Spring Break

In case any of you are worried about me when I don't post, I wanted to let you know that I'll be gone for a week. As of this afternoon (technically) I'll be on spring break, and I'm going somewhere terribly exciting and interesting. When I get back I'll have many pictures to show you and fascinating things to tell you, and I'll be able to cross another thing off of my list. Tomorrow's going to be a long day, and another three-language day, which can be rough, but the result will be worth it. So have a great week and I'll catch you all on the flip side.

Here's a picture from a week or two ago, taken from the kitchen of my apartment. Ladies and gentlemen, winter in central Europe.

Flashback: Christmas

I am terribly behind on the blog, and I apologize. Luckily I haven't done anything interesting for the past two months, so I can catch up on December.

WienerWorld
Way back in December I had the pleasure of my family coming to visit. I met them in Vienna (fondly known by some as WienerWorld) and we did a brief tour there. I must admit that by the time we went to dinner that first night I was working on trying to use my third language of the day and it was about to cause me a nervous breakdown, which was circumvented by the waitress bringing us English menus. We didn't go into St. Stephen's, but we saw it from the outside all lit up for Christmas. We also went into two of the smaller churches, St. Peter's (at left) and St. Michael's, which were both very nice. St. Peter's was interesting because it had two skeletons on display in chapels. Both of the skeletons still had on ceremonial garments that seemed heavily worked in gold. There were placards that said who the gentlemen formerly were, but of course I've long since forgotten. They weren't terribly old, though.

St. Michael's, where photography is not really allowed

Blava
After Vienna, we took the train back to Bratislava and encamped there for a week. It was quite the experience hauling a few hundred pounds of luggage (mostly full of things that I'd asked my parents to bring) up six flights of stairs to the rooms where we were staying. This is Central Europe. Elevators are for the weak. I don't mind being weak when faced with nine suitcases and over 100 stairs.

I finally got to walk around Bratislava castle. It was very windy and chilly up there, but it had nice views of the city and the surrounding area. We bought presents for each other and people back home at the gift shop there.

In Bratislava we walked around Old Town a lot, naturally. We ate in several good restaurants and Slovak Pub, where my family is now convinced that I'll never be able to eat again because of our waitress' blatant disdain bordering on hostility. We went in St. Martin's Cathedral, where photography is also not allowed, and because of that all of my pictures are blurry, as they were taken furtively. Furtiveness usually doesn't equal high quality, at least for me.

We also went to the Slovak National Museum, which is on the edge of the Dunaj. They have an exhibit there about life in the 20th century that was very interesting. It's quite different to learn about the world wars and the Communist regime in the United States and then to see the places where those things really meant something to people's lives. (I've also been teaching history to my first years and have found myself saying that the Nazis were the "wrong" side because for Americans, they were. But Slovakia was part of a puppet state back then and some of my students' great-grandfathers had to fight for Germany.)

Slovaks celebrate Christmas by doing on December 24th many of the things that we do on December 25th. So they decorate the tree and have a traditional dinner and go to church and open presents on the 24th. There is a tradition that says that if you don't eat anything before Christmas dinner you will see a golden pig and will have good luck for the coming year. Needless to say, none of us saw the golden pig, but we saw plenty of Kofola pigs. There's a brand of soft drink here called Kofola, and on their bottles for the Christmas season they had flying angel pigs. My dad began collecting them after a while. I think he has five or six. All of the pigs have different names and they're doing things like singing or playing the trumpet--you know, regular Christmas angel stuff. We had Christmas dinner with a bunch of other Americans, and it was really good food and almost as traditional as being home. Alas, I did not get to watch any football, but what can you do.

T-town and Beyond
On Boxing Day we and our metric ton of luggage crammed into a car and drove to Tisovec. Because there was no room in the inn hotel I live in, my family stayed at the apartment of one of the other teachers. It has a much nicer bathroom than mine. Here in Tisovec if you don't hike the major tourist attractions are the cemetery and the natural spring, both of which we visited. My parents now claim that they've never been colder than when they sat through church in Tisovec.

One afternoon we drove to Banská Bystrica to try to visit the SNP (Slovak National Uprising) Museum, but it was closed. At the very least we got to see some of the tanks, guns, and airplanes from the war that are outside the museum. I also found the bathrooms in the square that I swear I didn't know were there before.

Probably the highlight of our post-Christmas week was going to the skanzen in Pribylina. The headmistress suggested it to us while we were at her house eating kapustnica (cabbage and sausage soup). So Dad drove us up to Pribylina, which is in a pretty flat place. It was kind of weird being somewhere that flat; I'm so used to there being hills all around me. It was also very snowy there. The place was called the Museum of the Liptov Village. It's made up of buildings that were relocated from various villages in the Liptov region, especially Liptovsky Mara, which was completely relocated when they built a lake or reservoir there.

With the snow and the winter afternoon sun, it was like one imagines the steppes. Most of the buildings just had informational plaques in Slovak, German, and English about who lived in each building and what they did for a living, but a tour guide took us through the mansion house and the church. Both of those buildings still had bits of old frescoes in them which were pretty cool. The skanzen's pub was used for filming "Bathory," about the countess who bathed in young women's blood to preserve her beauty. Alžbeta/Erzsébet/Elizabeth Báthory was imprisoned in a castle in Čachtice in Slovakia at the end of her life, but the castle has since burnt down and there's nothing there but ruins anymore. But I digress. The skanzen, being all outdoors in December, was wicked cold, but it was worth seeing. In the past it's been hard to imagine where my ancestors came from, and I still have trouble imagining it, but visiting this museum really helped.

The day before New Year's Eve we drove to Košice, the nearest major city at only about two hours east. On the way we stopped to look at the castle at Krásna Hôrka and saw...A TREBUCHET! It's not in good repair--certainly it isn't ready for use--but it's still awesome nonetheless. Just imagine my delight at driving into the parking lot below the castle and seeing that bad boy. I also scampered all the way up the hill to look at the castle closer, but it was closed, unsurprisingly. You could see Hungary from there, though.

Also on the way we saw one of the biggest employers in the area, US Steel.

When we reached Košice our (my) main goal was to see St. Elizabeth's Cathedral, the largest cathedral in the country. It's a pretty cool cathedral, although once again, photography is not allowed, and once again, I scoffed at the injunction. Just behind St. Elizabeth's is St. Michael's Chapel, which was closed, but looked interesting. Also closed but interesting-looking was the archaelogical museum with the old foundations of the city, although some of those were visible from street level. We did get into the Slovak Technical Museum, though, which has rooms full of all different typewriters and different kinds of stereo systems and things. It has a cool display on iron and ironworking. To me the museum's main drawbacks were its serious '70s decor and that not all of the information was in English.

Košice's main square in Old Town also has a nice area around its plague column and some pretty Art Nouveau decorations and façades on some of the buildings.

We spent Silvester or New Year's Eve in Tisovec watching "White Christmas" and "A Christmas Story." At midnight people set off fireworks, and then we went to sleep. The next day my family had to leave and it was very sad, but it would have been sadder still had they not come at all. It was a great trip, and now they've been where I am and understand what I'm talking about better.

Whew. I kind of sped through that, so if you'd like further information/pictures, hit me up. Next up: two weeks from tomorrow spring break starts and I'm going on a superexciting trip that involves buses and trains and airplanes and ends in a place where people theoretically speak English.