Rose's Going Away Party

Last Friday I headed to Bratislava for Rose's going away party. Her two year assignment is over and IBM is sending her back to the USA. Rose is the last of my American friends in Slovakia. Over the last year all of my fellow Americans in Slovakia have gone back to the USA. Marcus is back in Atlanta, Janelle is in New York, and the marines have been reassigned. Who knows? Maybe it has something to do with Bratsville?

There was no way I could miss the "dovidenia fiesta" so I took the train after work and met up with everyone at Primi in Old Town. In typical Texas Mexican-American style no party is complete without tequila. I don't know how she found it, but she got the restaurant to order three bottles of Patron tequila. I haven't seen Patron tequila over here at all.

Tequila isn't as popular here as it is in the USA. Beer and wine are so much more cheaper than spirits. In the USA, people drink tequila with salt and lime. Or if it is really good tequila, like Patron, then you just drink it straight. Here, people drink silver tequila with salt and lemon (sometimes with lime). But if it's gold tequila then people here drink it with orange and cinnamon.

Rose and I had to show everyone how to drink it straight. Five bottles for ~40 people isn't too bad. Yeah five bottles, because she had two extra bottles stashed in her purse. The party was fun and I could tell that her co-workers were all going to miss her. Her team gave her a Slovak hockey jersey with her name on it which I thought was a very cool gift.

Now she's headed back to Texas for a few weeks and then on to her next assignment in New York. I decided to visit Atlanta and Los Angeles on vacation in 2012. If I swing through New York maybe I'll get the chance to see Rose and Janelle next year too.