Becoming Slovak

October

2010-10-17T13:26:00.000-05:00

For some reason I can't really fathom, I adore the month of October. I have very clear memories from this month, especially from my exchange. The colors are gorgeous, the air is pure, and a little bit of a routine has been established for the new school year. A day very similar to the one outside my window two years ago, I was on a busride to Budapest and traveling with the French students to Strečno. -happy sigh-

I'm out of my rebound year. Back into "real life". I introduced myself to someone the other day, going by the name Eliška still. The gal was very curious as to the origins, and so I found myself explaining that I'd lived in Slovakia my senior year. "How long ago was that?" she asked. "A couple of years ago," I replied with a bit of surprise.

I go back and forth on where I stand. I absolutely love Des Moines. Yet the world still calls me. Travel, see, it beckons. My old business professor is constantly encouraging me and showing me new opportunities. We will see what happens next. Whether to stay, or go, or what to do with my life. The choice of picking a major is almost on me. But that's okay. Because it's a big, exciting, and wonderful world, wherever I am. :)

And now?

2010-06-12T10:30:00.003-05:00

I always heard that re-adjusting post exchange was almost as difficult as adjusting during the exchange. I praise God that that has not been the case for me. Rather, the scars that haunted me when I returned from Slovakia have healed and I have found myself in a world that I love.

I still will have random days when I burst out in a flurry of Slovak stories. I still have days when I text or facebook my exchange friends because I saw something that reminded me of them. But I feel no pain, no bitterness, no wondering 'what-ifs?'.

I find myself mentioning Slovakia every time I meet someone new. Granted, this is because I go by Eliška-- not exactly a common name. I've shortened my explanation to something along the lines of, "Nope, it's not Russian. It's a Slovak nickname. Now tell me..." I still do explain it more at times, but only if it is someone who actually looks interested =)

My life is full, my life is busy, my life is good. But very little has to do with Slovakia or exchange. So it does not have a place in this blog.

However, if you are interested, for the next couple months, I will be blogging about my adventure in Poland (and my hopeful visit to Slovakia). So you are more than welcome to follow me there at http://asummerinpoland.blogspot.com/

Love you lots...

Merry Christmas-- AMERICAN Style

2009-12-27T14:04:00.002-06:00

As if the weather wanted to make up for the minimal snow there was in Slovakia last year, now I have an INSANE amount just outside my window! I'm loving this whole white Christmas-birthday-new year thing :)

My first host family was so kind and sent me a package for Christmas. Included: lots and lots of chocolate! I giggled, hardcore. There was even some horalky! I will definitely be eating that and drinking the last of the kofola on Tuesday (my birthday!)

I was thinking about it today and realized that 6 months ago, I was on my way back to America. Six months. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN????? I thought -last- year went by fast! Now I've been becoming American again for half a year. Six months ago, I was flying back to Iowa!

Of course, knowing me, I'm never going to stay still for long. I have absolutely loved this semester at DMACC, but a couple things are changing now. Firstly, I've been accepted to a school in B.C., Canada, where I will start in Fall 2010. But more exciting is my combined Christmas/birthday present. First, let me explain a bit. My family doesn't wrap gifts. I don't know why not, but we haven't for years. Instead, we either stick the present in a pillow case and make them guess, or play a game of Hot-and-Cold. It was my dad's turn. He began with the usual starter clue: Go East. Shrugging, I stood up. I walked to the eastern end of the house, he kept saying I was slowly getting warmer. When I ran out of house, I turned back and said, "There's a wall. What now?" He shrugged and said, "How far east do you want to go?" My heart plain near stopped beating. "What did you do?" I asked apprehensively, not wanting to get my hopes up. "Well, we figure that if you really want to go to Europe this summer, we'll pay for your plane ticket there and back."

I cried. I don't think that I have ever cried from happiness, but I did then. I curled up next to my parents and sobbed for a good 10 minutes, trying to wrap my mind around this. John Crozier, our missionary in Poland will be coming to our church next week. We're going to talk to him about me interning at the camp there this summer, and then taking a train to Slovakia to meet up with all my friends again. Granted, I don't get anything else for Christmas or my birthday (actually, probably not the next year's either hahaha), but I am completely fine with that.

I can't contain all the ecstasy building up. Every once in a while I'll just start squealing out of sheer excitement and disbelief. I'M GOING BACK!!!!!

I've told a couple of my friends, and they are just as excited as I am. Zuzka's response was a full 10 lines of pure jibberish =)

Other than that-- I've submitted my story for the scholarship contest. We'll see what happens come April. Did I win? We'll see!

That's all for today! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, all that jazz :)

The World Keeps Turning

2009-11-04T12:16:00.002-06:00

If I actually went back and looked closely, I could find out exactly what I was doing a year ago.

As it is, I'm remembering a lot anyway. I remember Miguel's birthday, I remember meeting "Frenchie" and going to Budapest for the first time. I remember going to Babka's and laying out candles at the graveyard on All-Souls Day (and being very hurt and frustrated when a woman there randomly instructed me that I "MUST learn Slovak!").

In truth, I have been reading my blog a bit lately. The reason being that I'm writing a story about my year. Finally, right? Haha kidding. For real, though. My school has a writing competition that I'd like to enter. Maximum is 20 pages, so obviously I'm cutting a lot out. But in the meantime, I'm walking through memory lane and reliving joys and hurts. So far, I have gotten to Italy-- in my tale, Zuzka has just given me a new journal. I'm inching closer to the end! (Although, as this blog post evidences, my exchange still hasn't ended in my memory.)

I randomly talk with people about my year, sharing facts about Europe. When someone told me that America was removing the military shield from Slovakia, I threw a mini hissy fit. Sometimes, I have to explain why I do things a little differently (for example, why I sometimes accidentally kiss someone on the cheek after hugging them). Or I explain that someone can trust me: I've been through similar experiences.

I talk about every other week with someone from Slovakia. Either a former exchange student or a native friend, depending on the day. I have so many new numbers in my phone and relish being able to release these strange words on someone who understands them. Usually though, it's via writing. Facebook is a wonderful tool for helping me keep in touch with my friends.

Unfortunately-- my language comprehension skills are going down the tubes! Sometimes my Slovaks post videos on Facebook and I'll listen to them. It's so frustrating! I know many of the words, but they are talking so quickly! I can't understand it anymore and it makes me sad. (On the other hand, a few days ago I Skyped with a Polish friend and was amused that I could understand some Polish... he found it funny, too, how he could understand my Slovak.)

Every once in a while, I'll hear a song on the radio and grin... Viva La Vida by Coldplay? Brings me down memory lane. But then there are some songs I heard all the time, like Angels by Morandi, or Can You Hear Me? by Enrique Iglesias. People here have never heard of them! Some of my favorite songs... nonexistent in this part of the world. -cue the sad face-

My bedroom is awesome, though. I have so many pictures hung on the wall from the last couple of years, and by my pillow proudly hangs my signed Slovak flag. I chat to myself in Slovak when I'm home alone, and my various internet accounts get switched back and forth from English and Slovak frequently.

Well, faithful readers (all 3 of you ;) ), I need to get back to the real world now. You know, the one with homework, English-only friends, and my new job.

Until next time... life goes on.

Rebound World

2009-09-30T10:00:00.002-05:00

I highly doubt anyone still checks this. But just in case someday, someone falls across this blog again, you can get a bit of the next part of my exchange journey: the end.

I've been a rebound for three months. It's been busy, I'll tell you that. My first month back home was constantly avoiding people. Being from a small town, everybody knew that I'd been on exchange and thought it was fascinating. I had a couple of conversations memorized (wow, doesn't this sound familiar?). One of them was about thirty seconds long, the second was about a half hour long.

I spent most of my "jet lag week" finishing my scrapbook. My parents were very forgiving about having pictures and stickers strewn across the living room. After that, I'd walk around town, letting people see the book. I gave a presentation to my community after about three weeks. My local paper wrote a small article about it so that I didn't have to advertise. I made a powerpoint presentation and spread out memorabilia from the year all across my church basement. This included my high school diploma-- yes, I DID finish high school, see?? (Although I must admit, it was pretty boring seeing my valedictorian medal and the stole and other random graduation stuff. I guess the "stuff" is probably only interesting during the week of graduation. Right now, it's just gathering dust.)

On August 5, my parents and I flew back to Europe. I spent the next two weeks in utter bliss. We picked up my best Slovak friend, Zuzka, in Vienna, and spent 9 days with her. We stayed in Vienna a couple of days, then drove up to Zakosciele, Poland. Two years after I'd first touched foot in Europe, I was back where I'd wanted to be. It was a very strange experience for me at that camp. For the first time in my life, I wasn't missing anything. I had family, Poland, and my best Slovak friend. Crazy, right? Next, we drove to Krakow, then back to Slovakia. We went to Liptovsky Mikulas and my parents got to see the mountain range where I went skiing. We also got to meet Miska-- the girl who'd come to Iowa a few years before. While in that area, we drove to the Orav Village-- Zuzka's 2nd favorite place in the world. Well, it wouldn't do to not go to her favorite place! So, sure enough, after stopping in Zvolen and showing off the castle, we drove to Zuzka's grandparents and spent the night with them. The next day, we drove down to Budapest. Once more, as had happened for the last four cities, it rained as we arrived.

Finally, finally, we drove to my Nitra. I got to spend several days exploring my old haunts, this time showing my parents around. I spent time with both host families. I accidentally ran into Marian, my first exchange brother, and Paul, his brother while walking by the castle. That was really neat to be able to finally meet the guy I've been communicating with for the last year. But Jakub, my second exchange brother? He left for a week of martial arts training an hour before we went to his house. So I still have not met him.

But I was able to meet up with so many of my friends again. My drama kids organized a meeting at Pod Agatmi (a popular outdoor pub by the castle). I got to show my parents around my school, around Trala Skola, introduce them to my drama teacher and friends. They got to meet Pato, recently back from Japan and ready to take off for Spain. They met my pastor and his wife at my church. They saw Centro and the castle, they saw the view of the city. Finally, my stories had meaning.

All too soon, we had to leave. August 19th we were back in Vienna and flying to America. After a week stateside, I moved into my apartment with my roommates and started college.

College has brought its own set of joys and sorrows. I have officially started going by Eliška. I am in the process of healing from the scars exchange left me with. Sometimes I still have nightmares. But I am able to talk to some people. I've gone to one session of therapy. But more, it's fun being able to offer tidbits of the Slovak culture to my new American friends. I've met a couple of Russian-speakers and have had miniature conversations with them. I've realized that my English is miserable! Writing papers is impossible! I can't spell, nor can I think of the words I'm searching for desperately.

Last night was the first night that I dreamed about my American friends again. Since coming back, it has always been about a Slovak friend, a place in Slovakia, or I've had conversations in Slovak. Last night was no exception, except now I had Americans as key figures as well.

I'm going through the same exhaustion and sickness that I did a year ago when I called it "culture shock". Who knows? It might be that again.

Slovakia is never far from my thoughts. I wonder if it ever will be? In the mean time, I keep up my friendships with my Slovak friends and exchange friends. Life is crazy, but then again, so are the people I choose to communicate with. That's not weird, is it? :)

There's No Place Like... Home

2009-06-29T06:32:00.002-05:00

So this is it. It is about 6:30 in the morning in Iowa. I'm sitting at my old spot, hooked up to the ethernet in the office downstairs. I'm trying to figure out what is real.

Am I dreaming? Have the last 48 or so hours been the most vivid dream of my life? Or was this last year just a book that I read and really got into... After all, I ought to be starting my senior year in the fall. There's no way I could have just spent a year abroad...

It's been a strange few days. Wandering through the airport was quite easy. I was a little overweight, but they just let it slide. My carryon was really heavy and drove me crazy. My long flight felt so easy (part of this was probably because I've spent so much time on buses lately that "only" 9 hours was super. Another part was because we got in a half hour early :D).

But, at the same time, it wasn't so easy. I'd been saying for months that I wanted my Brazilian wish bracelet to fall off on the plane. But I didn't think it would actually happen-- until almost exactly 2200 miles from either place I wanted to be, I gave it a little tug and it broke off. When it snapped, so did I. I was so grateful that the girl next to me was asleep as I tried to smother my sobs in the pillow. It was several hundred miles before I finally composed myself.

I spent a lot of the plane ride remembering this last week. Every day, I had plans with at least four people, spending several hours each day saying goodbye. Lunch, Kofola, palacinky, coffee, just wandering around town. I kept talking with my Slovak friends, and learned new words up until my last day. I realized that there are some people that are just easier to converse with in Slovak-- Magdelenka and Lucia are two such examples, whereas Mirka and Dano are more difficult.

We had sport days at our school on Thursday and Friday. Friday, I said goodbye to my class. The hardest goodbye for me was my lovely Zuzka. She had to leave early to go with her family on a trip. We hugged each other probably four times before she finally left. But she'd scarcely gotten out of sight when she came running back to give me one more hug. She was crying, and I began to after she left.

I had this part of me that kept saying, "Never look back." Now I wish I would have, just a bit, to see a final glimpse of my friends. I had a group that walked with me to a corner, a group that walked with me to the divadlo. Ushering me into the next stage.

I met some incredible people this year. I'm worried that it won't last, but I'm also accepting it. Accepting that there are some people that are designed to live in your memory. I have around 3000 pictures on my camera, and a million more in my head. I have tastes, scents, sights, and feelings that people around here don't understand. As I wander through Clarion, people give me hugs and say that I must be so glad to be back. I just smile and nod, meanwhile my heart aches for people and places on the other side of the world. There are some things you just can't explain to the average person. Yes, I'm glad to be back, but with two worlds, I cannot say that I'm happy with every fiber of my being to be back in reality. I MISS Slovakia, and the Slovak language. It's time for reverse culture shock. And wow, am I ever feeling it.

I always knew Clarion was small. But I didn't think I would actually be able to run out of town to walk in. Yesterday, I walked up to a friends house that used to take forever to get to. I felt like I was just getting started. This is so crazy.

My parents and sister brought four friends up to the airport to meet me. Four friends from all walks of my life. I was glad of who was there, and had the adrenaline rush keep me up until around 9 (about 4 am according to my body). It was so strange, like I had a million stories to tell. Already I feel bad because it is all I can talk about. I know they are going to be sick of my tales fast, but I was still really glad they were there with me. When I got to the baggage claim and saw my dad, I ran and threw myself at him, carryon and all, and felt the tears come to my eyes. I heard him explain to somebody over my head that, "I haven't see her in a year."

I know this entry isn't making much sense, but then again, neither are my thoughts right now. So much has happened, so much will happen. So many people to talk to-- people who want three sentences when I have three books in my head.

For now, I'll just look forward to August when I go back, and try not to forget this language in the mean time.

Now comes the next stage of this exchange. They told me it was hard going over, they didn't really talk about how hard it was coming back.

Ponderings

2009-06-22T14:59:00.002-05:00

You've helped me soooo much this year.

But have I done ANYTHING for you?

You take me out.

I... do what? Smile?

What have I done?

Have I done anything of worth?

Have I done anything to make a difference?

Will you remember me in two years? Five?

Will you think of me someday, fifteen years down the road, and say, "Yes, I'm glad she was here." Or will you say, "Huh, I remember her," and move on, because I did nothing to make you care about me.

Will I forget?

Will you?

Drawing to a Close

2009-06-21T14:31:00.003-05:00

Sorry, sorry, sorry!

It's been a busy couple of weeks!

Gonna start out with the main reason I didn't write last week. I was in a bit of trouble with Rotary for illegal traveling. They were threatening to send us home, and I really didn't want to write without knowing what would happen. Fortunately, everything has blown over, and I'm staying for the duration. Those days were scary and long for me, though.

But other than that, it's been pretty fantastic.

My main focus has been my drama class. We had a LONG practice last Sunday... then normal class on Friday, and finally: Performance Day!

Seriously, I forgot how much I love working with the theater. We showed up to Stare Divadlo at 12:30 and got everything set up. Then we ran through the performance one last time, and had the afternoon to wander around. My dressing room was a small room, with enough room for three people to stand front to back width wise, and maybe 8 people shoulder to shoulder length wise. It was very crowded with a dozen teenage girls, but then got more so as we had a dozen young girls join us. It was a bit maddening, especially when I fell asleep in the chair and this little girl woke me up by asking LOUDLY several times if I were asleep. Yes, thank you deary, so glad to be awake now.

There were about a half dozen performances, and the show started at 5 and lasted to about 7. My class went last, giving our half hour musical of Penelope's version of The Odyssey. I played a chorus maid, and only said two words in the show, but I sang all the songs and was in the background most of the time. It was a ton of fun though and it was our best EVER performance. I was on cloud 9!

Actually, I'd been there for a while. Thursday, I went out with one of my classmates after school. Zuzka is a dear, and she was stressing about English, so she spent the afternoon speaking in English while I chattered back in Slovak. I'm sure any one listening must have thought we were messed in the head! But it was really cool getting her back story.

Friday, after drama, I went with another friend to the park to watch a drum presentation in the park. One of my classmates had invited me, so we went and did a little drum lesson, which was kind of fun, but made my hands hurt. Then I wandered over to church and got more signatures for my flag before hiking up Zobor again. It was a good day :)

Saturday after my performance, one of my friends came from Bratislava to spend the night with Ruby. The friend, Allie, had turned 17 that day. It was fun hanging out with her and giving her the gifts we'd bought in London.

Basically, the rest of the week has been contemplative. Realizing just how little time I have left... fighting with myself. Do I want to return or not? It feels like everything here has finally clicked. Like I'm home. And actually, it feels like I have so much more for me here than in America. I'm finishing with Rotary. But do I even want to finish with Slovakia? I've had good times and bad, ups and downs. I've fought and I've won. I've done the impossible and thrived. Do I have to leave now? Yes, I want to see my family. But I'm scared to see my friends. I have SO much here. I have a life, a language, a country. I have a city, friends, family. I have adventures and memories, dreams and desires. It's like I have two complete worlds, and it's impossible to merge them. I'm so afraid my friends won't be able to understand how much I've changed, let alone WHY.

One week left. One week already filled to the brim with plans to say goodbye to certain friends.

Am I ready to leave?

No.

But I don't have a choice.

So it's back to America I go. But I have one last week, and I'm going to live it to the fullest.

Living in London

2009-06-11T01:12:00.101-05:00

I honestly did not realize it was possible: I've had English overload.

I spent three days in London last week (after driving 25 hours to get there, and before driving another 25 hours to get back). I was so overwhelmed... what is this language? Why do I understand it? Why is it everywhere? I had difficulties forming simple sentences and often my questions came out incomplete. I was so confused-- how could I forget my own language?

But on the subject of language: I really want to learn German. Driving through Austria and Germany, it was so frustrating not knowing what to say. I could decipher bits and pieces when reading, but for the most part, I was lost. So that is definitely at the top of my list for languages!

Alrighty then, London.

We got on the bus at 8 a.m. Thursday morning and began our long drive. I suppose it's saying something about my sleep habits that I slept for two hours in the morning, another two hours in the afternoon, and was still more than ready for bed around 11 that night. I normally can not sleep for more than a half hour unless I'm in a bed. So... strange. We drove through about 4 countries (getting text messages every time we crossed a border informing us how much it cost to call from said place). Arriving in France around 2 in the morning, I was sleepily shoved off the bus, then had to return to it to grab my passport. Amanda, Ruby, and I had to fill out landing cards because we were not members of the European Union. Loading back on the bus, it drove onto a ferrie. I think the ride took about an hour, but I was sleep deprived and a little confused. It was a nice ferrie, though, and we exchange some money (without commission-- it was fabulous!).

We arrived in London around 9 that morning. I'd slept through the stop where we could change our clothes, so I spent the day wandering through the city in flipflops and sweatpants. It was cold and wet (which is the reason why I now am wandering around sniffling with a cold haha)-- but good. We started out in Hyde Park, walked past Buckingham Palace (the guards in the funny hats weren't there, so we didn't recognize the place until our guide told us where we were), wandered through St. James Park, then watched the calvary do a formation thing. That was actually rather boring, as after they rode in, they just stood there doing absolutely nothing. Next, we walked to Westminster Abbey and got a tour, seeing famous memorials and graves, and the ancient coronation throne (Amanda nearly got to meet a Brasilian warden, but he was already gone for the day). We walked across the bridge, getting a good look at Big Ben and the Parliament buildings, then ate lunch at McDonald's (during which I heard the word "queue" more than I ever have in my life). After lunch, we got to ride in the London Eye-- getting a fabulous view of the cloudy city from the giant ferris wheel. We then wandered past some street artists, and walked to the National Gallery. With only 40 minutes to explore it, I moved fast and saw Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and many many more artists-- although I couldn't savor it as much as I would have liked to. To conclude the day, we had an hour of free time, during which the exchange girls wandered through Soho, then settled in for a coffee before getting on the bus for the two hour drive back to our hotel.

DAY TWO: (yeah, we did a LOT). We spent the morning at Cambridge University-- yes, THE Cambridge. I finally bought some stamps and was able to mail postcards back to America. Then, we got on a punt boat and did a river tour of the campus. One of the guides was Czech, so he gave the tour. My punter was a funny Brit who pretended to translate whenever he heard a word he knew (Isaac Newton, matematicu...). After the river, we walked to the abbey at King's College and got to tour it. We had lunch free, and I wandered around, having food at a place called "Eat.", then diving into a pharmacy to get contact solution and ibuprofan-- neither of which I can buy in Slovakia easily. I then bought some strawberries and chatted with a random old man, savoring the fact that I could speak in English with ease. When we met up again, we got on the bus and drove three hours to the Hampton Palace and Gardens. We wandered through, and I talked to a warden, as the sign in the bathroom had admonished me to do. He told me the story of Lady Sybill-- the Lady in Gray, which is the most viewed ghost in history, apparently.

On our third day, it was raining cats and dogs as we loaded our baggage into the bus. Ruby, Amanda, and I had been given a suite near the teachers, which was nice. Our hotel was also pleasant, but I was so disappointed that we weren't allowed to eat the bacon and eggs they served for breakfast, but rather had the traditional Slovak breakfast of ham and cheese slices prepared specially for us.
Our first order of business was Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum. The rain had stopped, and we soon entered. We raced through, looking at the figures, taking pictures of everything. I loved the "Spirit of London" taxi ride which gave 400 years of English history in about 5 minutes. My only complaint is that it went too fast, so you couldn't even take in all the figures. But we were so scared of being late (as we had been several times already), and we hadn't seen any Slovaks for a while, so we rushed through, panicking because there was no one in sight. After some deliberation, we looked at the clock and realized we still had an hour to explore. Back to the gift shop!
Finally, we all met up, and took the Tube from Baker's Street. Arriving in the Tower of London (right by London Bridge), we viewed the crown jewels, and then explored (I got to see the Bloody Tower and learn the story of the murder of the two princes). Afterwards, we had the afternoon free. We first went to Pizza Hut, and then souvenir hunted. I tried to go to the Peter Pan Statue in Kensington Gardens, but there wasn't enough time. Nor was there enough time to go to Abbey Road or the Globe Theater. Oh well: next time!
We drove to Dover's Port that evening and crossed around midnight. My balance on the boat was much better than it had been the first time across! Amanda bought UNO, which amused us for the rest of the journey back to Nitra.

I loved London, but it was EXPENSIVE. We had to pay 65 pounds for entrance fees, which converted to around $105 in American dollars.

Exchange Week: Crossing Two Countries (Twice!)

2009-06-02T01:15:00.002-05:00

In between Barcelona and District Conference, something happened that I once would have described as the most important day of my young life: my class graduated from high school. On this side of the world, though, I just watched without much emotion. I've been done with high school for a year, done with class work for several months. It was almost like watching the class of 2010 graduate. Interesting because I've known them forever, not applicable to me. But this was the class of 2009-- my year, my friends. So strange.

Other things in that break week: Marlene finally went home as her punishment for drinking in Italy. I went over to her city one day to say goodbye, and there were tears (something I've started to get used to). We took lots of pictures and jawed over all our memories from this year. I promised her once more that I WILL make it to Arizona if she's meet me there. Laughing and crying at the same time, she looked at me and said, "You know, you're one of the few people I believe."

We all know that our time here is drawing too short. We all know that we will NEVER all be together again. And we also know that even if we do see one another again, it will only be for a short time. So when we say, "I'm never going to see you again," we are not being over dramatic. No, we don't know what the future holds. But we know that circumstances just don't work that way.

*sigh*

On Friday, I had another goodbye. A rebound friend of ours turned 18 and had a birthday party. While we were in District Conference, he went to Germany for the summer. So I *might* see him again when I return in the fall, but it was our goodbye for the year.

The new wing finally opened at Centro Mall. Fabulous-- after the winter when the second entrance would have been very helpful, it finally opens. (We wait in Centro before our Rotary meetings because it is just down the street. The only entrance before was at the end of the mall farthest away from Agrocomplex. Now, there is one in the closest part of the mall.) The new stores are pretty sparse yet, but more are being added every week. At least next year's exchangers can hang out there.
We had our first Rotary meeting without Miguel, which was sad. Actually, it was our first meeting since our club voted to send him home.

The Maturita kids are gone now, and on one of the first days they were gone, my class went to the city Banska Bystrica to view a World War 2 museum. History is so much different on this side of the ocean, when I can look at the torn world around me and touch reality.

Okay, that was my inbetween week. Now for the more interesting part: exchange week!

On Friday, I didn't go to school, but rather spent the morning packing and finishing a couple presents. My host dad drove me down to the meeting point around 11:30 in the morning. Ruby, Amanda and I climbed onto our mini purple/blue/pink bus (I still don't know why they picked those colors), and were pleasantly surprised when within a few minutes, Alisha, an exchange student from a nearby city joined us. Along with about a dozen Rotarians, we drove the 5 or so hours to Košice for the district conference.

Throughout the weekend, we hung out with the exchange students from the Czech and Slovak Republics whenever we could. But we were pretty busy: Friday we saw a ballet, then worked on our presentation until late. Saturday, we finished our presentation preparation, and went to eat lunch with the Rotarians-- two exchange students per table of about 10 Rotarians. A little intimidating, but the Rotarians kept speaking in English for some reason. After lunch, we went to PRESENT! My dear friend Josh had been working like a madman all week organizing it. He'd gotten everyone's pictures and countries into a slideshow, along with pictures from every gathering we've had. Then, he and two other exchange students who had excellent language skills wrote short speeches about their year abroad and the exchange program. Next, a half dozen of us went up and talked about the different activities we'd done together. (I had Barcelona :D) The program concluded with each country making a short presentation about their country. The USA did a flag folding ceremony, Thailand did a dance... the other countries, I don't know! I was busy helping Mod get changed into her traditional Thai clothes!
The entire presentation lasted about a half hour-- the entire reason for traveling across a country or two. *eye roll*

In the afternoon, we took a group picture (still wearing our Rotary blazers. It was HOT!) while we were all singing... so it turned out very funny. When we got a copy of it, I fell in love. That is now my favorite picture on the planet and is stuck inside my journal for reference.
Next, still in our fancy wear, we did a quick tour of the city. By 5, we dashed back to our cheap hotel and got changed into our dress clothes. I was wearing heels, and we walked across town again to get to the philharmonic hall. Several of us that usually didn't walk in nice shoes were aaaacccchhhhiiiing by the time we finally arrived. We sat through an hour long presentation of different Rotary things-- during which all of us had to keep poking each other to stay awake in the warm hall surrounded by the lull of a foreign language. After a brief intermission, the second hour went MUCH faster, as we watched/listened to an orchestra fill the hall with crecendos and decrecendos. It was very cool, but I wish I were a band geek so that I could have appreciated it more!

After the concert, we went upstairs to the banquet hall. This was followed by a five hour long meal. I kid you not. The coursed meal had entertainment, of course. One such act was by two exchange students: Hope and Ava. Ava plays the piano like an angel from heaven, and Hope sings quite well. But the most interesting bit? It was Hope's 18th birthday, so Rotary presented her with a cake in front of all the Rotarians and everybody sang happy birthday to her. The rest of the evening was mostly the exchangers wandering around talking to each other inbetween courses. It was 2:30 in the morning before I finally fell into bed that night.

Sunday was another day of goodbyes: the Czech kids were not joining us on our tour of Prague. Instead, they had to go back to their schools for the week until their outbound orienation. Many of the Czechs left early, but a few were still left as the Slovaks loaded onto our bus. It was sad, realizing it was the end of District 2240.

We spent the next 10 hours driving across two countries to get to Praha/Prague. In the next three nights and mornings (a total of two days :D), we explored the city with a Czech tour guide (yes, that was strange). New Town, Old Town, the Charles Bridge, the Astronomical Clock... We also saw a blacklight show which was VERY well done. Once, we had supper on a boat on the Vltava River. Most of the exchange students also went to the largest dance club in central Europe (I did not, however, because I didn't feel well). That day was rather amusing because after supper at our regular pizzaria (I think Rotary got a deal for having us eat every meal there), it began to DOWNPOUR. Forty people, four umbrellas, and an appointment to keep. After waiting a bit, we made a mad dash, getting soaked until out of nowhere, the rain stopped again. Ah, well, it was all good :) My overall opinion? Prague is the prettiest city I have been in, even better than Barcelona. My favorite souvenire (which I'm wearing now), is a hard-to-find "Prague: Czech It Out" shirt. Praha=Love. GO THERE!

Next stop was a lovely little tourist village called Cesky Krumlov. It was basically straight south of Praha, so we didn't gain any time for our long haul. Also, my contacts had been ripped, so I couldn't see anything very clearly. But I still enjoyed myself wandering around the city and getting a tour of the ancient theater. We ate some delicious local treats, and were amused by the fact that Czechs couldn't understand Slovak very easily, even when a native speaker was talking with them. Also, our lodge was SO touristic! Only the workers spoke Czech-- EVERYONE else I ran into spoke English. It was kind of funny running into more Americans in a village than I had in Praha.

When we finally drove back across the two countries (well, technically 3 because we went through Austria in order to get there), we had a slight detour. Just outside Bratislava, we pulled into a rest stop at an odd time and were told, "Just a 10 minute break-- be back here, lunch will be in an hour." Four. Hours. Later. We finally pulled out again. Something had happened with the carborator or something, so our bus was broken. We wandered around, playing on the playground, searching in vain for wifi, and making jokes. A random drunk Polish guy came up at one point and started talking to us in English, which was kind of weird. We all gave him names, yes, but not our given ones. Some girls gave their middle names. Allie and I gave our Slovak names. Cool stuff like that :)
For lunch, we scared the station workers when the guys walked in and ordered 30 bagetas. With a total price including water bottles for all of over 100 €, they can't have been too mad, though.

We finally made it to Slovensky Raj around 11 that evening. My roommate was Daniela-- a sweet Mexican girl. My room was crowded though, with people blowing up balloons and making plans. At 8 the next morning, we took all the balloons in a blanket and snuck up to Johanna's room. Lauren pounced on her, shouting Happy Birthday as we threw the balloons. She was so surprised that we'd done something like that for her 18th birthday. Lauren had made a slideshow that worked reeeaaaallly slowly on my computer and took about 15 minutes to fully run. We presented her with our gifts and hugs and then escaped to get changed into real clothes for the day.

We went to a furniture museum (but few of us paid attention to the tour... we were too busy taking pictures of each other!). My tour mostly consisted of Allie whispering descriptions in my ear of things far enough away that they were just blobs to me. Ohhh, cursed contacts!
After the museum, we went to my favorite castle I've yet seen in Spišska. It was a big place, left a lot for exploration, and the weather provided excellent backgrounds for pictures. AND I got a Kofola cup. It was very exciting :) Afterward, we tried to go see the largest alter in the world in a nearby town, but it was closed already. Whoops.

Back at the hotel, the outbounds had arrived. My new roomie is going to Mexico next year and already knew Daniela, so I didn't really have much to say. We chattered throughout the evening, and at a joint meeting introduced our table mades in our learned language (i.e. in Slovak, I introduced Erik who is going to Florida, and he in English introduced me.)
After supper, Allie and I heard people dancing upstairs. We raced to join them (I was in socks), and I slipped on the floor and had an EPIC fall. After I slipped, I kept going until my foot hit the wall. Over all I'm fine, but my foot bruised, and even now I'm walking with a limp. Because of it, though, I didn't have to go on the five hour hike the next day. That was nice :)

In the afternoon, we put on our blazers once more and went to meet the mayor of Spisska. There was a mini-concert, a short speech, then we all signed his book and left. That evening, I was locked out of my room (the outbound kept taking the key with her instead of putting it at the reception desk), so a large group of us gathered in Maria's room and listening to music. I'm not even sure how it started, but suddenly people were drawing on my bare legs (I was wearing a skort). Even now, you can see traces of their dozens of doodles. During this, we planned our talents for the evening. We also discussed "the exchange students"-- aka, the outbounds. They are the exchange students, we are just "us".
For supper, there was a banquet with a baby pig, which I did not eat, and Halusky, which I did. Following supper was a talent show provided by the inbounds. It was so much fun, as people sang a cappella "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", danced to Mexican music, performed "Chubby Bunny", danced "Creo"... and my personal favorite: all the inbounds got up and began dancing to "Hot and Cold" by Katy Perry. It is such a song for our group, because it seems like we sing it at every gathering. The poor outbounds thought we were nuts.
Then it was my turn. While I'd been alone during the hike, I'd made a slideshow for my inbounds. It contained pictures that I'd taken all during the year to the song "Seasons of Love" from Rent. People watched it and began to cry. It was very touching. This was followed by a disco, and then joint rooms. Inbounders were switching rooms to sleep with their friends for the last time. With two beds shoved together, Allie, Maria, and I curled up together. I know of at least two other rooms with similar situations.

