Napoleon

We reenter the hostel after being escorted through. The elderly man looks at our keys and insists on taking them back. He coughs walks around the side and appears behind the glass looking at us. He slowly slides back the glass picks up our keys and shuffles some paper followed by showing us the entry which he wrote earlier in the evening. Meticulously tippexed out and writen under the room number - Britanski. He shuffles our passports and eventually returns our room key.

The man in the tourist information responds slowly eventually showing us some towns we can get a bus to in the High Tatras. After ten minutes he returns with the time for Monday, we explain we want to leave now not in three days time so reluctantly he returns to his files. In the mean time a bright young Slovak girl notices what is happening and comes up to us to explain simply what we are looking for. She shows us instantly the biggest castle in Middle Europe and within 30 seconds tells us there is a bus in half an hours time and another an hour after that.

We take the bus. The young man in the immaculate tourist information greats us straight away and enthusiastically fires of information about Celtic tribes leaving coins, Mongol invasions being held back, fascinating monasteries by tall rock formations and where we can buy bread and cheese before climbing to the top of the tower from where we could see the start of the High Tatras reaching along the horizon.

This country is run by my generation and works incredibly - the things that matter such as buses, toilets, food, bars beyond western standards. To the older generation, which is used to shuffling mountains of Soviet Paperwork, all that was needed was to say good evening as we walked to our room.

However there are exceptions such as the man I met three nights ago who taught me to be afraid of ideologies.