Moj wikend

/My weekend/

...Was awesome! And packed. So here goes...

(I wrote this post on Sunday, as promised, but the wi-fi cut out, the end part wouldn't save, and I was forced to stop there. So, here it finally is.)

On Saturday afternoon at 2, Tibor and I went to Klokocina to pick up Aneta, Tibor´s girlfriend, and her son, Patrik (age=12 ish?). We were going to an "aquapark" in Galanta.

Galanta was about an hour away, a small, pretty town. It had been raining and gray skies all day, so I, envisioning something like Wild Waves, wondered how this was going to work. Surprise! Of course it was different from how I´d imagined...

We arrived at "Galandia," a large building seemingly in the middle of a cornfield. We went inside, and it was the temperature of a tropical paradise! Too hot for me in my sweatshirt and jeans... We got numbered plastic bracelets that had electronics inside. When we went to change into our swimsuits in the locker rooms (obviously I went with Aneta), the numbers on our bracelets matched lockers, and we scanned our bracelets to lock and unlock them. Very clever, I thought.

The main room--sanctuary, I´ll call it-- was a huge series of "thermal" pools, centered around a spiral staircase under a very high ceiling. The staircase didn´t actually go anywhere... I checked. The main pool was huge and wrapped around in pleasant curves. Everything was immaculately clean. The floor of the pool (I´m guessing 5 ft. deep) was stainless steel and completely studded with little bumps for good traction. There were various shelves for sitting on around the perimeter, and one place was actually shaped for lying down, right against intense (I actually got bruises!), massaging jet streams. So comfortable... There was a waterfall, too, which also gave a good pounding. And the water was very warm.

In the center of this main pool were two concentric circles of water around the spiral staircase to nowhere. You could only get to the inner, smaller circle by climbing over the railing that partitioned it from the other one. But the outer circle had a place to enter. Every fifteen minutes or so for about five minutes furious jet streams would turn on, and the outer circle became a whirlpool! You jumped in and you could just sit there without moving and it would take you around at a very fast pace. So much fun! I loved that. It would be so sad when the jet streams turned off again...

There were two other pools inside, the kiddie pool and a large pool that was significantly warmer than the main pool but not boiling like a hot tub. There was a continuous shelf around the whole perimeter for sitting, and jet streams to massage. I could have fallen asleep so easily.

Outside, there was another pool, kept pretty cool (22 degrees Celsius, the sign said), which I really loved. I´m not really a hot water kind of person. You got there by swimming through a little grotto thing. It was too cold for most people, so I enjoyed being out there alone for a while. There was a submerged island in the middle I lay on. Later, I discovered what was up with the 7-foot high stainless steel walls in the shape of a circle in the pool. Tibor, Aneta, Patrik and I got in there along with a couple, and by having half of us standing on each side and alternating jumping up and down, we made an intense wave pool! I was close to getting over the side. Awesome.

And then, amid all this, there were also waterslides. Three of them were open-air, and assumedly because it was a cold day, they unfortunately weren´t operating. The fourth, the highest up, was covered and finished into an indoor pool. I enjoyed my first slide on it, but even though I was lying down with my arms across my chest, for some reason I went really slowly. Which made my second and third times really unpleasant... FIVE people smashed into me! It was really painful and scary to hear them coming up behind me, and then wham! After the second time this happened, I was really in no mood to do the slide again.

We stayed there three hours. As it started getting later, they turned on the lights. The underwater ones were a lovely aquamarine color (and for some reason, the water was perfectly clear, so the color really came through), and then there were two red lights side by side on the ceiling. The way the red lights were positioned, they made a vermillion trail on the water that looked like a tropical sunset. It was so beautiful.

Well, I had a wonderful time and got completely tired out! Not to mention relaxed. We rinsed off in the lockers and then headed home. It was 7 by that time. Tibor and I dropped off Aneta and Patrik (really nice people) at their flat at around 8. I had a little pasta for dinner back at home and had a real shower, and then went to bed. I definitely slept well.

Today, Sunday, we got dressed up and went out at 12:30 to Chrenova (if you imagine a map of Nitra with the stare mesto at the center, Zobor is North, Klokocina is East, and Chrenova is West). Tibor´s 70 year-old uncle eloped last week, so this was the actual wedding celebration at a nice restaurant. We found out it´s actually the same place the other Rotary club in Nitra meets. Behind it is a large, old amphitheater which faces a towering concrete wall which they must project movies onto. Ruth and I walked around there a bit while they waited for people to arrive. And we idly looked for four-leaf clovers (stvorlistok, is the word)... Ruth found her first ever! We saw it at the same time, or maybe she got there a little first. Good for her. And then I found three others. It´s nice to be back in the groove, since I haven´t found any real ones since the rafting trip (2). I guess I´m just not in the right part of Nitra...

The dining room was set up very nicely with placecards. Mine said "Friend Rhiannon" and pinned to my napkin was a lapel pin of the American and Slovak flags together. Which was so nice! Of course it´s going on my blazer.

Who was there? Let´s see... Obviously the bride and groom, the latter of which looked just like an older version of Gabriel ("Gabo"); Tibor, Ruth, myself; Gabo, Gabika, Anka, Lenka and Miska; Tibor´s two cousins, women in their thirties (I thought they were in their twenties); one of the bride´s daughters (the other lives in Amsterdam) and her husband and children; Ruth´s stara mama, who is the sister of the groom, and Ruth´s grandfather; the brother of the bride and his wife; and a few other people who were either friends or relatives.

The bride, groom, and stara mama made toasts. We ate the first two courses, which were pasta salad and soup. It was fun for me to see the bride´s daughter who was there talking to her daughters exclusively in English, while their father spoke to them in Slovak-- they´re obviously trying to raise the children bilingual. And it was working! I watched the younger, who was probably two or three, have a temper tantrum, shouting "No! I won´t! I don´t want to!"

I had a nice long conversation with Mary, one of Tibor´s cousins (daughter of the groom), who is a journalist. (The older sister is a translator who dubs things into Slovak.) Her boyfriend Roman was there and was also very nice. She invited me to come over to her flat sometime, so I hope that happens. They live actually right on the main square! That´s so unbelievable. That would be incredible.

Then in the lobby the newlyweds received all their gifts and handshakes and cheek kisses from everyone. I was surprised to see that stara mama´s gift was a huge exotic plant. I asked Ruth, was it traditional to give plants for wedding gifts? She laughed-- as in America, usual wedding gifts are useful things to help get a young couple started with their new life together. But what do you get 70 year-olds whose lives are definitely established? So stara mama had decided on a plant. It was more like a tree, actually...

Afterwards, Anka, Lenka, Mary, Miska and stara mama lined up and also received gifts, handshakes, and kisses. Why? All of them had had either birthdays or name-days or both recently. Name-days are great. You get two birthdays a year! All Slovak calendars include whose name-day it is for every day. Obviously I don´t have one, so Tibor sat down with the calendar, randomly flipping through the days, and then decided on November 6th. Why? That´s Renata´s day, and he thought the names were sort of similar, so...

When this was finally through, we went back to the dining room to order entrees. It took forever for them to come! Over an hour at least. And mine came last of all, which was too bad because Ruth and I were going to leave early to go to Sunday mass. Because my entree came so late, we missed the mass at the church Ruth had planned on, the one that´s connected to her school. But she decided we could go to the 5:30 one at a different church instead, so we stuck around for coffee and dessert (I didn´t have either).