In the morning, we had a whine session with Ivo, the Rotex president. After filling out evaluations, we finally talked and told Rotary all the things that had been building up throughout the year. Problems with host families and counselors, rules and trips, Rotex and clubs. Someone who just sat there and said, "What can we do to improve this?" Ivo wrote down everything! It was so nice just to be able to explain what went wrong and why. (It wasn't ALL complaints. Some people made glowing recommendations about different people, which were also written down.)

But after this, we stopped caring and began signing. The outbounds trickled in and I passed out cards and pins until they were all gone, then went back to the flags, towels, and tshirts needing to be signed. Lunch was in a couple shifts, the first containing mostly outbounds who had to catch the train at 1. The inbounds basically chose to all leave together at 3. But still, we were going different places. My shirt was soaked with the tears of my friends, and my arms were sore with holding on so tight. This was it, we knew. The last time we were all together. Even if small groups meet again, for many, it was the end.

At the train station, we had about an hour before our train left. Nitra, Bratislava, Zilina, and Trencin went on the same train. Greg, who lived in the town, waited with us until our train pulled up, then went home. We climbed into two compartments and rode the way home. Goodbyes were rushed for us as the train was crowded and we didn't realize it was our stop until we pulled into the station. After leaping off the train seconds before it pulled away again in Leopoldov, we saw the train to Nitra left in five minutes. I gimped along as fast as I could as Amanda bought tickets for all of us. The saleswoman told us to run, and we did. The train began to pull away as we approached, but the conductor asked if we were going to Nitra, and STOPPED the train for us. It was incredible!

And once more, Rotary tradition follows through: Rain. Cold, windy rain. Our last day. But still... It was good. And even though taking the train was far more expensive than taking a bus, it was faster and I wouldn't trade those last hours with my friends for anything.

Now I'm back in Nitra, and getting ready to go to London. See you guys next week...

Ideme Do Barcelony! (Let's Go to Barcelona!)

2009-05-14T01:00:00.002-05:00

Ahh yes... I'm back from Spain, and am nice and roasted. My back is a lovely shade of red. What happens when you send 30 teens from a sunless country to the beach? Oh, right... NO ONE brings sun screen! :D

What a great week. I LOVE hanging out with exchange students. But where did it all begin? Well, Thursday night, I honestly debated going to bed. Eventually, though, I did, and woke up again at 2:45 in the morning. It was the last time I'd sleep for about 10 hours, and even then, not a lot.

My host dad drove Amanda and I to a village to pick up a couple Rotarians also going on the trip, then drove us to Bratislava. (Transportation #1: car)

Once in Bratislava, we hung out at the train station, saying hi to a bunch of Slovak exchangers at 5:30 in the morning. Finally, our delayed train arrived, and we climbed aboard. We were pretty loopy that early, and made some crazy videos and comments that didn't make sense. But it was all good. (Transportation #2: train)

We arrived at the Slovakia-Hungary border, because the train strikes in Hungary made it impossible to go to Budapest. Climbing on the rented bus, I started out with Slovak Allie, but soon moved back to Josh and Johanna when she and Lauren started to get carsick. (Transportation #3: bus).

The Budapest airport is honestly not very impressive. And we were there super early, so we wandered around for a couple hours before checking in, mostly settling into chairs and catching up with old friends and meeting a couple new. When we checked in, there were a couple guys from Chicago behind us. Johanna and I discussed them in Slovak *grin*. Security was a breeze, and within a half hour, we boarded our plane, armed with perfume and magazines. The flight was about 3 hours, and I slept about a third of that, barely staying awake for take off, but then waking up because Allie had major sinus problems and a doctor on board had to help her. She was okay, just scared. (Transportation #4: plane).

And transportation #5: the metro. We rode the subway A LOT. It was crazy.

Now, for some trip highlights:

1. Eating paella. This Spanish meal is made of mostly rice and a lot of other meats/veggies/as you please. It is YUMMY! My mistake? Eating it on a sidewalk cafe on the MAIN walking zone of Barcelona. Brilliant! Price per plate? 11 euro, plus the cost of the drink.

2. The VIEW. We went up to this hill near the Paralympic Staduim. The architect of the garden was a genius... it was so well designed. And it was so pretty, looking at the sea, the hills, the city... The only problem was the smog made it kind of hazy.

3. The fountain. I don't even know what it is called. But at 10:00 one evening, we were at this giant fountain that had lots of lights, music, and was choreographed. It was absolutely amazing to watch. Mod, Allie, and I happened to be sitting in the WRONG spot... the wind kept blowing the water right at us. We were soaked by the end of the orchestrated performance, but extremely happy. It was a pure adrenaline rush, followed by a crash on the metro ride home.

4. La Sagrada Familia. Gaudi is a bizarre artist, I'll say that much. Still, it was really cool seeing this church that is being build only by private donations. It's been in progress since 1882, and they guess it will take another 25-30 years to finish it, although they hope to be able to have mass in it within a year. From a distance, Gaudi's side looks like it is melting, but upon closer inspection, you see the details from nature that give it that appearance. It's kinda cool :) The other side is about as opposite of Gaudi as you can get, with a very modern feel.

5. Remembering Spanish! Yeah, okay, so I can't speak Spanish worth two cents any more. But our leaders kept talking in either Spanish or English (never in Slovak or Czech, don't ask me why...), so I started to understand it again. Meanwhile, the Catalan language confused me like none other... it's kind of like taking French and Spanish and mooshing them together.

6. Speaking in Slovak. Really, no one likes American tourists. Shopkeepers were so much nicer when I wandered in with my friends speaking in Slovak, then pretended like I could only speak minimal English. If I walked in as an American, they were rather curt and impolite. If I walked in as a Slovak, they were much kinder and helpful.

7. Getting a balloon! We were by the Arc de Triomf, and there was a Spanish festival thing. Since we asked, we got free balloons; Johanna, Josh, and Cord got their faces painted; and all of us got free food! (Good thing, since that morning I hadn't had time to grab breakfast!).

8. The Picasso Museum. Not my favorite, but still interesting to wander around. And I bought a cool music box there!

9. La Perdrera, also designed by Gaudi. But this one I at least understood a lot more :) We had headphones and listened to our own private tours in our own languages. I loved the attic, and the foam chairs. But the best part was sitting on the roof in the late afternoon as the city was tinged in gold. It was Mother's Day, so as a surprise, I used all of my credit to call America from my cell phone to wish my mommy a happy day, and also say hi to my family.

10. Getting roses! While sitting at a cafe, a British guy kept making eyes at Allie. The flower vendor came wandering through, and the British guy talked to him, gave him money but didn't take any thing, and left quickly. As we walked out within a few seconds, the vendor chased after us and gave us roses. It was so cool!

11. The street magician. He had a floating cigarette that he stuffed in Allie's shirt without leaving a hole. We were amazed :)

12. Pizza. I was walking with Josh and Mod when a woman invited us to eat in her restaurant. It looked good, so we walked in. Once inside, we realized it was pretty fancy and felt underdressed in our tshirts and jeans. However, the food was excellent, and we got a large salad, a full size pizza, a drink, and a coffee, all for UNDER 11 euros (take THAT paella!). So, not all was lost :)

13. Yeah, my food was all screwed up. I would usually eat minimal breakfast, a huge lunch around 4, and a small supper around 8-9.

14. The Spanish Village. Each street represented a different region of Spain. It was built for a world fair, I think, and was really interesting to meander through.

15. The Miro museum. This was probably my favorite museum, just because it is modern art. He was really into the primary colors. I loved exploring that place!

16. The beach. Vamos a la playa! We walked down a huge hill and around a port before finally finding it. The Mexicans asked for directions several times, and the Canadians found a couple kindred spirits. Once at the beach, we all got sunburned, but had a lot of fun fending off all the vendors walking around selling massages, tattoos, and coconuts. We also buried someone in the sand and built a sand castle... PLUS jumping up and down in the Mediterranean Sea. It was a blast... followed by MAJOR sunburn!

A couple low points:

1. Rotary kept taking money from us. We'd been told in the emails that they would collect 15 euros on the bus. Okay, fine. But ON the bus, they told us they needed 40 euros... thereby taking every penny I had. (I've learned my lesson and refuse to carry more than 50 euros at a time in cash). Then, at the end of the week, we'd all budgeted so we would have enough money to get home. Most of us had JUST enough. And some people didn't have any spare money because there cards wouldn't work in Spain. But on the bus, away from any way to access money, they told everyone to fork over another 3 euros. Only about half the people on the bus had ANY cash, and many people weren't able to pay. Despite that, the Rotex kept lecturing students, telling them they HAD to pay, and to borrow if they couldn't. Oh, it made me mad!

2. Also, the Rotex were so MEAN to Johanna. Her wallet was stolen while she was a couple blocks away from the hostel. They kept treating her like an idiot, saying she should have been more careful because another girl's wallet had just been stolen (but that was by someone IN the hostel). It's like... she just lost her money, ways to access money, and identification cards! At least she still had her passport. But still! She should be given sympathy, not a lecture! I know first hand how violated she feels, how stupid already... Rotex were NOT helping.

Oi. Other than that, just normal exchange drama. We bought some earrings for Ruby as a souvenire. Miggy went home on Wednesday morning, we got back to Nitra in the evening. It was sad...

Overall though, I had an awesome week. I loved Barcelona, and would love to explore that city again. And maybe next time... Madrid? :D

Split in Two

2009-05-05T01:37:00.004-05:00

I've come to a really strange realization. I am two people in one!

The negative side of me (the English portion) has been having a pretty miserable week. Miguel is being sent home, and now Ruby is having problems, too (more on that when I have information...) I'm watching my friends back home finish their last week of high school, soon to graduate, and feel a little homesick. Whenever someone speaks in English to me, I get short tempered, wishing they would just let me speak in Slovak.

Oddly enough, this part of me hibernates most of the time. She only comes out when I am being directly affected by something.

The bigger part of me (the Slovak portion) is having the time of her life. Since I like this part of me more, and it is definitely the dominant portion, I'll speak from this perspective.

Okay, so last Thursday, I posted the email about my friends going home. But what else happened that day? Oh, that's right... I went to Auschwitz, Poland. A little before 6 a.m., my host father drove me to the bus station. I said hi to my classmates and we climbed on the bus. I dozed, read, and listened to music for the next SIX hours. The only break I had was when we were at a gas station. I was barely awake, but managed to carry on a fairly complex conversation with one of my drama classmates about the theft of my purse. When we went to the city by the camp, we wandered around, snapping pictures, searching for toilets (fortunately they were free, as NO ONE had any Polish money). A couple girls were about 15 minutes late getting back on the bus, and our teacher flipped.

Upon arriving at the main camp at Auschwitz, we split into our classes and went on the tour. The tour guide spoke in Polish, and our teacher translated into Slovak. I was amused when at the beginning, he told about where we could take pictures, then translated into English for me. I just grinned as my class informed him I understood. We wore headsets, and our teacher had a microphone.

It was about the COMPLETE opposite of our tour last year. The sun was shining, I was with people my own age, my feet didn't hurt... Plus, we went to other buildings. One new building was a museum dedicated to the Czech/Slovak Jews. My classmates almost heaved a sigh of relief as they were able to read in their native tongue. Last year, I hadn't been able to go into the gas chambers. I went this year and felt claustrophobic with only about 40 people in the room. It made me uncomfortable realizing how many people had died in that room.

We got back on the bus and drove to Birkenau. Our tour guide came with us-- again, different from my last visit. For a bit, there was an English tour behind us, so I listened to them. Then we walked over to the Death Barracks, which I hadn't seen before. I didn't bother listening to the Polish/Slovak most of the time, but the signs were in English which helped me follow along. It was a sufficiently sobering experience.

On the other hand, when I wasn't in the camp, I was having a great time with my classmates. Joking, laughing, snapping pictures... After driving about four hours through Poland and the Czech Republic, we stopped at a gas station in Slovakia. Nearly everyone had to use the toilets, since we weren't able to after the camps. I kid you not when I say it was a mad dash inside. Outside, though, my classmates were holding a mini disco. Err... so the video will appear as. However, to someone standing a distance away, my friends were bouncing around looking like crazy people. Only when standing very close to the cell phone (held next to the recorder on the camera) could a body hear the music emitted. All in all, it was very funny.

We got back home about 10:00 that night. It had been a long day. My host dad didn't come to pick me up until about 10:20, by which time I was the only one left without a ride. A few friends from drama stayed with me, though, so it wasn't bad.

Friday, we didn't have school for May Day. I cleaned in the morning and wrote some things, then in the afternoon I met Ruby. Miguel was biking in Austria, and Amanda spent the day/night in Trenčin. We wandered around, enjoying the music in the park, and were slightly startled when we walked to the divadlo. We looked up, and up, and up at the giant tree stationed in the middle of the fountain in front of the theater. The branches were only at the top and covered in ribbons. It was bizarre! (I discovered later that every village/city has this tree for May Day). At last check, it was still there. We sat there for a while, and watched the skaters attempt to perform stunts-- did I ever feel like I was in a movie!

Saturday, I woke up early, and by 8 was in the car. Juraj, Eva, and I drove to Bojnice for a festival called "Strašnyzla"-- or at least, that's how they pronounce it. It is basically a Halloween-like festival. Juraj got in line to go into the castle, and Eva and I wandered around. We checked out all of the booths, and drank some tea while chatting. We met up with Juraj for about five minutes, then went off in search of souvenirs. I'd mentioned I would like pins for my blazer, so we walked around until we found some-- I was very touched that she bought them for me and wouldn't let me pay her back. Then we discovered a performance that would start in a half hour and bought tickets. The show was about weapons of the past, or something like that. It basically was pure stage fighting with different weapons and was kind of cute, especially because the actors kept breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience (the photographers in particular). Afterwards was a presentation of trained birds that would fly to the trainer's hand after some coaxing (a little girl that did it was probably only about 8, and absolutely adorable).

For me, the most interesting part of this show was that behind me, I kept hearing two male voices speaking in unconfident English. I spoke to them later, and found out they were from Finland and Belgium and working in Bratislava.

Eva and I ate. First, we had these yummy wafers, like we'd eaten at Christmas. This time, however, there were two stuck together with flavoring in between (we'd had apple and cinnamon). For actual lunch, Eva had a Gypsy burger, and I had a stick that had friend meat and veggies on it. It was good, but I was stuffed!

Finally, we met Juraj, who had been waiting in line for four hours. We waiting about another half hour before our group of about 40 were let inside. We spent the next hour and a half touring the castle backwards from the way I'd gone with Jana. As we walked, we watched a play about Matuš Čak, the son of the founder of Trenčin if I understood right. This boy was a cripple, and his father was crazy. We watched as his mother was nearly raped by his father's minions, only saved because she announced she was expecting his child. His birth, his childhood, and the love of his life (a hunchback girl) committing suicide. The story continued as the young man died, and the chronicle of his life was destroyed, so that it would be as though he never existed. Our "tour guide" concluded the story in the nut house as a "doctor" nodded sympathetically, saying that she knows the boy was real, certainly, now just stay there in that straight jacket...

It was really neat to watch. There were at least four "audience actors". A heckler, someone who didn't turn off their cell phone, a girl whose throat was slit, and a doctor who came to her rescue, only to shoot her dead.

Saturday evening, I got permission to go to the disco. My friends told me to ask for three in the morning. I was like-- uh, not gonna happen. I'll probably get the Rotary curfew of 11. But I asked anyway, and at first my host mom gave me until midnight. Then after hearing Amanda was asking for three as well, she gave me another hour. We spent the evening wandering through different discos and bars, talking, dancing, and meeting people from our school. A lot of people were in the disco Barracuda because our school hosted German students this week, and it was their last evening, so they went to the disco.

Sunday morning, I about died with delight. As I was walking to church, a car pulled over. Zuzana and her mom offered me a lift, which I accepted, and as we drove, they informed me that some Americans were at our church on a mission trip. I was so excited when my pastor pulled me over and introduced me to a man that had spent a good portion of his life in Iowa. Later, I met his wife, and also a woman from Minnesota. It was so exciting to speak AMERICAN-- more so, MIDWESTERN! I didn't realize I'd missed it so much. But as I talked, I talked faster and faster... on Skype, I can't do that because the computer loses a lot. And all the native English speakers here have diluted their words to a European style/speed. It was incredible to talk quickly without having to think to understand!

In the evening, I Skyped, as usual, but with a twist. My parents had brought the computer to our local pizza joint for a graduation lunch. All the seniors (all three of us haha) in my church were there, and shared their plans for college. I got to see a lot of people from back home, and some of my friends dropped in to say hi. I loved it :)

Monday... I spent most of the time in the closet with Ruby, because the girl was panicking because Rotary thought she was drinking on Saturday, and she had no idea what to do. We didn't have Rotary in the evening though. Good, because we didn't have to face them, bad because we didn't get money.

Tuesday, I FINALLY got my real passport. I've got the path to the embassy memorized now. Juraj waited outside while I ran in and handed over my old new one. They took it, canceled it, stamped holes in it, and gave it back so that should my official one get lost/stolen, I have proof of my citizenship. Then I got my new one, signed it, and was good to go! I went back to school afterwards-- my classmates found it funny that I bothered, but I wanted to see them.

I went to art class, and Klaudia turned to me and asked if I had a euro. I did, so she sent me to go buy carrots. Yes, carrots. She spoke in English, I wasn't crazy, then repeated it in Slovak, so I knew she knew what she was saying. I was confused, but bought a kilo of carrots, and proceeded to draw them.

After art, I met with Miguel and Amanda and we walked to a night of concerts aimed at college students, but heavily attended by the high schoolers as well. I was disgusted to see young children there as well. Called "Majales", it was sponsored by the beer company Zlatý Bažant. Now that Miguel knows for sure he's going home, he's stopped caring and was acting like he would in Mexico. They called for males over 18 that weren't drunk to come up and chug a beer. Miggy ran up, and everyone started chanting for him. Though we have a video of him winning the contest, the judged placed him in second place. For his efforts, he won an umbrella (oh, the ironies!) which he carried around all night.

Throughout the evening, I met up with about a dozen classmates and friends all over the place. It got a little scary towards the end of the night when it was very dark and I managed to lose everyone that I knew! The place was so crowded, I could barely move, and when we called each other, the music was so loud we couldn't hear. Our texts were useless. Regardless, I had a lot of fun dancing to the music and taking pictures/videos. It was 11 before I finally made it home-- I'd spent almost six full hours either standing or walking and was so relieved to lay down on my bed!

So, do you forgive me for not writing yesterday? :)

Okay, today. Marlene and Johanna came to visit. We spent the day jumping between four cafes/bars. It's the last time that I'm going to see Marlene before she goes back to America, so it was kind of sad towards the end of the day. But we spent so much time talking, laughing, and sharing stories. Miguel picked on everyone, as usual. Marlene spent the day switching between speaking Spanish and English (and understanding Amanda's Portuguese). And the rest of us watched in amusement at all the chair switching. We attempted to buy a Marlenka cake again, but after three stores, we had to give up hope of ever finding one. Our goodbyes were long and sad, as Miguel and Marlene hugged for probably the last time ever. Marlene began to cry, making the rest of us a little teary-eyed as well. She spoke as we walked arm-in-arm to the bus stop, "You know, we all feel so close to each other right now. But I know that when we go home, that's gonna fade. And I don't want it to! That's why I'm crying." See, we will drift apart. We know this is true, even though facebook will help us keep in touch. But you know something? We have a bond that we will never share with anyone else on this planet. We've spent a year learning a language is a foreign country. We are exchange students. We are a family. As Lilo so wisely phrased it, "Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten." And believe me-- we won't forget.

District 2240, 2008-2009 <3

Results

2009-05-01T02:26:00.003-05:00

This is the email we all received from the Rotary president of Slovakia. What this means: my friends are going home. I've deleted identifying information, but other than that, this is exactly what we got. Six from Slovakia, 2 from Czech. :\

Dear all,
bellow is the official email following the drinking excess in Venice. The only thing I have to say here that you made all of us very sad but at the same time this was the only thing we could do and we will do this again if necessary. We have been telling you from the beginning that if you get caught there is only one decision possible. I hope that the rest of you who stays here will learn from this bad mistake some of you have made.
Best regards,
Jan

Official email:

Dear students,

I would like to thank you all who sent their emails. I must say that your participation in drinking is a big disappointment for all of us. Some of you mentioned in your correspondence that it would be really difficult for us to make a decision. And it really was. Believe me, to send a student home is the hardest decision we have to make.

You all have been clearly informed after boarding the bus that the chaperons are equipped with the breathalyser and that it would be used if anyone shows the signs of using alcohol. You still decided to ignore this and went ahead with your drinks. The results of some of you showed that the amount you drank equaled to more then a bottle of wine. This is something that we cannot accept and you actualy did not give us many choices when we were making the decision. It was still hard.

After a discussion within the YE Committee and the unanimous vote we made the proposal to the District Governor and DG has approved the following decision:

The termination of the YE stay and immediate return home of following students (sponsor district/name/host club):

Marlene
Taylor
Joe
Steph Rose
Henrique
Alejandro
Diego
Miguel

because of willful violation of the strict rule # 4 of the Program Rules and Conditions in D2240 - drinking of alcohol - during the Rotary organized Italy bus trip on April 24, 2009.

Above mentioned students are required to make travel arrangements for journey home with help of host and sponsor Rotary clubs/Districts/parents immediately so that they will leave District-2240 not later than May 15. Until their departure these students are not allowed to travel outside of host city without supervision of host parents or Rotary Club member.

Those students who were enrolled for Barcelona trip 2009 are not allowed to participate and organizers/host clubs will return them money paid less cancellation fee before departure home.

We are really sorry that you forced us to make this move but at the same time I must advise you that this decision is final. We did our best to be fair to all concerned.

Sincerely yours,

Jan

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2009-04-28T01:05:00.003-05:00

Overwhelmed is a good word to describe how I'm feeling right now.

The Good
This week was actually really good. I saw a lot of people I never see, I had a lot of conversations with random people, and I just had fun. Yes, my purse was gone, but everyone was really understanding about why I was home.

Because we are getting closer to the performance, I now have drama on both Thursday and Friday. We join with the other class both days. It's quite fun, I'm really enjoying the girls from the other group. One girl, Romanka, really wanted to meet me, and we sat in a small circle with some other Friday girls and they asked me the same questions I was always asked at the beginning of the year, only now I could answer them in Slovak.

On Sunday, I had a church pizza party, and spent a little time speaking in English with the man from Great Britain, and a lot of time talking in Slovak with some strangers. Both they, and the Rotarians who heard me give the speech on Monday, claim that I speak "beautiful Slovak". Hm... okay? I'll take it.

Zuzka was a dear. When she realized that my red journal was stolen, too, she was extremely upset. The next day, she handed me a wrapped gift. When I opened it, I began to cry again-- it contained a beautiful purple journal to rewrite all my memories.

I've been to the immigration police. They were upset we didn't come in last Monday to report about my stolen visa. We went on Wednesday (they are open M W F), and even though my host mom explained multiple times that we'd been at the embassy, they were still annoyed. But now I have a temporary visa.

I bought a new mp3 player the other day, and am going shopping with a photographer friend today to buy a new camera.

The Bad
I've also been back to Bratislava, and have a new passport, kind of. It's a passport, but it has the wrong date of birth. Because of a couple out of country class trips I'm going on this week, I'm allowed to use it for the week, and then when my new one comes in next week, just swap them.

The Ugly
Unfortunately, not all is happy in paradise. Yes, this week has been great, but it's been overshadowed by recent events. While in Italy, several students got caught drinking. The district has decided that either everyone that got caught will go home, or no one will. In a way, this is fair, but on the other hand, there are some that speak great Slovak and this was their first offense. Isn't going home just a little extreme for them?
Each club has to vote. Ours voted last night. They want to send everyone home. Realize, please, that one of the students that got caught is one of the Nitra 4, Miguel. Another good friend of mine, Marlene, was also on the list. But that's nothing-- about half of Amanda's friends were caught. It has been a really tense last couple of days. We will know for certain on Thursday-- I'll post something else then.

For now, I just really don't have the mental stamina to write more.

Still in Slovakia

2009-04-21T01:21:00.001-05:00

I am feeling really lazy today, so I'm just going to copy the most recent mass email...

Dobry den,
One of the things that is drilled into our heads at orientation is to be flexible: things are not always going to go right or be easy. It would be a lot nicer if I were not able to write right now. If things would have gone as expected, I would be touring Italy with the other exchange students in Slovakia. As it is, my purse was stolen an hour before we left the train station in Bratislava. I was extremely intelligent and had my passport in my purse-- despite having read a thousand articles on how to travel safely. (Cue the heavy sigh.)

Well, I don’t get to tell you about the adventure I wanted to, but I can tell you the story of the last couple of days.

Ruby and I were at the train station in Bratislava several hours early and were talking and listening to music to kill time. Because she was there, I felt free to leave my purse when I left for a few minutes. By the time I returned, about a dozen other exchange students had arrived, and I soon realized that my purse was missing. Everyone was searching for it, questioning the locals and canvasing the station area. When it became clear the purse was nowhere to be found, the Rotarians called our country chairperson who said that I couldn’t go to Italy. Someone loaned me their international calling card so that I could call home and cancel my credit cards. It was so hard to walk away from my friends and get into the car with someone’s host dad.

We went to the police station. The man with me talked with the officer, and we sat down to wait. Even though there was only one other person waiting, it took over an hour before we could finally make our report. I had to give a description in broken Slovak and English of what had happened and what was in my purse. Between the electronics and cash on hand, it was an expensive loss. The whole process took another hour, and I fought back tears for most of it. Another woman drove me back to Nitra, and I had to ring the doorbell to get into my own house because my key had been in my purse. It was a long night, sending information to my family back home and trying to figure out what to do next. I had no passport, no money or way to access any, and none of my “comfort” items like my camera or ipod.

I spent most of Sunday alternating between crying or just staring blankly at the wall. I felt really violated, especially over the loss of my journal. You think that I write a lot in these letters or in my blog? It doesn’t even hold half the story of what was in that journal. I’d documented every day in it, numbering the days, talking about triumphs and failures, friends and families, stories and jokes. It was my most important possession and the only thing I own that can never be replaced. I grieved for its theft and am debating if I want to continue daily journaling.

Monday was an interesting day. I’d emailed my embassy, and my host father brought me to Bratislava to go visit it. Fortunately, we’d had copies of my passport and I still had my driver’s license, so I was able to prove who I was. The consulate and the office workers were extremely nice about the whole situation and I was able to apply for my new passport with very few problems. When I told the consulate that I was pretty sure a homeless person had taken it, he sighed and said that probably not-- mine was the second theft of this style in a week, and he thought that whomever it is knows what they are doing.

I had to get new pictures for the passport, so we went to Tesco, and 5 minutes after walking in the building, we walked out with pictures in hand. How nice is that? Most of the time, you have to wait at least an hour! Anyway, I’ve been told that I should have a passport within a week. I’m not sure yet what we will do about my visa, but I’m also not very worried.

What this means is that I will still be able to go to Barcelona with Rotary, and with a little luck, to go to Auschwitz with my class on April 20. I’ve been learning a lot about trusting God these last few days. I say, “That’s impossible,” and He says, “Watch.”

My classmates have been really great about it. They knew how much I was looking forward to this trip, and because of Facebook, most of them knew what happened fairly fast. It's actually cute how angry they are that somebody stole my passport, and how happy they are that I will be able to go to Barcelona. My morning hugs are a lot longer that they usually are!

In other news... this has been a fairly bland month. Basically since we got back from Ski Camp, the Nitra 4 has been counting down to Italy. We got distracted every once in a while by guests coming to our fair city. Throughout the last few weeks, we’ve had at least a dozen exchange students come see Nitra. It’s really exciting being able to show them around, walking with them up to our castle, pointing out various landmarks, and of course, eating the famous Slovak ice cream. (If anyone ever comes here, be sure to sample some! There are kiosks all over the city selling various flavors-- 2 scoops for 80 euro cents!)

It’s also been fun watching our language skills grow by leaps and bounds. While I could communicate before, now I’m able to talk quickly. My comprehension in everyday conversations is fairly high, and even my grammar is improving. It makes me sad to realize that within a few months, I’ll go home and forget everything. Ah, well, that’s what Skype is for! I've already had several people tell me that they want to talk to me while I'm in America so that I can remember this language.

Many inbounds are adjusting their names to suit the Slovak culture, now. The girls add “ova” to the end of their surnames, and both genders are going by their Slovak “pet names”. For me, I’ve become “Eliska” (ay-leash-kuh), which is actually Czech, not Slovak. But it is how they pronounce my pet name, as they have difficulty saying the “A” and “L” in Allison together. I actually really like the name, and am considering keeping it when I return. Other nicknames: Miguel is called "Miso", Ruby is "Rubinka", Marlene is "Marlenka", Kevin is "Kevinko"... Things like that.

In other news: you’ll remember in my last correspondence, I spoke about the presidential election. As several of you asked, yes, it is common to have many candidates. The winner of run off was the incumbent, Ivan Gasparovic. There are still advertisements posted around the country though for both candidates. Other than that, there was very little news concerning the election.

And that concludes my message for this month. Since I won't be writing before the ceremony: to the seniors, Class of 2009, congratulations on your graduation. You did it!

Dovidenia,

Eliska

Easter in Slovakia

2009-04-14T03:01:00.002-05:00

This is probably the most biased holiday I've seen in Europe.

Let's start with some history, shall we?

Long ago, especially in little villages, the day after Easter was the most fun time on the planet for the males of Slovakia. This is because they would wake up early, fill a bucket with water, and douse their sisters and mothers and whomever else they could wake up in this method. These girls were often dragged outside multiple times throughout the day and drenched time and time again. In addition to being soaked, they were gently beaten with a stick made of willow branches. The combination was supposed to ensure health and fertility, or something along those lines.

But it doesn't end there!

After this poor girl is whacked with a stick, she has to give a ribbon to the person holding it so that he can tie it to the stick.

Okay, reasonable, right?

But THEN! This girl has to give these boys-- the ones that hit her and soak her with water-- she has to give them CHOCOLATE, ALCOHOL, and MONEY!

No, I haven't figured out the justice of this either.

(Un)Fortunately for me, the traditions have shifted a bit in my host family. I am fortunate because I only got wet once, in the evening. I was sitting in Babka and Dedko's (my host grandparents) living room. My little host cousin, Tereska, kept begging her aunt, my host mom, to come outside. Eva knew exactly what would happen, and wasn't very willing. It was cute listening to them.

"Let's go!" Tereska would say, tugging on Eva's hand, looking for all the world like a dog playing tug-of-war.

"Where?" Eva would ask, then go back to her conversation.

"OUT!" Tereska would cry! The little girl also knew exactly what would happen, and was thrilled about it.

It probably took 45 minutes before the mothers consented and the four of us went to the doorway. I handed my camera over to my host uncle who was standing a safe distance away. Then, each of us had to run past my brother and two host cousins. Each of the boys held at least a liter of water in a bottle and threw it as us. Once the four girls had passed, they chased after us with their remaining water.

Much better that the original, right? Well, it would have been. Except for the fact that this took place Sunday evening, instead of Monday morning. No one had informed me when we drove the 20 minutes to the village that the tradition was going to take place that night. So I was still wearing my khaki skirt and thin pink shirt from church, and had no clothes to change into. I was just a bit cold.

I watched as my brother and cousins went from family house to family house. In each one, they were given LARGE amounts of chocolate, and anywhere from 5-10€. Because they were younger, none of them were given alcohol.

One other tradition... perfume! It was a bit strange wandering around these homes, and having boys jump out of nowhere with a bottle of perfume to spray my head. I got sprayed about four times that night, and felt like a walking flower shop. It gave me a headache. Then on Monday, we had some company come over to our house. Once more, Eva and I were sprayed with perfume. This tradition I have no explanation for.

Like I said, though, I had it easy. I've heard whispers from other exchange students, saying (if they were female) how many times they were soaked, and (if they were male) how many people they hit with their willow sticks.

