3 Slovaks and 1 Canadian

We have added another Slovak to the cross cultural family. Livia Vivien was born on Feb 12. Check out www.armitagebabyisgo.blogspot.com for all the information.

Needless to say I am outnumbered in gender, intelligence and nationality.

Wifi and the Outhouse

My apologies to all 3 of you who read this blog...We have been in our new apartment now for a week but have no internet access. It seems that installation of internet is just as slow here as in Canada. So we have to come back to Grandma's farm every few days just to connect to the web and get our email. We have to use an outhouse here or a rarely functioning toilet but we have wireless high speed internet.
I should be back in a few days with more cross cultural musings...

Where 80s Music Enjoys a Second Life

In North America we have all sorts of specialties and focused markets for products and media. If you want classic rock you turn to one station, if you want R and B you go to another. Xm Radio and Sirius are taking "cable radio" and specialization to a new galaxy with the amount of choice you have to listen to...anything you want from conservative, gay chefs talking about entertainment to garden comedy shows hosted by nuns.

The same cannot be said for Slovak radio and indeed most of Central Europe. Instead of specialized boutiques it's more like an Uncle Willy's or Old Country Buffet...whatever you want is probably on the menu, especially a huge dose of 80s music. In fact Slovak radio is so eclectic you can hear early Cindi Lauper, Nirvana, The Spice Girls and the latest Slovak Superstar all within one 10 minute set. Radar Love is played more than you would care to imagine. This is where music from the 80s and 90s goes to get a new lease on life without being labeled "classic."

I like it because you don't have to keep up with the latest and greatest music fad...you have about 20s years here to know what's happening in music because that's about the spectrum of music they give you...and this is all radio stations.

I like the mishmash but sometimes things go a little too far. Like today for instance we were in a restaurant waiting for our take out pizza when I heard a familiar but unfamiliar song. The tone took me back to when I was in grade 2 and half off Africa was in a famine...the collective powers of Quincy Jones, pre-crazy Micheal Jackson, Kenny Rogers and other music stars came to save the day with "We are the world..." Well that was the tune playing but the words were not the same, in fact they were in Slovak. When I pointed this out Anna stopped and listened. Turns out the Slovaks had turned "We are the world" into a Christmas song that had nothing to do with Africa, famines or telethons and everything to do with the Christmas spirit and holiday cheer...seems reasonable and frankly it made me feel warm inside so I guess it wasn't a bad thing. The next song was a Czech version of John Lennon's Christmas protest/awareness song "So This is Christmas..." but as far as I know it was more in line with what Lennon intended.

We don't just give the 80s a second chance at life we reincarnate it into a happier more pleasant experience.

It's funny because everywhere I go I hear English music, we have Slovak Superstar (think American Idol with Slovaks) and everyone wants to be the next Rihanna (remarkable for a predominantly white population) and yet they dub over every single TV show so I can't understand a thing...CSI just isn't the same in deep Slavic voices.

Of course the final song was the very English version of "My Heart Will Go On" sung by the Vegas living, French Canadian Celine Dion, so in the end all things balanced out.

If you are living cross culturally what do you find to be the most remarkable thing about popular culture...is it just all Americanized or are there some uniqueness that mark your music and media? More or less here it's becoming Americanized (game shows, music, movies) but every once in awhile you can get a good old Czechoslovak folk story done as a movie (which of course is not subtitled or dubbed into English so I don't understand it anyways...more about language in a future blog).

We Are The World Video (Notice how many of them are holding sheet music...I didn't think most rock stars could read sheet music and I guarantee you that Bob Dylan didn't sing what was on the paper anyways...)



Or if you prefer the karaoke version...

Christmas Dinner: The Fish vs. The Bird

What better place to start this blog than with the ultimate in cross-cultural living: what to do at Christmas time. For the last 6 years (minus 1) I have had the opportunity to eat traditional Slovak style Christmas Dinner...and you know what...it doesn't get better with age.