The two of us left soon afterwards (though the celebration is still going on, at a quarter to ten!). We walked further into Chrenova, to a church I hadn´t been to before. It was where Ruth had her first communion. The exterior reminded me a lot of old Spanish missions in California. Only the palm trees were missing...

It was a nice mass, made nicer in that Ruth´s friend and classmate who I´ve met several times before, Teresa, was performing in the balcony along with a few other girls. Teresa has a great voice and she plays the guitar. I found out afterwards we were lucky in this respect; today was the first time they´d had musical performers! I was also amazed to see Teresa there, since there are at least a dozen churches in Nitra, and for some reason she had been at this one, which is off the beaten path.

After mass, Ruth went up to the balcony to talk to the girls, and I stayed below. Most of the people had left. The priest came up to me and said something in Slovak; I apolegetically explained in Slovak that I was American. And then, ironic to what I´d professed, we had a quality conversation entirely in Slovak-- he didn´t speak any English. He was blown away when I told him I´d only been here a month! I really feel like in the last two days or so a switch has been flipped in my mind. Not the big switch, a smaller one, but a switch nonetheless. Somehow I´m just understanding so much more. And I was understanding a lot before! It´s such a wonderful feeling.

Ruth came back downstairs and said we´d been invited to a youth group meeting. Another interesting coincidence: this was the first trial meeting on the priest´s part, trying to start a youth group. There were six of us, including me. People brainstormed ideas and wrote down their email addresses. One disadvantage to appearing knowledgeable in Slovak was that later the priest spoke very quickly to me, and I couldn´t catch it all! He was a really great guy. I´m excited I´ll get to see him again, since Ruth and I promised to come to the next meeting next Sunday. He said he wants me to come speak to the children at the elementary school where he teaches religion, and I´d really like to do that!

There were no buses to get back home, so we had a nice twilight walk. And I know I had more written here, but it apparently got deleted, and I don't remember what it was. Too bad.

Updates: Had a very nice Rotary meeting yesterday. I really enjoy them! Today marks four whole weeks in Slovakia. Yay! And tomorrow, I am going with Tibor, Aneta, and Patrik (maybe? I don't know) to HUNGARY. Really! Not Budapest; but I don' t know how to spell the name of the town. We're going to the thermal baths there that Hungary is so famous for. Needless to say, that's going to be awesome. And I won't be missing school, because tomorrow is a national holiday-- I'm not actually sure what of (people have just told me, "uh... it's an anniversary").

Much love!

Jazyk...

/Language.../

Breakfast this morning with Tibor (Ruth wasn´t up yet) was entirely in Slovak, on both sides! I was so proud of myself. I understood everything and could respond correctly. It´s such a good feeling. I had a bit of a breakthrough yesterday and the day before that. The day before yesterday, when I was having dinner with Ruth, I got her to explain the past tense to me because I wanted to finally be sure. Amazingly, it seems like it must be the only thing in Slovak that´s simple! (Though I don´t know if Slovak has two past tenses, like Spanish does.) There´s only a masculine (and neuter) and a feminine form of each verb in the past, and then you just tack on the right conjugation of "to be"! It´s so nice to be able to use it now, when before I could only throw out a guess. And then, the next afternoon coming home from school on the bus, I saw an ad. I realized it must be in the conditional, because I was remembering way back to Pimsleur Czech and Czech conditionals. And, ta da, I realized conditionals ("I would like...") use the same principle as the past tense! So when I got home, I used a conditional sentence where it would be appropriate, trying out my theory. Ruth did a double-take. "Hey! That was great!" I´m feeling very good about this.

Yesterday (Friday) after dinner, Ruth and I looked at each other. What was there for dessert? The last of the snickerdoodles was eaten the day before. (And I never mentioned the second batch of peanut butter cookies I made before that.) Time to get cooking! It´s easy to make American recipes since Ruth liked the American measurement system of cups and spoons so much, she bought sets of them and brought them back to Slovakia with her! Slovak recipes, you have to weigh things like flour in grams... That sounds like a lot of trouble.

So, I found the "Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies" recipe on allrecipes.com. Ruth had bought a bar of chocolate a week ago for whenever we decided to make these-- they don´t have chocolate chips here, so we had to make our own by cutting up the bar. I was worried the chips weren´t going to really work, since this is real chocolate that melts in your hands, and so it was probably going to turn liquid in the oven. But oh well. We whipped them up, substituting baking powder for soda, as recipe reviewers had suggested, and then put them in to bake in the super-oven (everything bakes in half the time in it, though we don´t know why). The came out perfectly. Somehow the chips didn´t melt at all! And they taste exactly like you want them to taste. Mhmm...

Okay, that´s not related to language at all, but what happened next was. We left at 9 for Mlyny, where as part of the mall´s one-year anniversary celebration, they were showing two movies back to back. We were going to see Sex and the City at 9:30. We got there, and Coco Chanel, the earlier film, was still playing on the big screen they´d erected in the entrance hall (Mlyny doesn´t have a movie theater). As soon as I started listening to the movie, it sounded wrong. Different. "Yeah, it´s in Czech," Ruth told me. It was such a big difference to my ears! And that made me happy, because they´re such similar languages, and I actually made the distinction instantly. Czech sounds to me so much sharper and jagged, while Slovak is all rounded. Sex and the City was also in Czech, and for whatever reason I really didn´t like the sound of it, when months ago I loved how Czech sounded. Maybe just because now it doesn´t sound like what I´m used to. I could pick out words, but I didn´t understand most of it. However, I understood the movie perfectly, though it definitely helped to have watched the series so I knew the plots (late night television....). It´s worthy of note that here in this public place they were showing a very rated-R movie-- sex scenes and frontal nudity galore...

When Slovaks get things dubbed or with subtitles, it´s (almost?) always in Czech. So Slovaks understand Czech well, since all the movies (mostly imported from America) and TV shows they watch are in it. But, I was talking to Natalia about this, a lot of Czechs have a very hard time understanding Slovak, since they never hear it! She was telling me that her father does some business in the Czech Republic, and he has Czech clients who actually don´t even understand the Slovak numbers, even though they´re so close to Czech ones! So he has to use Czech for them.

One more incident: Yesterday I went to TESCO--aka the Walmart of Slovakia--to buy some cheap art supplies. The other day I had nothing to do so I decided to draw my window in my room-- the window frame and curtain themselves, and the view. It turned out so wonderfully! I just love it. So that inspired me to want to draw more city scenes here in the stare mesto. So, I´m wandering around TESCO on the third floor, and I finally find what I need, but for some reason there are security detectors at the entrance to the third floor, so you can´t leave the third floor without paying. But that place is like IKEA, in that it´s a total maze, so I wasn´t sure where I could pay. I approached a desk. "Ahh, you´re ready to pay?" the man said in Slovak. I nodded. And then he gave me directions to the actual cashier, all in Slovak, and I understood perfectly! It was like, "Go straight to the end of this hall, turn right, turn right again..." Directions in another language isn´t easy! So that was cool.

On a different front, it´s been interesting learning English as a foreign language in school. They´re currently studying the Past Perfect (i.e., "I had gone"), and it´s been cool actually learning the structure of it, since obviously I´ve never have to think about correct usage. The teacher explained it´s for when something happens in the past before something else. Like, "He hadn´t escaped when the police came." And that makes sense!