Oh, the fun of tradition!

But that's not all that happened this week.

Easter break in Slovakia is great. Schools are closed Thursday through Tuesday. But I didn't go to school on Wednesday, either. That's because I *finally* met with my female Rotary counselor. We went to the old theater, which is now a renovated children's theater. There was a museum on one of the floors that we perused, then we went upstairs to the work room and met some people mid-creation. There were puppets and costumes all over the place! Oh, it smelled like home :) (I love my drama department, in case you didn't know.) Afterwards, we went downstairs and joined about 40 elementary aged children to watch a Slovak children's version of Dicken's "A Christmas Story". It was really cute!

Thursday, I had the long missed Macaroni and Cheese for lunch. Ruby's mom shipped her some, so Pat'o invited us to his house to eat. While we made our yellow noodles, he made spinach. (In Slovakia, the Thursday before Easter is called "Green Thursday", so potatoes and spinach is a really common meal that day.)

Saturday, Marlene came from Bratislava. Ruby and I showed her around the city and had a blast playing on the playground equipment. Afterwards, we sat in an outdoor pizza place for about 2 hours, just talking and enjoying the weather. Miguel and Amanda were in Košice for a birthday party.

And would you believe it? I have a Slovak name. I've kind of wanted one all year, and I noticed a lot of my exchange friends were changing their names to what their classmates called them. So I started asking around, and discovered that even though they rarely say it to me, I do have a Slovak cutsey-name. So, I am now Eliška. (Eh-leash-kuh) :D

Hope your Easter holidays were fantastic!

Skipping Spring

2009-04-07T01:17:00.002-05:00

Slovakia seems to have skipped spring. When I left Ski Camp, I wore my winter coat. Now, I'm wandering around in a skort and tshirt, and still feeling hot. It is gorgeous, I love it! We've decided the weather is far more like the first week of June than the first week of April.

Daylight Saving Time finally rolled around. It astounds me how much of a relief it is to suddenly have daylight an extra hour in the evening. It had me feeling a bit off for the first few days, but now I'm alright. I'm not sure why I'm noticing the time change this much more-- I've ALWAYS had DST. Oh well.

It was a bit crazy with my classmates. Despite the fact that I'd told several of them that I was going to be gone for the week skiing, at least half of my class came up to me and asked where I'd been-- had I been sick? But once I told them what I'd been doing, and where (apparently the best ski resort in Slovakia/Czech Republic), they wanted to see pictures. But they were also jealous, because they've had to study all week. Can you imagine what it will be like when I go on my other European trips??

Speaking of, we all have our money transferred for the Italy trip, and we will get our money back from our school's Venice trip (which we'd signed up for, but dropped out of because it was at the same time as the Rotary bus tour which includes Venice). I've been looking forward to Italy basically since I left Ski Camp. I can't WAIT to see that country with my other exchange students.

Wednesday was a really exciting day for me. I found out (doodoodooDOO) that I'm DONE with high school. GRADUATED. I sent in my final presentation a couple of weeks ago, and got my scores back. Therefore, this blog is definitely just me writing as always, not as part of a school project anymore. But I'm still exuberant about the fact that I no longer have anything to worry about regarding high school.

Speaking of school, one random difference that always amazes me is the chalk boards. Okay, yes, in America, we're using alot of power points. But when a teacher does write something on the board, it will usually stay there for several days. Here, though, two people are designated weekly to erase it anytime the teacher needs more board (which can happen several times in one class, and there are 5 sections of board they can write on). It is always wiped at the beginning of class, too. I wonder if they ever get annoyed, wishing that their hard work could stay for a while. Probably not, but it's still a point of curiousity.

At my church all week, there have been broadcasts. There was a Christian conference in Germany that was broadcast with translations all over Europe. I only saw part of it (just a few minutes of Friday) but it seemed kind of interesting.

This weekend was fun though, because we had half a dozen exchange students come to Nitra. A few of them spent the night, but most were just here for the day on Saturday. We toured our city with them, and I brought a few up to my house (at the request of my host mother) for lunch. One of them was from Canada, and since that is where my current exchange brother lives, Eva really wanted to meet her. They hit it off really well, and we were treated to Eva's delicious cooking (of gulas and kolac-- a typical soup meal and chocolate cake).

Sunday was also a fun day for me. My pastor's family had invited me to lunch, so after church I joined them in their flat and was introduced to a teacher from England. He's been living in Nitra for about 6 months, but teaching English so he really hasn't learned Slovak. It was interesting listening disjointedly and for once understanding everything (once I got past his thick accent!). There were a couple of other guests there to translate, but the family made it clear that this Englishman and I were honored guests. It was kind of cool.
After the meal, I went out with the daughter who is my age. We chatted on her balcony, then met up with several members of the youth group at the park. We wandered around for a few hours, enjoying the beautiful weather before finally splitting up to go home.

I didn't have Rotary on Monday, which was really nice. Not sure why we didn't, but that's fine! I just would like to get my allowance before I go to Italy!

Skiing in Slovakia

2009-03-28T11:10:00.004-05:00

You know? I really think I'm just going to copy my journal entries with slight edits for this week!

Sunday

I've been so excited for today. I woke up at 6:30 to put the final touches on my mask, then went downstairs for breakfast. Eva made me a sandwich to bring along and also gave me Kofola and a box of chocolate goodies. I re-packed my bag and at 8:30 we picked up Amanda. Juraj and Peter Rehak waited with us at the bus station until our bus came.

The ride was four and a half hours long, including a twenty minute rest at Banska Bystrica. Miguel talked the whole first half about his weekend with friends, then Amanda and I chatted while he slept. We were the first to arrive at the station in Liptovský Mikuláš, but Taylor showed up within 20 minutes (he lives in that city). As the trains rolled in, so did our exchange friends. We seem to be more divided than ever by our native languages, but it was still fun.

We piled into a mini-bus and rode at least a half hour to the ski resort (actually, our hotel was more of a hostel). Checking in, we got a shiny yellow vest with our names and countries on the back. Rooms were crazy. At least 10 people thought they were supposed to be in room 214, when it only had 6 beds. Poor Johanna had to move three times before we finally found a bed for her. Around 3:15, a group of us went down to the fancy Hotel Grand to rent equipment. My ski boots don't have laces, which made them difficult to carry back up to our lodge along with my skis and poles. I realized walking up again that I'm not in as nearly good of shape as I thought!

Back at the cabin, the Czech students had arrived. More hellos and intros, and we split into two "party rooms"-- Room 330 with 10 beds, and mine, Room 214 with 6. I got to talk to a lot of people. Supper, I sat with Josh (Czech, Connecticut), Hope (Slovak, Illinois), and Megan (Czech, Alaska :D). We had a "short" meeting after the meal and the speaker kept switching from Slovak to English, making me dizzy.

I spent most of the evening in the hallway, talking and playing UNO. One girl staying in Prague (Rachel) lived in Nitra when she was 15, so it was really cool talking with her.

Monday

So I can't do I anything the normal way. I had to ski down to the meeting point on one ski, because I wound up rotating part of the other ski when I fell. I could zoom down the harder hill, even turning, but couldn't go at slow speeds without falling 5 times. My instructors didn't speak English, so Allie and Vanessa eventually had to show me what to do. I fell off the drag lift my first time up. I wiped out hard enough for my hat to fall off at one point and completely lost my sunglasses doing that.

Lunch, Lauren and I bought bags of chips and went up to the Mexican room (330) for chow. I found out I didn't have to go back, but I climbed into my wet clothes again and did. Vicky and I were the only ones to remain in the beginners class, but I improved to either not falling down on the bunny hill or getting up quicker. Then going home, I missed my turn off for the hotel from the lift and had to ski down-- running into a tree! I cheated getting up by just taking off my skis. It was such a bizarre day.

In the evening I floated between rooms. Czech Allie cut four girls' hair-- including mine! I am now the proud owner of bangs, and slightly shorter hair. Also during the evening in my room, Hope and I were giving back massages. I love being in the gathering room. And my roommates and I go to bed at 10:30... haha! This NEVER happens.

Tuesday

Once again--ouch. I spent a lot of time on the bunny hill, zig zagging slowly. My teacher then invited us to go up in the egg (a gondola to the top of the hill). That hill, if zig zagged, is blue-- easy. Straight down, it's a black hill (the hardest). I lost control and went straight down-- on my second day EVER on skis. I made it to the bottom of the drop before tumbling, losing both skis. My teacher called me "Kamikaze", and after I was at the shelter at the bottom I started crying out of the shock. At least I got hot chocolate and a hug out of the ordeal! (That hot chocolate is the BEST I've had in Europe, and I've had some awesome hot chocolate.)

But my neck aches. At night, I can barely lift my head because it's so sore. And it's an old, creaky building. Closing the door does nothing to block the sound, and our lumpy bunks are noisy. But my room is the party room, and my roommates (Allie, CZ, USA; Mod, SK, Thailand; Lauren, SK, Canada; Vanessa, CZ, Canada; and Megan, CZ, USA) are cool.

The "carnival" was a relay race through the snow (someone ran with a sled up the hill while tied to a bungee cord. Person 2 slid down the hill. Person 3 caught them and ran the sled to Person 4, who raced in snow shoes up the hill to the finish line.) It was amusing to watch (my team lost horribly, but it was still fun). Many people made their carnival masks out of make up: all three winners of the mask contest had been through that method.

The meals are always rice and potatoes for supper, which tastes fine but gets old. Breakfast is bread and meats or sweet breads. Lunch I've had chips, and a bread bowl of soup (today Allie ate half the bread).

For the evening, we trudged through the snow to another hotel for a disco. At one point a professionally trained couple took over the lighted floor and whirled around, earning enthusiastic applause when they finished. It was long past midnight by the time we finally fell into bed.

Wednesday

I showered in the morning in the shower without pressure. Around 10, we loaded into the buses and drove to the cave of Liberty. We hiked up the hill, went into the Cave and down down down-- only to realize the only exit was the way we came in. Oh, well. It was still pretty. On the way out, we discovered a group from Portugal (who took a picture with the Brazilians) and a group from Israel that thought Angela (Caucasian American) was Japanese.

Next was the Aquapark-- Tatralandia. I debated swimming, and finally elected to go when Megan didn't want to go alone. Swimming in the thermal water felt great on my sore muscles, and squeezing a dozen+ exchange students into the tiled box for the wave pool was great. The waterslides, not so much, when Maria and I flipped over half way through! The park was cool though-- it had high tech wateproof chip bracelets, lockers that only opened to the bracelt, and a slightly awkward co-ed locker room.

Final destination was Liptovský Mikuláš. Seriously, it is the prettiest town I have seen in Slovakia. Mountains on either side, nice layout, interesting memorials. A bunch of us went for lunch at a pizza place at four. I split a regular and desert pizza with Mod and Allie (SK) and guessed the price would be about 12 € for the meal. It was 11,74€ :) Mod talked more tonight than I've ever heard. I love how every gathering she says a bit more-- I even heard a full sentence!

Mod served as our tour guide (LM is her host home). She brought us to a store where we could buy hair dye (purple), towels (big, soft, and less than 4 €), food (plenty of munchies for the rest of the week), and other random supplies.

Every time we got on the mini buses, Caucasians fought to get a spot on the "Mexican's bus", mostly to diversify, and because it was the most comfortable. But it's useless, as the Mexicans/Brazilians speak their native languages and ignore the rest of us. However, it is really cool that the Spanish speakers can mostly understand Portuguese and vice versa.

In the evening, Allie, Johanna, and I put purple streaks in our hair. Mod and Rachel were huge helps. Then I followed Jo and Rach downstairs and invited myself to their Kofola float party. It was good! Nine of us ate them, using cups from the dining room. Root beer? Psh... Kofola floats all the way!

Thursday

I made it through the day without any death-defying spills. In the afternoon, Allie brought me down the beginners hill, citing that I'd mastered the bunny. I went down with her three times, but on the last run fell hard enough to lose both skis and bruise my knee. So I stayed on the bunny hill for a while. Lauren, Amanda, and I were on the drag lift when it completely stopped. It never restarted, so we just went down from where we were.

I went back to the lodge early and since people were sleeping everywhere, I sat on the stairs after my shower. Josh came in first, having a rather miserable day: Allie had accidentally hit him in the eye with a ski, he'd wiped out (breaking the strap on his snowboard, which cost 20 € to fix, and snapping his goggles in half, which cut his nose), and someone stole his helmet.

We want to pull together a reunion for the US Northeastern exchangers. I want to fly out to New York, so we're thinking Summer 2010, maybe? Those that are here are completely for it!

Oh, it was Diego's birthday today, so the Mexican's gave him muffins for breakfast and had a cake to eat after supper.

Friday

I am so proud of myself. I didn't fall at ALL today! This included three runs down the beginner hill. I hadn't wanted to go at it alone, so I skied on the bunny hill until I was bored to death. Vicky invited me to join in when she, Ari, and Daniela went down it. So I went with them twice, the adrenaline from my plunge making my legs shake.

After the second run, my ski instructor annoyed me. He made me go back to the bunny hill. I took it, being bored on the drag lift that takes longer to go up than going SLOWLY down the hill. It was near lunch, so I just zoomed down. Once again, my instructor caught me and lectured me not to do "crazies" and to make the big loops going ridiculously slow. I was glad he wasn't there after lunch when we went for the last run down the bigger hill.

Amanda, Mod, and I returned our equipment around 2:30, skiing/boarding down and carrying our sneakers. It was a long, slippery walk home (the sun shined all day, making the snow either icy or melting it-- not fun to ski in). But I'm SO proud of Mod. Not only does she talk some now, she will initiate the conversation. And she's laughing and smiling and dancing-- a COMPLETE 180 from the girl I roomed with at Language Camp seven months ago!

At supper, we got our return schedules home and also got "prizes" (cheesy Slovak souvenirs). Mod was the Most Improved, and then it was our order from the carnival races.

After supper, I french braided Slovakia Allie's hair (Czech Allie had left in the morning to go meet her family at the airport in Prague). Then I went to read in my room for a bit to have a few moments to myself, but wound up listening to Angela tell stories for about an hour. Then I went downstairs to the J's room (Josh, Josh, and Jeramy have the new party room), where I hung out with the other non-discoers until around 10 when they sent us to bed.

Saturday

It was so sad to say goodbye to everyone. This week has gone by impossibly fast. How am I sitting in my bedroom in Nitra already? We woke early this morning and ate breakfast, packing quickly and loading into the mini buses to go to the train station. The first group left at 10:05, then 10:10, and 10:39. The rest of us had to wait until 12 before we left. As we hugged our friends, new and old, we made promises to see each other at the final trips and the district conference. Fortunately, we can look forward to ITALY in three short weeks!

Nitra and Zvolen jumped on a bus at noon and drove towards home. Erin and Jeramy got off in their town, and the three from Nitra kept going to finish out the 3.5 hour drive (down from 4.5 hours on the way up).

I really miss my exchange friends, even though I just left them... now back to reality :(

And I CAN'T speak English! It was kind of exciting when I started to forget, but now it's just plain annoying! Even after an entire week speaking English (granted, mixed with Slovak and Czech, but still), I get angry when I can't remember words and phrases and have to stop talking in order to think.

Okay, I realize it sounds like I complained a lot. I'm sorry! I really did have an awesome time, I did! And I'll put pictures on facebook tonight or tomorrow.

But guess what:

I CAN SKI!!!

Abnormality

2009-03-21T06:23:00.003-05:00

Well, I am no longer using my blog as my L.I.F.E. project. I have finally completed everything and turned it all in to the authorities at my school back home. Now, I just have to wait. I haven't the foggiest idea when I will get my results back. But now I don't have to record how long it takes me to write, and it isn't quite as important that I write every week.

Speaking of... I will try to write on a weekly basis. But getting into the final leg of my year, I probably won't do it on as nearly of a regular schedule as I have. (i.e. earlier, I always wrote on Saturdays. Lately, I've been writing every Tuesday.) This is because of TRAVEL. Whoo, I'm so excited for it! You'll note that this is posted on a Saturday, not a Tuesday. That's because on Tuesday, I will be in Liptovský Mikulaš for Ski Week with Rotary... from Sunday to Saturday :) (Don't worry, you'll get a nice update when I get back!)

Alright, so to catch you up on this week.

Maturity. The closest comparison I can give you would be final exams. Except this is only for the final class, and they have it a couple of times throughout the year. The entire country of Slovakia had the same tests Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Many exchange students didn't have to go to school. And we were also told that we didn't have to on Wednesday, but found out on Thursday that was misinformation. Oops.

Anyway, the final class has to dress up while taking these exams. It was interesting seeing our friends wandering around in suits and dresses.

Tuesday at art class, we went to a gallery. It was rather random. The first section we viewed was about stamps. One artist designed a ton of Slovak stamps, so they had the original drawings and the actual stamps. Then we went upstairs, and saw life size finger paintings. Tons of paint, fingers drug through it in circle patterns. Then everything appeared like you were seeing it through a screen door. That gave me a headache!

Wednesday, we'd been told we didn't have to go to school. So I slept until the sun shone so brightly through my east facing wall of glass that I couldn't sleep any more. I went downstairs for breakfast and sliced my finger painfully with a bread knife. And I didn't have the foggiest idea where the bandaids were (or if they even exist in this country), so I invented one using tissues and tape.

I spent the morning productively. I finished my presentation for school, including a moment of panic when I realized I completely forgot a paragraph, and then the headache I had uploading the videos to youtube. But at last, all was complete, and I had a few people watch it for me. Marlene is jealous because she didn't record her year properly, and Ruby (who went through the checklist for me) is impressed, but had to keep reminding herself I did it for a grade so she wouldn't feel bad.

Both Wednesday and Thursday, I spent some time watching the debates on television. There are seven presidential candidates, four men and three women. The election is taking place as I write, so next week I'll let you know if Ivan Gasparovič is still running the country! The debates weren't terribly interesting (then again, it was in Slovak, and I've never been terribly interested in the English debates). But it was fun to watch them argue amongst themselves.

Thursday was the name day for "Jozef". I have one in my class (Dodo-- common nickname for Jozef). A long time ago, Pivnik (my head teacher) had promised Dodo that if he brought in treats on his name day that we wouldn't have English class that day. Dodo kept up his end of the bargain. But Pivnik was gone, supervising the Maturita test. I have a sneaking suspicion he planned it that way.

So instead, we had a substitute-- Jurikova. She teaches the seminar. She talked randomly to the students. At one point, she turned and started talking to me about cheating. I told her that in America, it wasn't nearly as obvious.

After school, I went to drama, but started feeling sick after a bit, so I went home early. I was in bed by 7, and woke up at 1:30 in the morning. I went back to sleep and woke up at 6:30, feeling bright and shiny and MUCH better!

Friday was fairly normal. I left school with a classmate and we walked to Tesco together, discussing the ability to understand a foreign language. She kept telling me that she couldn't understand English when it was spoken quickly-- talking faster and faster in Slovak the whole time. I kept having to remind her, "Pomalšie!" ("Slower!").

Afterwards, we went to the gym, then Amanda and I went home. I showered and headed back to town for church. We sang, then went into another room to watch the movie "Facing the Giants" in English with Czech dubs. I kept having flashbacks to high school football games. It was fun.

The weather here has been completely random. Literally, it goes from snowing to my winter coat being to heavy within a day! And it will snow and melt within a couple hours. It's insane!

I forgot to mention last week when I went with Rehaks, I saw a John Deere store. Can we say, "IOWA"?

Oh, and I can't speak English anymore. It keeps coming out of my mouth all wrong and I don't even notice it!

So, now, off to Ski Week! Wish me luck... I'm a bit terrified I will break a leg, literally!

The grass is still green-- doesn't it know that winter is suppose to kill it?

2009-03-17T01:51:00.003-05:00

So, as I've said before, on Tuesdays, I normally leave after six classes because the German teacher told me several times that I didn't need to stay for the final class. But last week, I was feeling a little restless, so I decided to STAY instead. I wandered in, my classmates told me where to sit, and class began. The teacher walked into the room, we all stood up, she told us to sit and began teaching. She started an exercise where everyone was talking about their hair in German. When she got to me, she quickly realized that it wasn't normal for me to be in her class on this day at this time. "Why are you here?" she asked, astonished. "You could go home! Do you want to stay?!?" My class giggled, and I just smiled and shrugged.

Tuesday actually had several interesting events. After school, I ran into one of my classmates (Janka) outside of school, and we spent quite a while talking about Twilight. She's seen me reading it in school and is amazed that I'm trying to read it in Slovak. She's also attempting to read it in English, and now each day, she checks to see where I am to compare her current position.

Speaking of Twilight, Dodo was excited to show me that he also was going to read it in English. He owns it-- on his iphone.

In art, we continued work on our paintings, imitating Klimt. It's reall soothing, just painting.

When I walked home, a van passed me three times before pulling over to ask for directions to Zlaty Klucik (the hotel near my house). He was actually very close, bt couldn't get straight there in a car. But the weirdest thing of that adventure? His Slovak had a French accent.

I keep accidentally slipping English words into my Slovak sentences. Easy words, too, like "day" and "here".

On Wednesday, I met with Maggie (my pastors daughter) after school. It was really nice hanging out with her. We wandered through a few stores, doing some light shopping. Then we went to Hami Papi for some food and Kofola. Through it all, we talked. She told me about her trip to Germany, I told her about my sister's internship. We talked about conferences with our churches, and about our schools. I talked more and faster in Slovak than I think I ever have. I don't know if it was right at all, but I talked.

Drama on Thursday was a lot of fun. I'm getting better at reading the lines from the Penelopide. Knowing what I'm reading helps :) And I made my class crack up when we read the passage sarcastically. And singing is hilarious-- during one song, we left the drama room and chased Pat'o (who was playing Odysseus) half way across the school. Heads popped out of classrooms, and waiting parents stared at us in fear. It was great. And after class, everyone was singing the saddest song like it was a pop song or a rap song, sometimes a combination of both! (I was so mad at myself. It was the ONE day this year that I've left my camera at home-- and I really wanted to record them!)

Ruby and my host brother Sam have been sick all week, and Amanda left after four classes on Friday to go to Trencin for the weekend. So I had absolutely no guilt trips when I went with my classmate, Petra, after school. We went to a tea house and sat for an hour or so talking. I also got to meet her sister. I realized there that I talk a lot more/better in Slovak when I'm 1-on-1, rather than me-vs-audience.

I'm finally starting to see signs of the upcoming presidental election. I heard my drama classmates talking about it a little bit, a short news clip informing the public that station would be broadcasting on election day, and a couple random billboards. It was such a relief compared to the two years of mudslinging never-ending campaigns in America. The election is in April, and I'm just now starting to become aware of it.

Saturday (my US parent's anniversary :D), I stayed home all day. I worked on my project a lot, cleaned my room... in the afternoon, we had company come over. Juraj and his brother both had birthdays this week, so they had a joint birthday party for them on Saturday. I think there are four brothers in the family, one of whom has mental retardation. But all of them are pretty short-- once again, I'm astonished that Sam is so tall! It was a normal evening of awkwardness for me... answering questions, smiling shyly, trying to appear invisible so that I wouldn't have to be the center of attention.

On Sunday, the Rehaks (my first host family) picked me up around 9:30 in the morning. They'd said 9, so when 9:06 rolled around, Eva started getting anxious. I knew the Rehak's habits, so I wasn't worried, but I texted Miguel anyway, and he confirmed that they were running a bit late and would be there in about 15 minutes. We then drove to Trencin Teplice (a spa town about 17 km away from Trencin, and the place where Peter was born). They'd invited me along because back in November, I'd gone there and met Babka and helped decorate the graves for All-Souls Day. So, in the rain, we picked up Babka, decorated a grave again, and wandered through the walking zone before going to lunch. We spent the afternoon at Babka's, with an aunt, and Miguel and the aunt talked about Mexico a lot. My head was spinning...

Monday was pretty uneventful. In Biology, the teacher came to my desk in the back of the room and sat next to me while a student teacher gave the lesson. It was cute-- he turned to me and said, "How are you? Ako sa mas?" It amazes me that people still believe that after seven months I can't understand the most basic question. The French students were only here for a WEEK, and they understood it! Believe me-- I got it.

The only other thing that's happened this week-- the Italy trips. Our school is going to Venice in April. We got an email over the weekend from Rotary though giving the dates of their 8 day bus trip through Italy. Sadly, the two trips collide. So, we registered for the Rotary trip, and are in the process of finding replacements for our school trip. My friend Kate was glad to get on the trip, so my ticket is taken care of.

Readin', 'riting, 'n 'rithmatic.

2009-03-10T02:14:00.003-05:00

Take a picture in your mind. Imagine an 18-year-old girl from Iowa who has always excelled at languages and loves reading. She is sitting at a rickety green table in the back corner of the room. In front of her lies a hard cover book, behind which is a slightly smaller paperback open to approximately the same area. You see her move her lips slowly, tasting a new word, and a look of confusion flashes across her face as she picks up a much smaller blue-and-green dictionary, riffling through the pages until she finds a similar word. An odd expression follows, and she sticks out her tongue a little in concentration as she pulls the paperback out, scanning the page until she spots the right paragraph. Raising her eyebrows a little, she shrugs, and turns back to the hard cover, only to repeat the process thirty seconds later.

And that, my friends, is a pretty accurate image of my attempting to read "Súmrak"-- that is, "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer. It is an extremely slow process, and reminds me more than ever that I don't speak this language. On the other hand, I'm learning a lot of new words, and it certainly helps classes pass by more quickly. I'd first wanted to attempt this feat around Christmas, and took to asking various classmates if I could borrow their copies of the book. (I wasn't really keen on buying my own copy when I didn't know how far I could get. Now I believe that once I've finished the book, I will buy my own to bring back home.) But, it was last Tuesday before I finally got the Slovak version of Twilight. Even now, it's hard going-- I could NOT have done this three months ago!

Although, another way I amuse myself in class is to make nonsense math problems, inventing random numbers to multiply and divide without a calculator. I also spent a class period writing out the Fibonacci sequence to over 1,000,000. I used to work on Sudoku, but with the two books and my dictionary in my purse, I no longer have room to bring that book, too.

It has not been a particularly interesting week. The snow melted, and the rains fell, so the river was positively swollen. After about four days, it's almost back down to a normal level, but seeing a couple meters where the water pressed down the grass is a bit disconcorting.

In drama on Thursday, I talked to my class about my observations from the book "The Penelopide". They had already read it in Slovak, and I'd finally read it in English. So I gave my observations (I tried to talk in Slovak, but my class got impatient and told me to switch to English.) Afterwards, we all did an interpretation of the first chapter. Since I'd read it in English, I did mine in English. Apparently, I impressed them, because my teacher elected me to do it again while everyone else danced. It's so bizarre for me to be the "good actress" or the "good singer" here, when back home, I was average at best.

Friday was awesome-- I didn't have first or last periods because the teachers were gone. I fell asleep around 9:30 on Thursday evening, and set my alarm a half hour later than usual, so I felt so refreshed when I finally woke up to go to my FOUR classes.

After school, I went to the Parlament room (where apparently the student government works). It's got a couch and a couple computers. Pat'o was there, and gave each of the exchange students a copy of Nezmar (the school quarterly publication). We'd had interviews a while back, and they were published in this issue. Normally they cost fifty cents, but Pat'o refused our money. Nice :) It was fun reading over each others interviews and laughing at some of the answers.

Mirka had invited me to go to her village, Vráble on Saturday, and invited me to spend the night as well. So around 1:20, I began a race down Zobor, trying to make it to the bus station before 2:10. I made it just in time-- but still managed to miss the bus because I went to the wrong station. The next bus left at 3, or it was supposed to! But it never came. Finally, I got on the bus at 3:40 and was on my way!
Mirka met me at the bus station and drove me to a hotel. I thought that her family owned it, but apparently it's her boyfriend's family. Mirka works there though. It is a NICE place, and we spent the afternoon playing squash and wandering around upstairs. In the evening we went down to the bowling/billards area (non smoking, which was a pleasant change) and played pool with her cousin and friend. It was Tomaš's name day-- the name of her cousin, and a second friend that was there. We left the hotel around 11 and went to her house.
To round off the evening, we watched the movie Prime, which is originally in English. Great-- except the dubbing and titles were in Czech, and we couldn't figure out how to change it. Nevermind, we decided. We'll watch it in Czech. I was extremely surprised to realize I understood 90% of the movie! It wouldn't have been possible without the dubs, but with them I was able to follow along quite well. It was exciting.

Sunday, I tasted ketchup for the first time in ages (I don't think it's the first time in Slovakia, but it's been a LONG time since I've had any).
Also on Sunday, I was called "Allisonka" for the first time in my hearing. Adding the "-ka" to the end of the name is a term of endearment, and I felt very special when Dedko (grandpa) called me that. He also amused me by saying that they should send Sam back to Iowa in my place and leave me in Slovakia!

Other than that, it's been a pretty normal week. I'm working on finishing up my presentation for my Iowa school so I can graduate. It's all written, I just need to record it. I hope to have that finished before I go to SkiCamp. But, yeah...

Ahoj!

D. It is written

2009-03-03T00:57:00.003-06:00

One of my (faults, traits, charactaristics, pet peeves?) is that I hate small talk. And I'm pretty much incapable of making it. In English, I make conversation when I'm very interested in something. But just standing around, talking about the weather, talking about what I've done during the day... it's irritating for me. It's boring!
And because of have trouble making small talk in English, can you imagine how much worse it is in Slovak? In order to learn a language, you need to speak it. In order to speak it conversationally, you need to have friends. In order to make friends, you need to make small talk. It's a vicious cycle.

Okay, that mini rant is over!

So what has my week been like? Well, last Tuesday, I was within 100 feet of the president of Slovakia! He had come to Nitra to speak at a festival. I was a little distracted at the moment, so I didn't actually see him (I was on the other side of the booths) but I heard his speech. The reason I was distracted is that I was trying to find Miguel so we could watch the circus acts. But... he wasn't at the place we'd agreed to meet by. So I went to call him... only to discover that I had NO credit! This made me really mad because the day before, I'd bought 9 € of credit, and it was gone. So I had to buy more and finally met up with Miggy, long after the president left. Oh, well. We watched some random circus style plays in Slovak that were kind of funny.
While I was walking to get credit, though, a woman was going in the other direction and suddenly made a beeline for me, staring at me like she was possessed. She stopped right in front of me, and stared for a second or two before asking (in Slovak) if I was wearing contacts. (My eyes are naturally blue, but I have "emerald green" contacts, so I get a lot of questions about the color. I've just never been stopped in the middle of the street!) She kept talking to me, using words that I'd never heard before, so I had to explain I was an American and ask her to repeat. She tried to speak in halting English, but I told her to just speak in Slovak (more times than not, it's more frustrating listening to broken English than not understanding Slovak). So back she went, speaking really fast using words I'd never heard, before going on her merry way.

School that day had been interesting, too. I think I mentioned that I was given two trip options. Either I could go to England with my school for 5 days, or I could go on a bus trip through Germany and Switzerland with Rotary for 4 days. I opted for London (Rotary would only take 10, and there were other reasons), but was still wavering if I'd made the right choice. Well, on Tuesday, my chemistry teacher was talking in English (still haven't figured out why) and gave us two pieces of Lindt chocolate that he'd bought on his trip to SWITZERLAND over break. Then, I went to art class, and my teacher showed us pictures from her trip to LONDON from break. It was insane!

Wednesday, after we went to the gym, we went to McDonald's, and I had french fries from there for the first time in six months. Then, when we were walking towards the bus stop, we saw a HUGE snow sculpture. Seriously, it was taller than me! We took pictures of it with us standing next to it.

Thursday, my book finally came. We'd read "The Penelopide" in Slovak in my drama class. But they wanted me to read it in English so I could do the interpretive dancing better. So my mom ordered it and mailed it to me. I was excited :)

Friday, I thought was my last day at my current house. Doczy had said that now, Amanda and I would switch homes (sending her BACK to her first house), and Ruby would remain in her "temp" house. That would have meant Amanda would spend seven months in the same house, so we convinced Doczy to let us delay the moving one month. So now I will live with my second home four months, and my other two three months a piece. Although I'll hardly live in my third, because I'll be traveling for a lot of it! (We've worked it out that in our last three months, we'll be gone for a month and a half!)

Saturday, I spent the morning unpacking in my same room. I left most of my "junk" in the suitcases, pulling out only my clothes and a few knicknacks. Around 2:30, I walked down Zobor and met the others by the frog fountain in the park by the hockey arena. We'd wanted to, in Miguel's words, "Get lost trying to go to Kalvaria." (Kalvaria, Calvary, is a hill that has a church and staggared houses with depictions of biblical scenes. I've been to it once, but the others haven't.) However, Jana told him that it was too muddy. So we went to the park instead (yes, I know, it doesn't make any sense. The park is right by the river and was very wet, cold, slushy, and gross.) We sat there and talked for a half hour before the Nitra 4 walked to Miguel's home. I got to say hello to my first family, and the eight of us (Peter and Jana, Paul and Ivet, and the Nitra 4) watched the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Awesome movie! We ate popcorn, candy, oranges, and drank Kofola and tea.