To start we have a special soup (because in Slovakia you always have soup with lunch). Now it's not so special in the sense that you can only afford to have it once a year or it's made out of the golden eggs of a magical talking duck. It's more like special needs or special sauce at McDonalds; you don't know what's in it and frankly you don't want to know. The only difference is this is what's in the soup:

• Mushrooms
• Cabbage
• Milk
• Slovak Secrets...

I'll let you imagine what it smells like, and tastes like.

Then we move onto the main meal, the magical Christmas fish. Now this has always confused me but for a land locked nation like Slovakia why would fish be the choice for Christmas? Needless to say the past few years have been none too fantastic with this bony, fried fish. Along with the fish goes another typical Slovak treat: potato salad? Believe it or not, what most of us in North America would bring to a BBQ or picnic is part of the Christmas meal.

All I can say is over the last few years they've made chicken and mashed potatoes for me. And I've even got my little niece to join in on the conspiracy...she likes the chicken as well (with a good helping of potato salad).

So this year, my incredible wife decided it was time to tackle the Turkey dinner...much to my delight and everyone else's suspicion. I can honestly say that this was the first time in the history of Babka's (great grandmas) house that a bird of this size was ever cooked, especially on Christmas. Anna fretted for a week or so, checking the internet hourly to get recipes and learn how to cook the bird. She checked British, American and Canadian sites to see how it should be done. She even got up at 8:00am to start preparing and cooking the bird.

So let's do a quick rundown of what was on the menu:

• One 3 kg (approximately 7 pound) turkey which proved to be more than enough for a Canadian and 7 Slovaks and our half and half daughter.
• Roasted potatoes, carrots and parsnips
• Stove top stuffing. Yes the freeze dried goodness made it into the lineup, a sin in a house where everything is made from scratch. Babka asked a few times what it was (you should have seen the horror a few months ago when I introduced Kraft Dinner...)
• Corn
• Mashed Potatoes
• Apple Cider/Thyme/Red Wine Gravy which was also the marinade for the turkey (and the award for the best gravy at Christmas time goes to this fine concoction)
• A beautiful bottle of Mission Hill Pinot Blanc (2005)

I was in heaven and was scarfing down the meal while everyone else was looking at it gingerly, asking what it was and complaining that turkey legs are too big. I'm proud to say that Anna's first Christmas turkey was a huge success in my books but here's how others responded:

• Mato (15 year old nephew): he didn't even sit at the table as he is the world's pickiest eater. Unless it's pasta, halushky, fried cheese, fries or mushroom and corn pizza it ain't going in him.
• Mia (2.5 year old daughter): ate a piece of a parsnip and a two millimetre shaving of turkey after threats of no chocolate or toys for the day.
• Petka (10 year old niece): she does whatever we tell her so she tried everything but I think she'll stick with Slovak as was witnessed by the huge amounts of left over potato salad she ate
• Richard (brother in law): ate everything and seemed to like it, even had a bit of a second plate.
• Evka (sister in law): ate everything and seemed to like it.
• Mamicka (mother in law): refused to take a whole turkey leg because it was too big, seemed a bit offended when I said, "Finally a real Christmas dinner..." but we made up at the end.
• Babka (grandmother in law): seemed to like everything except for the Stove Top Stuffing...her loss was my gain.
• Anna (wife): ate everything, less stressed as I kept telling her how good it was.
• Me: two plate fulls, two glasses of wine and a big turkey nap coming up...very content and have now made a Husband Mandate that every 26th of December shall now be known as Canadian Christmas (it would be the 25th but usually everyone goes to church and we have so much left over from the day before that it just doesn't make sense....have you ever tried having a leftover fried fish, potato salad and turkey sandwich? It just isn't kosher)

One final note, the fish this year was different and actually pretty good...no bones and it tasted like Captain Highliner fish sticks so I think I'll give it a go next year, though I will be counting down the days until Canadian Christmas and turkey.