And now I´d like to recognize the authors of learn-Slovak books, who all, unfailingly, note cheerfully that "Pronunciation is easy since the stress always falls on the first syllable!" Well, pronunciation is one of the easiest things about the language, but this is not the exception-free savior they make it out to be. They should know better! When a vowel is accented, it becomes longer, and sometimes it happens that the stress in the word becomes that syllable. Like, to say goodnight, you say "dobrú noc." The accented "u" there is extremely stressed! This doesn´t bother me, just the presumption on the textbook writers´parts.

That was just an interlude post. I´ll probably post on Sunday after the exciting things planned for the weekend have come to pass. I´ll pack it in next time.

Much love!

Ave Maria!

[No translation needed here...]

It's been unseasonably cold here. Ruth swears this is very unusual. It feels great to me! I would have thought people with cold winters would have high cold tolerances. It's the opposite here, definitely, and I'm still wearing my sandals. I think I'll stop now, only because it draws so many sideways glances and people shouting "Zima?!"

Yesterday I hung out at Mlyny, the mall across from my apartment, with two new friends from school. Both of them actually live in a town 30 km away from Nitra, but they live in special student dormitories in the city. Good for the commute, I suppose, but it must be hard only getting to see your parents on weekends! (Haha, a little ironic I'm saying this...)

Mlyny's McDonald's deserves a whole paragraph. I approached the counter (though I didn't order anything) and was shocked to see clean. Spotless floor. Shiny countertop. Well-groomed, intelligent workers dressed smartly in pressed button-up shirts and trousers. We went into the actual sitting area, and wow. Exactly like a Starbucks. We're talking cool modern design, leather-upholstered furniture, everything spotless. I could touch the table and feel fine about it. (A woman was walking around with a spray bottle meticulously cleaning all the tables as soon as they were vacated.) It was pretty awesome. Interestingly enough, though, it was expensive! Not only did it cost maybe double or triple the price in America, it was very costly by the usual extremely inexpensive Slovak standards! Maybe you're paying for the decor? The menu I saw looked a lot greener than the American one, though Slovak cuisine in general isn't very healthy (meat and starch), and the McFlurry milkshake was the main attraction. Mom will appreciate this: no straws, only spoons!

As we were sitting and talking, I looked out the window and saw a small lake outside, right next to Mlyny. I commented on it, and Lucka said yes, there was a lot of water under the building, and there were rumors... I later asked Ruth about it, and now I don't know if I should be afraid or not! Apparently, the architect who designed Mlyny committed suicide after because he had "built it wrong" and was afraid he was going to put in prison. Which, as Ruth points out, makes you wonder about what exactly is wrong with it! She says they built it in an extremely short amount of time, and there is a lot of water under the building, so many people are afraid it's going to collapse in on itself at any moment. Hmm. This kind of worries me. I'd like to think safety inspectors have given it the all-clear, but I really don't know if that's the case.

Two fun things at school yesterday: one, there was a test in German class, and I didn't have to take it. That was nice. Two, in history class the teacher was reviewing the material the students had learned the year before by holding up pictures of different things from history. I was proud to recognize most... The cooler thing was that I'd been to a lot of them! "Oh, that's Carnak. Ahh! The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia! How lovely..." Thanks, parents.

And now a discussion about Catholicism in Slovakia. Totally jumping around topics here, I know, but bear with me... I've read that 80% of Slovakia is Catholic, though it feels like more! It seems like everyone is... Is that what it feels like with Christianity in America? I never thought so, but I also don't hail from the Bible Belt. And maybe it feels less concentrated, too, since there are so many different sects you can belong to. Here, there's just one! I'm still exploring how deeply ingrained it is into the culture. The flag has a double cross on it, which is supposed to signify the country's religious heritage. Does it make things easier, I wonder, if everyone agrees about moral issues? I have yet to see a vocal minority (considering I haven't even sensed a minority...). So yes, it's interesting. You can go to any church, any day of the week. They collect donations at mass, but I wonder how it works with tithing, since you can go to whatever church you feel like. I'm really curious to know how separate church and state are. The two definitely overlap quite a bit in America, which tries to claim it's secularized. So we'll see...

This afternoon I went with Ruth to a special mass for her school in honor of the Virgin Mary's birthday (today). Ruth's school is attached to a large, beautiful church, but this mass was held at a different church, one I hadn't been to before. This other church has a sort of special dedication to Mary, so it makes sense to hold the mass there. I was excited to see yet another Nitra kostol... I've seen the insides of five now, and gone to mass at four.

It was great for me because I got to meet a nun who was actually from Iowa, Sister Mary Nicole. She works in the elementary portion of Ruth's school, so Ruth knew her well. I think she'd been stationed in Slovakia for maybe two years now? More? At any rate, her Slovak was perfect. My untrained ears would never had heard a difference. Interestingly enough, her English had a subtle Slovak accent! Which I heard gradually subside over the course of the mass, talking to me. I definitely can understand how it happens. Even just talking to Ruth in English, sometimes I find it natural to fall into the way she pronounces things (though she has a great accent), and then I have to catch myself. I wonder what it'll be like at the end of the year...

So, Sister Mary Nicole sat with Ruth and me, and so very kindly translated the whole sermon for me! I was amazed at her translation skills; she spoke at the exact same time as the priest, and the translation lagged by only half a second! It was so nice to finally understand the mass. And it was very lovely. She also procured song lyrics for me so I could sing along and showed me in a little book the responses to give to the priest. The last song was actually in Spanish, and she wrote out the words for me. One thing that makes no sense to me, though, is the word "tu" in the lyrics. In Spanish it means "you," in Slovak it means "here." (And I still cross my wires sometimes and get mixed up. Old habits die hard! Not to mention "no" actually means "yes" in Slovak...) I was reading the lyrics over after the mass, and I was so worried I was losing my Spanish, because they weren't making any sense to me. Then I tried making "tu" mean "here," and it suddenly worked. But it's not like Sr. Mary Nicole wrote the lyrics out wrong; we had sung that word. So why would a Slovak write a hymn in Spanish? Since I can't think of any other explanation. Hmm...

And I got blessed! It came time for the Eucharist, which I of course never get up for, and Sr. Mary Nicole turned to me and said, "So, are you Catholic?" Um... "No." "That's okay, you just can't receive the Eucharist! But you can go up and put your finger over your lips, and then he'll know to bless you instead. If you want to." So I did. It was very nice.

So, yes, I had a wonderful time, mostly because of Sr. Mary Nicole making everything better for me! She was such a sweet person. I've met the greatest people here in Slovakia (I'm counting her, even if she is originally American). And she invited me over for fajitas sometime soon, so that'll be so much fun! I'm already looking forward to seeing her again.

Much love!

Dobry dni

/Good days/

I´ve had a couple of really good days here, so I thought I´d share...And § is going to count as a semicolon, because I don´t know how to make those on this computer.

Yesterday, Ruth and I went over to Erika´s house to make cookies. I´d met Erika before§ she´s the elderly friend of the family who takes care of Kora (the dog) during the day. She´s one of these baker types who knows how to make everything, sans cookbook, and does. Erika´s specialties are these exquisite cookies with very fine, detailed, delicate designs in every color of frosting you could want. The last time I´d visited I gotten to see her pinboard covered with all her showcase creations. Most were very old, she told me, and she needed to make new ones. A fleecy lamb with the sweetest smile§ rabbits and eggs for many years´worth of Easters§ even a cookie specially for Ruth´s exchange, in the shape of two interlocking hearts with the American and Slovak flags on them (and the American flag looked like it actually had fifty stars on it!). I didn´t know it initially, but Erika was going to teach me the art.

