When I graduated in 1990 I got my first teaching job in Czechoslovakia on the Hungarian border in a town called Komarno..Komarom on the other side of the bridge over the Danube in Hungary .I think the division was a product of the Treaty of Triannon. There wasn't much to do in Komarno of an evening. I used to wander down to the Europa Hotel sometimes for supper. It was on the corner of the high street on the edge of the bridge.
It was a grim old place in many ways in those days. With a cigarette kiosk in the lobby. There was a lady with blue hair and gold teeth behind the kiosk selling cigarettes which made my teeth brown. . I would go in and sit in the retaurant which was pure Third Man. And smoke them
Unside there was a cafe prowled by Gypsy spivs with wallets full of Czech crowns. Plunder from dealings on the Black Market which was rife in those immediate Post Soviet days, A cafe and a grand ballroom cum restaurant area, A splendid house band made up of gypsy musicians who would come to tour tables and arch their heads and bow down to your table sawing their violins at your plate while you made your way through your evening meal.
Chicken and chips a brothy stew. A bottle of beer. A cigarette at your table once the plates were cleared surrounded by the music of dream and myth. It feels like a dream now frankly thirty five years on. Listening to Beirut always take me back to that Post Communism year in Komarno and my expeditions to the Hotel Europa . There's both jubilation and memory in what Beirut do. They're a rare band. They tell us why we travel. To learn and give witness. Collective Consciousness.
No comments:
Post a Comment