30 March/1 April, Bratislava:

We stayed at the Radisson Blu Carlton hotel. It is right smack in the center of town, just off the old town and right next to the disproportionately huge US embassy - which is ``hidden behind'' a ring of steel wire fences, traps etc. (How the Slovaks can accept that a country, like the US, misuses its power to dictate that an important square of its capital city is completely disfigured by these monstrous attraps, I cannot understand.) Yes, there is a cost of being the US in a crazy world, but it should not be borne by, for example, the Slovaks. We met and had dinner, at Chez David, a kosher restaurant, with Karol Fischer whom we first met in 1978 !