Erika pinned dishtowels around Ruth´s and my waist for aprons, and then we washed our hands. Erika had pre-made a large bowl of dough, and she had me roll it out flat. Interestingly (to me), the important thing was in not getting the dough too thick. Thin wasn´t a problem. Ruth and I cut out two packed baking sheets´worth of cookies in the shape of moons, hearts, cats, roosters, pigs, rabbits, and lambs-- you can guess who chose the cookie cutters from Erika´s several dozen. Then Erika separated out the yolk from two eggs (the whites were used for frosting later), gave me what looked like a homemade brush, and had me brush the cookie tops with the whisked yolks for baking.

The cookies seemed to only bake for a minute or so§ at any rate, Erika took the baking sheet out with her bare hands, so it couldn´t have been too hot... The cookies hadn´t expanded really at all, just puffed up a little, but the tops were a nice golden brown. Frosting time!

It took a long time just to make the frosting. I was reminded of making supersaturate solutions in chemistry as I watched Erika add tablespoons of powdered sugar to the egg whites again and again and again... it must have been several cups´worth, but her intensive whisking with a blunt knife condensed it all into the little cup.

When she´d finally judged the frosting thick enough, Erika gave me a short lesson in how it was done. I knew as I watched that she was making it look so easy and that really it was going to be a hard process. She gave the little lamb a white wooly coat so deftly, keeping within the edges perfectly. My turn! Definitely something that takes practice... I got better, certainly, especially after she gave me another lesson when she saw I was struggling, but it was still a very slow process for me.

We frosted the one sheet all in white, and then Erika made up some special bags of colored frosting, bright red and yellow-orange, clamped off with clothespins. She showed me how to hold the bags and use only my wrists. I got a better feel for the flow of the frosting, but you can´t imagine my newfound awe and appreciation of her skill! I can´t believe those perfectly even lines...let alone how many separate bags of frosting she would have had to have made for each cookie´s many colors!

This took us several hours, and then I had to leave because Ruth and I were going to church, Sunday mass. The cookies had to dry before we could put on more layers of frosting, so Erika invited me back for whenever I could to continue the process. Maybe tomorrow I can go...

Ruth and I went again to the church at the base of the hrad. It´s Ruth´s favorite, decorations-wise. I like how traditionalist it is. A highlight was the music. Last time we´d been, it´d only been the elderly congregation singing (no songbooks, remember, and Ruth says they´re old songs even she doesn´t know the words to). This time, in the balcony above us, out of sight, there was a special choir. And I found out that what I´d assumed last time was a counter telling how large the congregation was--a digital screen up front-- was actually telling what song number they were on. Ah. But I´ve never seen any books in which there would be numbered songs...

Today was my first try at the bus solo. Wow, did I build up so much worry and anxiety over nothing! Ruth had kindly figured out the bus schedule for me, so I knew I had to be out at the stop (which is conveniently right outside the apartment) at 7:31. I knew I was in the right place at the right time, but I felt much better when I actually saw my classmate waiting at the same stop. This particular route is designed for Golianove kids--it goes straight to the school, and no further than the school--so I was sure I was going to get there, but I was amazed at how tightly packed the double-long bus got! Not only are there no school buses, kids from all over go to Golianove: Zobor, on the opposite side of town§ even several kids in my class from towns 30 km away going to the better school.

A good second real day of school, though not much to do. English class was of course my highlight, though it felt strange to be encouraged to speak English... I couldn´t get over feeling guilty and wanting to toss in as many Slovak words as I could. German was interesting, as my first time being deadweight in a language class! We were playing a game in groups, trying to generate the most number of German words that started with certain letters. I felt bad for my groupmates, since I was no use. (The only "s" word I knew which fit the categories asn´t very appropriate, so I didn´t bring it up.)

A word about German in Slovakia: the Slovak kids I´ve talked to consider German much harder than English, principally because of the genders. Slovak and German both have three genders (male, female, neuter) which all nouns perscribe to. But of course, in a lot of instances nouns are different genders in the different languages. I have no problem thinking of a book as male in Spanish and female in Slovak§ but then, my native language doesn´t use genders, so whenever I use them, it´s just something foreign I´m memorizing, like a verb conjugation. Deirdre sent me an excellent article about this called The Philosophy of Language, published in the New York Times. But genders become deeply ingrained in speakers of gendered languages, so that they actually feel that inanimate objects are male, female, whatever. I can see how it would be difficult, then, for such people to learn another gendered language.

Despite its difficulty, German is important in Slovakia. The English teacher asked the students, "Do you think it´s important to know English?" Everyone nodded and said "Of course! Everyone in the whole world speaks English." Then she said, "Do you think it´s important to know German?" (This is the group of kids whose second language is English and distant third is German.) Everyone hissed and shook their heads and muttered things like "I hate German!" "No, it´s not important! English is more useful! German is just hard!" The English teacher calmly listened and nodded, and then said, "You know, I speak English and French. This is my first year teaching. When I was looking for jobs teaching all over Slovakia, many I had to immediately discount because they required both English and German. English is just the expectation. So many jobs require applicants to have German as well. Don´t rule it out just yet... every language you know will help you..."

It was a long, seven-class day (actually, the exact length of my old American schooldays, but I think having more classes makes it feel longer), as all days except Friday will be, and I was so hungry by lunch time at 1:30, having not eaten since seven that morning. The cafeteria food´s not known for being gourmet (quite the opposite), but the good news is that when you´re hungry everything is delicious! An unexpected nice surprise came when the lunch lady called me aside-- my classmate translated for me. She asked where I was from (I guess she´d heard me speaking English...hopefully it´s not because I stick out that badly!)§ I told her America. It turns out she wants an English-speaking friend for her teenage son to improve his language skills. She asked if I have time on Saturday. I hope so, because I´d totally love to do it! I´ll ask Ruth, when she comes back from her school´s retreat, if she had anything already planned...

After school, Natalya, Larissa (other American exchange student in Nitra)´s host sister and the sister in what will be my third family, picked us both up to take us to the Rotary meeting, held on Klokocina near the school. I found the night before I was actually not presenting my Powerpoint, as I´d thought, but just introducing myself. Oh well. I finally got to meet Ramiro, the Mexican exchange student, and Miroslav, my counselor. I was surprised at the size of the club: only thirty people at the most, compared to the 200 plus at my Olympia club. Lots of variety. I´m glad the meetings are held at 3:30, because they want us to come every week. That´ll be easy to walk to after school on Mondays, once Larissa and I figure out the way.

There were a few special guests at the meeting: a couple from the Czech Republic (whose son, I found out from the mother, had actually been an exchange student in Snohomish, so when the parents had visited him there, they had travelled around all of Washington, including Olympia), and two rebounds, one who´d gone to Turkey (!) and one who´d been in Canada--the Northwest Territories, as a matter of fact!

We did end up having to introduce ourselves. I think I spoke well§ the Rotary woman said, "Congratulations on your Slovak. It is very good."

A big highlight for me was getting to meet the woman who will be my second host mother. It´s amazing how instantly you can love someone! Imagine the nicest, kindest, sweetest, prettiest person... And, what´s more... I´m still reeling in shock... Her husband is Italian (and speaks excellent Spanish, she says!), so this Deember they´re taking me to Italy-- for THREE WEEKS!!!!! Wowowowow. I guess I better brush up on my Italian. Buongiorno! Grazie! Prego! Arivaderci...

