The Work Outing

(In the spirit of non-plagiarism, the title is taken from the name of an episode of "The IT Crowd." It's not my favorite episode, but it was the first one I saw.)

For the past two years, the school has been involved in an ecological project with other European schools. Some of our teachers and even students have visited other schools in Portugal, Norway, and Sweden, and now it's EGT's turn to host. As hosts, they've arranged excursions for the visiting teachers; today they're in the High Tatras, and yesterday there was a trip to a cave and a manor house. It may seem like an odd combination, but the two are fairly close to each other (and less than an hour from Tisovec). The boss invited us to go along on the trips, because she likes us to see the country. H'd already been to the cave and kaštiel, so Robin and I went along with the guests. They went in a small bus, and we went in the school car, where we saw nice views like this one here. Man, Slovakia is pretty.

The Ochtinská aragonite cave is one of only like three or four aragonite caves in the world. It is, of course, out in the middle of nowhere, and like Domica, the entrance is in a bizarre spaceshipesque building. Inside the cave there is pretty marble-like rock, which I liked, and the aragonite formations, like bleached sea urchins clinging to the roof of the cave. Most of them are smallish, but there's a big one called the Hedgehog. At this particular cave, I suppose because it's uncommon, they wanted 10 bleedin' euros to take pictures. I ask you. Needless to say, I have no pictures.

Then we went along to Betliar. Some websites and guidebooks call it a "castle," probably in part because the Slovak word kaštiel sounds like castle; but it's really a mansion or manor house. Generally I'd prefer to go to the really hardcore fortressy castles, and that's one of the reasons I hadn't been to Betliar before this; but it turned out to be really cool. The house belonged for many years to Hungarian noble families.

The first few rooms are standard Here's a bit of furniture, some swords, and a family tree of the people who used to hang out here; after that it gets weird, when you go into the Grotto, a faux-cave with somewhat poorly taxidermied local animals like wolves and bears and a boar, and weirder still in the rooms where there are trophies from Africa. There were some masks and spears and shields, and a couple crocodiles, and a sea turtle, and a gigantic snakeskin, and this monstrosity:What?

After that it goes back to normal, more rooms and portraits and things. As we went through one room I saw a piece of furniture and thought, 'Where is the spinet?' and a few rooms later, there it was (I think it was really a fortepiano), with a bust of Beethoven on it and everything. One thing I thought was cool about the house was that the corners have square projections, sort of like towers or bay windows, and all the bathrooms are in those corners.

But really, the coolest room in the place is the library.
After the tour we walked around the grounds for a bit. It's got several odd little building that seem to serve no purpose, like a Masonic temple and a Chinese pagoda and Rob and I may or may not have climbed on one of them. You'll never know for sure.

Facts About Kežmarok

1. Kežmarok is in the Spiš region. Like all Spiš towns, it has a lot of evidence of the German settlers who lived there. One of the biggest clues is the German name for the town, Käsmark ("cheese market"). The town got its market privilege in the 13th century.

2. There are some pretty good views of the Tatras there.

3. The town castle is at the end of the old square. It's got some exhibits in the different towers, like one about a doctor from the town who was the first in Slovakia to take x-rays, and of course arms and armor. At the end of the tour are some rooms with displays on life in the town in the 19th and 20th centuries, including census information that said that the highest number of Jews in the town, before the war, was over a thousand, but that in the 2001 census there was only one Jew. There was also an old wartime street sign for Ulica Adolfa Hitlera/Adolf Hitler Strasse. It was somewhat comforting that the sign had bullet holes in it. 4. The castle's oldest tower has been significantly reconstructed and therefore has the safest stairs in all of Slovakia.

5. The town's lyceum has a library that is supposed to be pretty impressive, but is closed on Saturdays.

6. Here is a tank called Jánošík, across the street from the back of the castle.

7. The Basilica of the Holy Cross, also reputed to be impressive inside, also seemed to be closed (maybe for a wedding).

8. I thought maybe visitors could go up in the Renaissance belltower next to the basilica, but it, too, was apparently closed. Or maybe I just wasn't looking in the right places to go in these sites.