Sunday was interesting. You never know what you'll run into on the bus. Amanda and I were riding the 9 bus when we heard people speaking in English. When we got off at the same stop as them, we stopped and talked. One girl was from Ireland (which was amusing, because people always think that I'm from there when I say "Iowa"), and the other from Poland. They were working in Nitra with a European volunteer corporation.
Also on the bus was a guy with a red eye that looked like he'd been kicked, and another guy with a hawk wearing blinders and a bell on its leg perched on the man's hand. That was a bit creepy, because he stood right behind my seat, so I kept hearing the bell ring!

That evening, when I was Skyping with my family, my host family came home. Eva walked into my room and said hello and I interpreted the questions for the two families. Then she walked out and sent Juraj in, who spoke a little bit of English, but I was still interpreter. Then, the sent Sam in, who held his own, speaking in English to my American family. It was a bit awkward for me, but still fun.

And apparently, the Rotary meeting was on Sunday, and not Monday. But we'd never gotten an email telling us this. So we tried to go to Rotary on Monday, and called Doczy to confirm where we were going, only to find out there was no meeting that day! We were a bit bummed-- it was supposed to be a concert at the synagogue (which we saw was the previous day on a poster). But we just went out for pizza, played cards, and then went home.

Here, there, and everywhere

2009-02-24T01:13:00.003-06:00

In the words of Amanda, "Sneží!"
In English: "It's snowing!"

And snowing. And snowing. Now, I've grown up around snow. I like snow well enough. What I don't like is the SLUSH that goes along with it! It snows, they toss down salt but don't shovel, so what you get is a gross brown mess. Nasty... especially because it's been snowing every couple of days lately. So the slush gets covered, and recreated. Again. And again. And again. And since I walk just about everywhere, it gets annoying.

Oh, well. I'll live! Especially because I just got done with spring break! Yeah, I'm really not sure why we had it in the middle of February. But the called it spring break... apparently Western Slovakia has it first, and the rest of the country slowly follows, with the last breaks in March. So an entire week of school helped brighten the mood caused by slush!

Last Tuesday evening, my host family and I went to see the 8:00 showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". It was in English with Slovak subtitles-- the best kind for me, because I can understand everything, but still be watching the titles for vocab. And it's amusing when I don't hear something, and can figure out what was just said by reading the subtitles in Slovak.
Because the movie didn't end until after 11 p.m., the rest of the mall was closed. So it was really disorienting when they had us walk out the back door of the theater (which I didn't know existed).

Wednesday was a bit of an adventure, even though most of the day was pretty bland. I felt really sick around noon, so I just hung out in my room for a few hours until the meds finally kicked in. Then the boredom came on full swing, so I went down to Amanda's house. Ruby was there, too, so we all talked for a few hours. When I went home, I was eating supper when my phone rang. Ruby moved into a new host home this week because Pat'o needs to have surgery to have his tonsils taken out. So she texted her new host father (Miguel's first family), asking if she could come home at 9 instead of 8 because she missed the bus down Zobor. In response, her new mom called and yelled at her, a lot, in Slovak. Ruby was upset because she didn't know what happened. The plot thickened when she went home. When she took off her shoes outside the apartment, her socks came off, too. With poor circulation in her toes, they constantly look purple, so her parents thought she'd been walking around in the snow barefoot. Trying to defend herself, Ruby called me to get the Slovak words to explain to her host family what had happened. But the parroting wasn't working, so her mom took the phone and started talking to me. Since my Slovak wasn't good enough to explain what happened (I had no idea how to make the past tense of "take off"), she wanted to know where I lived, then if my parents were home, and then told me to give the phone to my host parents. So I went back downstairs and handed the phone over to Eva. Eva had no idea what was going on, but I heard her defending me, saying that I did speak Slovak, thank you very much. Then I had to explain what happened to Ruby to Eva, who then went on to explain to Ruby's host mom why Ruby had come in sockless and had obviously been crying. Finally, they hung up-- after using 2€ of credit!

Thursday was also an interesting day. Amanda and our Rotex, Dida, had gone through several channels to get the three of us permission to go to Bratislava for the day (Ruby can't travel and Miguel was skiing for the week in Austria with his host family). Literally, I was told at 5 on Wednesday we were even considering it, and at 8 got permission from my host parents. We were in the car twelve hours later heading to the bus station! On the way down Zobor, there was an old man walking slowly in the middle of the road. Juraj drove slowly behind him for a few minutes before gently tapping his horn because the man wasn't moving to the side. He nearly jumped out of his skin in fright, and Juraj spoke quietly, saying in Slovak, "Come, Grandfather, this way, come, come, over there..." The man then came to the car and asked for a ride down to Tesco. Juraj being the induldging man he is let him, and was very kind to the man who talked the entire way down.
Once we got to the bus station, Amanda and I waited around, a bit confused for a few moments before Dida showed up. Then, we hopped the shuttle bus to Bratislava. I'm really glad that our first "independent" trip there was with a Rotex... otherwise I never would have known how to get to the mall, Aupark. I've been in the capital city several times, so I'm familiar with the layout, but not the bus system! (Which, by the way, makes me appreciate Nitra. Our buses, you can sit down, and the rides are fairly smooth. Not in Bratislava!)
In Aupark, we wandered around, shopping and snooping for a few hours. Amanda bought some pants, Dida bought several random items. Around noon, we started to get hungry. Since we were having a bit of a pizza craving, we decided to eat at "Pizza Hand", only to learn that they don't served pizzas there. *sigh* But because it was over the lunch hour, it was extremely crowded. So when a table of four opened up right after I paid, I dashed over to it with our bags and camped out while Dida got my food for me.
After lunch, we met up with Allie. Marlene was gone with her host family for the day, Aldo was M.I.A. and Johanna had made plans with a friend and didn't know we were coming. (And we forgot to tell our "Vampire" friend that we were coming, so we couldn't meet with him, either.) So we spent a few more hours talking at Aupark before hitching a bus back to Nitra.

Friday, I went on a walk with Eva halfway up Zobor to a very pretty little nook. She says it's even prettier in the spring and summer. She's very sweet, lately, like she's sad to see me leave at the end of the week. (She's been giving me a lot of candy lately, too... it's funny!)
Friday, we also had fish for lunch, starting Lent at that point. In the evening, I withdrew money from my account to pay for my Barcelona trip, and dropped of notecards for Ruby to study before walking home.

Saturday, I cleaned my room very throuroughly and packed about 90% of my stuff because I'm not sure when I'll be home this week. In the evening, we went to my host grandparent's village to watch Babka perform in two hours of folk lore. There was a man sitting in front of me that I honestly wasn't sure if he was drunk or part of the production. The costumes were very traditional, and the children crowded the front and danced. It wasn't the most interesting event I've been to, but I was glad I went.

Nothing terribly interesting on Sunday, except that we had a lot of company at our house. I've been to all their homes, so they weren't strangers. But it was still awkward. And Eva's brother, who is a priest, blessed their new home.

Monday was back to school. Miggy brought chocolate! Apparently Rehaks told him they needed to buy me something, so he got us all chocolate from Austria :)
Annnnddd... WE'RE GOING TO LONDON! I'm so excited! I'm a bit bummed because the same week our school is going to London, Rotary has organized a bus trip to Germany and Switzerland. But I think I'd prefer London via plane than Germany and Switzerland via bus...
The Rotary meeting was miserable. It was in a suburb of Nitra, a 20 minute bus ride away. Using the intstructions from our YEO, we left Nitra 10 minutes before the meeting started, not even knowing where to get off the bus. Then we walked for a few minutes through the snow and slush in the wrong direction. When we finally arrived, we were nearly a half hour late for the meeting. I'd worn my sneakers, not snow boots, so my feet were absolutely soaked, again. I think I'm going to get trenchfoot if I keep this up! (My host parents always tell me to wear boots on absolutely gorgeous days. It's my habit to just put on sneakers in the morning though. So I forgot the boots, and it started snowing around 9... and didn't stop!) The Rotarians seemed a bit annoyed at us, then we didn't even get food at the meeting...

Other random stuff:

Silverware etiquette makes so much more sense now. Like, how you set the table, and where to put the utensils to signal you're finished. In America, because of how we eat with our fork in our right hand, I never understood why it was set on the left, or why putting both knife and fork on the right side of the plate signaled you were done, whereas having them separate meant you were still eating. Because of how Europeans eat, it makes sense now!

I had a bilingual conversation with an outbound in America. It was fun, talking with him in Slovak and him responding in English.

My plane ticket home is bought and confirmed by Doczy, and my parents are planning our return trip for August.

There are a bunch of random foot prints in our yard, and I realized today that they are from workmen installing a railing on the bottom level of the house on the patio.

I have yet to understand why people still think I understand German. If they don't speak English, obviously I must speak German! It's like, I appreciate you trying to communicate wth me. But speak in Slovak, and I'll probably understand! German, I'm completely lost. (Hopefully that will change in college, though.)

That's all for this week! Love y'all!

In the World of an American Exchange Student

2009-02-17T03:24:00.004-06:00

Wow! What a week!

Firstly, though, I'm going to direct your attention to the counter right above this post. If you are reading it on Tuesday, February 17, 2009, you will note that it reads "6 months". That is completely accurate. Here I am, half a world and half a year away from my life in America. The low points seemed to have passed, and I feel ready to conquer again :) But still: sixmonthssixmonthssixmonthssixmonths... Six months, one day, since I left American soil. But six months since I hit country!

Now, because the more interesting stuff happened later in the week, I shall work backwards, in sorts.

So, as I wrote last week, I finally bought a dress for the Valentine's Day Ball, which, naturally, was held on February 14th. The ples (ball) was held in our school auditorium and commons area, and was mostly for the "maturantský" students, or the students in the final year of school. They opened it up a little bit more, though, so that any one 18 years or older could attend. I was the only Nitra exchange student to go to the ball: Miguel, 18, was skiing with his host family; Amanda, 16, was too young; and Ruby, 19, didn't really want to go.

So, Saturday! I spent the morning cleaning my room and packing. I'd gotten permission to spend the night at Kate's house after the ball so that I'd be able to stay out late. Juraj, my host dad, drove me down to the Evangelical church at 2:00. A few days earlier, Kate had asked me if I was going to the svadba (wedding) on Saturday, and told me who was getting married. I neither knew the bride nor groom, nor did I know about the wedding. "Doesn't matter," she told me, "You're coming anyway."

So, despite my wariness about attending a wedding I was barely invited to (the entire mladež, or youth group, had been invited, and since I go most weeks, I was included), I went. Kate and her little brother Tomaš met me there, and we went upstairs. Imagine my surprise when I'm not only roped into attending this random wedding, but when I meet the other youth, they inform me, "Oh, you're here! Sing with us in the wedding!"

"Me? Sing? ...in Slovak? At a wedding?" But no one else seemed to think it was strange, so they thrust a paper under my hand and we sang through the song once before trooping downstairs because the wedding party had arrived. I was a bit confused at how the people arrived... instead of trickling in as I'm accustomed to, the entire congregation arrived at once in several vans. Thus, I can only presume they'd met somewhere else first, but no one could tell me where they'd been. The mladež sat on the right side of the sanctuary to watch the ceremony. There were no bridesmaids, groomsmen, ring bearers, or flower girls. The groom escorted his soon-to-be-mother-in-law up the aisle, and the bride was escorted by her father during the wedding march. The ceremony seemed much simpler than most American weddings. No unity candle, no music specials... Just a plain ceremony, with a woman coming up and reading a prose about love at one point. The bride and groom, rather than standing the whole time, sat in chairs covered with white cloth. For the exchanging of the rings, Pastor Elko took the pillow and held it out for the couple to untie the rings. I'm not sure if they grabbed each others or what (the camera man was standing in front of me at the moment, so it was difficult to see-- at every event, they have an official camera man and photographer.) I heard them pledge their vows, and they were married.

After the wedding, the couple stood at the back doors and everyone filed past them, offering congratulations. I was very confused as to the proper protocol for me-- after all, I had no idea who just got married! But Kate assured me it was fine, so I hung out at the back of the line with Adam (who also didn't know the couple, because he'd been too young when the bride had attended the youth group). When our turn came, I started to say Všetko najlepšie (everything the best), but someone must have tipped them off I was American, because the bride interrupted me with, "You may speak in English with us." So I wished them the best, and stood awkwardly as they took a photo with the youth group and the couple.

Finally, Kate and I left, dropping of a few people at McDonald's first. I was a bit tired, so when we went to Kate's apartment, I dozed for about an hour. At five, I got up, and Kate started on my hair and make up. Whenever her mother wandered into the room, I felt very confused, because they would speak and I wouldn't understand a word! (I've been able to follow conversations rather well for the last few weeks, so it's surprising when I don't get anything at all.) After asking about it, though, I remembered Kate said that in their home, they speak Hungarian and Slovak interchangeably (which is not a common occurrence at all). So it was fine that I didn't understand-- they'd been speaking Hungarian!

Kate spend more than an hour twisting my hair this way and that, chattering excitedly the whole time. Her hair and make up were already done (she'd finished while I was napping). She flitted about, putting pins here, butterflies there, sometimes giving me a mirror and asking if I liked it and what she should do next. It was so complex, I was astonished that I was actually looking at myself. She finished with some heavy make up on my eyes, and then slipped off so we could change into our dresses. Kate had two choices, and put them both on, deciding the dress she'd worn for Stužkova (similar to a senior prom) was more appropriate.

The tickets said we were to come to the ball at 6:30. However, due to a couple hair and make up emergencies, we didn't leave her apartment complex until 7:05. I sent a message to Pat'o asking if it was okay that we were late, and he wrote back it was fine.

We parked by the school near the back doors. It was cold as we walked up, and were saddened to see they were locked. A girl inside though signaled us to go to the front doors, so we scurried (in heels) up the cement stairs. The automatic doors swung open, bathing us in heat again. A boy that I've seen around school checked the numbers on our tickets and checked us off, directing us towards the coat closet. We checked our coats, and Mat'a (Amanda's classmate) signaled us to the right doors at the auditorium. The program had already started, but the lights remained on in the main room the whole night. Kate and I stood in the back of the room watching for a few minutes, feeling embarrassed as people kept turning around and seeing us. Finally, Pat'o and Dada (his girlfriend) spotted me and signaled us to their table. The name card, I was happy to see, listed "2 Allison Cramer"... good, right spot. Unfortunately, the table was right by the stage... and was the teacher's table, as well. Pat'o and Dada I know organized the event, and I'm sure Saša (a girl from my drama class who was also seated at the table with her date) helped. Also, we seemed to be seated according to class... That table was Octava, that one is 4.D. Since I was the only one from my class 3.A (and come to think of it, one of the few from the third class at all), it made sense that I'd be at a different table.

The program had actually started at 7, so we only missed about fifteen minutes. We were able to watch the rest of the "cultural program" (several hip hop classes came and danced). When that ended, Saša (pronounced "Sasha") and Dada escorted the male teachers (including the head master) out into the commons area for the first session of dancing. Pair by pair, couples slowly joined them to ballroom dance to music provided by a live band/orchestra (Mat'a was part of this, playing some sort of horn, I believe). I watched the dancing for a few moments before Pat'o asked me why I wasn't dancing-- after all, there were more unattached guys than unattached girls (I think about 8 more guys than girls, actually). I just smiled and said I wasn't going to be the one to ask. In response, he grabbed Saša's date (she was dancing with the headmaster), introduced us, and instructed us to dance. Kate had gone to get something from her coat during this time, so when she returned, she was astonished to see me whirling around the dance floor in the arms of a university student. After the dance, everyone returned to the auditorium for supper. It was nice to be seated at the teacher's table now-- we got served our food first! The servers were from "Hotel Akademia", I think-- a school that trains students to be waiters and such. They get their practice from working events such as these. So we spent about an hour working our way through the food and talking. Kate discovered Saša's mother was her teacher, and we all just had a good time comparing stories about life. I made a cardinal error though-- I forgot that the teacher's didn't know I understood Slovak. So when people asked me questions and I responded, one of them looked up in surprise. "She understands?" he asked. "Well, yes," Saša said, and proceeded to extol my language skills. The headmaster, also my physics teacher, grinned and said that now I need to work in physics class. "I don't understand physics in English!" I defended myself. Now we shall see if he actually holds true to his request... I hope not! Especially considering my language skills aren't that good yet!

After supper was another session of dancing with live music. It was a bit like big band, swing music. I had fun dancing around, sometimes in large groups, sometimes with small. Dancing helped keep me warm-- it was really cold inside the building, and my wrap didn't help much! I got to talk with Ela, another of Amanda's classmates that had been in America last year. She was really nice.

Next was the first session of "Tambola"-- a raffle. Our tickets to enter the ball had been numbered, so those were our numbers. The moderators drew the tickets, and the winner came up on stage. They drew a plastic egg from a bowl and opened it to reveal a second number, which corresponded with a prize. Some were good, some not so good. Someone won a candle holder, Kate won a hair iron, someone won an mp3 player... It was fun to watch.

While we were watching tambola, the band cleared out, and a DJ came in and set up. So we went out for another session of dancing. Most of the time, it wasn't "disco" music, but everything from Latin-American styles (probably in honor of the Spanish track of our school), to Slovak music, to big band and swing. "Old" songs played-- from at least a decade ago. Very few things from the last few years played. I bounced around with everyone, laughing and having fun. But every few songs, I had to readjust my tights and dress. The straps on my dress kept chafing me. At the end of the night, I had at least six scratches on each shoulder from them. Ouch!

After a few hours was part two of tambola. I still didn't win anything, but I got to watch as a group of boys that had pooled their tickets together finally won, and went up to the stage in ecstasy. Also, the "mystery" price turned out to be a stuffed duck! (Which the winner's table later destroyed at put food all over it... rannnndddooommmm...) After the raffle ended, a "midnight snack" was served. Cold meats, deviled eggs, cheese... Before this, we'd been munching on traditional Slovak cakes, including my favorite: the pink punch cake :)

Finally, it was back to the dance floor, around 12:45 a.m. For the next almost complete two hours, I swirled and danced with many people. Since I was the only exchange student there, and there were less than 100 people in attendance, word got out fast that the latecomer was the American. A girl later told me she was jealous of me because so many people were talking about me. I was a bit surprised, considering how few people actually talked with me. But it was nice being the only exchanger for once... I felt so much more confident than I usually do, not hiding beneath Miggy's shadow as he is able to talk to everybody in any language. Not keeping the other girls company as we are too shy to talk to random people... it was just me, and it was fun. And the more drunk my schoolmates got (we were served many bottles of wine throughout the night, and I'm sure there were more bottles of stronger stuff somewhere), the more they talked to me-- in English. It was ridiculous. "Odkial' si?" they would ask, and when I'd respond "U.S.A.-- Iowa!" they wouldn't speak another word in Slovak. It was a bit annoying, especially in the middle of a swing dance. But still kind of fun.

I danced more in high heels in that one night than I think I've ever danced in sneakers in my life. It was a blast! Kate and I finally got home and tumbled into our beds around 4 a.m. after she helped me get all the pins out of my hair. My feet were blistered, my head was spinning from being awake for so long, my contacts had been sticking for the same reason, and my shoulders were scarred. But I had such I great time... I'd do that night again in a heart beat! So even though I skipped going to an American prom, this was so much more my style... :D

Now, that was just Saturday! Moving backwards...

Friday night, we'd had a disco at the school. This was because the majority of school couldn't go to the ball, so now they could have a Valentine's dance as well. Amanda and I wandered down towards the school around 6:30 (it started at 5:30). It was still pretty empty, so we walked over to my church and I said hi to everyone before we walked back, stopping to check out some shoe prices first. It was closer to 7:15 when we finally walked in the door. We went to hand over our 1 €, but the people taking the money just grinned at us, pushing our money back and stamping our hands with the "paid" marker. There are definitely some benefits to being an exchanger!

We spent the night wandering about, sometimes dancing, sometimes talking to people. Martin, a rebound from Canada showed up with his old host brother (currently an exchange student in Austria who is in Slovakia for a week). At one point, I looked at my phone and realized I had a missed call from Samuel--with whom I haven't had any contact in a few weeks. Surprised, I texted him back, and after a few messages, found out he was also at my school disco and met up with him. Strange.

Apparently, there's a rumor going around back home that I'm turning into a "party girl" here. I suppose that's true-- if it means that I don't run and hide when alcohol shows up. I'm still a goody-two-shoes, though, and avoid drinking alcohol. But just to show how common it is-- at a school disco, at least half of the people inside are drunk, there's always at least 15 people standing right outside the doors drinking, and more scattered around the school property. It's legal to drink at age 18, but pubs sell alcohol to 14 and 15 year-olds with very little problem. It's Europe... it happens. So if I were to run away every time I encountered alcohol? Well, I'd basically be living in my bedroom.

Alright, so those were the most interesting parts of the week. But a couple other things happened.

Also on Friday the 13th... I told my classmates about the American tradition of pinching any one not wearing black (only after making sure that I was!). Sure enough, they went on a hunt to find people not wearing black, and as a result, several people looked at me in horror, and asked, "But why???", to which I had no answer.

I was reading a letter mom sent me in class on Friday and all the newspaper articles, including my own letter to the editor. My classmates were curious, asking me what I was reading. I handed it over and was surprised that at least three people sat and read the entire letter. I was very proud of them-- they only used their phone translators a couple times.

Thursday I paid for my Venice trip with school. I don't even know if I can go though-- Athens and Rome via Rotary got cancelled, so now they are planning an Italian bus tour, starting one of the last days I'm in Venice. Also, not very many people have paid for the school trip...

In drama on Thursday, we read again. Seriously, I can't read out loud in Slovak! It's misery! Especially if I don't know what the word means! Ahhh! We are also dancing interpretively to the story-- which would be great, except I don't know it! I know the story of the Odyssey, but the Penelopide is written from Penelope's point of view. So they had me ask mom to order it off of Amazon.com in English.

Before class, I'd seen Peter, my first host dad for the first time since Christmas. It was neat saying "hi" to him. I think I want to wander by their house soon. Have to wait until after they get back from skiing!

Wednesday was a fairly warm day... walking around with coats unzipped and such. But because I had stuff I needed to work on, I bussed home. I got on the bus, swiped my card, and plopped down. Imagine my surprise when the lady sitting across the aisle reached over and touched my arm. I started, then realized it was Eva-- my host mom! So went home together.

I've been writing essays for scholarships all week. It's NOT fun! Especially because I know very little about the topics... so my questions have to be emailed, wait for a response, emailed, wait for a response... not an easy task. Why, WHY? did I do this my senior year??

Tuesday was about the complete opposite of Wednesday. Right after school, I'd walked to Tesco with a girl from school. She chatted the whole time, laughing about how she was avoiding studying for physics by hanging out with the American exchange student. I surprised her by speaking in Slovak-- she always talks to me in English, so I respond in kind (she's really fluent). So when Miguel came up and started talking in Slovak, and I answered, she turned to me in surprise. "Now that's Slovak!" she said excitedly. She can never understand when Miguel talks, but she recognized that my words were in Slovak. But for her (and Kate), hearing Slovak come out of my mouth is very bizarre. I talk to about 6 people in English, and everyone else in Slovak. Apparently people have started questioning them why they use that language with me... "She speaks Slovak," they say, "Why do you still use English?"

Anyway, the girl (Pet'ra) helped me pick out lunch, then went home while I went to class. The snow was just starting to fall. In class, people frequently discuss English words. I normally just listen with amusement. So I startled every one when one boy asked, "Ako sa povie 'ešte raz' po anglický?" And I interpreted, "Once again," without even looking up from my work. (He'd asked, "How do you say 'once again' in English?")

After class, the snow was still falling. When I'd left home in the morning, I'd seriously contemplated leaving my winter coat at home because it had been so nice this week, and it was still spring-like weather in the morning. Fortunately, I hadn't, but I still had on slip on shoes that aren't good for walking in wet snow. So I killed time in Tesco, waiting for the bus. I went out about 5 minutes early, and waited for 20 before I decided I must have somehow missed the bus. I went to Hami Papi to wait, and Eva called my phone, wondering where I was. "In town," I told her, "I was late for the bus, so I'm waiting for the next one." She informed me that the 10 bus had been in an accident and wouldn't be running the rest of the night (later, I learned that Sam had been on the bus when the accident happened. No one was hurt, but he was annoyed because he'd had to walk home in the snow.)

So, I called Amanda and informed her of the situation. She was NOT happy. I walked over to the cafe where she was playing cards. My socks and shoes had been soaked-- twice! They were starting to hurt. We then walked to a taxi station-- only to discover that the building no longer existed! (We're still not sure what happened to it... maybe it burned down?) So we walked to the second one, to learn that the taxi's wouldn't be back for 10-20 minutes. Forty minutes later, one finally pulled up. The thick, wet snow had been falling for four straight hours. There were several inches of snow on the ground, and it was extremely hard to get through. The taxi driver had to take several different routes before he finally made it to the hotel where we requested to be dropped off. It took almost another 40 minutes to get home, including getting stuck once! My feet were aching. When we were dropped off and paid the remarkably low 3€, I ran up the final hill and was frightened that my feet were numb. I raced into the house, peeling off my socks and shoes as fast as I could. I jumped in the shower, desperately trying to warm up. Even after a 20 minute shower, they were still numb. Eventually, they warmed up, but I was pretty worried.

Another side effect of the night: I lost my cell phone and broke the bracelet I was given for Christmas. I was very sad about the bracelet-- it was a pretty silver thing with various stones set in it, and many people have complimented it. But my cell phone drove me nuts. Amanda called it twice, but I couldn't find it in my house. The next day, though, Ruby called it, and the taxi driver answered! So I was able to recover that.

The winter weather here is apparently always that bizarre. Snow one day, spring the next. How true... after the 6 inches of snow last Tuesday, it melted a bit the next couple of days, then snowed again, then melted. During the last 24 hours, a light snow has been falling, accumulating a few inches on the ground. It's pretty, and perfect snowball snow.

I randomly still walk home, up Zobor. You know that point that you hit that you know you're almost home? For me, that point is right below the hotel near my house. Great... except I see it and know I still have to climb two major hills before I finally get to my house. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think it is the steepest road of my journey. So it takes an extra burst of adrenaline to get home. *sigh* Just two more weeks and I won't have those hills any more! Yay!

Well, I think this entry is long enough! Hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day!

Quick update

2009-02-11T14:29:00.002-06:00

I will not be moving this weekend... However, I {probably} will on February 27-28. Not a big move, just down the hill! And Ruby will move to my current house, with Amanda going to Kika's house.

Now the more important part.

I've been answering questions from a few outbounds, so I decided to compile their questions and some of my writings for more people to read.

So if you're interested, check out my other blog: http://www.heythereoutbound.blogspot.com

I think I have everything to date (we'll see if I find more emails!). It won't be updated nearly as frequently, only when I get more questions. But it could be interesting for you guys to read.

I'm Only a Duck in the Sunshine

2009-02-10T01:23:00.003-06:00

I'm extremely proud. I have a Slovak identification number. All year, people kept asking me about this special "birth number". They needed it for forms and such, but I had no idea what to tell them. They asked if in America we had identification numbers like that. I'd tell them that I could give them my social security number, but it probably wouldn't help! (I was right... it didn't.) Last week, though, my art teacher, Klaudia, took my passport and scoured it for this number. And lo-and-behold, on my visa sticker, there is a Slovak birth number using my birthday. I was very excited about this discovery.

Last Tuesday was actually kind of interesting. My 7th hour class is either English or German. Because I've already gone to the SAME English class with the other half of the class, I don't go there. But the German teacher always lets me leave. Great, right? Well, not if my locker room is locked. Such was the case last week. I wandered around the halls for about a half hour, kind of lost. I walked by Pat'o three times before he took pity on me. He brought me to the Parlament room which had a couch, so I sat there and watched random people wander around the room for the next half hour. When the bell rang, I joined my class at the locker room... only to discover NO ONE had a key! After a few minutes, three people vaulted over the gate that separates 3.A from 2.D. They started passing over coats and shoes, and for all their work, got shoes thrown back at them! (Kidding... but they did have to dodge a couple mis-aimed "indoor shoes"). I waited a while hoping for the key to show up, but finally consented to Dodo passing over my coat (tohto! I said, pointing) and shoes (modry a biely, I told him, and naturally there were two pairs of blue and white shoes... it was complicated!).

Now, once upon a time, I'd been told that there were two "Peter Rehak"s in Nitra. The first was my first host father. On Tuesday, as Klaudia looked through my Senior English Portfolio (which I'd brought to school to work on my presentation), she took note of the name with surprise and signaled her co-worker to come. Who was he? None other than the second Peter Rehak!
I finally brought home my little clay head that I'd made in art. Juraj (my host dad) loved it, and named him "Horenos" (high nose).

Wednesday, I was shocked when in between classes, my class started humming the Star Spangled Banner. I was even more astonished when Dano (aka Squish) pulled out his cell phone and played a clip of it. I still have NO idea why they started doing that.
Petra let me amuse myself for another class period by cutting out more faces and shapes for the class bulletin board. Among them: my own face, an American flag, an Ipod, and two piles of books. She knows me well :)
After school, I went home right away to drop off some books, then started to walk down Zobor, hoping to catch a bus. A woman randomly started talking to me (about the weather of all things). When she found out I was a foreigner, she was very excited and asked me all sorts of questions. For at least 10 minutes, she told me I should be sad and miss home, and that her mother was born in America. It was all very random.

Finally, I managed to make it down Zobor and met Kate. She was thrilled to be driving, and we started scouring Mostno Street to find me a dress to wear to the ball. No luck... either dresses didn't fit or were WAY too expensive! After about four stores, we drove to Centro Nitra (a mall) and started exploring more. On our second store, we hit the jackpot. In Peacocks, there was a longer red dress on sale that fit me just fine... And I found shoes that worked, too. Now here's the kicker: Dress, shoes, hair clip, and necklace: 38 euros! (~$50) It is completely impossible to find stuff that cheap... but we pulled it off!

Thursday was pretty typical, with one exception. One of my classmates asked, "Ako?" as they were getting up to leave the room (literally, "How?", short for "How are you?"). I didn't respond right away and they literally stopped at the door and waited until I spoke. Coming from America where the question is literally a greeting, it is touching that people actually CARE about my answer here.

Friday, I went to the gym. Weird, right? Not only is the girl that ran from prom going to a ball, but the girl who despised PE with a passion is going to a gym. The other girls are concerned about how much weight they are gaining, so I basically agreed to go along to keep them company. After 90 minutes, I was happily exhausted and went home to shower before church.
Church was an adventure in itself. I showed up around 5:15 (it normally starts at 5... technically), but instead of people being upstairs in our normal youth group, the band was in the sanctuary warming up. After asking around, I learned that youth wouldn't actually start until 7 in the evening because the Catholic youth group was joining us. So I spent the next couple of hours wandering around, helping prepare food, set up chairs, and just talking with people. I enjoyed myself a lot, especially when Barbora and I started exploring :) Once the Catholics showed up, youth group ran pretty much as usual, just in a much larger scale (there were at least triple the amount of people that are normally there on Fridays).

Saturday, I was home alone for most of the day. Sam was still with school coming back from the ski trip, and Juraj and Eva left around 6:30 in the morning to go slaughter a pig with Babka and Dedko... at least, I THINK that's what they told me! I have no idea... I felt really bad because I accidentally broke a small plate after I ate lunch. Since Eva only has 6 big plate and 6 little plates, it actually was kind of a big deal. (She was kind of mad at me, but I went and bought her another plate just like hers on Monday, so it's okay.) In the afternoon, I went with the girls to the gym again-- BAD idea! I could barely move the rest of the evening, all day Sunday, and Monday I was still sore.

Sunday (besides being sore), nothing terribly original happened. Although I did discover I was REALLY craving spaghetti and garlic bread. Ohhh... flavor, where art thou? My host mom is a good cook, but sometimes, I just want spice.

Monday, I did some shopping for random items (like shampoo and toothpaste :D) while the girls went to the gym yet again. I met up with Amanda and Ruby around 5, and we ate Chinese food (Amanda and I had forgotten to eat lunch, and we knew we wouldn't be fed at the Rotary meeting). Rotary was in the Tea House again. So we got extremely caffeinated drinking all the tea, watching a video about Thai massages. It looked wonderful... my muscles (still aching) decided a massage would be JUST the thing to help them! (To no avail.)
Talking to Doczy though was interesting. We 1. Don't have Rotary next week. 2. Found out (apparently) why we can't travel to Bratislava by ourselves. 3. Learned Rotary will pay for the gym for us. and 4. Learned that apparently we'll move again on FRIDAY! Scary!
When I told the moving bit to my host parents, they were not happy. They thought I was supposed to stay here until March. And they indignantly told me that I have the ball on Saturday... I can't move! I think they are a little scared, too. I don't really care when I move. I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going next, and I like the family (only-child-ville, technically). So we'll see if next week I write while living in a different house!