And speaking of awesome trips, I was talking to the boy who´d been in Canada, and he says he heard we´re going on a Rotary trip sometime this year to Barcelona, by bus. Seriously?? Spain? How awesome is that!

After the Rotary meeting, Natalya picked Larissa and me up and drove me home. Tibor and Ruth were both out, and I felt justified in treating myself, so I decided to walk to the mall and buy myself a Milka bar, which I´d been hearing about from so many people. I was maybe a little too determined... This was not the kind of Washington rain you go out bareheaded in. This was the insta-soak variety. And I hadn´t thought to grab an umbrella from the closet. I´m hoping, maybe in vain, that my jeans (my only remaining pair, since the others are in the wash!) will be dry by tomorrow... At least I got a walk, got my candy, and got a nice hot shower afterwards. And God, that candy was worth every raindrop. Sorry Dad, it´s got me questioning Ritter Sport...

Tomorrow is my three week mark. Really? It still feels so fresh and new, even though every day has been so long and full... I´m not feeling the exchange student doldrums yet!

Much love!

Skola

/school/

So what´s happened since my birthday? Let´s see...

I had my first day of school, which was only about an hour long. The whole school was out on the tennis courts, organized by classes, and the principal gave several speeches, introduced teachers, etc. When she had finished, everyone was free to go home.

Tibor showed me where my classroom would be and where the locker area for my class was (you wear slippers at school, so you have to put your shoes somewhere). It was only nine or so by this time, so there was still time for me to meet Ruth downtown at her school.

Ruth´s school is Catholic, so the first day they only had mass. Tibor dropped me off at the church-school and I got to see the last hour or so of the mass. The inside was the prettiest of the many churches I´ve seen so far. Though I wasn´t inside! Standing room only. I was actually right in the doorway, and eventually as people left I made it into the entrance hall.

The next day, Friday, was real school. I was half an hour late, but that was because Tibor and I had gone to the police office first with school documents and we´d had to wait so long. That first day there were only three classes: Math, German, and English. I don´t think I´ve mentioned this, but unfortunately Golianove doesn´t have Spanish, so I have to take German. I´ve always wanted to learn German, but I don´t really think it´s going to happen this year...

The Math teacher was so nice. At break she took me up three floors to show me where her office was. Students, you see, stay basically in one classroom the whole day, and teachers, who have private offices, rotate between classes. The exceptions to this are that for gym and science classes the students have to go to the gyms and labs, respectively. We didn´t do math the first day, though, it was just introduction speeches.

German didn´t actually happen that day either. Well, I didn´t even meet the teacher. The class was divided into three groups based on language proficiency, with the top kids, an intermediate group, and those who had only started learning the year before. The top kids left for another classroom, and the rest of us just sat without any teacher for forty-five minutes...

I´m not exactly sure who the English teacher is, since there were two teachers there, but nothing to do on the first day regardless. And then school was out, at 11:55 (a special short day--I shouldn´t get used to it!), and it was lunch time. Everyone has prepaid meal tickets that they get punched in the cafeteria. So that´s the incentive to eat lunch there, but technically you can leave whenever. As soon as you´re done eating.

My classmates were so wonderfully nice. I had a good day. We got schedules for the year, and it looks like all Fridays will be good, since they only have the minimum number of classes that day, five. The maximum days are Mondays and Tuesdays with seven classes apiece. But classes are only forty-five minutes long and there are breaks after each one, so it´ll be fine.

That day Ruth´s friend Silvia was having a barbecue at her family´s company garden in a village just outside Nitra. It was such a nicely landscaped place! I had a great time with the good food, nice people, and fun games. We took a bus back to Nitra at 8:45. I was surprised at how quickly the sun went down! It was only a span of a few minutes between when I was appreciating the beautiful sunset to pitch black darkness.

The bus was very nice and clean. It looked exactly like a private charter bus. And the half-hour trip only cost .90 Euros... Regular city buses, which are also wonderfully clean (cultural difference: here, everyone rides the bus. Teenagers can´t get their licenses until they´re eighteen, and there are no school buses), only cost .30 Euros, or .20 Euros if you have a card certifying that you´re a student. This is compared to the expensive dollar a ride on the buses back home...and don´t even get me started on BART...

Tomorrow I´m presenting to my Rotary club at my first meeting. I made the Powerpoint and wrote up what I´m going to say in Slovak (there´re probably lots of errors, but I give myself credit for the effort), so let´s hope it goes well. Sorry this was a pretty boring post...

Much love!

"Rafting": Uz Tatry a Polsko!

[The Tatra mountains and Poland already!]

Yes, the title counts as Slovak, because that's what they called what we were doing on the water, even though it wasn't! I'm finally going to attempt this post, but I might have to do it in parts... we'll see. I'm hoping time has abridged my memory a little. Let's hope!

PART I

Tibor and I left the flat at 2 PM, but we didn't get on the open road until 4:30 or so because there were lots of little errands to do, i.e., a trailer with canoes to attach, friends to pick up, etc. Tibor's friend Peter (aka Fi Fi) came with us. (Ruth stayed at home because she had to study for the big exams.)

And... we drove across the entire country. In America, I'd figured it would take three or four hours to drive the length of Slovakia; but then, I was betting on 60+ mph the whole way and straight as the crow flies. It took much longer, as you can imagine. Most freeways were at 80 km/hr. (48 mph)--and a lot of it wasn't freeway. Still, we drove across the entire country in an evening! Shorter than driving from Olympia to Walla Walla...

I still had jet lag, so a fair amount of the way there I was passed out in the backseat. But when I was conscious, I got to enjoy watching the landscape rise... Western Slovakia, where Nitra is, is comparatively pretty darn flat, with the few hills there are as notable landmarks (ex: Zobor). Within 65 km, you get to Banska Bystrica in Central Slovakia. The difference is incredible! Banska Bystrica is enveloped by towering, forested hills. Very beautiful; haunting, even. I appreciated Banska Bystrica's stare mesto, as seen from the freeway. That was the nicest city I saw on the way there. Of course I was mentally comparing everything to Nitra, and everything was falling short for me. Nitra is wonderful!

As you move East, the hills become mountains, and they just keep getting bigger. It was dark by the time we got to the High Tatras, the jewels of Slovakia. They get up past 10,000 feet and look like the Alps when they've got snow on them. Unfortunately, that night it was both dark and foggy, so I couldn't see them at all. (Luckily, I did on the way home...)

And then we crossed the border into Poland! No border checks at all (I never had to produce my passport in the three days), but an obvious shift into another country. For one thing, the radio immediately became Polish, and the language on all the signs changed. But beyond that, the Polish town right there on the border was so radically different from a Slovak town. More on that later. It was 10:30 at night, and Tibor stopped at an ATM to get some zlotys. Come on, Poland, use the Euro!

The campsite was right next to the Dunaj (Danube). In the dark I saw a sea of tents and people clumped around a fire as we started to unload everything and pitch our own tents. Tibor gestured to the sea. "All my friends," he said. I thought he was exaggerating; there must have been fifty! As I found out later, he was no liar.

