not always just drunk and/or eating).

Aquacity means you need water themed art

One of these is to do with Supply curves and Marginal Costs. This hotel shows Steve is probably correct as it has 3 distinct hotels all attached to the thermal pool complex.  This shows marginal cost is always going to be based around an excess capacity of production in any faintly realistic business scenario.

They could rename it "NeoClassical Economists ReEducation Complex" not as catchy though.

One of the hotels is still under construction. Hopefully this will mean that in future you don't need to catch a lift up, transit across and a lift down as that annoyed us on a planning level.

It's okay to look at the boobs and bums because it is Art. Needs more urns though.

As a hotel it is nice enough. The room service food is great, I got a good steak from room service! I don't remember the last time that happened.

Ewa has opinions about the meat in aspic. Mostly that they are doing it wrong. Sliced too early or not good enough quality

I have opinions about boiled eggs. Many opinions. The sausages were nice enough

I just took these photos so Ewa had a visual menu to choose from rather than me trying to describe it

The breakfast buffet is kind of weird as it is a blend of Slovakian, Polish and English food. I guess it covers all bases. I lived on eggs, sausage and bacon to ensure I had enough protein for muscle synthesis. I am biology conscious. I put on 3 kilos in a week but I think that counts as "I'm in a bulking phase".
Given the distance to the ski slopes it seems more of a hotel for tourists that might want to do some skiing rather than skiers needing a place to sleep (and protein load). For this reason alone we will not stay there again.

The thermal pools are nice. There is tons of hydrotherapy type stuff and there is a thermal pool with a bar.

Rating: 5/10 (for ski people) 7/10 (for tourists visiting Poprad)

Cultural Observations: Slovakian Cost of Living

I was going to do this in the same comparison as I did for Poland but I ran out of time so here is a brief one and some things I faintly remember.

Chicken seemed expensive. From memory it was up there with Australian prices.
Beer was cheaper than Australia (Leffe@$1.80, Pilsner Urquell@$1.30) but not stunningly so. About the same as my recollections of Germany.
Local Spirits (slivovic@$3/200ml, Demanovka@$20/700ml) are very cheap but more expensive than Poland.
Horalky (wafer biscuits) are basically free. 30 cents a snack size package.
Cabs: Very cheap. 2 or 3 bucks for a 10 minute trip.

I don't know if we went to a really expensive supermarket but the prices in general did not seem even faintly in line with Polish prices. As Slovakia uses the euro I am wondering if that is the cause. Like if you made stuff and sold it in euro then having relatively standardised pricing across the euro countries would reduce arbitrage / grey market stuff and make accounting easier. If I were there longer I would look at whether a product was from an Slovak only company or an EU wide company. I suspect that is where the discrepancies will be.

Rating: 4/10 (This doesn't seem sustainable to me given GDP figures for the country)

Cultural Observations: Checklist for Shopping

Communism leaves some weird traces. When purchasing items here they have a physical check list for the item.

It is, I think, a proof that the item was in good condition when you bought it. But you don't sign to agree it was. Weird. This was for some basic canvas shoes. Note they cost AU$60 which is more than I would expect to pay in Australia as well.

Rating: 7/10 (I love lists of the pointless variety and make-work jobs make me giggle, usually in a slightly hysterical manner)

I don't think there is anything else about Slovakia worth talking about. I guess if you were some kind of perfectionist that has to complete the set of things and needed more information you could find some nerd that felt obsessed with cataloguing minor aspects of Slovakia such as their politics and the occasional restaurant or bar which might be slightly different in some trivial manner to the 4 or 5 I went to.

We managed to collect a new bag full of safety equipment. Hooray.

 Oh I found him for you :) If you like walking in the mountains, eating and drinking coupled with the occasional rant (albeit more coherent than mine) and are considering visiting Slovakia then the guy with the food list has a lot of interesting articles: http://englishmaninslovakia.com/