9. I did peek inside the Greek Orthodox church, but it was modern and had no cool icons or anything.

10. The exterior of the New Evangelic Church is light red and green, for some reason. The inside is light, with a very high ceiling and a set of steps leading up to the altar. On the right hand side about halfway down the nave is the mausoleum of Imre Thököly, a Hungarian nobleman who was a native of the town and supported Protestantism.

11. The best reason to go to Kežmarok is to see the UNESCO-listed articulated wooden church. It's right next to the new Lutheran church, and despite the name, the outer walls are plastered, so I wandered most of the way around it going, "What is this strange building?" before seeing the sign that said it was in fact the wooden church.

During the 17th and 18th century Slovakia (among other parts of Europe) had some of those laws that said that Protestants could build churches as long as they didn't use any nails. They also had to build on specific sites outside towns, they couldn't have towers or bells, and parishes had to pay for construction themselves. In the case of this particular church, there are two small stone rooms at the back (actually to the right of the altar, but on the side opposite the entrance) that were given to the church by the town.

The church was built in 1717 on a Greek cross plan. It measures 35 meters long, 31 meters wide, and 20 meters high (115'x102'x66'). The walls are made of red fir, the supporting columns of yew, the hardest wood found in Slovakia, and the altar and pulpit of lime. With the ground floor and six balconies, there is room for 1500 people.

In this picture, taken stealthily from behind the pulpit, you can see that the church looks like the prettiest barn you've ever been in. The ceiling is painted like a partly cloudy blue sky, with saints around the edges. The altar looks like it's marble because it's painted so nicely. Everything is beautifully carved and painted, and most of the writing, like the saints' names and inscriptions near the altar, is in German. There aren't that many pictures of the interior online, which is disappointing, because it is very nice; but on the other hand, pictures aren't as cool as actually walking in and seeing it yourself.

Stormy Weather

First, a quick announcement: Happy fourth birthday yesterday, blog!

As you no doubt remember, last spring was exceptionally rainy. In comparison, this one has been quite dry. Until today (dun dun dun). The rain woke me up at 2 this morning, and had stopped by the second time I woke up at 7,* although there were some clouds lurking in the sky. I'd planned to go to a castle ruin, Pustý hrad, near Zvolen, but I didn't feel sanguine about my chances of not getting rained on as I walked around, so I decided to stay home. I feel this was a good choice.

We've had strong rain, thunder and lightning, and hail. The thunder was more impressive in real life than it sounds here, but you can see the lightning pretty well.

It took about an hour to upload this to YouTube, so the storm has stopped for now. Chances are good that it'll start up again, but I'm prepared with lots of candles for the anticipated power outage and various accoutrements for when I have to go outside.

Ah, there it goes again. Rain boots, engage!

*For some reason we teachers here always talk about when we woke up on weekends/holidays. Sleeping past 8 is quite an accomplishment.
Also, please note that footnotes are now clickable. Progress!

Maturita Update

Even though having examined 44 students in the past three days (with 7 to go tomorrow) has melted my brain, there's one thing that makes it worthwhile, the most important part of maturita week...

BRYNDZA CAKES.

Practicalities #4B: The Train

The other public-transportation option for getting out of Tisovec is the train. The same website gives train information, including international trains. (It does used to lie about one particular train, though; there really isn't one that leaves Brezno and goes south at 16:29 on Saturdays.)

Trains are rad. I prefer taking the train to taking the bus. It's a bit more expensive (€1.38 for the train between Tisovec and Hnúšťa and about €.80 for the bus), but worth it: There are usually fewer people on the train, and it's more fun to look out the window, and you can ride backwards. The train from Tisovec to Brezno goes through one tunnel, where if the lights don't come on you can harass your friends in the dark; and over a few bridges that pass over the road, which is fun until your train unexpectedly stops in the middle of one and hangs out there for a few minutes.