I woke up and dressed at seven, geared for the early starts I'm used to backpacking with my own family. I was disappointed, however: most people got up and stretched at nine or so. After a very leisurely breakfast, we finally drove to the starting point, which was back in Slovakia. We were going to canoe back to our campsite. We launched at 12:30.

I was in a canoe with Tibor that was shaped like a dragon; it was named the Loch Ness. Tibor, of course, was bow, as that's the position that actually does the hard things like steering. I was glad for my experience with canoeing last summer in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, because this was definitely a step up. I had found canoeing pretty dull on the lakes before (so slow compared to rowing!), but this time we were canoeing whitewater! We were going fast. I learned new skills, like how to paddle in the troughs of waves. So much fun! Maybe someday I'll get a kayak and a helmet and do the real stuff, like one of the guys there, Jozef, was doing.

The scenery was pretty spectacular too. We were in a gorge with huge granite cliffs rising up before us. One of the banks of the river was Poland, and one was Slovakia. Alongside our twenty-five odd canoes and kayaks there were also traditional wood rafts for tourists. The wood rafts seated twelve, with two men to ferry them like gondolas, with long wood poles. That looked like fun.

The big challenge of the day was called Janosik's Revenge, after Juraj Janosik, a (in?)famous character in Slovak history. What I'd read about him, he was a rabble rouser of sorts, and finally was condemned to be hanged by his rib. It took him three days to die; on the third day, he received a pardon from the governor, but it was too late for him. His last words were "You have baked me; now you must eat me!" Tibor called him an outlaw. I don't know. So, to get back to the story, this part of the river was named after him because it was so treacherous. If people flipped there, as they often did, they would blame it on Janosik. It happened to Martin and Juraj (not an extraordinary coincidence in names, as it means 'George'), and I heard Martin mutter the man's name.

But we survived Janosik! It looked like a cauldron in the water, frothing and sucking things into it. To be honest, it scared me. Oh no, it's going to suck to flip here... But miraculously, surely due to Tibor's navigational finesse, it went fine. I did get splashed, but it felt good. The weather was perfect, bright and sunny but not uncomfortably so, and I dried in minutes.

We stopped for lunch at 2:30 at a Slovak restauracia (Polish: restauracja). I had gulas (goulash) and knedla, my first experience with the latter. What a great combination--topped off with Kofola. The restaurant was right next to a very old, very famous, Slovak monastery, sometime-home of the monk Cyprian. I can't remember all of Cyprian's accomplishments, or when exactly he lived (medieval?), but he's legendary. Places all over the country are named after him. There's a Slovak movie that came out recently called Legenda which is about his life, and it was actually filmed there in the monastery.

Tibor took me to the monastery's museum, which I enjoyed. The main sanctuary was under construction, so too bad there, but I got to see plenty of other rooms and many artifacts, like ancient habits, rosary beads, statues, and Bibles.

It was a calmer two hour stretch after lunch to get back to the campsite. I had a nice shower and changed into my warm clothes. The campsite was like an RV park (except very few RV's), in that it had water stations, showers, and toilets. I like taking the grit out of camping. Sleeping in a tent is luxurious if you're clean.

We went out to dinner at a Polish restauracja. The price miracle continues over the border! The food was excellent, and while I'm not totally up to date on my Euro-to -zloty conversion, I think it was dirt cheap as well. It's interesting that Poles and Slovaks can understand each other pretty well. The languages look so different in writing ("w" is only used for foreign words in Slovak, but it seems like every word in Polish requires a few!), but they sound similar. One of the most common Slovak words ever is "dobre," which means good/okay/fine/yes/so/alright, etc. (pronounced doe-bray), and the Czech version is "dobre," with a little "v" over the "r" (pronounced dobr-shjay). The Poles apparently use it just as much, and they pronounce it like the Czechs.

PART II

Day Two! I went to bed at 8:30 because I was exhausted with jet lag and I slept for twelve hours. This time, we launched from the campsite, and both banks of the river were Poland. None of the striking crags from the day before, but beautiful pastoral scenery. Poland is unbelievable like that. Rolling hills dotted with haystacks, forests: gold and green in perfect interplay.

Despite Janosik's Revenge the day before, Day Two's rapids were more intense. There came a time when we were going over a large waterfall, and there were stones on all sides; it was finally too much for our little canoe, and we flipped! Which felt great, since the water was just the right temperature. Not to worry, we were wearing lifevests. And that definitely was important, since the current was so strong. I remembered Tibor's teachings and held tight to my paddle, and let go of the canoe. Everyone else was waiting on the beach, and after they helped drag in the canoe, I was hailed as a hero for quickly snatching Tibor's pivo (beer) as it had floated by.

I got a change of clothes and then we paddled on. For lunch, we dragged the boats up a rocky waterfall and then walked a short distance along the road to a Polish restauracja. Good food and good ice cream.

I can't remember any other highlights from Day Two, so I'll wrap it up. We ended at a kayak park, where they had two long runs for rafters and intense kayakers--obstacles to navigate around, poles to aim through, and nothing but rapids. It looked like fun! We pulled the boats up to the lawn there and left them there for the night. That morning the men had negotiated the car logistics, so the cars were all parked there to drive us back to the campsite.

For dinner, we went into the Polish town. As I said, it was very different from a Slovak one... But how so, it's hard to explain to you people who haven't seen either! Hmm. Well, Slovak buildings tend to have red tile roofs. In Poland, everything was brown and white. With a very characteristic slant to all the roofs; the kind I associate with Austrian chalets. The huge church, which dominated the town, looked pretty modern. Not the classic Eastern Orthodox ones just about every Slovak town seems to have. I think that's where my descriptive skills end. You'll just have to visit, and see for yourself...

PART III

I woke up about thirty seconds before the bells began. The campsite was actually directly across from the giant church. I could not believe how loud the bells were. I think I actually got hearing damage. And they went on and on and on and on... Seven whole minutes, by my watch. I had forgotten it was Sunday... I don't think any such excuses from Polish worshipers could hold up with that church. It definitely made sure no one slept in with a guilt-free conscience. And, to my further disbelief, an hour later, at eight, the bells started again. "Only" five minutes this time. I liked the novelty of it, in that you can't get that in America, but I couldn't actually find the bells pretty. They were just obnoxious.

Several of the young people had left the night before, and several of the older people were staying behind to do the kayak park, so when we set out on the last day, it was with only about five canoes. A word about the departures: when one twenty-something guy left, he went around to every single last person (about fifty), and shook hands, or hugged, or kissed cheeks, very sincerely, with a salutation. This is what is expected. The proper response is for the other person to stand up when this is going on. I failed to do so... But hey, he came to me first. How was I supposed to know?

And this is one tiny illustration of the extremely tight-knit community. It really was a family of friends. So cliche, but so true. You had to be there.

That morning we packed up everything. I had enjoyed a top-of-the-line sleeping bag, Thermorest, Thermorest pillow, and tent, furnished by Tibor's outfitter store. Very nice.

I think Day Three had the most intense rapids of all. And, would you know it, we flipped again. We were going over a waterfall and I was swearing in my mind, thinking there is no way I can make it out of this alive. Supplement "alive" for "dry," and I was right, but not for the reasons I thought. I found out afterwards that Tibor had gone to push away a rock with his paddle, and the handle had actually snapped right off. Everyone noted that the fiberglass had failed where my sturdy wood paddle had stood the test.

