The train rolled into Bratislava at 6 a.m. with two clean and rested cyclists on board. With an hour to spare before our train to Austria, we took seats in the ornate station restaurant. It was a weekday, and it was common for the locals to eat breakfast in the station before boarding their trains to work. This meant that the restaurant was packed at this early hour, about 200 people. As we looked over menus which we were incapable of reading, Nickipedia said, “Hey, look around. Do you notice anything strange about this place?”

I glanced at the cavernous ceiling, the worn red chairs and battered tables. The customers seemed no different from most people I had seen in Czechoslovakia; frayed but clean clothes, tired looks on their faces, lots of sighing.

“Seems normal to me,” I said.

“Look around again,” said Nickipedia. “It’s 6 a.m., and these people are going to work, in factories. Every single adult in this room, except you and me, has a pint of beer in front of them. Some have a pint and a glass of slivovice.” Slivovice is a clear, plum-based liquor, 50 percent alcohol, tasting similar to battery acid. The Czech government had to regulate the private production of slivovice because errors in distillation were resulting in the production of poisonous methanol.

It was true that everyone in the restaurant was drinking. It was a pitiful looking group. I thought it was a revealing fact of communism that no adult could endure a day of operating heavy machinery without an alcoholic breakfast. Wanting to blend in, I said to Nickipedia, “Well……..what do you think?”

“Oh, definitely,” he said. “Dvē piva,” Nickipedia said to the waiter, ordering two beers, and showing off his expanding Czech vocabulary.