On a completely different topic, it's been sunny the last four or five days. It's so nice for me... my mood seems to directly correspond to the sunlight. Unfortunately, Amanda's does, too... in the opposite way. When the sun shines, she misses Brazil. A lot.

This year is half way over!!!

January finally finishes

2009-02-03T01:37:00.003-06:00

I have yet to understand why the school system thinks a language class first thing Monday morning is a *good* thing. Okay, I guess no class is good at that time, but still... I have English class and watch as my classmates struggle to structure together sentences in my language. (A very common sentence is "I haven't got such-and-such". Every time I hear this, I want to shake them and say, "Just say 'I don't have my homework/a pen/whatever!'".)

Miguel has moved into his fourth family-- my first family. The Rehak's keep telling him stories about me. Most of the time when Miguel repeats the tales to me, I'm slightly embarrassed. Granted, the ones that I would hate a total stranger to know, the other exchange students know anyway. But even just, "Allison did this during the evenings, and we went there together."
But apparently, our host families talk about us as much as we talk about them! Now that I can understand more Slovak, I find myself evesdropping on Eva and Juraj while we're all sitting down in the living room. The discuss why Ruby isn't doing this, or why Amanda is going there, or where Miguel is going to find ski boots.

Speaking of understanding Slovak... I am so proud of myself. I have had TWO Slovak dreams! Granted, in one of them I was struggling to speak even more than in reality. But the fact that the language is slipping into my dreams for my means of communication is exciting. Also, I was watching a movie with my host parents yesterday, and about 20 minutes into the movie, it dawned on me that I understood the vast majority of it... in Slovak.
Another funny language point: I still understand some Spanish. Pat'o and Miguel will be babbling away and I'll catch random points. The other day, they were talking, then Pat'o turned to me and asked me something about the ball. Only after I'd responded in Slovak did I realize he'd asked me in Spanish.

It turns out that I will be the only exchange student going to the ball next week. Miggy will be skiing, Amanda isn't 18, and Ruby just doesn't want to go. So... just me. It could be fun... maybe? I'm a bit scared, considering it is a ball and I don't a)have a dress yet, or b)have a clue how to ballroom dance!

We've finally settled on Agroinstitute for our official Rotary meeting place. We've been moving around, meeting in a different part of town every week, trying to find a place that had enough parking. Agro is near Centro mall, so we wait there, then walk over, give a speech, get a menu, order foods, and eat our meal during the meeting. Afterwards, the club president brings the exchange students home (Agro is quite a distance from any of our homes, so in the cold, walking is not a pleasent option.)

Our school was kind of hard to navigate through last week. There were new tables and chairs everywhere. Every room that had a dark green table and rickety chairs is now slowly transitioning to light wooden tables and chairs that don't have traditional front legs (making them easier to put on the tables). I like them, but my classmates are loosing one of their many creative ways to cheat. (Writing on the desks doesn't show up well on green paint.) Other ways to cheat include little papers tucked into mirrors in the pencil cases, little papers hidden beneath the hand or in a sleeve, pictures on cellphones, papers tucked into skirt layers, and a variety of other ways to avoid detection.

My art class is so different than what I used to have with Jack at CGHS. If I was confused back home, Jack would make me work with what I had until it was acceptable. Here, Kladia just lets me squish my clay hand together and start over!

Wednesday, I went to go put more money on my bus card. I have incredible luck with that line. Whereas most people go and have to wait for at least 40 minutes, sometimes up to several hours, the line is always super short when I go. This time, for example, I only had 6 people in front of me, instead of the usual minimum of 30.

Also on Wednesday, we had a free period. I'd spent a few class periods helping out a girl cut out various pictures that she'd printed off. During free period, she started gluing the faces of our classmates to random bodies. When it's all finished, it will go on a billboard. I'll take a picture of it... it's gonna be really funny!

In drama on Thursday, we started reading a passage from Penelope. Everyone had a few lines assigned at random. The lines given to me were mostly words I've never heard of before and were rather difficult to pronounce. My class was patient though and worked with me until I got it right.
After drama, Pat'o picked up Miguel and we drove out to a museum train yard. We met about half our drama class, standing out in the cold for a while before we finally went in the gate. After a good walk, we came to an area lit up by headlights. For the next 90 minutes, we watched a dozen or so short skits that were barely connected, but were all rather interesting. Most were wordless, and very strange. In the first skits, we got to "act" by throwing eggs in protest at the "politicians". Later, we were completely surrounded by the actors, lights going crazy as music pumped and the danced around us. One was swaying next to me, and there was a "gunshot". He fell to the floor by my feet... It was creepy.

Friday, we didn't have school. I don't think anyone in Czech Republic or Slovakia did. On Thursday, students got their report cards (it took me forever to realize that was what vysvedčinie meant). Monday began the new semester. Anyway, on Friday, Eva and Juraj left for a weekend trip. Eva was giving me instructions in really fast and loud Slovak. It was kind of funny. And then Sam talked to me for the first time in about a month.

I guess this is about it for the week, except to say hello to the outbounds reading this blog! I was really surprised to get a few messages from people saying they had read it and were now really excited for their own exchange year. All I can say is that I'm glad to help-- before I left, I was scouring the internet for anything that would give advice for this year.

I think I'm going to need another journal soon

2009-01-27T01:11:00.003-06:00

Technically, each week at the Rotary meeting, one of the students is to give a short speech (in Slovak) summarizing what we've done during the week. I've been here almost 6 months and have spoken four times. I was the first to speak, and I talked the week after Miguel's birthday in October and Ruby's birthday in November. This week, I didn't realize it was my turn to speak until we entered the meeting and a Rotarian came over and pointed my name out on the program. Surprisingly, it wasn't a big deal. I just got up and talked-- something I'm fine doing in English, and alright with when I'm conversing in Slovak with friends, but am always nervous about when there is a large group of people listening.

I've learned that on February 14, our school is having a ball. It isn't "Stužkova" level (gowns like prom dresses), but it's still requiring a nice dress. I spent the week wavering back and forth between whether I wanted to go or not, but on the last possible day I handed over my RSVP slip and 15 euros. It was a bit steeper of a price than I like, but on the other hand, it will be an experience.

Other than this, my week has been fairly uneventful. In my art class, I finished glazing my little clay head and started work on a clay hand while I listened to the ebb-and-flow of my classmate's conversations. At one point, they posed an English question for me (wondering which is right: In my family, there is my father, mother, sister and ME, or my father, mother, sister, and I?), but for the most part, I just listened to the Slovak words flowing around me, and when I understood enough and was interested would chime in.
When I got home that night, my host mom had the inauguration turned on. I watched Biden's swearing-in, but got sidetracked by my book, so I didn't watch Obama become president or really most of the inauguration.

By Wednesday, all my snow was washed away. Walking to school on Tuesday, the hill that I must walk down was a death trap of ice. Wednesday morning, the rain had melted it all and it was merely dirty concrete. It continued to drizzle all day, and after my 7 classes, I chose to go up Zobor right away. Since the bus wouldn't come for 20 minutes, I walked out to the farthest bus stop at the base of the hill, realized I still had plenty of time, and walked back two bus stops to the one by my church, arriving about 10 seconds before the bus.
I was talking with Eva that night after supper. At one point, she asked me a question in which I understood every word, but had NO idea of what information she wanted! This actually happens frequently, and it is frustrating each time.

Thursday in drama, I felt a little bit homesick for speech and drama in America. I love being able to use my voice as a transport to faraway thoughts, to use rhythm and pitch. What we are doing now ought to be perfect, then. We are reading from a book of poems about The Odyssey. The only problem? It's ALL in Slovak. If I don't know a word (which is about 70% of that book), I have to sound it out with a friend sitting beside me to help with the pronunciation. As a result, I'm focusing so hard on forming my mouth to make the right noise that I lose track of the sound of my voice and it sounds miserable.

The remainder of the days were pretty normal, pretty uninteresting.

For a couple of fun facts:

There are green ribbons on several doors in our school, and walking through the town, there are students everywhere wearing a small ribbon of the same color attached to their coats. Someone explained to me that it is a city-wide tradition for the senior class to wear these ribbons. (By the way, I was wrong-- the final class isn't DONE with school in December. They took their exams for the semester, but now are back in school, studying like crazy for the maturity test to get them into university.)

Another thing that is all over the city: fur hats and coats. The elder men and women wear them... a lot. Instead of a faint echo of Old Russia, it is a full force reminder of the past.

I miss the sun. Honestly, it only seems to shine on Saturday mornings (the giant window wall by my bed faces the east, so this is about the only time when I DON'T want the sunshine!). The rest of the time, it's a constant gloomy cloud cover.

Pat'o, our Rotex, is so cool. He always used to speak to us in English unless we asked him specifically to speak in Slovak. But then our YEO told him to only use Slovak. Not a big deal for us anymore. But the best part? He's even cooler in Slovak, and is a blast to joke around with. Actually, I've decided that is true for most people. If you're going to speak in English, okay, but I'll probably like you more if you speak in your native language.

In order to avoid a broken arm, one must walk with great care

2009-01-20T01:02:00.002-06:00

One thing I definitely miss about America: safety! Yeah, sometimes we go a bit overboard trying to make sure people don't get hurt. But on the other hand... here in Slovakia, shoveling is pretty optional. As far as I can tell, businesses only shovel outside their doors so that people aren't tracking in slush and making the place a mess. Major roads are actually plowed, but smaller ones (like the one on the hill connected to my driveway) are completely ignored. Because of that, I get down hills by gravity. Literally, if I don't stop myself, I can slide a good twenty feet, only moving to keep my balance. It's a bit scary! (But, yes, I have done some real ice skating, too. Kate and I went out to a pond one day and were terrified of it breaking through while we were skating.)
On the other hand, on the walking zone, they do put salt down. But they don't shovel, resulting in a HUGE mass of slush. It is extremely nasty walking through that. Because of this, I'm thankful for the weather warming up enough to melt the ice. (When I went to school this morning, it said it was 3*C.)

It hasn't always been above freezing, which was not a lot of fun when the gas was turned off. I haven't followed the news very closely, so I'm not sure if it's back on right now, but we're getting heat in my school from somewhere. Last week, I perfected the amount of layers to wear to be comfortable: two pairs of socks, 3 pairs of leggings, jeans, an undershirt, a long-sleeve, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt. The weather started warming up, and I gave up one pair of leggings and the undershirt.

School has been vaguely entertaining recently. One day, I followed Patricia downstairs instead of staying upstairs with Beba like I usually do (it really makes no difference where I go). The class spent the whole period writing a paper. At the end, they freaked out because they only had six minutes to left to handwrite their final copy. Only when it was obvious no one was done did the teacher grant 10 minutes in their next class to finish, but they are forbidden from working on it at home. This same teacher startled me when instead of completely ignoring me like she usually does, she made eye contact and smiled sympathetically. (I nearly fell out of my seat when I realized I wasn't invisible to her :D)

One teacher that always acknowleges my existance is the German professor. She normally enters the room, the class stands, she waves hello to me, and orders them to sit down again. One day, I was listening to music and reading when I saw a shadow on my desk. I looked up to see her standing over me with a friendly smile. Carefully, she asked, "How are you?" I smiled back and said, "Good, thank you." She grinned and walked away. The rest of my class then informed her that I could understand Slovak. Surprised and elated, she turned back towards me and called "Ako sa maš?" (the same question she'd just asked in English). I translated my answer to Slovak and spent the rest of the class laughing to myself at the memory.

English class is always a bit bizarre for me, knowing that I'm the only one in the room that understands every word that the teacher speaks. (On the other hand, his accent is so bizarre there are days when even I don't get what he said.) Most days, my professor sits down and says, "Let's have a chat." My class then either has to talk with him in English, or he reads out of a book and they have to write what he says. Now, Twilight the movie just reached Slovakia. The day after it opened, one of my classmates was gushing about it in English class. My professor was pretty dubious of it, dismissing the movie as "stupid" and wondering how the leading characters could kiss without transforming Bella into a vampire. I've got a lot of Twilight fans in my class, so this point was defended to death in their best English.

Actually, the Twilight fans in my class are awesome. Back in October, when they heard when it was opening in Slovakia, they made a date to go see it together. Because the exchange students were all publicly reading the books, we were invited along as well. Fast forward to January 17. Ruby, Amanda, and I go to Max (the mall with the cinema) to meet our friends. Ruby and I had our student IDs along, so we were able to send them along with another girl in the short line to buy our tickets. Amanda, however, was supposed to go to the back of the really long line... but then we learned that the movie was sold out! Ruby valiently allowed Amanda to have her ticket, only to see that the movie was supposedly dubbed... in Czech! The two girls opted not to go to the movie, but because the majority of our group at the theater were my friends from school or church, I chose to stay. After taking random pictures in front of the Twilight display, we walked into the theater, and I was slightly irritated to see that there were still at least a dozen seats open even though we were the last ones to enter. Furthermore, as the movie began, Bella's voice came over the speakers... in English. The movie had been mislabled-- it was subtitled in Czech, not dubbed. So the girls could have come. I still had a lot of fun, though, as Zuzka and her cousin squealed in delight everytime Bella or Edward came on the screen. Afterwards, Maggie and I slid our way over to the bus stop, giggling and chattering in Slovak about the movie and our plans to see it again.

One way that I want to work on improving my Slovak is reading magazines. I wish I would have thought of this ages ago. One of my classmates brought a Slovak magazine that I flipped through and learned a few new words. I tried to buy one of my own the other day but didn't look closely at the words until after... when I realized I'd bought a magazine in Hungarian. *sigh*

I've been here 5 months now. I'm constantly amazed by how many families from Nitra have a child living abroad. Once more, my family had company over and I was informed that their daughter was living in Minnesota for the year. Looks like I'm not only an oddball in Clarion... I've made my family a world wide oddball by being the only one not to have anyone with whom to swap "how-is-your-child-doing-I-was-crying-on-Christmas-too" stories. (For those of you that like math: there are 4 Rotary outbounds from Nitra. From my CLASS, five students are outbound exchange students. Only one Rotary kid is from my class.)

Oh, hey, I was interviewed this week for the school newspaper! I was standing in the hall when a guy and a girl walked up to me. The girl (whom I've never seen before) turned to the guy (who I see every day) and introduced me, informing me that the guy didn't know who I was. The guy (Marek?) is part of the school newspaper and was interviewing all the exchange students. We set up a meeting, and when the time came, spent about 20 minutes having an English question-and-answer session. I was rather impressed with Marek... not only did he speak very good English, he spoke it very very quickly. I'm not sure what language the interview will be published in, but I'll keep you posted on when it shows up :)

I'm trying to make plans with my family for them to come visit me. Honestly, I have no idea what's going on. This week? Nope, too early... but can I stay that long? My visa expires... well... Can we do this? Could we bring Dad there? So many questions. And yeah, they have to be answered soon-- Bokoff-Kaplan needs to know my tickets by February 15! And since we want to have everyone fly back together... ayayay.

So, questions? Comments? Concerns? (As my former high school English teacher used to say...) Leave a comment or send me an email :)

One year

2009-01-16T04:19:00.001-06:00

So this is gonna be short and sweet...

A year ago today I found out I was accepted into the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. A year ago tomorrow, I walked into school with the biggest grin on my face. A year ago tonight, I came home from youth group still bummed and worried because Mike hadn't called yet saying if I was accepted. A year ago, I got an email and was literally dancing around the house.

It has been one of the longest years of my life in some aspects, and one of the shortest in others.

So here I am, around my halfway point. Isn't life crazy???

In which the Euro kills the Crown

2009-01-13T01:59:00.002-06:00

On January 1, Slovakia began the transition from koruna (crowns) to euro. The first couple of days, it was extremely amusing to watch. Since I only had crowns, I would hand over my bill and watch as the cashier calculated the correct change and slowly counted out the euro coins I would get in return. Soon, however, using crowns became an annoyance for many.

I gave my koruna to Eva to exchange. There are some nice advantages to having a host mom work in a bank! It made me feel poor though... I gave her almost 2000-sk, and in return got several 5 and 10 euro bills.

Meanwhile, everything is changing. I was wary to buy phone credit. It used to be so simple: I'd give a 500-sk bill and get 500 credits in return. (For reference: a text message was 3-sk, and a 3 minute conversation cost around 17-sk.) But when my phone informed me that I was down to 1 euro of credit (which also frightened me when I saw that instead of a 3-sk SMS I sent a ,099 euro SMS), I knew that I needed to buy again. I walked to the kiosk and handed over 10 euros. The lady inside held up a card, and I nodded, clueless. She handed me the card and 1 euro in return. 9 euros is about 275-sk. Not a ton of credit, but it'll hold me over for a couple months.

But there are other changes, too, mostly regarding the weather. It FINALLY snowed. Last Monday, I went over to Amanda's house and helped her play in the snow. Seriously, I adore hanging out with people that haven't grown up around snow. I feel just like a little kid, teaching them how to make snow angels and build snow men, and how to properly throw snow in a fight!
Actually, I've had several snow fights... which led to a pretty miserable weekend. I was sick, thanks to some well aimed snowballs to my face.

Speaking of last Monday, we finally got our results from our Slovak test back in December. I got a 75% on mine, placing me at number 13/32. I was rather pleased, because I did the test completely on my own. Like I've said, I can't spell worth anything in Slovak and when people talk about stuff outside the normal daily conversation I'm completely lost. So I was proud that I did that well.

Actually, I know that I don't speak Slovak very well. And yet, when I'm talking with people, they claim, "Oh, you speak such good Slovak!" Um... no. My grammar sucks and my vocabulary is limited. And when I talk to strangers, the people that know me jump in right after I finish speaking and translate what I said to correct Slovak. That right there is a tip off...

Okay, enough mumbling about that topic!

A third major piece of news is that I used my travel freedom. Miguel, Amanda, and I went to Banska Bystrica to say goodbye to our Australian friend who is now back home. The January-to-January exchange is kind of sad for us, but it allows the Aussies to have an incredible year. We wandered around the town and ate at BB's version of Moretti's (Nitra's mafia pizzeria). It was a two hour bus ride to get there, and we stayed about four and a half hours before going home again. During this time, I watched as the others had an all out snow fight, and got caught in the crossfires a few times. Like I said, it's amusing to be with people who haven't grown up around this fluffy white stuff!

Speaking of this weather... it's cold, you know? And Russia isn't making things any easier! I don't know how much of this is in the news back home, but Russia and Ukraine are having a bit of a dispute. Somehow, the natural gas line that runs from Russia through Ukraine to the rest of Europe has been cut off. Meaning... I'm COLD! From what I've heard, Slovakia is running on reserves right now, asking for permission to restart the nuclear power plant until this mess gets sorted out. Some schools have been shut down (not mine, sadly). So I'm sitting in school, wearing two pairs of leggings under my jeans, two pairs of socks, a tshirt, a longsleeve, and a sweatshirt. And I'm still chilled. Brr!!!

What else? Oh, right. School didn't start until last Thursday. I was amused learning that my classmates at CGHS had gone back to school four days earlier than that. But because of Epiphany, we had a few extra days off.

Buses have been coming early lately. This is VERY frustrating when you arrive to a stop five minutes early, wait fifteen minutes in the cold, only to realize that the bus is already long gone. As an example, Amanda and I had to be back home at 8 after our trip to BB. The bus got back to Nitra around 7:10, so we walked to Tesco and waited inside for a while, heading out at :40 (the bus comes at :44). After a few minutes, we realized it wasn't coming (we could see all the way down the street). So we got a taxi, which reached the top of Zobor at the same time the bus did.

I can't eat a banana the Slovak way. I just can't! I've tried... many people here peel a banana by biting off the bottom and peeling with their teeth. I normally just wind up with that end piece in my mouth leaving a nasty taste. This is a new goal for me. Hopefully by the end of January, I can eat a banana the "right" way!

I can't believe I've forgotten to talk about "house clothes". Slovaks have a casual outfit that they wear around the house for weeks before they wash. Come home? Wake up? House clothes! I wasn't home long enough to bother with house clothes in the Rehaks, but in my current host family, I take part in this tradition, too.

Well, that's about it for now.

Ahojte!

Happy birthday, happy new year

2009-01-04T12:42:00.002-06:00

Well, I pulled it off. I turned 18 in Europe. My birthday was not really interesting. I stayed home all day. The other exchange students came over for a mini party in the evening, though. They gave me all sorts of random stuff, including two perfumes and they wrapped a bottle of shampoo that I'd asked them to buy for me. It made me laugh that they listened when I said I really didn't care what they gave me, I liked OPENING the presents and would be just as happy if they wrapped up their cell phones and then I gave the mobiles back to them.

Eva and I had made a cake for the occasion. It was a strange little creation, with a cream, chocolate, and banana-and-kiwi-mix layer thing. I'm not sure...

I visited lots more family over the last week or so. We even had some stay at our house for a few days. Most of the time, I gave my pretty little "I'm a confused exchange student" smile and then read for the remainder of the time. Sometimes I'd chat with an inquisitive family member, and at one point I talked with two college girls for a couple hours-- in English. Bad girl! I know, I know. But that's what they requested, and since I'd talked with them before in Slovak, I didn't feel so bad.

For New Year's Eve, I was at a friend's party. It wasn't the most fun I've ever had in my life. But one amusing thing about the evening is everyone wanted to know if America had "Silvester" (New Year's Eve) celebrations, too, with fireworks. I just nodded and smiled, thinking about the ball drop in NYC, and all the other celebrations broadcast on TV.

The only other interesting thing in this last week has been my marveling at the human brain. It is able to make BILLIONS of connections in order to make random sounds and shapes into words that millions of people understand.

On the other hand, it is a rather uncreative function... it repeats the SAME words in dozens of conversations day after day. I never tried to learn the word "čiapka" (cap), it just happened because everybody kept saying it. That is one example of many.

School will start up again on Wednesday, January 7, I believe. Reason being is the day of the Three Kings is on Tuesday, so that's a national holiday. I think. I don't know! I'll just go to school when Eva tells me to :) Meanwhile, I get to sit back and giggle at my friends back in Iowa heading back to school tomorrow... especially because I got out of school the Friday before they did!

Oh! And I've started working on a scrapbook. Ruby gave me a bunch of materials for Christmas. So now I'm documenting my exchange year in a way that won't require HOURS of reading. Cool, hej?

A Slovak Christmas

2008-12-26T03:05:00.004-06:00

Veselé Vianoce!

So this post is mostly going to be about the Christmas traditions here in Slovakia.

Christmas Eve is actually a lot bigger here than Christmas Day. This felt a little strange to me, and it felt like I had my days mixed up. I was rather excited though, because it began to snow in the afternoon. It never amounted to much, but I got to pretend that I had a white Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Slovaks have a fast. I've heard that it is supposed to be for 24 hours, but I'm not completely sure. Children that complete the fast without cheating are able to see a little golden pig at night. My family actually neglected to tell me about this, though, and I had breakfast and ate fruit in the afternoon. So, no golden pig for me!

We had Dedko (Grandpa) come over for supper in the evening. The meal was started by several traditions. First, Eva had a basket of very thin wafers a little bigger than a CD, each imprinted with Christmas scenes. She took a wafer, made a cross on it with honey, and placed another wafer over top for each of us to eat. This is supposed to bring health for the new year to come.

Next, she sliced open an apple and gave each of us a piece. Sam told me that when we face troubled times in the upcoming year, we are supposed to remember the people with whom we ate the apple. She pulled this apple from a rather large pile of fruit in the center of the table, which I take to be rather common during this holiday.

After we had eaten this, Samuel took four walnuts and tossed one to each corner of the room. This is symbolizing that people in every corner of the world, to the North, South, East, and West, are all celebrating the birth of Christ. Next we all ate a nut-- although this part was never explained to me.

Finally, it was time to eat the meal. They still do not eat meat, even though they are breaking the fast. Therefore, a very traditional Slovak Christmas Eve dinner is fish-- specifically carp. Now, I've never really eaten fish. So I was a bit dubious about the taste, anyway. But the fish was not filleted. It was the slowest meal I've ever eaten, trying with all my might not to eat a bone! Despite my best efforts, I managed to swallow at least two.

In addition, we had a potato salad and bread. After the meal, traditional Slovak desserts were brought to the table. My favorites are the gingerbread sandwiches (gingerbread, jam, gingerbread, covered in chocolate).

When we finished eating, it was time to give presents. I gave my host parents a teddy bear from my home town and chocolate. It was really cute watching my dad prop up the bear and listening to them all puzzle what to call it. To my brother, I gave a CD that I'd burned of various unknown American songs and chocolate. (In case you can't tell, chocolate is HUGE here... it's almost required that you give/get chocolate on holidays.)

My parents passed out the presents to everyone, and we all opened gifts at the same time. To be honest, I was rather surprised at the amount. I got quite a variety, including a frame with all the current Slovak coins, an English book, perfume, a guardian angel, a Desmod CD (a very popular Slovak band from Nitra), a little sheep, a bookmark... Sam also got many things, including a new cell phone, speakers for his mp3 player... And Eva got things like earrings, a sweatshirt, new kitchen glasses...

It was rather interesting to watch. None of the gifts had "from" tags, so called of "Dakujem!" were just general, not to a specific person.

I felt really bad for Eva though, on Christmas Eve. In the morning, I'd helped her make a cake. While we were waiting for it to bake, I was reading. I looked up to see tears just streaming down her face. She looked at me helplessly, and I asked, "Jakub?" (her son in Canada). She nodded, and then went back to the kitchen.

I had moments of homesickness, but nothing to the extent that I witnessed in Eva. During church on Wednesday, I had difficulty breathing because I missed my own Christmas Eve celebrations so much. And when we opened gifts, I kept remembering how my family hides our presents and missed them. But I did not cry... Mom, how were you? Tiffany, Dad, what happened? (Actually, my host parents asked me this, too... how are your parents? Are they crying?)

Christmas Day, I originally didn't have any plans. But then when I went downstairs for breakfast, Eva was on the phone. She turned to me and asked if I wanted to go to Rehak's for lunch. Well, sure, I did! So she finished making plans with Peter and then the Turanyi's went to church. I walked down Zobor around noon and wandered around Nitra a bit until it was closer to 1, when I was supposed to go back to my first home.

The Rehak's really decorated their home. It was so great to see them again, talking in Slovak rather than English like when I'd left. Lunch was duck-- another first for me. Babka (Grandma) was there, as was Paul. They'd really liked the picture I'd given them for Christmas, which we took on my last day in their home. In return, they gave me some things from Australia, including a couple pins for my blazer :) During lunch, we chatted for a while, and Paul left the table. I didn't think much of it until Peter and Jana got up, too. All the sudden, I heard singing behind me-- in English. The Rehak's walked back into the room singing happy birthday! I couldn't believe it... I was so astonished, I had no idea what to say as they handed me another gift. Opening it up, I saw the DVD for Mamma Mia. I was so touched that they'd remembered that I'd wanted to see it when it was in theaters but couldn't. It was so sweet of them!

After lunch, we had coffee and watched videos from their trip to Australia. Around 4, Jana drove Babka and I up Zobor, and then I got online and Skyped with my parents.

Moving backwards in time...

It took me quite a while to figure out how to say "Merry Christmas" in Slovak. Actually, the first time I heard it was Friday at school. Our last class of the year was history (it was supposed to be PE, but history ran a class and a half). We watched a video about Auszwitz-- what a way to end school before Christmas break, huh? It was really depressing, and as we left, everyone was really quiet, more whispering their holiday greetings than excitedly sharing them.

I had a Christmas party with my church on Friday. Now, I love my church back in America, but I was very impressed with how they did the gift exchange here. One person picked a present and walked it over to someone else. That person then 1) thanked whoever brought the anonymous gift and gave them wishes for the next year, and 2) talked about something that God blessed them with this year. Afterwards, they opened their present. I'd had been feeling a bit low all day, but that really just made me feel selfish for how'd I'd been acting. I was so grateful for my Slovak church, and afterward spend a lot of time just chatting with people.

I've met a lot of new people these last couple of days. Family, new friends, and the like. It was horrible when I went for 48 hours never seeing my host parents-- I had the HARDEST time speaking in Slovak when I saw them again! And I felt bad when I saw Mirka again, because I couldn't form coherent sentences.

The Nitra 4 will be having a gift exchange later this week. I drew Ruby's name, so her gift is wrapped and waiting to go. I'm curious to see what I will get. Honestly, I really don't care-- I think I'd have as much fun opening a box that had someone else's cell phone in it that I'd give back to them. But I was listening as the Nitra 4 puzzled over what to get me for my birthday and couldn't believe they thought it was a difficult task :)

Well, that's really all I have to say for this week. I'll write again after New Year's to explain those celebrations and how my 18th birthday was.

Merry (belated) Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Bratislava Weekend

2008-12-16T01:25:00.003-06:00

I love exchange students. Those of you that knew me back in America knew that I always latched onto them. In my eyes, they were the COOLEST people ever. Everyone from Nadja from Germany to Thanh from Vietnam and everyone inbetween. Well, now, I get to BE one of those people. And surprise, surprise, I still like exchangers.

On Thursday, the majority of my class was in Vienna (they'd all spent Wednesday chattering about it excitedly and alternatly wishing me luck on my test). In fact, there was only one other boy there! We went to our five classes with two other lonely-onlys and finally headed home.
The Nitra 4 met up at the bus station and were excited to see the Zvolen kids. We immediately started pigging out on our recent chocolate gifts and shared with the pair in the back. After about an hour drive, we reached the station with no Rotary person in sight. After a quick inventory, we joked about hopping the next bus to Germany if no one came. Eventually, we found our Rotex who was puzzled that we were missing two students from Banska Bystrica (who were actually already at the hotel).
We had a fun reunion with everyone and ate supper at a pizzaria (with Pan Lamoš sitting at our table, so the conversation was quiet and limited as he far prefers that we speak in Slovak).
My room with my Amanda and Fabiola was the hangout point for about a dozen girls and a Rotex. We chatted and fretted a bit about the test before handing over our secret santa presents and going downstairs.

The test was actually a lot easier than I was expecting. I think I did pretty okay on the written part (except for the fact that I really don't know my prepositions and still can't spell in Slovak). The verbal part if I got any of the questions right it was by accident-- none of the stories were things I ever talk about, so I had no idea which box I was supposed to check. Oh, well. I was glad to have it over with. Then we sat and listened to a lecture in Slovak with English translations for a couple hours. My brain was quickly turning off so I didn't understand much.

Friday, we went on a 4 hour walking tour around Bratislava in the rain. I've yet to understand why people think that uber long tours are a good way to entertain people. Really, you hit a certain point and all you can focus on is how cold your hands are or how sore your feet are. Our tour guide was excellent, don't get me wrong. But after about the first two hours, I couldn't pay very close attention. We got to tour Parliament and walk up around the castle and through Old Town. Lunch was in the "Slovak Pub"-- still cold, but I felt really bad for the waitress because there were so many of us.

In the afternoon, we explored the Christmas markets in Bratislava. Erin, Estefy, and I weren't really into running around in the rain, so we spent our half hour of exploration time hiding in McDonald's eating "pineapple" (Estefy's accidental pronunciation of "apple pie"). We saw our tour guide and said hello before going back to meet the group. The evening activities involved our Secret Santa exchange. I was blown away to discover that the Amanda in my city had me (and was pleased as punch with the Slovak music she gave me), and Aldo seemed to like his Slovakia hat and candy.

Saturday, I rode a train for the first time. We went to Vienna once more, and I finally had some of the children's Christmas punch. It was kind of like apple cider, but I got to keep the fancy souvenire mug that it came in. Also, my friends kept buying sugary goodies, so I was well fed in the afternoon :) At one point, we were discussing which way would be fastest to get to another market when a woman from Ohio came up and gave us directions. (Oh, Rathaus smells absolutely amazing right now because of the children's baking stations!)
I love Rotary International at some points, like on Saturday. Not only did RYE Slovakia go to Vienna, so did RYE Hungary. A couple people knew each other, and the groups merged a bit, passing out our business cards without blinking an eye.

Sunday was really sad because we had to say goodbye to everyone again. We were all sleep deprived (I never went to bed before 1 a.m. and I was an early sleeper) but content from a too short reunion. Once more, people are starting to get sick. (I'm starting to think Rotary conspires with the weather-- always rotten with at least one person already ill!)
Nitra was the only city that didn't travel home by train. For some reason, our city isn't connected to the main train line. So we climbed on a bus after buying tickets at the station and promptly fell asleep. When I came home, I ate lunch and went back to bed!

