Beer, the Foreign Minister and Me
My new home in Trencin has a lot of things to offer. Of course there is the castle which overlooks the town and unlimited people watching, since we are the fashion capital of Slovakia. But perhaps the greatest event of the year is the Kukanova Desina.
Held annually in June, the Kukanova Desina is a pub crawl which leads you all around town with nothing but an airphoto map, directions in Slovak, and 150 drunk people to follow. You drink a beer in each of the ten designated pubs, get a stamp, and if you're standing at the end, you get a lovely diploma.
Did I mention you start at 9am and don't finish until about seven at night? When I say all over town, I mean it. It's a march. And with good reason, I was told by a reliable sourse (who is well versed in history, Slovak culture, and this event, where he is a regular), that the event is in honor of a Slovak folk hero, really the Don Quiote of the region, a soldier named Kukan that was too peaceful and lazy to fight, so he wandered from town to town, looking for the army, but always staying at the pubs.
My sourse was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eduard Kukan (no relation to the soldier Kukan) who I had the priveledge of drinking two beers with (two different pubs, afterall). Now if you are like me you would just be happy to speak to someone in English, and when he told me his job title I wasn't so impressed, or perhaps just a little buzzed, until he told me that his counterpart in the USA is Condolisa Rice, and then it doesn't matter how buzzed you are, you get it. So I got it.
He's a great man, and we talked all about Slovakia and America, drinking laws, Swahili, and the rain. Then he had to take a call from Croatia, (I've been there), and then a call that a suicide bomber in Iraq killed some people down the road from the Slovak embassy. Hmmmm, I guess I had nothing else to say after that. Work calls, the rain fell, and he and his friends took a shortcut (skipping three pubs, but being who he is I'm sure he still got the diploma), and then back to work.
Well, if anyone wants to drink a beer with Mr. Kukan, be in Trencin the first Saturday after June 1, and bring your walking shoes. I'll join you.
Held annually in June, the Kukanova Desina is a pub crawl which leads you all around town with nothing but an airphoto map, directions in Slovak, and 150 drunk people to follow. You drink a beer in each of the ten designated pubs, get a stamp, and if you're standing at the end, you get a lovely diploma.
Did I mention you start at 9am and don't finish until about seven at night? When I say all over town, I mean it. It's a march. And with good reason, I was told by a reliable sourse (who is well versed in history, Slovak culture, and this event, where he is a regular), that the event is in honor of a Slovak folk hero, really the Don Quiote of the region, a soldier named Kukan that was too peaceful and lazy to fight, so he wandered from town to town, looking for the army, but always staying at the pubs.
My sourse was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eduard Kukan (no relation to the soldier Kukan) who I had the priveledge of drinking two beers with (two different pubs, afterall). Now if you are like me you would just be happy to speak to someone in English, and when he told me his job title I wasn't so impressed, or perhaps just a little buzzed, until he told me that his counterpart in the USA is Condolisa Rice, and then it doesn't matter how buzzed you are, you get it. So I got it.
He's a great man, and we talked all about Slovakia and America, drinking laws, Swahili, and the rain. Then he had to take a call from Croatia, (I've been there), and then a call that a suicide bomber in Iraq killed some people down the road from the Slovak embassy. Hmmmm, I guess I had nothing else to say after that. Work calls, the rain fell, and he and his friends took a shortcut (skipping three pubs, but being who he is I'm sure he still got the diploma), and then back to work.
Well, if anyone wants to drink a beer with Mr. Kukan, be in Trencin the first Saturday after June 1, and bring your walking shoes. I'll join you.
posted by Karen at
11:25 AM
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