This flipping was much more dramatic than the first. They all said I'd been baptized the first time--does that mean the second counted for confirmation? I think it's funny, too, that when I went over on Day Two, my last word above water was "NIE!" ("no!"). On Day Three, my last gasp was in English, and not as nice a word. And rather deserved. It was actually a little scary in the first tumultuous moments as I was in a tumble of rocks and rapids. I remembered to keep a hold of my paddle; the canoe was taken by the river, and had it been just the two of us, without many friends there to catch the boat as it floated past, it would have been gone forever.

The current was strong and swimming was futile, so I again remembered my teachings and made sure I was going feet-first, in case of rocks. I looked back and saw Tibor had simply stood up in the rocks on the waterfall. I lack such skills. As I floated, I had time to reflect how lucky I'd been that I hadn't hit my head on any of the many rocks. My shins were badly skinned (they're still healing, two weeks later, and it's not pretty), but no concussion! As I approached where the others were moored on the bank, I started swimming across the current. Twenty-some feet was hard work! But I got there.

No need for a change of clothes this time, since I was actually wearing my swimsuit. The water felt so good, but it left nasty algae all over me-- that was not clean water. (During Day Three especially, there was so much trash, mainly clothes, along the banks and caught up in the trees on shore, from when the river rose.)

I got clean clothes once I was dry, and then Tibor, Fi Fi, and I hit the road again to come home. We went first to lunch/dinner at an incredibly nice restauracja; I grabbed a pamphlet just so I would be able to remember the name. I'm convinced it must be in some Rick Steves book, and I just want to see if I'm right. It was pretty unheard of, but Tibor managed to convince the waitress on my behalf to box up my leftover dumplings. Which was good, since there were so many!

It wasn't 5:30 before we actually started the journey. It was the reverse of the way there, in that everything I'd missed in the darkness before, I got to see; but Nitra was very dark indeed at 11:30 when we got in! There was one view, at the top of a hill looking down on a huge Polish valley, that completely took my breath away. Pastoral perfection. Forests and fields and little mountain villages nested in hills... Really, everyone needs to go to Poland.

Actually, Eastern Slovakia was much the same, it just didn't have that one view to imprint itself on me. Instead, I have several. The High Tatras were shrouded in fog at the top, so I couldn't see the snowy parts of them or really tell how high they were, but I got to see most of them. And the conclusion I came to is that they're so very striking because they seem to be alone. This is a mountain range where you can see clearly where it starts and ends. You can take it in at one time. It looks like just a few mountains, maybe six across. Huge. As tall as you want them. In the middle of nothing. Can you imagine?

I mean, of course it's not "nothing." There are hills everywhere. Eastern and Central Slovakia are nothing but. But still, they're just hills. The High Tatras are so far above (haha, pun) and beyond, it might as well be flat. They were awesome. I hope I get to see them in winter, when they're completely snow-covered.

And Eastern Slovakia, which I pretty much missed on the way there, turned out to be really charming. The villages and towns were so quaint. And I'm not using that word in the false, euphemistic sense. I was surprised to pass through Spisska Stara Ves and see that it was a pretty decently-sized town. I'd only heard of Spisska Nova Ves before, the village at the base of the immense ruins of Spis castle. "Stara" means "old," and "Nova" means "new"... I would have assumed the older place would be smaller? And at the base of castle ruins? Hmm...

There was Liptovsky Mikulas, which I'd read in the guidebooks as being known for its skiing. But when actually there, it seemed like Tatraland, a theme park, was the main attraction. Maybe different seasonal focuses.

We missed Zilina, but I'm going there in a few weeks for the Rotary inbound conference, so I'm excited for that. Zilina is tied with Nitra for population as the third/fourth largest city in Slovakia. It seemed like the signs for Zilina were so soon after we'd left Kosice (second largest city--we skirted it on the freeway). Zilina is definitely Central, Kosice is definitely Eastern... one of those "Wow, it's a small country!" moments.

And finally back in Nitra, dropping Fi Fi off and arriving at the precise time Ruth was taking the dogs out for a last walk before bed. I was soooo tired, but my filthiness (all that algae, you know) won out and I used my last reserves of energy to take a shower. And then we left at ten the next morning for the cottage in Sklene. And that was how it went.

Well, that was a little long. Imagine how it would have been if I'd written it all up the moment I got home, with five times as many details fresh in my mind! Though that took me a lot less time than I thought it would have. Good! I'm hungry. I think it's time to warm up my gulas and knedla leftovers from yesterday's lunch...

Much love!

Vsetko najlepsie k narodeninam! (to me)

[Happy birthday!] --whew, that Slovak phrase is long...

It's overdue, but my birthday in Slovakia definitely needs a post. If only I can remember everything!

Ruth and I went to lunch at her grandma and grandpa's flat. I've met stara mama many times now, but it was my first time meeting the grandfather. He's Tibor's father, originally from Hungary-- he raised Tibor bilingual. (Why couldn't I have been raised bilingual?!) The plan was that later Gabriel's family would come over and take me to the hrad.

Lunch was... wow. Nicer Slovak lunches are traditionally three courses: soup, an entree, and dessert. The starter soup was--ahh, I always forget its name. But I've had it several times before and it's always been good: lots of vegetables and noodles in what I think is a chicken broth. For the entree, they had no way of knowing that duck is my absolute FAVORITE... so I just got lucky on that one! I couldn't believe it. Duck? Really? And what's more, with knedla on the side! I suppose knedla is a kind of bread, but it's hard to think of it as such. It's white, and outwardly looks and tastes like the dough on the outside of a humbao. But it's thick and fluffy. It's cut into slabs and makes a perfect side to just about any dish, especially runny ones--perfect for mopping up the juices. Knedla is, next to Kofola, my favorite Slovak food. So doubly lucky there...

Words fail when describing the duck. (Certainly my Slovak ones did when I tried to express myself at the table!) I think I can safely say it was the best duck I've ever had. And considering I've had duck at Seattle's finest--Wild Ginger, the Dahlia Lounge--that's saying something. It seems impossible, but perhaps even more delicious were the drippings. They were the color and had the glow of honey in their little bowl. I was hesitant about putting drippings on my knedla, since I don't like anything with the knedla (I'm not the one mopping up juices), but I decided to give it a try...

It surpassed understanding. It just was. I can never retrieve that moment, but I'm thankful that I had it. Pretty life changing. I don't think it's possible that I can ever have better food.

I toasted my osemnact' over a glass of red wine, and soon afterwards Gabriel's family arrived. We hung around talking for a while, and then I heard singing coming around the corner from the kitchen into the dining room. What was this? I had thought that lunch was everything! It was certainly more than enough. But no, Gabriel and Grandpa were singing the birthday song (in English), each carrying a large red flower. Everyone started shaking my hand as they wished me the long phrase this post is titled (stara mama and two year-old Miska got kisses). And then-- I can't remember who brought it out, but there was a GIANT cake, a dozen candles lit on top! It was so incredibly exquisite, chocolate frosting with white tufts around the rim. I was determined to finally, for the first time in my life, blow out all the candles at once. And I thought I'd succeeded, until I stopped, and saw I'd missed just one. Oh well. There's always next year.

It was my honor and duty to cut the cake, but I felt very unworthy, knowing I'd be "troubling the new snow" (great line from The Left Hand of Darkness). I think I did okay though, considering. It was great cake, though I'd already been unbelievably stuffed before. I kept saying to myself, "Myslim ze uz nepotrebujem vecera!" ('I don't think I need dinner now!). Later, Ruth told me that she'd brought the cake in the car with us when stara mama picked us up. That sneaky girl, she'd said "oh, I forgot something, I'll be right back" when we were waiting at the curb, and then stashed the bag in the trunk. I'd suspected nothing.