Some other tidbits about the weekend--
1. I love Europe at night. During the day, it could really be anywhere. But at night, it almost feels magical with the Christmas lights and the crowds of people.
2. Just about everyone feels frustrated with their language classes and their ability to learn Slovak. The classes just don't work!
3. I kind of want to throw myself into studying Slovak now. Several former exchange students hung out with us this weekend and made me realize that I really want to be fluent in this language when I leave.
4. It's quite possible that I want to come back to Slovakia/Czech Republic for university at some point.
5. Every time I meet with exchange students, I wind up talking to new people and becoming friends. That's one of the greatest things about hanging out with the same larger group of people multiple times.

As for the other days of the week, not a whole lot has happened. I realized that it is completely normal to see people tossing out several 1000 sk bills (the equivilant of a 50 dollar bill). In America, that would be strange, because we usually pay for larger prices with check or credit card. We shall see what happens when we switch to the Euro next month.

My English profesor asked me to explain the difference between two English words-- but I'd never heard of one of them before!

My other English teacher has a thing against homeschooling. I know that it isn't common in Slovakia, but it was really annoying when he was talking about it to my class.

My classmates still find it funny whenever I make notecards to study vocab.

My art class is awesome. Time just flies while I'm sketching or molding with clay. And now, my Rotary counselor says she wants to bring us to see her friend's art studio.

I can walk up Zobor without stopping and I don't even get overheated anymore. I'm proud of myself :)

I finally bought a suitable disco outfit.

Mirka finds it funny that my Brazilian wish bracelet looks like Amanda's (which she's worn for five months), while hers and Ruby's are still new-looking. She's really fun to talk with though. She helps my Slovak a ton.

Back in school, the senior class is having a blast. Yesterday, they wore their fancy dresses and suits from the ball to school and were marching around chanting and singing and passing out goodies. I took a couple videos that I will post on YouTube. I am trying to imagine an equivalent in America and am having a hard time (prom dresses all around school... teachers yelling for silence... yeah, it doesn't work).

And that's it! (I'm out of stuff to say and just about out of time.)

čokolada, because that is Slovakia for you!

2008-12-09T01:58:00.002-06:00

Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. This weekend was a celebration of Mikulaš (Santa). As a result, I don't think I will need any more chocolate for the next several months! Starting on Friday, as my classmates gave all my teachers boxes of chocolate and the teachers in turn shared the gift with the class, they just keep giving me goodies.

Lucia, a classmate, told me that this is part of the tradition, that on December 5, students basically butter up their teachers. Then, that evening, Slovak children place their shoes in their windows and in the morning they are filled with candy from Mikulaš. I did not put my shoes out, but regardless, I woke in the morning to a huge pile of chocolate at the fireplace. It's similar to what we do with stockings on Christmas Eve. Later in the day, Babka and Dedko (my host grandparents) came for lunch and gave Sam and I each a good sized bag filled with more candy.

That night, there was a celebration where Mikulaš came to the town center for the children (a rumor is that he was played by Pat'o, Ruby's host brother). There were fireworks as they lit the giant Christmas tree. But I sadly didn't go to the festival because no one was quite sure what time it began and I was with a group of people drinking hot chocolate underground, and we surfaced just in time to see the elbow-to-elbow crowd begin to disperse.

On Sunday, the celebration continued more. At least, I think that is what happened! Church was filled-- standing room only. But more, there were television cameras, boom mikes, and photographers everywhere. It was the first time that the new organ had been played in church, so there was a huge program with guests from all over. It was very interesting, but the service lasted more than an hour longer than usual, and I looked up just in time to see my bus pulling away. This resulted in a tired trudge up Zobor.

Yesterday was language school and Rotary. I can understand more now, but I'm still very bored during both. Although the meeting today was in Hotel Comfort, right in the downtown. I liked that place! Doczy didn't seem too upset with us for spacing telling him about Vienna. He kind of mock frowned, but then was goofing off a bit to amuse us.

What else?

Right, so on Thursday, there were only four of us in drama. We were singing a Slovak song that had been written for a Christmas musical (actually, the one I went to last week). We sang it as a group once or twice, and then they told me to sing the main part solo. It was fun, but then they started correcting my pronunciation, which I thought was a bit strange-- until the next day. Kamila (my teacher) called Pat'o to have him pass along a message to me: could I come back to Traela škola and sing with a group that day? No problems, so I went. We sang the song as a group once, then all the sudden, they had everyone drop out except for the chorus. I then realized that they wanted me to sing solo for a concert! I would have loved to (despite my surprise, as I'm used to my singing being described as adequate at best), but unfortunately, the concert is this weekend-- while I'm at a Rotary Weekend in Bratislava.

I love living up on a mountain. It is so cool seeing my favorite haunts from such a different angle, especially at night. Oh, those twinkly lights are Tesco! Hey, there's the giant tree by the divadlo. Ha, that's the Max! So there's the castle, and the gymnazium on the hill, so this place must be... here!
But it was even cooler on Saturday night. I looked out my window and was astonished. It had been kind of foggy all day, but now I was able to see the cloud from a new view. Seriously, it looked like a special effects movie on overkill. I couldn't believe that the fog cascading over the castle lights was actually real! And walking through it, I felt like I was breathing water. It was awesome!

I'm proud of myself. I have managed to get myself a taxi without the help of a native Slovak speaker :) Amanda and I had to get back home quickly, so we went to a station and ordered ourselves a taxi for Zlatý Kľučik-- the hotel right between our homes. Oh, it was so smart! Instead of trying to have them find a random address, they go straight to a well known spot that has about equal walking distance. Score!

Unfortunately, not all is happy in Slovakia. We lost our first Slovak exchange student this week. Sam had to go back to America due to incriminating evidence in his journal. Every one is kind of upset about it. I didn't really know Sam, but he seemed like a cool guy, and it's a bummer that he had to go home.

Well, that's about it for this week, folks. Next week will probably mostly be a description of my Bratislava weekend, so you can look forward to that :)

... and it melts away

2008-12-03T01:29:00.002-06:00

The snow has vanished, leaving in its wake a miserable and gloomy sky. We've had some rain the last few days, although not a whole lot. I was extremely surprised though the other day when the sun finally broke through the cloud cover and lit up Nitra for a few minutes. My new snow boots are useless for the time being, but I've heard promises that come January I'll have fresh snow once more.

My school is positively filled with "Katka's". That Name Day was last Tuesday, and all over the school I was hearing cries of "Všetko nalepšie!" and seeing chocolate change hands.
I felt bad for the Katka in my art class. She had been in America last year, so my art teacher, Klaudia, called on her to translate for me while she went into a detailed explanation about various art techniques. The thing is, I wouldn't have needed the translation if Kaludia had slowed down just a bit because between the words I knew and the many cognates, I understood most of it. But it is so hard when people speak very quickly. (And this isn't just me, many people have told me Klaudia speaks fast.)

Wednesday, I was delighted to discover a benefit of being an exchange student. We were running late trying to get to school and got stuck in the traffic jam for longer than usual. It was then that I learned that everyone is required to be in school by 7:50. We arrived shortly thereafter, and I entered to find a line of students showing their school ID cards. As I fumbled for mine, the teachers just smiled and waved me through-- they knew I went to school here :)

After school I was thrilled to learn that I could be an interpreter. Mirka does not really speak English, so when I hang out with her and the other exchange students at the same time, it gets tricky. I've gotten to the point where I can speak with her, but I was excited to realize I'd progressed to the point where I could translate crazy English into understandable Slovak.

Thursday, as you know, was Thanksgiving. It was extremely complicated trying to explain this holiday to my classmates. They would ask me how I was, and when I'd answer "Super!", they wanted to know why! There were way to many words that I didn't know to even try in Slovak, so I spoke in slow English, trying to explain this American holiday.
In drama that night, we were singing a song that our piano player had written for a musical. Now, normally when I sing, I am a comfortable alto. Imagine my surprise then when they decide to have me sing the high soprano part-- alone!
After drama, Pat'o and I went back to his house (where Ruby now lives). We'd gotten various permissions to have a Thanksgiving celebration. Miguel, Amanda, Ruby, and I were there, obviously, along with Pat'o, Martin (Miguel's host brother who was in Canada), and Dida (our Rotex that was in America). No turkey, but we attempted and failed to finish two giant pizzas and all the chocolate, pretzels and Pepsi you could find!

Friday was very fun. Mom had sent me some "Our Iowa" magazines, and my classmates were fascinated. After school, I took a two hour nap. Then I went to youth group for about 45 minutes and had a great time worshiping and hanging out. I left early so I could meet Pat'o by Tesco. At drama on Thursday, my teacher had given me a free ticket to a short musical "Slovak Bethleham" and had assigned Pat'o to be my interpreter. The musical was a children's version of creation and the birth of Christ. I knew the story, so the translations were easier to follow, and it was fun when the words were exact verses from the bible.
When the muscial was over, I was peppering Pat'o with questions about Slovak, then left him on a corner with some classmates and went back to church. I was happy to finally solve the mystery of my "Hi Allison" person (which had bugged me everytime I saw the kid in the hall). And I got to chat with more friends for an hour or so before going back up Zobor.

Saturday, I was very confused. I went downstairs four times bfore I finally relized that nobody was home. I hung around until around 2:30, and when Sam woke up, I cleaned my room. Then I went down the hill a ways to Amanda's place for the afternoon. Ruby and Miguel came too and we at these yummy pancake creations with jam and whipped cream. Seriously, y'all, I am bringing this treat back to America! We watched a movie called "Tropic Thunder", which I think is a cross between "Napoloean Dynamite" and "Dumb and Dumber"-- pretty stupid, but a nice way to kill time.
When I walked back home, I was amazed at how BRIGHT the sky was at 8:00 at night. Then, I realized the futbal arena lights were on and reflecting off the clouds. When I got home, I laughed when I realized that the game I could watch from my bedroom was being broadcast on live TV. My host family alternated between the match and the Slovak version of the Grammys. I swelled with pride when Desmod, a Nitra band, won various prizes. I also strained my eyes to see Johanna and Marlene (two Rotary exchange students living in Bratislava). I finally caught sight of them, sitting four rows behind the celebrities :)

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I walked to and from church (I'll beat you yet, Zobor!). Then in the evening, I met with a guy my host parents know. Samuel was a yo-yo, going to America and Germany on exchanges. He met my host dad and some architecture expo and they talked about me. So we sat for about an hour and a half and swapped stories about various exchanges. The conversation was mostly in English, but every once in a while, we'd slip into Slovak and I was proud that I could understand everything. It was very interesting.

Monday, the graduation bug hit Parovska. Between every class, the students in the final year marched around, chanting and pounding on drums while passing out sugar. Then during PE, I watched as four couples (including Sasha from my drama class) practice some folk dances that they will perform at the ball coming up soon. Currently I have two graduation announcements, but I think I'll probably get at least one more.

This brings us to yesterday. I swear, December just snuck up on me! I went with my school to Vienna. It was so much fun wandering around the city, taking in the sights. I kept thinking, "Oh! I've seen this before!" only to realize that, no, that was Budapest, or no, that was Brno. I hadn't walked much around Vienna last time I was there, so it was cool touring the churches and wandering through the Christmas exibitions. Vienna is so pretty, really. And it smelled so good! I was on a hunt to track down the yummy scents, and finally landed on roasting nuts. Wowzers.

Some random other thoughts:

My class is vastly amused by my notecards that I use to learn Slovak. I usually make them in about 60 card batches, writing the English word on one side and the Slovak word on the other. When I study them during class, afterward my classmates will frequently come over during the breaks and flip through them, quizzing themselves and me. It is rather funny when I have a crowd around my desk.

I've realized there are several divisions to people wanting us to learn Slovak.
1) Mirka: she doesn't speak much English, so I learn by talking
2) Martin: Plenty of English, and very helpful at correcting my Slovak
3) Kate: Lots of English, and really doesn't like Slovak, and doesn't understand why I'm trying to learn it
4) Pat'o: Kind of inbetween everyone, meaning whichever language I speak, he'll understand about the same amount

I'm not 17 anymore. Well, biologically, I am. But I haven't felt like I was 17 for quite a while. I feel... older, maybe? I don't know. But when people ask how old I am and I respond, I can't help but think that it's not right. Once more, Mike was right-- an exchange student ages differently. I mean, I know that the rebounds don't feel like their right ages (there's no way Martin is only 17, or Pat'o is only 19...), but I didn't think that it would apply to me until the end of the year.

I'm getting along very well with my host family, actually. Eva and I talk every night, and I struggle to explain myself in Slovak. But she is patient and lets me flip through the dictionary if I don't have a clue of what to say. And Sam and I are doing pretty well, too. Actually, he's a pretty cool brother when we talk (which isn't often because he always is working on homework).

Overall, I'm happy, healthy, and only a little scared for the end of the month... Christmas/birthday/New Year? Homesickness 101, is my guess.

But on the other hand, Nitra is home. Now, it is. Wooowww....

Oh! the weather outside is frightful

2008-11-25T01:51:00.004-06:00

Getting ready for school now is an adventure. I still have not figured out the proper procedure for my shower (although the drain works now, which is much more pleasant). Before, they told me to leave the window open at night so that the water in the room would escape. But now with the snow, I'm supposed to have it open while I shower and afterward close it for the night. I think. I don't know-- it's so complicated when our language levels can't cross! Anyway, the result is that my bathroom is usually freezing in the morning when I walk in at about 6:30 a.m.

Within a few minutes, Eva (my new host mom) comes into my room to let me know breakfast is ready, so I finish up some things, go downstairs to eat and talk with Eva, and usually come back up to my room before Sam has made it downstairs. I finish getting ready for the day, including refolding clothes and making my bed, then get on my shoes and coat and go out to the car to wait. Juraj (new host dad) and I wait until Eva and Sam come, usually several minutes later. Unfortunately, the timing results in our little car being stuck in the traffic jam at the bottom of Zobor hill. What should be a five minute drive from my house to school can take up to 20 minutes just getting out of Zobor.

Anyway, living on Zobor has made a couple changes in my life. For one, I now have a bus pass. When I first tried to get one last week, I had a paper from the school saying I was a student, a picture, money, and my school ID card and my ISIC card. But was this enough? Nope... I needed my passport. Argh! I feel uncomfortable carrying it around with me when I'm just in Nitra like the other exchange students do, so I wasn't able to just whip it out and be done with it. Instead, I had to come back the next day-- and this time brought my friend Mirka to help me.

A bit of a surprise is that Sam can cook. He's 16, and the vast majority of teen guys I know can't boil water. But one day, our parents weren't home, and Sam made this really good ham and eggs dish. It was absolutely delicious, and if I hadn't watched him do it, I would have thought Eva had cooked it before hand for us.
We're getting along pretty well. Despite my fears when I first moved in, he's been helpful and pretty nice. We don't talk much because he is always in his room studying, but when we do it's all right.

I haven't figured out my curfew yet. Despite the fact that I am nearly 18, my host family wants me home at 8, not 9 like Rotary says is allowed. I would understand this if they were home and we would spend time together, but most nights they aren't home yet. I think I will ask if I can have at least one night a week to stay out until 9 so that I have the opportunities to meet with my Slovak friends.
Also, going to church is a bit of a mess. The service starts at 10, but if I take the bus on that hour, I would arrive about 15 minutes late (awkward!). If I take the bus at 9, I show up about 45 minutes early (what I did last week was that I kept riding the bus for a while and slowly walked back). Now, the service ends anywhere from 11-11:30... too late to take the 10:46 bus. So I either wait 45 minutes for the bus, or walk 40 minutes up the mountain. Regardless, it is difficult to get home before noon. My family isn't sure what to make of this.

My lanugage memory is a bit crazy. There are times when I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that my conversations are in Slovak, yet when I remember them, I remember what was said in English! (A few examples: my host mom doesn't speak English, but I remember her clear as a bell saying, "I work in a bank, Allison". Also, a friend was talking in class and said, "Thursdays I have drama.") It's really random...

I really need to buy a pair of boots. Seriously! I looked through every shoe store in both malls, but couldn't find anything that suited my needs. I couldn't even find plain snow boots! (Looking for a simple pair that goes up above the ankle, has good traction, and isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg. Not complicated sounding, but it seems impossible to find!)
Also need a different winter coat. The one I have right now is very poofy, which I wouldn't care about if it kept me warm. Instead, I'm known as "Mars" and am often chilly. Bad combination!

I met my host grandparent's a few days ago. I can speak Slovak well enough on a 1-on-1 basis, but get me into a large crowd and stick me in the center to answer questions? Not going to happen! I froze up and was so nervous. Oddly enough, at the end they told me that they really liked Jakub (my exchange brother in Canada), and now they really like me! (And hey, I got a box of chocolate out of the deal :D)

I'm having fun with the snow. I feel like I'm allowed to be a little kid about it again just because of Amanda. We had another wave of snow last night while we were at the Rotary meeting, and now there are several inches of snow covering the ground. Perfect snow, too :) Amanda is positively enchanted by the scene around us. When the Rotary president drove us home last night, she could not stop staring and bouncing in delight. I wish I could have seen her this morning as the trees started shaking of their burdens!

And... yup. That's about it for now.

Ahojte!

SNOW!

2008-11-22T13:23:00.003-06:00

Because she makes me laugh so much, I decided to dedicate a blog post to Nitra's Brazilian: Amanda.

In case you didn't know this, Brazil is a pretty warm place. Amanda has NEVER seen snow before, and the concept of "cold" was completely foreign to her. While the rest of us muttered when the temperatures dropped, or huddled close together for warmth, she would jerk away in astonishment. She LOVED being cold!

We've been hearing rumors for several weeks about other Slovak cities getting snow and how other exchange students were coping. But Nitra was far enough south that all we got was cold rain.

Yesterday, the story started flying around school that Nitra, finally, was in for the first snow of the season. Amanda was positively jumping out of her skin with anticipation. I was also anxious for snow (If it must be cold, I want snow...).

I was delighted to wake up this morning. I opened my eyes to my big window and saw flurries swirling around. I've seen snow before (come on, Iowa?), but seeing it from a mountain is completely different. I was able to watch the city disappear in gray, then as the color approached, the snow thickened. It was so much fun racing to the different windows and seeing it swirl down from different angles.

Now, you think *I* was having fun? Imagine this 16-year-old Brazilian. I was getting bombarded with text messages from both Amanda and Ruby (who have been living together this week). Ruby had woken Amanda up because she didn't know how long the snow would last, and the two had enjoyed the flurries.

The ground was warm enough that when the sun came, all the snow vanished into puddles. But throughout the day, more snow fell. I walked down Zobor and went from not needing my coat zipped to huddling in my hat, hood, and scarf as hail-like snow fell. When I arrived at Ruby's new home, Ruby asked her brother, Pat'o, if I could come in. Pat'o glanced out the window and said, "She must! Look!" I greeted Pat'o with, "A visit from your neighborhood snowman!"

It took me all afternoon to finally warm up again, and my jeans never dried out. But this was in part to Amanda. The girl was SO excited! She kept opening the door in Ruby's room and leaving it open as she stood trying to get snow. We tried explaining to her that this made everyone else cold, but she wouldn't listen.

About every five minutes, she would pop up with, "Hey! Guys! It's snowing!", or some other exclamation to that effect. I missed a couple of her comments about other topics because that was all she was talking about.

With the fresh snow, the Nitra girls realized that we needed boots. It being a Saturday afternoon, the only stores open were those in the mall. We needed to walk across concrete to get to the two malls, and on the way, Ruby and I had fun explaining to Amanda the joys of ice-safety.

"If it looks wet, walk around. Walk slow. Heel-toe. Keep your eyes on the ground a ways in front of you so you can see dangers. When in doubt, slide, don't walk. Keep your feet as close to the ground as possible so that you can keep balance. If you're unsure, walk in the snow, especially if it is crunchy. Take your hands out of your pockets! Avoid sparkly things at all costs!"

She was slightly overwhelmed, but we told her she could disregard all our advice if she chose. She kept laughing and saying it was okay-- SNOW! All of our second-nature we realized this little Brazilian was clueless about!

Every car we passed, Amanda would run her bare hand across and pick up some snow, packing it into tight little balls and throwing it in front of her. We often had to stop and wait as she lagged behind, immersed in a new place where snow had landed. "Guys, the roof is white!"

Oh, and let's not forget breaking the ice-- literally. We found some areas of that perfect ice that is thin and cracks without difficulty. Amanda was dancing around in circles, thrilled at this new fun. And when we found mini-icicles? Oh, my... she is going to have her drink needs supplied forever when we finally get full blown ones.

And thus, we've survived our first snow in Slovakia. Amazing, huh? Let's hope it lasts!

Outside my house... the sun is shining, there's a dark cloud in the back, and though you can't see it, it is snowing still.

My balcony after the first snow.

More from my balcony. That's Nitra/Zobor (suburb-- the mountain in to the back). The thing on the far right in the castle.

Amanda holding a snowball as big as her head. She was thrilled and astonished. I'm telling you-- this was PERFECT packing snow!

More changes in a year of changes

2008-11-15T17:44:00.005-06:00

I love the Slovak school system! (Just thought I'd start my late and long post out on a happy note)

Last year, I had a ton of snow days, late starts, early outs, etc... Well, naturally I assumed I'd be going to school a lot more this year because apparently, snow days don't exist in Nitra (or so I've been told. We shall see...) Well, despite my thoughts, I've discovered something else about the school system: dozens of holidays! I think I've had a holiday every 3-4 weeks. This Monday was no exception :) Friday could almost be counted, too. We didn't have any classes, but rather spent the day watching each other perform. Yes, I was a part of this, too. I played a granny in a housedress for a T Mobile commercial parody. It was absolutely mortifying! Some other interesting acts included a brief history of the world, dances, singing after inhaling helium, and a musical powerpoint.

Meanwhile, I've switched houses. I'm having a hard time explaining to people that it is completely normal and does not mean that I had any problems with my first host family. On the contrary, I miss them dearly. On Sunday right before I came here, Jana gave me a box of chocolates as a goodbye present. It wound up being my comfort food as I huddled in my new bedroom, feeling all the fears from three months ago come rushing back. This time, I had a double case of homesickness: first for my birth home in Iowa, and secondly for the Rehak family. If my former parents hadn't planned this trip to Australia ages ago, I'd still be writing from my home in the center of Nitra. As it is, we have all changed houses, and now I'm sitting on Amanda's old bed at the top of Zobor.

This is not to say that it isn't a nice house! This place is really cool. It's very modern here: sleek floors, lots of windows... It really looks like I just stepped into a magazine or something. Not to mention it has an amazing view of the city. I have my own balcony that overlooks it and have spent some time there just watching. In addition, I have my own bathroom and shower (although showering here is an adventure in itself...). My new host mom, Eva, does not speak English, nor does my new host dad, Juraj. It is a bit of a struggle to understand what their wishes are, but I'm managing. Sam, my host brother, is 16 and serves as the translator when I actually need to understand details. I'm still shy around my new family, but they seem pleasant enough.

Another Main Event of the week: I have my visa! (Alright, it's not actually a visa. It is a temporary residency permit. But do you have ANY idea how hard it is to try to say that in Slovak???) Last week, the other exchange students got theirs, but as I was sick, this wasn't a possibility. The IP did not contact my family to let them know it was ready, and I think it has been since mid-October. Oh, well. With very little difficulty (although it did take 3 of us trying desperately to speak Slovak and show what we were talking about), I was able to get the pretty sticker placed in my passport that claims that I am allowed to be in this country. Good thing, too! My 90 days are up!

I've mentioned before how my concept of time is really screwed up. This still applies. Although now, it is more for when I eat than the length of my days (which are still bizarre...). In America, lunch was anywhere from 11-13:30. Supper was anywhere from 17:00-19:30. But now, it is perfectly normal for me to find myself lunch around 14:30-15:00, and I am perfectly at ease eating supper around 20:00. Goodness gracious, what has Europe done to me?

One cultural difference that I haven't quite adapted to regarding meals: drinks. Although in restaurants, the drink is served before the meal, there are no refills. Furthermore, it is extremely strange to drink during the meal. At home, your glass is not even filled until the end of the meal. I've spent my whole life sipping my drink throughout the meal, and this one is a difficult idea to change. We'll see how it all works out, and maybe when I come home, I'll find the old way strange!

Let's see, what else have I been up to?

Last Saturday, I met with Kate again. We went to the town offices to spend the afternoon watching presentations about various mountain climbing expeditions. I was NOT expecting the vast amount of people that came! There were several hundred people crowding the auditorium. Every seat was filled, and people lined both walls several people thick. Beyond that, they all stayed for the entire afternoon-- at least 6 solid hours of slideshows and movies about Slovaks.

It was while I was watching this that I remembered a real life horror story. This year, an Icelandic exchange student accidentally shot and killed her Russian host brother. She made it back to Iceland by fleeing to the embassy in Moscow.
I realized that despite my history teachers repeated warnings in previous years, I did not have the US Embassy's number here in Slovakia! I all but raced to find it and save it in my mobile.

On Sunday, we went to a traditional Slovak restaurant to celebrate Peter's birthday for lunch. There was a lot of food, so I kept eating long after I was full. Literally, if I would have had another bite, I would have puked. My host family couldn't understand why I had to turn down their offer for desert multiple times. I didn't eat at all for the rest of the day, and I still felt full when I woke up the next morning!

Monday, I was so excited. After lanugage class, Miguel and I walked up Zobor to go to the Rotary meeting while the girls rode the bus. We were in a tiny, crowded room, but for the FIRST time, we got to order food! Whoo! Instead of having to buy something on our own long after the meeting was over, Rotary paid and we got to eat immediately following. It was soooo.... nice!

Tuesday in art class, I listened to my class discuss life in Slovak and helped them translate a few words to English. It was bizarre for me to realize halfway through class that I'd understood most of what they'd been talking about and wasn't confused in the least. Also, a few of the words I'd been studying came up in conversation. Tuesday was a busy holiday, though. It was Veteran's Day in the USA. In Slovakia, it was the name day for Martin and Maroš (I have a Martin in my drama class, and Maroš is my exchange brother). Beyond that, it was Maroš's birthday, so my host family was very excited.

Wednesday, I had real home made pancakes for breakfast! Ruby had gotten a package in the mail with the mix and syrup, so she came over early and we whipped up a batch. Jana tried them later and agreed that they were pretty good. I'm glad she got to taste American pancakes and see the difference between them and Slovak pancakes.
That evening, after I'd gotten my TRP, I went home because I felt a bit tired. Around 5, I was so exhuasted I turned out my light and rolled over to go to sleep. Jana popped in a few times to ask if I was sleeping, but I was only half awake and never responded. Next thing I know, it's morning.

Thursday, we watched a cartoon in English class. It was pretty stupid, but it was fun watching my classmates watch them. After school, Amanda and I went to a bookstore. I found two cheap books and went to pay for them, and the saleslady and I started conversing in Slovak, and when I got stuck, switched to English. She told me that I spoke good Slovak, though, so that was exciting. Drama was fun, too. We sang a couple songs from "Fiddler on the Roof". When I knew the English words, I would sing them, otherwise I just hummed along. Later, they started reading a book about Penelope of Ithaca. I was glad that I had read the epic "The Odyssey" last year so that I could understand and help out with translations. All of the sudden, they tossed the book into MY hands and told me to read! I stumbled over the Slovak words with my classmates hovoring around me, helping me out. It was fun :)
I was surprised to learn though, that while I've spent multiple WEEKS learning about Homer and Shakespeare, they spend maybe half a class period on it and promptly forget any information after the test.

Friday was interesting, as I've said. After the performances, Mirka joined us as we left school to play cards. When Miguel left to switch houses, she started teaching us picky Slovak. I now have a list of when to use which version of pronouns, but am still confused. That is my new mission-- LEARN it!
I went to church in the evening and was blessed to have a very good translator. She would listen for a while, then turn and give me a fluid summary. This allowed me to listen to the Slovak as well and try to pick out words.
After church, I walked to school for part of the disco. Everyone was in a good mood and even I was flying high, saying hi to people and dancing. The floor was plesantly crowded and the lights and music were fun.
I left the disco early to meet with Matej and Paul. Kate joined us when we went to a dance club, Rio. Then the guys drove me to McDonald's and we talked for a while, alternating between English and Slovak.

Saturday was pretty uneventful for most of the day. I spent the morning packing, and ate breakfast at noon! I watched movies with my host family, kind of reluctant to leave because I wanted to spend my last days with them. But in the evening was Ruby's birthday party, so I left around 5. I went to Tesco to buy a pre-made cake, whipped cream, chocolate, and candles. Amanda met me outside the cafe and we pulled the cake together and signed Ruby's present. Miguel and Martin (his new host brother) showed up and helped carry the cake and present in while Amanda and I went in early to get pictures of Ruby's reaction. It was great when Miguel walked in singing loudly off-key! But the best part was when we left, the manager came and gave Ruby an umbrella as a birthday present!

Sunday, as I've said, I moved, and spent most of the evening unpacking. Nothing too interesting.

Monday, we went over the "first night questions" with Sam serving as translator. I ate lunch at home, and around 1:30 I walked DOWN Zobor to Centro Nitra. I met with Mirka and Miggy and we chatted in Slovak until around 3 when the girls showed up, then reverted to English. Around 4, Matej came and picked me up, and we went to Calvary hill with Paul and Majka (another girl from my church). I was rather amused because the guys insisted on speaking with me in English, and got mad when I would respond in Slovak. We got to see a memorial at the top of the hill, and see Nitra just after sundown as the lights came on. I kept thinking to myself, "Byvam tu, byvam tu!" ("I live here, I live here!"). It was amazing. Afterward, we went to a random spot in the mall and looked at pictures.

Tuesday (yeahh... I'm REALLY late at getting this entry up. Sorry! But I think this is how it will have to be now.) was fairly uninteresting. I tried to get a bus pass, but didn't have my passport with me, so I couldn't. At art class, I spent most of the time wrapping presents to help out Klaudia, my teacher, get ready for an exposition she had with her younger students. I got a picture printed out for me to make a present for the Rehak's. I bought a scarf, hat, and gloves at Tesco. And to top the evening off, I convinced the girls to walk home. Now, Zobor is a mountain. Not a big mountain, but a good sized hill, nonetheless. We trudged up, and though I'd been freezing in my new garb earlier, by the time we were 3/4 of the way up, I'd pulled off my winter coat. Ahh... climbing :)

I have more strict rules at my new home. Rotary claims that we can be out until 9 on school nights. But my new family says I have to be home by 8. This makes it difficult when I want to meet with friends after school. People almost always have SOMETHING to do, and we usually can't meet right away. So to have to wrap everything up by 7:30 so I can make it to the bus stop is a little annoying. We'll see what happens, though.

On the flip side, I'm finding that I'm missing school. I miss listening to people argue with teachers when they don't understand a point. I miss writing anuncios in Spanish and memorizing that vocab. I miss writing papers and speeches, taking daily notes, and researching. I miss fighting to understand chemistry, and doing experiments. I miss comparing notes and tutor trading. I even miss doing homework! I'm also slightly homesick for concentrating on the play while memorizing my speech for contest.
This year is fun. I can be staring out a window and not have to jerk when the teacher starts talking. But I miss having work to do. Ruby has come up with a bit of a solution, though. She's going to start printing out two copies of scholarship applications, and we will fill them out during class. A change from the norm...

Alright, that's all for this week. Cau for now!

Sick in Slovakia

2008-11-07T06:25:00.004-06:00

Due to a variety of events, in the last three weeks, I've only gone to school four days. This week's reason? Illness.

I'd had a headache all day Monday but took ibuprofen and went on with my day (including Slovak class, a meeting with a Slovak teen, and a Rotary meeting in Slovak-- do you see why I wasn't too concerned about why I had a headache?). That night, I slept really miserably, alternating between sweating uncontrollably and shivering hard curled up in all my blankets.

I went to school on Tuesday mainly because I wanted to watch Romeo and Juliet and my English seminar for the first two periods. After learning we wouldn't watch it, I went home after my first class. A couple of my friends all but pushed me out the door. It was about nine o'clock when I made it upstairs and lay down on the couch in the main upstairs room. For the next five and a half hours, I tossed and turned, sleeping but not resting. My head killed. I woke up a little but stayed on the couch. Jana wandered upstairs eventually and was upset that I hadn't texted her to let her know I was sick. She took my temperature and informed me it was 39. I had no idea of the Celsius system, so I just nodded. Jana kind of laughed (she's gotten used to my non-understanding) and told me that wasn't good. I later found out that the conversion is 102.2*F.

I was put on bedrest for the evening. The next morning I woke up feeling alright, only a bit of a sore throat. So I walked downstairs to make myself some tea. As I was waiting for the water, my peripheral vision started to darken. It was the closest I've ever come to blacking out-- literally, I had just a sliver of sight left when I finally slid down to the floor. My vision cleared, but then I felt like I was going to vomit. I pulled myself up to the sink and was dry heaving when Peter found me and ran and got Jana. They helped me upstairs, admonishing me in Slovak. I collapsed on the couch again and lay there for several minutes before I could open my eyes. Temperature: 38.5 (101.3).