In Tisovec there are two stops, Mesto and the main station. Mesto is the closer to us; the main one is about 15 minutes' walk to the north. Neither Tisovec stop has any kind of ticket office, nor do many small-town stations. You buy your ticket onboard from the conductor. From bigger towns and cities you buy your ticket at the station.There was no graffiti on the station when I first got here. :(

Also, at small stations (even Brezno, pictured below) you might have to walk over one set of tracks to get to your platform. This is considered acceptable and safe. Why wouldn't it be?

The trains that go through Tisovec are two cars at most. Usually there's only one. For this reason I call it the "tiny train."

Here's a tiny train passing by my apartment yesterday evening on its way south to Jesenské. The drivers always blow their horns around this point—that's the only way I knew when to start recording.


Slovak trains also encourage you to throw things out the window and jump out.
Most of the trains that pass through Bystrica are full-sized ones, with more amenities. They have compartments, just like in "Harry Potter" (but without the Dementors), although whenever I'm sitting in a compartment I get nervous about when my stop is and how much time it'll take me to gather my things and disembark. Of course there are overnight compartments, too. When you get up in the Tatras and other more-touristed areas, the station announcements are in Slovak, German, and English, but 'round here they're only in Slovak.

Riding the train here is nothing like riding Amtrak at home. It's far, far cheaper, for one, but Europe just has a completely different idea of what train travel is than North America does. I'll really miss taking the trains here, and I hope train travel becomes more inexpensive and efficient at home, so I can enjoy it there, too.

Practicalities #4A: The Bus

I'm always saying how I took the bus or the train from here to there, so I thought I'd elaborate on what "the bus" and "the train" mean.

When you want to leave Tisovec, you must first figure out how you're going to go. This involves going to http://www.cp.sk/, where you fill in when and from where you're leaving and where you want to go, and it tells you what buses, trains, or combination thereof you can take. (If you're leaving Slovakia, you usually also check a private company like Eurolines.) Then—and this is VERY IMPORTANT—you write down not only the times that you want, but all of the other times in the general vicinity of the ones you want. This is so that when you miss a bus or one just doesn't show, you have a backup plan. You also write down the route the bus is taking and where you have to make connections. I usually have pieces of paper in my bag that say things like

6:08-8:39 Z
9:10-9:50 pl 3
(bus leaving Tisovec at 6:08 and arriving at Zvolen in 8:39, then subsequent bus leaving Zvolen from platform 3 at 9:10 and arriving in Banská Štiavnica at 9:50)

or

13:35-15:05 BB
15:50-16:40 B pl 21
16:49-17:54 t
(bus to Banská Bystrica, bus from platform 21 there to Brezno, train from Brezno to Tisovec).

If you don't have these things, then you must have a cell phone and a friend with an internet connection to check cp.sk for you, or a place to stay the night, or all of the above. This is the Voice of Experience talking.

The main bus stop in Tisovec is in front of the church, but there's one to the north on the way to Brezno and two to the south on the way to Hnúšťa. Here's the catch (one of many): it has to be a local intercity bus to stop at one of those stops, or you have to be able to explain in Slovak where you want to get off and hope that the driver is obliging.

Speaking of obliging, sometimes the bus will stop and instead of actually getting on, someone will talk to the driver and give him a bag or a box and then get off. Then at another stop someone will collect the parcel from the driver. I seem to remember once the thing that was being delivered was eggs.

On long trips there's often a stop, usually in a town. These stops, which are not marked on the schedule, can range from 10 to 45 minutes. Big bus stations like Bystrica, which is probably the most frequent stopping-point, have restrooms and food stands, with "burgers" and langoš (Slovak frybread; sources report that the best langoš is at the Bratislava bus station). If it's a long break, the driver may kick people off the coach.

