Chilling in Bratislava, Slovakia

While we love the included excursions on river cruises, sometimes we're ready to simply relax at a sidewalk cafe in a foreign land to chill.

Bratislava proved to be a wonderful place for that.


After our tour, we found an outdoor festival in full swing at the main plaza on our way to the ship.

Slovakian (historically Hungarian) dancers wearing clothes very much like what you'd expect at Oktoberfest performed on stage to happy regional folk music.

We watched until the end of their show, and then meandered down the street to our river cruise ship for a delicious lunch.

Perhaps we should eat more food in international cities we visit, but it's hard to pass on a free meal when it is so convenient, tasty and prepared with fresh, local ingredients.

After lunch, however, we found seats at a sidewalk cafe for drinks near the plaza stage, where the music had changed to great rock with a Slovakian accent.

As we relaxed enjoying the day, my mind couldn't help wandering to our son-in-law and his family, who immigrated from Slovakia a few years before the Iron Curtain lifted.

Laszlo was born in Nitra, one of the oldest cities in Slovakia.

Located about an hour west of Bratislava along the Nitra River, which flows south into the Danube, the city of Nitra has a castle and other historic sites that would be worthwhile for travelers to check out, but back in the early 1980s, times were tough for the family under Communist rule.

Intelligent and well-educated, Szilard and Ria envisioned a better life for their children, where they could grow up to be whatever they wanted instead of what the state dictated they had to be.

Szilard, who is known to friends as Z, made the bold decision to escape.

Consider that during the Reign of Terror, Marie Antoinette and the French royal family were put essentially under house arrest from which they plotted an escape to Austria.  Advised to travel separately to avoid detection, the Queen refused to be separated from her family. Despite having unlimited funds and powerful allies (her brother was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire), when they made their break, they were caught and soon imprisoned awaiting an even worse fate for daring to flee.

The Communists took escaping to the West no less seriously, though admittedly without a guillotine waiting.

Retribution would be severe if they were caught.

Z calculated that bringing his wife, a toddler and a baby with him would have been quite impossible, so he planned how he might just be able to get out from behind the Iron Curtain on his own.

Athletic young man, not in the style of a beefy football player who might try to bull his way out but rather with the physique of an agile tumbler or track star, Z successfully made the break.

Ria stayed behind raising her two very young children under even more trying conditions, hoping for a miracle.

Against all odds, Z made his way across borders in an era when such travel was strictly forbidden, eventually making it to an Italian refugee camp.

During his year stuck behind the chain link fence, enduring the pain of missing his family as well as the stoic existence of confinement, the affable Z befriended other refugees, including one who made it to the United States and sponsored Z.

After crossing the ocean, it took years of struggle in his new country, but Z finally saved enough money to bring his family to join him.  There was also a ton of paperwork that had to be submitted to bureaucracies in both countries, but perseverance paid off in 1986, when his family was finally able to join Z in the USA.

As it turned out, the Soviet Union crumbled three years later, but by that time they had settled into their new American life.

The family thoroughly assimilated into the United States.  Having learned some English from flash cards before immigrating, they soon mastered the language. Laszlo, Junior, Z and Ria now speak English as well as or better than most native Americans.  In fact, while English may be their second language, Z and Ria win almost every game of Scrabble they play when competing against lifelong English-speakers with extensive vocabularies.

They are living the American dream, where their children have been given the opportunity to live a life better than their own.  Ria spent several years caring for Emma to allow Gina and Laszlo to establish their challenging careers.  Ria is also a fine artist and has helped Emma develop her own artistic talent.

Our son-in-law Laszlo graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Science in Psychobiology and went on to earn a Masters Degree in Education.

Because he has a strong interest in computers too, he has also studied advanced programs for computer networking and now works in both education and computers.

His brother Junior went into high tech.

I'm proud to have these wonderful people who adopted our country as the other side of the family tree for our granddaughter Emma.

Soviet-Era facade on left next to historic building on right