Thursday morning, I felt perfectly fine. Had I not still had a 37.5 (99.5) temp, I would have gone to school. But Jana forbade it. So I hung out at home again, fairly bored. In the afternoon, my exchange friends came over to visit. We talked for several hours about all sorts of nonsense (including politics-- you know SOMETHING big has happened when I break my silence and actually talk about political situations on my exchange). In the evening, I was all excited that maybe I could leave the house the next day... but no such luck.

Friday, Jana told me I still had a low grade temp, so I still had to stay home from school. I was starting to go stir crazy with boredom. My temperature was consistently 37, so I converted it and realized it was 98.6-- the American standard for normal. I did a bit of research and learned that Russia measures through the armpit as well and their standard is 36.5. Bingo-- this is why Jana thought I was still sick. I finally convinced her I truly was alright, and she let me go to youth group on the condition that she drove me both ways (which required I leave early so she could go to a meeting). This compromise was alright with me-- air! people! life outside my house!

The evening was great, as always. Honestly, listening to the worship is one of the highlights of my week. Michal and Pavel usually play their acoustic guitars and Zuzka harmonizes. The combination is gorgeous...

Today was... interesting, to say the least. Around noon, I met with Kate in the town offices. There was some sort of program over various mountain climbing expeditions. The auditorium was stuffed-- there were several hundred people filling every seat and lining the walls. The pictures were pretty, but I daydreamed for the majority of six hours in a dark room while presenters spoke in Slovak. Oh, well... I was out of the house, at least, breathing new air :)

I did have a frightening thought during the day, though. I was remembering a story I read a couple weeks ago. There was an exchange student from Iceland living in Russia this year who accidentally shot and killed her host brother. She made it back to Iceland by going to the embassy in Moscow. It dawned on me that despite Mr. O's REPEATED warnings in government and history that I don't have the U.S. Embassy's number here in Slovakia! I can even remember thinking about it first semester last year, "Oh, if this works out, I'll need to get that number..." And here I am, almost three months in, WITHOUT the number! I can show you where the building is in Bratislava, but that does not help if I need to call them.

I had a question the other day about what Slovak's think about Obama: I have no idea. November 5th, there was quite a bit of information on the Slovak evening news, and I'm bringing home the newspaper from November 6th, which has a front page article about it. As for the average person, though, I don't have a clue. Because I was sick in the immediate days following, I don't think I'll have people ask me.

That's it for this boring week. When I write next week, I'll be writing from a new home. I move on Saturday! Ahh! I'm terrified! Wish me luck, send me prayers... I'll send out my new address later.

Blood Tests

2008-11-01T14:24:00.002-05:00

Today is Day 75. I'm slightly in awe of that number. I can't believe that I've been here that long.

Last Saturday, we had a Rotary meeting because the district governor came to Nitra. The four of us, lost as always, didn't know what time the meeting started. Miguel and I [literally] ran up Mt. Zobor to the hotel at 5 to either pass the message along that the girls would be along shortly or to text them and let them know they didn't have to hurry. The latter was the situation-- the meeting didn't start until 6.

At the meeting, we all introduced ourselves, saying our names and nationalities before sitting back down and staring blankly at the ornate table in front of us for an hour. Every speaker mentioned us, so we'd often find ourselves grinning at the dozens of faces that would whip around and look when we were brought up.

Saturday evening was DST. No one in Slovakia mentioned this to me, so if I hadn't had another European bring it up, I would have been extremely confused Sunday morning. As it was, I was still puzzled because I found out that my cell phone is set manually and not by a tower, so it didn't change.

After church on Sunday, we met up with Mirka. Mirka speaks very minimal English. Usually, I talk with her in Slovak, and when I can't figure out what she's saying we use my Slovnik (Slovak-English dictionary-- my BEST friend!). She is pretty much my single-handed reason why my Slovak is improving. Everyone else automatically reverts to English if I don't hear a sentence the first time.

In the last two weeks, I've only gone to school for three days. Last week, I was traveling with the French students every day but Monday. This week, schools weren't in session for Thursday and Friday for All-Souls Day. So how did I wind up with a five day weekend? Simple. Slovakia is picky.

In order to stay in Slovakia past 90 days, I must have a blood test to ensure that I don't have HIV or syphilis. Now, I had this test in America, but the papers apparently aren't valid. So on Wednesday, at the annoyingly early hour of 7 a.m., the Nitra 4 piled into Ruby's host dad's car and drove two hours to get to Martin. The first road, by the way, is called "The Highway of Death" due to the fact the most accidents occur on it in Slovakia.

Hospitals here are built in the communist style and are not exactly friendly appearing. And Amanda had heard horror stories from another exchange student, so none of us were very relaxed about going in for our blood tests. But, not surprisingly, it was not a big deal. A prick, and it was over, and we were back in the car for another two hour drive. Another non-surprise: All four of us slept for the vast majority of the four hours in the car :) [Naturally, this was not during the lecture on the evils of chocolate...]

Wednesday, we also had our first Slovak lesson-- finally! It was complicated though, because we weren't even sure where the lessons were held. Once we arrived, we quickly realized our teacher doesn't speak English. Err... Believe me, I completely understand why this is a good thing. And I also understand that she is within her rights to talk quickly. But it makes it rather difficult trying to learn another language THROUGH that language! [Slovak in Slovakia, I know, I know...]

Thursday was rather interesting, though. Because we didn't have school, we knew that we wanted to travel somewhere with our Rotex friend, Pat'o. The original plan was to go to Trenčin so that Amanda could speak in Portuguese with Kevin. But Kevin was going to be gone. Next closest city, Martin, with Clarissa. Whoops! Clarissa is going to be gone, and so will Nick, leaving only 2 exchange students in a city we had just been to. Well, how about Zvolen? We love Erin and Jeramy, and it's pretty close! So we'd done our texting and planning with parents, Rotary, and Pat'o, then texted Erin, and found out she wasn't going to be in town.

Ah, well. We still liked Jeramy, and plans were a bit tricky to change at this point, so we forged ahead to the tiny town of Zvolen-- apparently the most dangerous city in Slovakia. The five of us met up with Jeramy and spent a good two hours touring the castle. The art geek in me starting coming out as I examined some of the paintings (this castle was actually an art museum... quite a change from Strečno!) Afterwards, we went out for Chinese food, trying once more to find food in Slovakia that doesn't taste Slovak (it didn't work...) To round off the day, we met up with Ellie, Estefany, and Fabiola, along with some of their friends. It was pretty sweet, and I came home absolutely exhausted.

Yesterday (Friday... was it really only yesterday????) was interesting. My parents still went to work, so for the first time in my exchange, I had the house completely to myself for several hours. My host dad is an architect, and he and some colleagues (including Amanda's host dad) own an art studio, as I've said before. Well, as part of this, the Nitra 4 were invited to an art exhibition of the top ten graphic design artists in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Once more, the art geek emerged triumphant as I poured over various prints, absolutely in awe.

(Oh, and I managed to speak to several strangers in Slovak. And I got kissed on the cheeks a LOT-- my parents seriously know everyone, and talk about me to them all!)

And now, today, we drove to a spa village near Trenčin where Peter grew up to visit Babka (grandma) and to decorate the graves of his grandparents. It seems like it would be a very expensive thing to be buried in Slovakia-- all the graves are above ground with rather ornate decorations in a crowded cemetery. Anyway, I helped to light the candles for the graves, and then stood by awkwardly while they kept finding people to talk with. I had one woman that told me three times quite randomly that I need to learn Slovak! (I have no idea why she kept saying this-- obviously, I do. But she would never say my name, nationality, or language in Slovak before lecturing me.)

Back on topic: the whole ceremony was new for me. I know that Catholic countries celebrate All-Souls Day, but I actually expected it to be a bit more solemn. There were people all over the cemetery, not laughing, but certainly not somber. Also, it felt like more of a duty than a desire. Maybe it was just me.

I live in a perpetual state of confusion. I have no idea if my TRP is going to be finished soon. I still don't know what my schedule is (although I'm getting it a little bit memorized, and know how to read the schedule now). I still don't understand what people say 90% of the time.

But despite it all, I love it here. I love my host family. I love this language. I love my city. I love my friends. This whole country is just a very quiet attractiveness. You need TIME to appreciate it. It is NOT a country that people travel to very often, but that's okay. It isn't like France, Germany, or Spain, which everyone visits and leaves. When you come to Slovakia, you have to grow with it. It is only after two and a half months that I can't imagine leaving this place. Early on, I wondered how I could ever pull of a full year here. Now I wonder how I'll ever manage to go back to America.

Speaking of America-- everyone is! I will be THRILLED when this election is over. I am SO tired of the "Obama-or-McCain" question. I was happy to be an exchange student this year, thinking I'd escape from politics for the last time in my life (I'm too young to vote in this election by about 2 months... it's my last year that if I don't get involved, I don't have to feel guilty.) But instead, I hear even more about the election than I did in the USA! Argh!

Alright, now that my mini rant is over...

My goal for this week: I've written down the 100 most common verbs. I want to at least write the Slovak equivalents down and begin memorization. Wish me luck!

Ahojte :)

Wandering through Europe

2008-10-25T04:27:00.002-05:00

Once more, I find that a week has ended without my permission. Honestly, where does the time go???

Saturday evening, I spent the night at Ruby’s house, as you might remember from last weeks entry. Sunday morning, I rode the bus down Mt. Zobor and arrived at church over an hour early, so I found an open cafe and drank hot chocolate while writing in my journal (hey, it was FREEZING-- and it’s good stuff :D). At church, Martina translated for me a bit. Even though it is difficult to follow sentence-by-sentence translation, it is such a relief just to be in church.

Very little else happened Sunday, except for a disturbing email Amanda received. I don’t totally understand it, but something is happening with her visa that is causing problems. She had under three weeks to get it fixed. It was a scary evening as we all tried to sort out what to do. Amanda is 16, one of the youngest exchange students in Slovakia. Normally, we jokingly call her Baby without much thought. But as I watched her struggling to decide how to proceed, I realized how young she really was. And I also know that there is no way I could have dealt with this stress when I was 16. She truly is mature beyond her years, spending her year as Sweet Sixteen in a random country, a 12 hour flight from home. I’m so proud of her.

Actually, despite what it may sound like in my blog, this year is very stressful. I’m having a blast, don’t get me wrong. But I’m here without my family. I’m here without my reputation. I’m here, completely alone. Every bit of my past is unknown to this country. Amanda just learned last night that I have a sister! When something goes wrong, or plans change, I have to quickly rearrange everything in my mind. I can feel myself growing up every day as I learn this language, learn this culture, learn this life.

And the amount of trust teachers have in me-- I can’t believe it. In America, if we went to a big city, teachers would have our phone numbers and we would all wander around for a couple hours before checking in with someone, all while staying in a certain area. Here, we arrive in a foreign country, not having a clue of any language, and teachers say, “Go, meet us here in four hours so we can go home.” We can go anywhere in the city we want. We can do anything we want. It’s scary.

Alright, back to my week, huh?

Monday. The French students had a constant buzz of curiosity following them as they floated through our school. But other than random glimpses in the hall, I really didn’t see any of them.

That evening, we had a Rotary meeting. This one was in Hotel Olympia, near the shopping center “Max”. The presentation was about a hospital that one of the Rotarians had helped to build, I think. (There was a slideshow, and random words that I could pick out led to that conclusion). Champagne glasses were passed around, and we toasted to the completion of the project. Now, even though Rotary says that we can drink if we are offered by our family or Rotary, I still felt wary. So I just raised my glass and faked a sip.

It was Miguel’s turn to speak at the meeting. He improved a speech about his week in Germany with our school. I was extremely proud of myself because I was able to understand everything he said.

Tuesday was our first trip. We left school at 7:30 a.m. and drove to Budapest, Hungary. Can I please state here that it was GORGEOUS? I don’t know much about architecture, but the shapes and colors I saw left me speechless.

Unfortunately, I tagged along with a group of Slovaks that decided the best way to spend the morning was in a mall. I was rather disappointed. (Oh, and in an odd twist of irony, we first went to a Burger King.) No one directly talked with me in any language, so I just listened. This is something I need to work on-- I can go through an entire conversation and never say a word. However, it is difficult to cut in to a Slovak conversation. While French is spoken slowly and fluidly, Slovak is rather rapid and chunky. (If the Slovaks spoke at the same rate as the French, I could probably understand about double what I do now.)

In the afternoon, we roamed around the “most famous street in Budapest” (at least according to the lady who pointed us in the right direction). It was very pretty and fun to walk along. However, Amanda, Ruby and I were a bit hungry, so we sat outside a pizzeria at people watched while eating the best pizza we’ve had since arriving in Europe.

Language in particular was difficult this day. We don’t speak Hungarian, so our discussions with the waiter were in English. Out of habit, though, we would say “thank you”, “yes”, “please”, etc... in Slovak. This also happened when speaking with the French students, although the most common error was saying “čo” instead of “what”. And it got to the point by the end of the week where people would speak and I’d have no idea which language they were speaking in! (French? Slovak? Spanish? Portuguese? Czech? Hungarian? German? Wait... is that English? [yes, I heard ALL of those languages in conversation in the last week])

However, I was thrilled to arrive back in Slovakia and have a clue what people were saying to me in stores :)

Wednesday wasn’t quite as interesting as the rest of the week. We stayed in Slovakia, going back to Strečno. The teacher offered the Nitra 4 a chance to go on the river raft again, but we had to pay 250-Sk. Honestly, if it had been free, I might have done it. But my memory was marred by the last time I’d rafted this river... in the freezing cold... for two hours... The four of us politely declined and rode the bus to the pickup point to wait. We read our books for the 45 minutes it took the French students to arrive. After a while, we all hiked partway up the mountain to hang out for a while. It was a gorgeous day, and I wished that we could have had this weather the last time I’d been there!

Thursday, we didn’t go with the French students. Rather, a professor at our school had invited us to join a group of students going to a college fair in Brno, Czech Rupublic. Once arriving, she told us to be back at three and said we could go to the town center if we wished. Great! Only... 1)How do we get out of this parking lot, and 2)Where IS the town center??? Thankfully, Czechs understand Slovak, so we were able to get a few directions... kind of. We still got ourselves turned around and confused. Eventually, we made it to a gothic cathedral in the middle of town and met up with a Slovak girl studying in Brno who had gone to Brazil a few years ago. Amanda was thrilled to be able to speak in Portuguese. Unfortunately, we got a late start heading back to the exposition center where our bus was waiting, and then got a little lost trying to find the bus. We were about 20 minutes late and each forked over 9 crowns to pay for the extra parking. I felt really embarrassed.

Friday was the final day of our travels. We drove to Vienna, Austria. Once more, I was awestruck at the architecture. I could hardly keep my eyes on the street in front of me because I was too busy LOOKING at everything! We started off by going to Sisi’s Palace. But because the teacher’s hadn’t bought the exchange students ticket’s, we just wandered a bit waiting for the French student’s tour to end. When we drove to the town center, we tagged along for a while until we’d toured the Cathedral, then split up to explore on our own. Vienna is gorgeous-- and expensive. I followed Ruby into one store and saw a pen that would pay for my college education. I balked and couldn’t stop shaking my head for the next hour!

We dropped the French students off at the airport, saying our final goodbyes to our new friends, then came back to Nitra, exhausted, but happy.

I had a mini-realization moment in Vienna. I still don’t think of myself as living here yet. I don’t purposefully push the thought away, it just hasn’t fully hit me yet. But as I stared up at the buildings, I started to tell my friends that I wished I could live in Europe. I stopped dead in the street and stared at them in wonder when I realized that I do! I LIVE in Europe!

A huge part of the problem, I think, is that it has only been two months. Right now, I could just be having an interesting summer vacation. By the time three months are up, I think I will start to realize that this isn’t a game, that I really do live here. But for now, I’m just in awe. (Oh, and it REALLY doesn’t help that Austria looks a lot like Iowa).

Another moment that had me staring in shock: I drank mineral water. For those of you that have never been to Europe-- mineral water is bubbly. It’s like pop, without the flavoring. For an American, it tastes NASTY. But I drank it without thinking about it. Then I paused, stared at the bottle in my hand, and drank some more. I was astonished to realize that it wasn’t just that I liked it, but that it tasted normal. I could still feel the bubbles, I could still taste the flavor that used to make me grimace involuntarily. But now? It was... normal.

(Still can’t drink the fully carbonated stuff, but then again, very few of my Slovak friends can.)

Ah, yes. And I’m sick. My first cold in Europe. It’s my own fault-- it was cold, but I didn’t want to go home to get my winter coat (big, bright, and red: and everyone loves teasing me about it). I’ve been layering, trying to keep myself warm, drinking “Airborne” that Ruby brought to boost my immune system, eating lots of citrus... So it hasn’t escalated too far (I don’t think my host parents even realize I’m sick because I’m not sneezing or coughing much when I’m around them). But still, it’s a pain because I have yet to find cold medications here.

That’s about the extent of my week. If anyone feels like it, send me an email. I like reading news from home. I heard an excellent quote recently that really sums up how I feel about it:

“Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment.”

-Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

I promise I will try to send a mass email soon. But for now, I’ve got to get off the computer. So, much love to all!

(Oh, check out photobucket and youtube for pictures and videos. I'm uploading them all right now, so I can't put in specific links...)

How can this not be a dream?

2008-10-19T15:02:00.000-05:00

One of the most complicated things about being an exchange student is “Exchange Time”. People ask how long ago I did something, and I truly have no idea. Was it a day ago, or a month? Part of is that I do so much that it all feels like separate days.

I wasn’t able to write yesterday, so I think that I will completely change my “usual” tactic and switch my blog up a bit by kind of working backwards.

This weekend has been insanely busy. Friday, I only went to one class. Then, the Nitra 4 boarded a charter bus with three Slovak students and two teachers to drive to Bratislava. Our school is hosting about 15 French students for the week, and we’d been assigned to be the welcome committee. Also, Amanda is hosting one of the students (Max-- you’ll see pictures next week). Now, we are confused enough in Slovak. So to all of the sudden say, “Čo?” or “Dakujem” and have it mean NOTHING to the person-- it is strange! Actually, Ruby had to draw on her French knowledge in order to help Amanda ask who her new exchange brother was!

Anyway, we drove into the city and listened to a tour-and-a-half in French. The little bit of Slovak we can understand didn’t help us at all! But then, the four exchange students in Bratislava arrived and our teachers told us that we could leave with them and meet up with the bus later. So we toured the city with them, talking and swapping exchange stories (not to mention riding the bus a few times).

Saturday, Ellie, the Australian exchange student who has been here 9 months, wandered over to Nitra. We showed her and Max around our city a little bit. It was the strangest thing in the world to step back and realize that nobody was from the same country! Ruby and I are the only duplicate, but I have pictures where we have Slovakia, France, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and the USA represented!

I spent the night at Ruby’s that night because my parents were in Prague. We went to our first disco-- although it wasn’t very good.

Now, let’s rewind a bit, shall we?

Language thoughts:

I still don’t have Slovak lessons (Rotary has claimed for the last 3 weeks I’ll find out when and where they are... let’s see if this week is the charm!) Meanwhile, I can feel my English changing (Saying “I have not” instead of “I haven’t” or “Nope”). I’ve also realized that by listening to their English, I can figure out some Slovak rules and words (for example, they “write” tests). Furthermore, I’m starting to understand some Polish words that I sometimes see on facebook!

I can have basic conversations at this point. If someone speaks directly to me, I can usually decipher what they’ve said with little help and respond appropriately. However, on odd occasions, the Spanish word will uselessly present itself for my use (like the word “buscar” for “hl’adat’”) Oh, and Nitra is one of the most Spanish saturated cities in Slovakia. It amazes me how many people here are able to speak it!

I never bother to correct my name pronunciation, even though I’ve yet to hear it right. The worst that I’ve heard yet is “Cramer” being pronounced “Ts-rah-mayr”. But usually I can understand it well enough that I just let myself be called “Alissa” or “Alice”.

Have you ever seen colored pants? Like, bright purple, yellow, or green? I have. They are pretty popular here, actually. I’m really tempted to buy a pair sometime this year, just to prove they exist and I’m not photoshopping.

Hej hej, chalkboards here are pretty slick. One thing that always bugged me about my height in the USA was that if I had to write at the bottom of the board, my handwriting was horrible. But here, the chalkboards all are height adjustable, so if tall Dano needs to write, he can move it up, but if it is short Olga’s turn, she can move it down.

Thursday, I actually listened in class. My head teacher has told me before to just read English books. I usually do that, or am studying or doodling. But I forgot to bring a book in, so for my three classes, I tried to follow (rather unsuccessfully) what the teachers said. (Fortunately in Physics, the word “electromagnet” is almost the same!)

On Wednesday, I realized my Slovak texting was improving. Jana actually asked me who helped me to text her! It was also on Wednesday that I realized my bilingual conversations were switching which language was dominant.

We’d tried to go to a hockey game, but walked in and discovered it was practice. Oops!

Tuesday, I finally used the REAL smile-and-nod, instead of the blatant “I have no idea what you just said and am letting you know it!”. In the English seminar, the teacher was explaining a concept in Slovak, then turned to me and asked if it was right! I just smiled a touch and nodded thoughtfully.

I had a classmate making fun of me because when I’d been reading an English paragraph, there was a Slovak word with the “ch” sound (the best comparison I can come up with is hhhk). I’d slaughtered it then, but then was able to make the sound correctly later in the day.

Oh, and I also made my goal of having a completely visible Slovak outfit when I bought new shoes. Shoes, jeans, shirt, sweatshirt, headband, and purse-- all Slovak!

Monday was my Rotary meeting. We are currently “trying out” new buildings because the old one did not have enough parking. At this hotel, Amanda, Ruby and I met an outbound hopeful before the meeting and were EXTREMELY jealous that he only had to stay for about ten minutes during the meeting. We don’t understand enough Slovak to pay real attention during the two-hour long meeting, so are very bored. It was Amanda’s turn to speak in Slovak about our week. The poor girl started getting peppered with questions in Slovak and didn’t have a clue what was happening! After though, a nice gentleman (perhaps her replacement counselor? Our normal one doesn’t attend the meetings because she is female) talked with her and was about bending over backwards to make sure that she was happy and making friends.

Saturday evening I went to a carnival with Mirka. Mirka’s brother would have made an amazing exchange student. His miming acts were incredible! I had so much fun that night-- almost nobody we were with spoke English. We spent about 15 minutes trying to learn the word “najobľúbenešie” (that means favorite, by the way!). And the rest of the night was a strange conglomeration of Slovak and miming!

Saturday noon, though, was EXTREMELY fun for me. I cooked my parents American grilled cheese for lunch-- and they liked it! (At least, they had 2 1/2 servings. I haven’t figured out politeness levels here, yet, but they claimed it was good, even when they talked to their son.) Oh it was so good to have food I recognized!

And back to Friday. I didn’t go to school at all last Friday. Instead, I showed up early and joined a class going to a planetarium and some famous Slovak’s tomb. I had a blast with that class! Really, only one girl spoke much English. We all just hung out and took pictures. Man, I love Slovakia!

Actually, that really sums it up. It took me a week and a half to fall in love with Poland. It took a month and a half to fall in love with Slovakia. It’ll take a lifetime and a half to forget this year.

I can feel myself stretching and changing each day. My identity crisis has calmed down and I’m settling into a new being. I’m still about 80% my old personality, but so much of me has changed. I’m wearing bright colors, instead of neutrals to hide. I’m reaching out and meeting people, instead of staying invisible. And I’m having complete conversations in a language I honestly did not know existed a year ago!

Life’s crazy, huh?

Anyway, this next week is going to be SO busy. I’m going to three countries! But... y’all will have to tune in next (hopefully) Saturday to read the continuation of the fascinating adventures in Slovakia!

And apparently so is my English...

2008-10-11T05:08:00.003-05:00

I really ought to re-read these posts before publishing them. When I talked with my sister, she told me that in my last entry I would start a story and get sidetracked three times, never finishing any of them. Sorry!

Alrighty, this week.

Friday was Miguel's birthday (18th). It was a drizzling day that never turned into a storm. Kind of annoying. The three of us had contemplated buying him an Itouch (he really wanted one), but finally decided it was far too expensive. Instead, we bought him a children's English-Slovak dictionary and a Stephan King novel. We also gave him directions on where to find a cheap gadget with wireless internet.

Friday evening, I went to youth group. The atmosphere just reminds me so much of Solid Rock! (If any of you guys are reading this, send my love to everyone back there.) People are always willing to translate for me. (Jumping ahead a week: Last night I was talking to one of the leaders and found out both of us felt bad. He wondered if I felt upset when they all talked in Slovak and I couldn't understand, and I wondered if I was being a bother because they had to slow down in order to translate for me. The answer to both: No!)

After the meeting, a bunch of us tried to go out for a late supper/snack at Hami Papi (fast food option #1). When that was too crowded, we headed to the Bistro (fast food option #2). It was fun hanging out with these teens. [Again, a side note to Solid Rockers-- think of a "Trump's" run. It was basically that.] After a while, though, Kate and I broke off from the group to go wish Miguel a happy birthday. Kate (I think I've talked about her?) is one of those people that LOVES foreigners. She actually reminds me a lot of me back in Iowa-- always attaching instantly to the exchange students.

Saturday's are my break days. I wake up late and stay around the house for most of the day. Last week, I finished reading Breaking Dawn (the final book by Stephanie Meyer which a classmate had given me). Then Jana and I made apple strudel. By this, I mean that I peeled and cut apples while she did everything else! In the late afternoon, I met up with the other three exchangees at the park, then returned home for a belated birthday/name day party for Paul and Jana. Jana's sister and family were there (the ones that I'd seen before with the two children). After supper, I headed out to Tesco to meet up with Dida (my Rotex buddy) for Miguel's party. There were seven of us at her house, eating and drinking and conversing in three languages. Miguel and Pat'o talk in Spanish, the two of them and Dida (and her friend) could chatter in Slovak, and the rest of us in English and popped in with Slovak whenever we knew something. My curfew was midnight, but because of a series of strange events, I was late by about 15 minutes. Fortunately, Peter was the one waiting up for me, and he just made sure I was alive and then went to bed.

Sunday I went to church. Afterwards, Kate invited me to come to a "decorating party" in the afternoon. Apparently, it was some sort of holiday similar to Thanksgiving. For the "party", we carved Jack-o-lanterns. It was quite fun :)

Monday, I decided that I was officially confused. For math, we went to three different classrooms before staying put (as in, the entire class had sat down, then someone would come in, and we'd get up and leave again). Two of the rooms I'd never seen before. It wasn't in this class, but in a different one I finally observed the rampant cheating on exams. Instead of my usual position in the back of the class, I'd sat in the only desk perpendicular to the room, giving me a good view of my classmates. As they took a test, I watched with interest the obvious cheating.

After school, the 4 exchangers met up with a college student that had wanted to talk to us because of English (of course). Then we walked to the Rotary meeting and learned that each week we were to give presentations of our week in Slovak. Yes, we were allowed to write them down, but who wants to talk this week? The other three looked at me expectantly. Oh, the joys of being "Mommy". With shaky Slovak, I made up a speech as I talked. Now, I am perfectly fine doing improv in English. But I was scared to try it in Slovak. I think I did okay, though, and eventually Miguel stood up and talked, too, adding details that I'd missed.

Tuesday was my 50 day mark. I was slightly restless, wanting to travel. Miguel was going to go on a school exchange to Germany for the week, why couldn't I go somewhere, too? I'd been here this long, but really, I only knew Nitra. It didn't help that the words I'd chosen to try learn that day were complicated and I didn't want to focus on them! School was dull, as usual, and after I took a nap before going to art class and drawing a generic model of a human four times.

Wednesday, I laughed as my desire to travel was fulfilled. Our school will be hosting several students from France for a week, during which they will take several trips, including going to Vienna and Budapest. The exchange students are invited to join them! So that will be what's happening starting on Friday.

After school, I met up with Kate and Lucia to take random pictures. They are more addicted to the camera than I am! Later, as I was talking with them, I looked at my phone and was jolted to see that school back in Iowa was just starting. Oh, I HATE the time difference! I get so shorted on time trying to communicate with Americans.

Anyway, following time with those two, the exchangers met up for our new routine of going to the junior hockey games. It had been really warm that day, so I was the only one smart enough to grab a winter coat. The four of us were huddled underneath it, freezing!

Thursday was the first day of the Germany trip, so my class was a little bit emptier. After school, Ruby and I went to Tesco and I bought some clothes. All I need is shoes and I will have a complete outward Slovak wardrobe. Then I wandered to drama class, where we went to the park to write character descriptions and scenes and it began to rain. It was gorgeous, because the sun still shone on the lake, but still... My final evening event, I ran to the synagogue for a concert with Ruby and the Kate from her class (who also goes to my church!). No one had told me what I was getting into, so I just went in my sweatpants and t-shirt. Imagine my surprise when I saw that it was a symphony and realized there were ladies in evening gowns and gentlemen in tuxedoes. I also learned A) what a musical movement was, and B) not to clap until the cellist stands!

And now, for observations:

Life moves here in hypertime. My best guess is that 24 hours is equivalent to about 2 weeks in the "real world". No wonder school takes so long! But emotions fly that quickly. Anger quickly vanishes within seconds as we move on to the next adventure. Confusion and frustration never last because there is something so interesting happening. But at least this explains why Mike always said exchange students grow so much during the year-- our year is 14 times longer than yours!

Another thing I've noticed-- the children in Slovakia are illegally cute. Just sit and watch them wander through the streets. Three-year-olds have always had the capability to make me go, "aww..." but this is insane! They are ADORABLE!

Last year, when I went to Poland, a Missouri girl named Stee came with Zaba to meet our team at the airport. We asked her how much Polish she knew, because she'd been there three months. Sheepishly she told us "not much". At the time, I'd thought this was strange. But now as I approach my two month mark, I can understand. While it is possible to be fluent in a language in two months, it is not likely. (And I just had a "shock moment" when I realize at the time I met her, I had no plans of being an exchange student.)

However, my family is finally starting to talk to me in Slovak. I've been answering them "po slovensky" for a couple weeks, and so now they will talk to me in Slovak and only translate if I have no idea what they just said. It is actually really nice...

On the other hand, I've realized that people are afraid to talk to Ruby and I because we are native English speakers. They are so scared that we will make fun of their English!

My final note: my blog title is starting to become true. I feel like I truly am "becoming Slovak". For a surprising example, I was eating pizza (of all things) the other day with a knife and fork. Strange enough for an American, but in addition, I never put my knife down the entire meal. Then, today, I realized that I'd changed how I clutched my knife as well. As Tiffany told me, "You think that you have to give yourself permission to change cultures, but really, it happens without you thinking about it."

It's frightening, it's fun. It's astonishing, it's boring. It's everything, and it's nothing. It's Rotary, friends. And that's what you get when you become a foreign exchange student.

My dreams are getting crazier

2008-10-04T02:20:00.003-05:00

The theater festival certainly brought life into our town. For the exchange students, weekends are always puzzling. We are used to Saturday and Sunday being the days when everyone is shopping and hanging out in town, but in Nitra, the place is dead with most shops closed. However, they made an exception for last weekend because of all the tourists here for the theater festival.

Friday after school, Amanda and I trudged up a long hill to get to her house. We’d taken the wrong bus, so we literally started at the bottom of the hill, rather than just a short hill from the normal stop. I felt like the little engine that could: “I think I can, I think I can!”. But we finally made it and I got to see my future home. Um... wow? I’m not going to describe it until I actually live there, but it is awesome.

Afterward, we wandered back to the town center and people-watched for a while. Our Rotex friend Pat’o was in a play at 4, so we moved across the shops to go watch him. Believe me, we were amused :) I left early though, in order to go to youth group.

Following youth group, I met up with some girls in my class and we walked almost in to Zobor in order to attend a concert of another couple classmates. I didn’t actually get to stay for their concert (they played at 11-- my curfew), but it was an interesting experience being there and listening to Slovak rock.

Saturday, my jeans were driving me crazy. They were a pair that I’d brought from America and had fit me find there. When I arrived in Slovakia, my pants were a size 56 (European measurements). But these jeans were getting so baggy on me they were just plain annoying. So I wandered over to Tesco and found a pair of jeans that fit me great-- size 48. It was rather surprising.

For the afternoon, we just wandered through the festival. During the day, I made an interesting discovery. Ruby looked at me and said simply, “Hey Wendy, you’re the foreign kid.” Oh, yeah! Kind of like Remi last year, I’m allowed to be crazy and random because I’m an exchange student. Eventually I’ll merge into their culture, but for now, it’s okay if I do things out of the norm.

