Few things will put you in a bad mood faster than attending an event with 20 Slovaks. Anyone know the difference between a coconut culture and a peach culture? Well, Slovakia has a coconut culture. Being in this country feels like self-harm. One of my clients moved to Indonesia because of this. Another left to Spain. Both felt their sociable, outgoing soul was rotting away here.

Nobody will talk to you here unless you break the ice with a sledgehammer and it gets tiresome. You take a train to Vienna, one hour away, and you’re in a different universe where strangers don’t look at you like you’re a psycho killer until proven otherwise, but smile at you and make eye contact. Strange country.

That someone tried to kill Robert Fico makes more sense once you live here. The levels of pent frustration and suppressed anger you get here really seeps into your bones.

This only happens in Slovakia, but people look at you with fear in their eyes or you can actively feel them checking out your clothes to determine where in the social pecking order you are. It’s a simmering hostile environment and you have to be able to block it out and not let it get to you. If am not careful I march around here like a stiff one man invasion force, never smiling in public.

Slovakia does not bring out the best in me and I still take it as an interesting challenge. At least being here has taught me a lot about who I really am and what I like and don’t like and what I need and don’t need.

To be fair to Slovaks: once am in a situation where I talk to one Slovak in a more intimate, less public setting, it flips. I rarely run into any kind of unpleasantness when the ice breaks with a Slovak. It can just be a very tedious process.

Like I said this is a coconut culture, not a peace culture like The Netherlands or the US.

You can figure out the difference now, if you haven’t heard about these concepts yet.