White Christmas

It snowed for a couple of hours on Christmas Eve, so we're having a white Christmas.

This is a view of the north side of Hviezdoslavovo námestie, looking west, with St. Martin's Cathedral in the center. It's below freezing, so the snow did not melt overnight.

This looks to the east. The guards are on duty at the entrance to the U.S. Embassy, as always. Otherwise, the place is mostly deserted, except for a few dog-walkers. I woke up this morning to the clanging of the trash collection truck emptying the bins at my apartment building. That was a surprise. In my city in California, the trash collectors would definitely have a holiday on Christmas Day.

I found a live broadcast of a Slovak Christmas mass on TV this morning, but my attempt to tape bits of it failed miserably. It's cold outside, well below freezing. The fact that everybody kept their coats on during the service was not encouraging. I grew up in a cold climate, but after two decades in California, I've become a complete pansy. I was also surprised to see an ultra-modern church with an electronic keyboard instead of a real pipe organ.

I have been channel-surfing to see what holiday programming looks like here. I get about 50 channels, with several each in Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, German, Polish, French, and even one in Russian. I'm at the point where I can recognize which language I'm not understanding during my surfing! In English, I get CNN-International, BBC-World, EuroNews, EuroSport, and VH1. Several movie channels regularly show American films dubbed into Slovak and other languages. I was pleasantly surprised that Hungarian national TV last night broadcast the complete (British) Royal Ballet's Nutcracker. No dubbing needed for that.

Have a nice holiday, everybody!

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