Oh, right, Wendy. Well, Wendy is not a Slovak name. But it is, however, what the other exchange students are starting to call me. Perhaps you remember me telling you that I am “mom” to these guys? After thinking about this for a bit, they decided that I was not actually a mother, but more like Wendy out of Peter Pan. The nickname stuck.

(Although the closest Slovak name to Wendy is “Viera”. Viera means faith: as in faith, trust, and pixie dust)

I made Jana laugh at me the other day. I still haven’t quite accustomed myself to the “inside shoes, outside shoes”. In a rush, I left the house and was halfway down the street when I realized I was still wearing my sandals. Jana cocked her head at me when I shuffled back in, then started laughing when I showed her my shoes.

Sunday, I went to church. Wow, do I ever miss it. Even though I don’t understand the services, just being there is so nice. (This particular week, I didn’t see anybody I knew until the very end, so I didn’t have a chance for translation.)

In the afternoon, my family and I hiked up Mount Zobor. Now, the majority of you reading this are from Iowa. Iowa, as you know, doesn’t have mountains. Zobor is not a big mountain, but regardless, it is tall enough to make a difference! We climbed the entire thing at a fast, steady pace stopping three times. The first two times were for 10 seconds, the third was for 30 seconds. I honestly wondered if I was going to make it. But the view-- totally worth it. I could see Nitra spread out beneath me and was just astonished. (Granted, I could barely walk for the next two days, but that is entirely beside the point :D)

For the evening, we met up with Dida, our Rotex buddy. We ate pizza at a nice little place that I’d like to go back to and made plans. Wandering back into the festival, we watched a fencing match and listened to some music. Dida pointed out some girls speaking Spanish to Miguel, and so then he started rambling away to the Spaniards.

Monday after school, we finally had a Slovak lesson. It was not one with a teacher, but one of my classmates had agreed to help us out. The four of us peppered Ada with questions and she patiently tried to explain her language to us.

For the Rotary meeting, we met up with all the recent rebounds. Three had just returned from Mexico, one from Canada, and two short exchangers had gone to Finland and Brazil. It was fun talking with them and exchanging contact information. I also was introduced to a college student that had gone to Japan and, quote, “fallen in love with the exchange program”. He had returned three days prior from a second year long exchange and was majoring in the Japanese program at Prague. He talked to me for quite a while, giving me advice for the year. Then, we started talking in Slovak, and he was the first person to actually correct what I was trying to say.

I made a goal this week. Instead of just doodling or writing random thoughts or pretending to study, I was going to learn several new words a day. It is amazing at how much quicker the time goes by when I’m not completely bored and instead am attempting to remember my new words. I usually have 2-3 verbs and another word or two (noun, adjective...) Already, my new vocabulary impressed several people :)

Wednesday after school, I met up with Maggie, the pastor’s daughter. It was fun hanging out with her, and we talked about a lot, including various Christmas traditions in the two countries! She also helped Miguel find a hair salon so he could get a hair cut.

In the evening, the four exchange students met with Dida to go to a Junior League hockey game. Now, I’d never been to an ice hockey game before, so I just assumed I would be perfectly fine wearing my thin sweatshirt. Wrong! I was freezing! All four of us were huddled together, trying to keep warm. It was fun though, and I hope I’m able to go again at some point.

In my drama class, I learned how to waltz, polka, and can can. Believe me, it was as strange as it sounds. I had fun though!

Once upon a time, I looked out my window and was surprised to see paw prints on it (2nd story window). I didn’t think a whole lot of it until a few days later when I heard something running across the roof. The Rehak’s took me to a window and showed me a curious little creature scurrying about. It was a marten! Mystery of the random paw prints: solved.

I’m amazed at how many blue pens they have here. Honestly, it was such a struggle in the US to find blue ink for my application. Here, I’ve only found one black pen besides the one that I brought myself.

Yesterday, one of my classmates looked at me and said something quickly in Slovak. I told her to slow down, but she was blushing and said (in English), “Oh, I’m sorry! I forgot you don’t speak Slovak!”

I suppose that is all for now. One of these days, I think I'll do a "Day in the Life" entry. We shall see!

Oh, hey, check out the money comparison in this album.

My counter doesn't have nearly as many mistakes as I do...

2008-09-25T15:23:00.001-05:00

I swear, time just flies by here! I blinked, and a week is gone.

I had my first Rotary meeting on Monday. The four of us entered a gorgeous old building and sat on a couch with our host parents. We had to introduce ourselves and tell a bit about our countries. I started my introduction in Slovak, and finished in that language by saying, “A nehovorím po slovensky!” (“And I don’t speak Slovak!”), making everyone laugh, then spoke in slow English. Miguel is certainly the most advanced in Slovak in vocabulary and did his entire presentation in Slovak. His pronunciation is atrocious, but everyone can understand him. I’m slightly jealous-- I am doing EXACTLY what I thought I would do. English is my crutch!

For the remainder of the meeting, we talked with our Rotary counselor. The woman selected has two sons, so she feels equipped to handle the four of us. She seems like a very pleasant woman and is talking to a professor at our school about giving us Slovak lessons.

I’ve realized that drum lessons are definitely out. Rotary starts at 7, and Miguel and I have to walk. It’s at least a half hour walk from my house, so the 6h-8h lesson really doesn’t work. Rotary meetings are mandatory for us.

Tuesday, Pat’o (a Rotex in my drama class that was in Mexico last year) brought me to get my ISIC card. This card enables me to get discounts on travel and various stores and tours all over Europe. This means that a bus ticket is 8 -sk instead of 16 -sk! (Or... 40 cents instead of 80 cents :D)

Speaking of exchange students in classes... in my art class, there is a girl that was in Mississippi last year through a different program!

We ate lunch at a Bistro. I’ve since learned that the food at that Bistro is even more unhealthy than McDonald’s! This astonished me, because the sandwich I ate looked similar to a Subway sandwich. Although my school lunch isn’t the most healthy thing either-- literally, I asked Ada if the sweets on my plate were good for me, and she laughed and said, “No!”

My art class is getting interesting. Now, I’ve graduated from merely drawing eyes to tracing them on to a piece of plastic. Tune in next week to find out what I do with it at my next lesson!

Zuzka and I finally made it to a movie. It takes a half hour of steady, fast walking to get from my school to the Max (where the movie theater is). We watched “My Blueberry Nights” with Czech subtitles. Actually, the title was listed as “Moje Čučoriedkove Noci”, and I was proud that I was able to translate it ahead of time without a dictionary.

Oh, a side note... if you are ordering in English, order “hot cocoa”. If you ask for “hot chocolate”, that is LITERALLY what they serve in a cup!

The wallets here are so tiny! I’m glad that Jana is letting me borrow one. While I loved the one I received as a gift before I left, Slovak wallets tend to be cloth tri-folds.

I keep forgetting that I can’t understand conversations. I follow along in the same manner I do when I’m pretending to listen to someone.

I finally made it to a library! Kate from my youth group met up with me one day and we went there as part of our wanderings. Her friend let me check out a book on her card, so I’m now reading a Sherlock Holmes book.

It amazes me how excited people are to greet one another. Back in Iowa, when you see a friend in school, you might wave or signal them to join you, or just say “hey”. But here, it is always like seeing them for the first time in ages. Daily hugs, double kisses, exclamations... It isn’t quite at the level of seeing our exchange friends, but it can be close.

I have no idea what is going on in my classes. Math is beyond anything I’ve ever done, so I can’t even work there (I think they are doing trig). Science has never made sense to me unless I had an awesome teacher, and even then I’m puzzled. As much as I love history and had some incredible teachers at CG, without a book there is nothing I can do (and this teacher just lectures-- no books). English is the only class I can understand, and I find it funny when the teacher says something wrong. I rarely correct them, though (usually only if they ask something specific or are struggling). And in PE, I can’t run to save my life, so I just walk. (Don’t worry, Mr. March, I’m getting plenty of exercise. Despite the fact that I’m eating more, I’m losing weight because I walk EVERYWHERE!)

It is interesting how easily I’ve adapted to their style of note taking, though. Granted, I don’t take notes, but still... instead of a power point presentation, the teacher just talks, occasionally writing a formula or name on the board. The students all write organized notes in various colors. In some classes (physics for example) the next day they go through and re-explain the lesson to the professor.

The ten minute breaks were strange at first, but now I am fine with them. I like to observe my class interacting and accept bites from their never ending food supplies (in contrast to no food or drinks in class back home!).

For school toilets, students must bring tissue packets to use for toilet paper.

It is really hard to avoid “Inbound Syndrome” (only hanging out with other exchange students). At this age, everyone has to study all the time. Literally, you need to arrange a movie night a week in advance. Because I have outside classes and youth group, I have more of an opportunity to meet up with Slovaks occasionally, but it is still really hard. I really want to start my Slovak lessons so that I can communicate more and get to know people better!

Well, that’s all for now. The Nitra Theater Festival starts tomorrow. I am SO excited! The entire town is buzzing about this international festival. For the next several days, I won’t be home much because I’ll be wandering to dozens of plays, musicals, concerts, and other various acts... not to mention all the new kiosks! (Can we say Slovak souvenirs?)

[I can't think of a creative title]

2008-09-21T10:33:00.003-05:00

I had an “official” orientation this weekend. Truly, I would have appreciated it more if they had done it a few weeks ago! The two meetings we had covered material that the students had already figured out. [As in, talking about culture shock, some key differences between Slovak families and those from around the world, and reviewing the rules from the forms that we had had to sign forever ago].

Actually, during these meetings, I had a typical “culture shock roller coaster”. In a matter of about two hours, I went from loving being there to wondering why I was in Europe in the first place to liking it again to wondering how fast I could hop a plane home to absolutely adoring it. And that was all in one morning!

The rest of the weekend was great, though. Friday afternoon, the Nitra Four left school early to make the three hour drive to Strečno. Once arriving, it seemed like a never ending parade of squeals of excitement as we saw our other exchange friends. Literally, it took me ages to actually put down my stuff because I was too busy hugging people. It was interesting, too, because the inbounds from the Czech Republic were at this orientation, too. We stayed fairly segregated for most of the weekend (all 40 hours of it :D), but did intermingle at various times. It was not uncommon to hear somebody mutter something in Slovak, then turn excitedly to the nearest Czech exchanger and say, “Hey! How do you say that in Czech?!”

Two surprises came with the Czech students. One was that some of our basic phrases are quite a bit different than we expected. The second was that there are MORE Slovak inbounds than Czech! I believe the numbers are Slovakia, 32, Czech Republic, 25. Regardless, we had fun having mini “my-country-is-cooler-than-yours” conversations.

I shared an awesome room that had a loft with Bird, and officially two girls in Czech. We also had an Australian Czech girl adopt herself into our room.

Saturday, after our morning “orientation”, we all bundled up and got on a bus without enough seats. The bus brought us a ways up the river, and I became very grateful for my new winter coat. We climbed onto rafts and sat still for the next hour as we floated down the mountain river to Strečno Hrad. It was freezing! As soon as we started moving, though, I warmed up easily as we climbed the mountain to get to the actual castle. By the time we got to the top, I had unzipped my coat and wound up giving it to a Brazilian who put it on over her own coat.

Between the cold time on the river and the fact that a few people had arrived at the weekend sick, several people returned to their city’s with a cold.

That night, there was a disco. The DJ played mostly techno music with bizarre transitions. Each transition would last several minutes, during which people generally stopped dancing because there were two contradictory beats playing, neither of which was clear or made sense. Also, they turned on the strobe light and left it on for a good chunk of time. I floated between the dance floor and the room outside because the lights gave me a headache.

Anyway, I had a blast this weekend and came home exhausted!

What else have I been doing?

There have been several times when I haven’t gone to a full day of school this week. One of the benefits of this stage of the exchange is that I understand nothing, so when half the class goes home, they let me, too. Also, the German teacher finds me useless (although loves saying hello to me), so if I have German as my first or last class, I don’t have to be at school.

The main stairs in my school are officially only for going down. But students only follow this rule if teachers are watching. I was so confused until someone explained this to me, because I’d be following people upstairs and halfway up they would groan and turn around.

I really miss having tall friends. The girls are certainly more willing to talk to exchange students than guys. But it seems that almost all girls are short and all guys are extra tall to make up for it. So it feels like my neck is permanently pointed downward to look at my conversation partner.

My after school lessons have been going well. Obviously I didn’t go to drums on Monday because it was a national holiday (actually, I might not do drums due to the fact that my required Rotary meeting starts halfway through the lesson). During art, I drew more eyes than I have drawn in a LONG time. I realized that, oh, yeah, I’m not an artist! Also, drama is so much fun. It is 3 hours long, but the time just flies. The people are so nice, and the activities are so random!

I officially have Slovak clothes (besides my jeans anyway!). Kate, a girl from my youth group, met up with me after school one day and we went shopping. She showed me some hidden stores where clothes actually fit me, and are really cheap :) I was so excited. I bought a few shirts, and am in love with my yellow sweatshirt. After we shopped, we sat in the “Coffee House” (real name, I swear) and drank hot chocolate while we talked for a long time.

One month and counting

2008-09-16T12:50:00.002-05:00

I love being an exchange student. I do! I have so much time to do absolutely nothing :) For example, in Slovak class today, one girl leaned over to me and told me I was allowed to fall asleep if I wanted to. Then, last class was German. My teacher did her normal “Hi!” to me, then informed me (in Slovak) that I was allowed to go home.

Alright, I had a busy weekend.

Saturday, Ruby’s host mother brought the two of us to Trenčin. There was some sort of festival happening, so there were lots of people and lots of music. (Actually, right after we arrived I looked on the stage and was surprised to see my drum instructor!)

Now, I’m accustomed to cold weather. But Friday had been in the 90s once more. So I thought I would be perfectly fine wearing my jean skirt. Wrong! It was in the 50s! I was freezing cold. Ruby and I raced from store to store, looking for a pair of pants for me. I was extremely close to buying a pair that cost almost $100 and didn’t fit me very well. However, I decided against it. In the next store, though, the first pair I pulled out fit me PERFECTLY and cost only ~$10! I was thrilled :)

It just felt so fall-like. I loved being at the festival. I was able to speak a little Slovak to Ruby’s host grandparents. We ate fresh spun cotton candy. We stood at the top of a really tall clock tower. It was perfect.

That night though, I had another mishap with the bus when we tried to go see a movie. Seriously, I feel cursed trying to see a film here!

We didn’t have school Monday because it was St. Mary’s Day. So early Sunday morning, Peter, Jana, Paul, Evett and I piled into the car and started driving. We went to a little historical village up in the mountains and walked around a bit. Then we kept on driving to Oravský Hrad. It is a castle up on the top of a rock, literally. Paul, Evett, and I explored it. I felt slightly gypped because we didn’t get to go to the very top of the citadel, even though there is an observation deck.

At the parking lot, there were about as many Polish cars as Slovak ones. During the tour, I amused myself by trying to guess what nationalities my companions were.

Honestly, my legs are becoming quite accustomed to moving. Want to go up a steep hill on this mountain to see what it looks like? Want to climb hundreds of steps in a castle after climbing and even steeper hill to get to it? Want to go down 800 steps to see a cave? Bring it on! I’ll be slightly winded at the top, but that is it.

That night we stayed at a bed and breakfast owned by Jana’s friend who is apparently a plastic surgeon. He has a really cool accent and liked telling me about the village. He built this bed-and-breakfast on his own and really enjoys the cold. He showed me the old B&B-- perfectly preserved from 50 years ago when it was build. Even the ancient washing machine and freezers still work.

Sadly, the B&B isn’t quite finished. Therefore, we had NO hot water. It was freezing cold outside, so we chose to neglect showering. It was because of this that I realized that with my new cut, my hair refuses to braid.

Monday, we drove to a Wieliczka Salt Mine near Cracow, Polska. The song “Unwritten” is my theme song for this. I want to describe everything I’m seeing and doing, but no words can make you understand. The trees were so tall and magical on the drive. The cold wind from nowhere in the cave. The vastness of the underground chapel. The way to stone (salt, actually, I think) was both very rough, yet very smooth. The taste of salt water, and the look of its bubbles beneath my feet illuminated by an eerie light. The odd sensation of hot air blowing down and cold air blowing across.

I do enjoy the tours that I’ve been going on, honestly. I think I would enjoy them more in about six months when I have a vague idea what they are saying! Honestly, I understand absolutely nothing. The tour in Poland was even more bizarre than the others-- the tour was conducted in Polish! Every once in a while I could understand a word that was the same, but I could see my group translating to themselves, too. Ay, ay, ay...

Every time I see an English word, I puzzle over the fact that I can understand it for quite a while. Also, I’m learning a language that will never help me! Even our host remarked on that, puzzling over why I’m doing it. Just for an example, when we were at the mine, a Polish man stepped aside to let me pass through first and I said, “Dakujem”. Wrong language!

All mannequins freak me out, now. Sometimes they look real enough that I swear I’m being watched. This is really irritating at stores and such. But both tours during the weekend also had lifelike mannequins.

Random thoughts:

-Paul (my brother) was astonished to realize that my ATM card works here. He kept saying that it wasn’t a Visa or Master, so it shouldn’t. Yet it does... thank you, Security Savings Bank!

-You have to pay extra for ketchup in restaurants.

-At restaurants, silverware for everyone is on a plate that is delivered to the table.

-I never knew Germany was actually called Duetchland. Sad, huh? But that is one word that changes in every language I know! German, Aleman, Nemecky, Duetch...

-The word “Slovakian” really is not used here. I’ll hear it occasionally, but in general, everything is “Slovak”.

-My Mp3 player has died. I have no idea why, but it won’t charge either.

-People are extremely surprised that an American is here. I’m such a curiosity everywhere I go!

-Articles puzzle me, now. Like, “the USA” sounds right, but is it? And I always used to say “a university”, but just “college”. Now I’m not even sure!

-I will drink Kofola. I actually like Kofola fairly well. But sadly, bees are refusing to die! So not yet. The wasps etc... love it more than anyone else.

Guess what. A month ago today, I left the Minneapolis airport. Wow!

Wait, you mean there are classes?

2008-09-12T14:29:00.002-05:00

I got the amazingly useful news today that exchange students don't get marks (grades). Whoo! That is actually quite a relief. Granted, I don't understand a word, but now I don't feel as bad when I'm working on other things during class.

While the school classes are rather boring (and yes, this includes "English class"), I've started up some after school classes that are anything but!

Monday (pondelok) at 6 I have drums. The first class was two hours long and we pounded away at the djembe drum for almost all of it. I think at one point we went at least 10 minutes without stopping. My hands were so red!

Tuesday (uterok) at 3, I have art. My first class, the teacher told me about some techniques we could use, then handed me paper and a pencil and simply said, "Draw!" It was so relaxing!

My third class is my favorite. Thursday (štvrtok) at 3, I have drama. We started by playing about three versions of tag, played red rover and a strange version of follow-the-leader, and then lay on the floor relaxing for about ten minutes while someone played a lovely piano piece. We learned a song in Slovak and people took turns improvising choreography for everyone. We did an improv situation where it was a talk show and someone dominates the conversation (my partner and I did it in English and I claimed that America was on Jupiter). We then took turns dancing alone in front of everyone (for mine, I had a bad partner who kept stepping on my dress and toes and had bad breath. Another girl did it the opposite where she was the bad partner!). Then we paired up and pretended to be old people dancing, then drunk people. Finally, we did more follow the leader.

It was so much fun! And, even more exciting than the fact I now recognize people in school outside of my class, one guy in the drama class is Rotex! He just got back from Mexico and says he wants to bring the exchange students to other cities.

Alright, now the more day-to-day things.

Saturday was... interesting. I watched a marathon-type thing outside of my house and helped Jana make a plum cake. That afternoon, Miguel convinced the three girls to finally get on the Nitra train which brought us up to the castle. Wow!

That evening had another adventure though. I'm from a small town, yes? So I naively believed that a bus will go in a circle (blame the MTA song). Anyway, Ruby and I were trying to go to the movies and accidentally missed our bus stop. The next bus stop was even farther away than when we got on the bus! We stayed on the bus and wound up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere! By the time we made it back to town (two buses later), the movie had long since started.

Sunday, I finally made it to church. It was such a relief! I didn't know any of the songs, but still being in a Christian environment was so wonderful. In the evening, we went to Jana's sister's house for her niece's birthday. I actually got to talk to the little girls and was speaking in Slovak. (They taught me a new word :D) It was the first time that after I stopped speaking, I didn't immediately wish to speak in English instead.

Monday, I had PE for the first time here. It is INCREDIBLY biased. While the guys play futbal (soccer y'all) in the middle of the field, the girls have to run in circles around them on the track and do bizarre jumping exercises across free space. I didn't have clothes on Monday, so I just sat at the side and watched. Tuesday, I had clothes and just about died trying to keep up. But then I found out that I'm not even required to do the class. So Friday, I just walked in circles around the track.

Tuesday through Friday... just boring classes. I doodle in some, translate pages of the Harry Potter book in others. (The book is in Slovak) As far as I can tell, there is really no rhyme or reason to the locations or timings of the classes. Some days, we move classrooms each our. Others we stay in the same room all day. Some times I have three sessions of throughout the day. Sometimes I have two hours of English. It's all so complicated, and my class of 30 sometimes splits up. It doesn't really matter where I go, so I just pick different people to follow each day. Therefore, I don't really have a "typical" class schedule.

Friday night though was so great for me! I went to the youth group for the Lutheran church. They had a barbeque in a suburb of Nitra. I never realized how much I miss worship until they started playing music I knew. In the bilingual songs, I was so grateful for God. I made several new friends that I hope to meet up with some time soon. It was awesome :) :) :)

Oh, I got my hair cut. Even though I nearly cried when I realized how much was cut off, I really like the new style.

I just discovered Paul's girlfriend actually lives with us. She wasn't here my first week, and I always go to my room while they are still watching movies or whatever, so it was kind of a shock when I found that out. She's really cool though and gets to be "chaperone". She actually reminds me a lot of Angela Lee.

The tables and chairs in my school tend to be kind of wobbly. This is not a good thing for someone who can't understand what is going on! I am constantly rocking. I'm probably driving my classmates nuts.

Everyone stands up when a teacher enters the room. This took a while to get used to.

My class is kind of irritated with the fact that I don't know grammar terms (like, past perfect continuous), yet they have to learn them. I don't really know what to tell them-- I just speak English, I don't understand it!

I'm having a hard time matching up history with reality. Like, I know Slovakia was dominated by communism and that there should be family spread everywhere. But it still surprises me.

Slovakia is not built for tall people. Any place designed to seat a large number of people has shorter seats with the seat in front usually touching the floor. I'm so cramped!

I'm becoming quite a fan of milk. It is usually the only cold drink available that I like. (Carbonated water, while I am not able to drink it and almost control my grimace, is still hard. And the orange juice is not my favorite.)

But my family I think is about as anti-Slovak food as you can get! We don't eat soup before lunch, supper and lunch are the same size, I've only had one cake since I arrived, and I eat cereal or toast for breakfast-- not sandwiches!

I don't think the students care much about wasting paper. People will write one sentence, and then tear out three pieces of paper from their nonspiral notebooks.

I'm still not used to the traffic outside my window, and it still wakes me up pretty early. But I'm getting talented at taking naps!

That dreaded first week

2008-09-06T07:51:00.000-05:00

Hello, dear exchange student. Welcome to the actual point of being a new country-- going to school. Yes, we do know that you are here to experience the culture, but unfortunately at this age, that requires attending classes for yet another year.

I am in class 3.A. I have officially taken over Marian’s position (he’s my exchange brother). You see, in Slovakia, students remain in the same class for the four years of high school (gymnazium). That means that everyday for four years, you are with the same students.

Both the teachers and the students are constantly switching rooms. I’d thought it would be like language camp, where the students stayed still and the teachers rotated. I knew it wouldn’t be like my high school in Iowa where the teachers stay still and the students all rotate. But I did not expect to have the same class in a different room. It was kind of bizarre.

I’m have a slight celebrity status. It’s always interesting when I meet a new teacher. My classmates seem thrilled to introduce me as the exchange student from America. They also are extremely excited every time I say something in Slovak (even when I understand something as basic as “Ako sa volaš” [“what is your name?”]. They applauded for me when I answered the teacher for that question.)

I have no idea what I am going to be called this year. People have a hard time saying “Allison”, and there is an “Ellie” in my class. One girl asked if she could call me “Alisha”. I told her I didn’t care, I’d probably respond.

Apparently Marian has been emailing his classmates and asking about me. They told him that I am very quiet in class. My host parents lectured me about this, saying that I need to talk! I tried to explain to them that I don’t talk a whole lot in school back home, either, but I don’t think they understand. (Although for my classmates, I think it would be interesting to send them to a country that speaks Arabic or something and see how well they fly after three weeks :D)

I never know where I’m going to go to get to my next class. Generally I just follow whomever I was talking to in class and see where they lead me. I have absolutely no idea what the teachers are telling me, either. So in German class, one girl gave me her notebook to doodle in. In math, I drew all the pictures the teacher was, but have absolutely no idea what we did. The other classes, I’d flip through my dictionary and attempt to translate things. Next week, I am DEFINITELY bringing the language-learning books that Rotary gave us.

Friday, everybody randomly changed their shoes during fourth hour (school rule mandates that you must have a special pair of shoes to wear indoors). I was so confused! But then we met up with our teachers and walked across town to a city building where we listened to a guy talk in Slovak for an hour. I was really bored :)

Lunch is... interesting. We have to had the kitchen ladies a blue piece of paper in order to get our meal. The first day tasted pretty good (it was some sort of rice). Day two wasn’t as good (I don’t remember what I ate, but I remember not liking it much). Day three however threw me for a loop. It was called “dukatove buchtičky” and was made of little pastries smothered in a milk, sugar, and vanilla sauce. There is no way that was healthy!

Actually, it really surprises me how fit people are here. It seems like they constantly inhale food! During every break (like at camp, we have a 10 minute break between every class), people are just scarfing down snacks-- everything from sweets to sandwiches. And of course, meals are enormous.

Culture fatigue is finally setting it. I came home from school yesterday and just conked out. It was the first time I’d actually come straight home as I usually spend my afternoons wandering around Nitra with friends. Jana thought I was sick or something, but really, it’s just too much information pounding into my mind and being cooked in the 90 degree weather.

But last night was awesome. I went to the theater (divadlo) and got to see a Slovak musical. I couldn’t understand exactly what was happening, but I could tell enough. It was a tragedy with some of the coolest songs and dances I’ve seen performed live. I loved it! I’m such a theater geek :)

More random things:

-There are 3 Ada’s in my class who introduced themselves one after another. (Pronounced “Ah-dyuh”). Other names I can remember: Zuzka, Beba, Natalia, and my personal favorite: Dodo.

-I went to the Slovak equivalent of Best Buy the other day and saw all these popular movies in Slovak. I was *so* close to buying Narnia, but didn’t.

-Every girl I meet seems to want to know if A)I have a boyfriend, or B)If I think Slovak boys are cute.

-It is very humorous for me watching people discuss how to say something in English.

-Slovakia seems obsessed with the Simpsons.

-My English teacher often does really bizarre English, then asks me to correct a tiny portion of the sentence. I just sit there and hold in laughter through the whole class.

-Teachers either write in all capitals or in cursive. I’m really glad I re-taught myself how to read cursive freshman year or else I’d be even more confused than usual!

-I get all these random spam text messages on my cell phone. Apparently that is normal here.

Still haven’t figured out that I’m here yet. I’ve been close a couple of times to having that “Realization Moment”, but I keep pushing it back. I think I’m going to go through withdrawl when I realize I’m in Europe and not in Iowa.

An Austrian Adventure

2008-09-02T10:57:00.001-05:00

This weekend was insane. Leaving Nitra at 7:30 in the morning, we drove a couple of hours across the border to Austria. Now, already blurry from a week at language camp, I once more had no idea what I was doing. I’d thrown some clothes together, but was terrified of trying to go on a long distance bike ride. Not to mention the fact that Austria is a German-speaking country. Like I wasn’t already confused enough, now I was even more lost! I didn’t even know how to say “thank you”! And poor Jana... she would turn to translate conversations for me and would speak in German by accident. Several times she didn’t even realize it.

But, dear friends, the girl who despises doing the mile run in PE managed to do the impossible. I biked for 65 kilometers over the course of three days! (That’s around 40 miles, y’all.) 45 of the km were in the very first day. I was so proud of myself :)

There’s no way I could have done it if the area had been hilly, but still... The scenery was gorgeous and mountainous, but our bike paths were all flatter than Iowa. The few hills we did encounter just about killed me, though...

Our village was one of several on a “sea”. Honestly, I think it was a lake. Even though it is decent sized, the thing never gets more than a meter and a half deep. This astonished me so much on the day when we actually went “swimming”. I just kept walking and walking. My group laughed and told me that I could just walk back to our village! (We were at one on the other side of the lake for lunch.)

Our group started out with 11 people from Nitra. Eight of us biked together, and the other 3 (a family) did as well, but then the dad from the other group got sick and went home. My group was comprised of Peter and Jana, another couple, and then another couple with their 13-year-old son. I really liked the mom. She spoke a little bit of English and was always telling me not to worry-- they were amateurs! We would talk in a bizarre mix of Slovak and English, but it was always pleasant.

On Sunday, Jana and I biked on our own to the lake and took a ferry across. However, we managed to watch the entirety of a Ladies Triathlon beforehand. We grabbed some Chinese clapper things that were confusing, but fun :) Lunch was in this little outdoor cafe that, I kid you not, had vines serving as the roof with real grapes growing that you could eat.

I was sort of sad on Sunday, because it was my third one in a row without going to church. I got up early and read my bible and prayed, but I really miss fellowship.

Monday, we did a short bike around town (mostly looking for a pin for my Rotary jacket) before packing up for home. We gave a ride to the kids whose dad went home sick. I was able to talk to the girl a bit (again, in an odd combination of Slovish/Englovak/whatever), but mostly we all slept on the car ride.

Some observations during the trip:

-There are sunflower fields everywhere in both countries, and many vineyards in Austria.

-Slovak men are gentlemen. Every time I would try to carry my own bag or get out my own bike, the ladies would scold me because the men were supposed to do that for me.

-The sirens that you always hear in movies about Europe are real. It startled me to realize this.

-The “fact” that European servings are smaller in not true. Yes, the drinks tend to be smaller, but the meals are HUGE.

-I’m getting tired of ice cream. Constantly, they ask me if I want “zmrzlina”.

-For some reason, before every bike ride, they’d pass out gum (guma). I don’t know why!

-The crosswalks (in both countries) tick when it is safe to cross, in addition to the light changing.

-I feel like a celebrity. I’d be alone and randomly people in the group would come up and take a picture with me or of me because I was “the American”.

-It is very discomforting to hear your name or nationality and not be able to understand the rest of the conversation. Don’t talk about an exchange student while they are around if they can’t understand the language!!!!

-Also, if they don’t know the language, PLEASE, don’t change your mind three or four times about where you are going or what you are doing. We get very confused! (This happened at least twice on the trip with nobody even trying to explain what we were looking for!)

-Slovaks frequently repeat my words after me. (I say in Slovak, “I know”, and they say in Slovak, “You know.”) It’s really odd, but I’d been warned about it. However, they won’t correct my mistakes, so unless I realize later something is wrong, I’ll never know!

-People keep asking me about “typical” American foods. It’s hard to say that “pizza and burgers” are really normal and that we don’t really have dishes distinct to America.

-Corn is called maize.

-I don’t miss English necessarily, but I do miss comprehending conversations.

-It’s not uncommon to see people eating off their knives.

-The cups in restaurants (in both countries) list how much liquid they hold in liters.

-I’ve only heard about 3 Slovak songs since I’ve been here. They are all in English!

-Waiters often carry wallets so that people can pay while sitting.

-I have no concept of time. I don’t wear a watch, and there are so few clocks around here! It’s only because of my cell phone that I ever know what time it is.

In other news...

Today was the first day of school. We went in about 7:45 and at 8:00 a handler brought the 4 exchangees to the auditorium. We stood in the back of the room while the headmaster gave a speech. There were people in the hall talking loudly and the microphone didn’t work, so even if I could have understood him, I couldn’t hear him. After about 20 minutes, everybody left. School’s out!

Amanda, Ruby, Miguel, and I convinced our families to let us go to town and shop. I discovered the slippers I have that I’ll need to wear in school are fine, but Amanda and Ruby needed some. Miguel was on a hunt for some electronics. We wandered through Nitra all day. I had so much fun! I actually bought some stuff here. It was so exciting because I didn’t need a translator. (Actually, even more exciting was I translated some things for the others!) I even had a couple mini conversations in Slovak, and we even ordered food without a problem. It was amazing :)

Oh, Nitra graffiti is so boring. The stuff in Martin was at least really artistic, but Nitra just has scribbles. It’s sad...

Check out my photobucket for pictures of Austria!