When we were all done eating, we walked over the namestie (square) that all the pedestrian zones lead to, where the tourist train started. Gabriel took me the information center there that I'd somehow never noticed and got me tons of pamphlets about Nitra in English, including a map. Nice!

The train was pekny (nice), slowly winding its way through the pedestrian zone, through a few neighborhoods, and finally up to the hrad. A speaker announced the highlights as we went, though unfortunately for me all the descriptions were in Slovak. Even though the train went slowly, in five minutes we had arrived at the castle.

It was different this time in that there was no giant wedding party to intrude on (much quieter!). Gabriel, stara mama, and I went to the Diocese museum that was there, which had been closed when I went before. More prices to love in Slovakia: museum admission was .60 Euros for me. Seriously?

And it was a really nice museum! I think I'll go back sometime and spend even longer. It wasn't very large, but it had a great collection of ancient books (I loved studying the calligraphy) and, downstairs, all the precious-stone-studded jewelry and chalices you could feast your eyes on. Very enjoyable.

After we leisurely sight-saw for an hour or so, we walked to the base of the hrad and said our goodbyes-- they were taking their car home, and I was walking. A great walk, of course. The stare mesto is always great.

So, a wonderful birthday! Vel'mi pekne d'akujem to everyone!

The next day, it was crunch time for Ruth, whose big exams were the next day. Since she was in America last year, she had to take exams in Biology, Chemistry, and Slovak Literature in order to pass the grade; a fail would mean she would have to repeat the year. High stakes, and the grades on the exams mattered too for applying to university.

It was gray skies and raining, but the exact degree of rain I associate with Washington. The kind of rain you can go out and work in. So I got my raincoat and decided to make the long walk to the giant park I'd heard of, near Zobor. I'd seen it from the hrad, so I knew what direction to go in. (I'll say it again: the hrad is such an awesome landmark. Night and day, it's visible everywhere. I can never get lost.) I wanted to find Ruth a four-leaf clover, but there was nowhere in the city I'd explored that I could get lost in a clover patch for an hour or so. Thus, what I thought of as my pilgrimage.

To my surprise, Nitra seemed much busier in the rain than I'd seen it under sunny skies. Everyone was out and about their business; traffic clogged the streets. I got strange looks from everyone I saw, since my head was bare. Everyone desperately clutched their umbrellas. It made me laugh inside. Ha! This is how we have to function where I come from! If you need an umbrella, you'll never get anything done! The rain was perfect. It made me feel so good.

The one downside was the way rain distorts noise. Harder to jaywalk around blind corners! At one point, I was concentrating so intensely on hearing the cars, I forgot another rain consideration, and didn't see it coming when some car deliberately soaked me in a puddle. Thanks. Appreciated.

It was a very long walk to the park, but I was in no rush. Finally, I saw the long green stretching into the distance that I knew must mean my destination. And just before it was a HUGE clover patch. I could have spent weeks there, probably. Here was my mission! So I went into my trance state and spent probably an hour there. I failed. Well, I found two, but I couldn't really count either. One was almost perfect-- it had four fully formed leaves, but two were joined just a tiny bit-- they looked like they were just overlapping. So disappointing. The other definitely had four leaves, but the placement was so strange I wondered if it was another species. I put both in my pocket anyway, though the failure stung. Only a little.

Just across the street from the park this whole time, I finally went into it. I had it all to myself. I have no idea how huge it is, since I only visited the smallest corner. I've heard in another part they have deer and other animals. Another time. I walked around the edge of a lovely lake, dripping with willows. There was a bronze statue of a woman that I really liked; in the rain, it looked like she was crying. And well she might: there was graffiti on both her legs.

I went to the playground that was there. All the little kids and their parents were staying inside, so there was no one to give me "aren't you a little old for this?" stares. There were great (and at times lawsuit-worthy) toys. My triumph at being alone was a little hollow, though, in that most of the toys required two people. Seesaw for one, anyone?

And then I went home, and gave Ruth the fruit of my failures. I guess it was alright anyway, though, since she did so incredibly well on her exams. All right, Ruth!

[Interlude: the lighting is incredible right now. I can't see the sun, but the entire stare mesto is bathed in a rich red glow. I tried my camera on it, but no luck.]

The next day, to celebrate Ruth's week of intensive studying finally being over, stara mama and Grandpa took us out to lunch at a nice restaurant. But since this is Slovakia, a three-course meal for four was 15 Euro. What?! If I'm not careful, I'm going to get used to this kind of living and then have to come back to American prices.

It was a long day of different friends of Ruth's coming in and out: shopping with Veronika (a whole new bargain shopping center to explore! Yay!), baking banana bread with Elenka (well, I just watched while they did). And then Ruth, Elenka, and I took a bus to Kolkocina, the hill everyone seems to live on, for church. It is the newest church in Nitra, and in fact looked like a very large, very nice American church, in terms of the modern design. It was very beautiful, and I had a good time. We had gone to this church because afterwards there was going to be a "music thing" (details?) there.

It turned out that part of the church complex was this large performing arts center where a four-boy band was playing. I don't think it was church-related music. They were really good! Though I definitely had hearing loss afterwards. I was mostly amazed by the special effects, the lighting and smoke machine. Very professional.

Good prescience on my part that I'd decided to wear my warm jacket, because there weren't any buses going to the stare mesto. So we walked back home. I appreciated the landmark of the hrad even more that night. Looking down from Kolkocina, the hrad rose out of a sea of darkness, every inch illuminated.

Back at the flat, Ruth and Elenka ordered pizza, and we settled down to watch Remember Me, a movie Ruth had liked in America, and which she'd managed to get here with Czech subtitles. Veronika and Silvia came over later, and another pizza was ordered.

An interesting thing about the movie: the end has a shocking plot twist when it turns out it's September 11th. Watching, I saw the main character get in the elevator and go up to the 90th floor. I started to get confused. What building is that high? The little girl's teacher tells her to pay attention, and the date on the board is focused in on. Even then, I didn't really get it. What...? And then, when the main character has resolved his issues with his father up in the office, he looks out the window, and the camera pans out to reveal the World Trade Centers. It finally hit me then. I thought, oh God! Like I'd been punched in the stomach. It was so awful...

The movie ended soon after, and I had one of my stranger moments of culture shock. Somehow, reliving 9/11 while not in America made it that much more horrific for me. I experienced this other dimension of the tragedy I had never felt before. I can't really shake it. I really started to realize something, but I can't really express it here. Interesting.

To end on a happier note, though Tibor had said he'd come home in the afternoon of the First, he got home at 3:30 this morning, fifteen minutes after I'd gone to bed. Bosnia and Herzegovina sounds like it was a happy challenge.

School starts tomorrow, sort of. Ruth says you just go for a little while, maybe a half-hour or so? We'll see. Tibor's going to take me and work out things with Golianove, but after the first day I'm going to have to navigate the bus system and Kolkocina. That hill is a maze!

Much love!

P.S. If you need a laugh, look up "Jozin z Basin--English subtitles" on YouTube. Wow. Oh, and I forgot to mention this, but I have to give a presentation to my host Rotary club this Monday. So does Ruth. Kind of worried about that one... wish me vel'a st'astia!