The long-haul buses, like those going from Košice to Bratislava, for example, are usually nice big coaches, Volvos or Scanias or the like. The two pictures above are the Scania coach we took to Hungary. The shorter-range buses can be nice, but they can also be pretty cruddy. Both the very first picture and the one below are shorter-range buses. It's really a crapshoot what kind of bus is going to show up.
It seems like the drivers own their own buses, because some of them have done a lot of interior personalization in the front windows. There's often Slovakia memorabilia, sometimes garlands of fake flowers, saints or crucifixes, and small stuffed animals (keep in mind the great majority of drivers are men). The best decoration was probably one on a bus that Bear often rode last year: a tiny novelty t-shirt that said "Sexy Boy."

The worst things about the bus are that it's easy to feel motion sick, especially going to Brezno or Muráň, and there's often not much legroom, and sometimes you get the smelly drunk dude sitting next to you, and on occasion the bus you're waiting for just doesn't show up, and every once in a while it's really crowded and you have to stand up for a bit. The good things are that the buses are pretty frequent, especially between Tisovec and Brezno, so there's always a good chance of getting home as long as you can at least get to Brezno, and they're mostly cheap, and pretty safe, even if the driver seems a little reckless. Riding the bus: all part of the adventure.

Hell Maturita Week

This is the beginning of a very important week. It’s maturita time.

...There should have been more of a clamor after that dramatic statement. You don’t know what the maturita is? That’s likely because it’s very much a European rite of passage, especially here in Central and Eastern Europe.

The maturitas (maturity, if you want the proper plural) are end-of-school leaving exams. All Slovak students must take the Slovak exam, and of course at bilingual schools the students must take a foreign language exam as well, so our students all take the English maturita. After that students may choose a few subjects and they take intensive seminars on these throughout their final year to prepare them for the maturita. These subjects include geography, biology, and their second foreign language, among others. At EGT the kids take the Slovak maturita in their fourth year, and all others their fifth year. For some of the tests, including Slovak, English, and history, there is a separate written component completed earlier in the spring. The main event is the oral exam.

I can only speak about the subjects that I’ve been involved in, which are English and history, but this is the basic form. There are 30 possible tasks, and each task has three parts. The first student comes in and chooses a number from cards face-down on the table. Then he or she gets about 30 minutes to prepare. Students may write notes for themselves during this time, and some questions have specific aids, like articles, maps, or pictures. At the end of the 30 minutes the student must talk about the three questions in front of a panel of three proctors. As one student begins talking, another is preparing. The proctors ask questions to help the students. The students talk for 20 to 30 minutes or until they’ve entirely exhausted their abilities.

There are very particular rules about the proctors. Each panel must have an outside proctor who is not an EGT teacher, and for the bilingual subjects one proctor must be a native English speaker or equivalent. Obviously, the proctors are supposed to be qualified and know the answers for all the 90 possible tasks.

Scoring, like all grades, is on a scale of 1 to 5. Opposite to the Advanced Placement exams in the US, a 1 is the best score and a 5 is the worst. Each question is scored, then the proctors decide what the student’s overall score should be. Then there’s a complicated formula that’s like (a certain number of points X the score from task 1) + (another number of points X score from task 2) + (some more points X score from task 3) / 10 or 3 or something, I don’t even know, obviously I’m not in charge of anything involving math because this is serious business. About five students do their tests, then the proctors discuss, then the students come back in and the head of the panel asks if it’s alright to read all their scores aloud (no one ever says no). Then she reads their scores and all the proctors shake the kids’ hands. As you can imagine, this can be rather awkward if a kid doesn’t pass. I’m never really sure what to say, anyway.

Two years ago I was on the history panel. I learned a lot from it, because each task has at least one question about Slovak/Czechoslovak history, and though the students answer this question in Slovak, the headmistress made them summarize what they’d said in English for me. When I first got the packet of questions I felt a little like the students must feel: overwhelmed at everything they need to know. I originally had an example of a task posted, but I've decided to take it down, because the tasks sometimes don't change that much year to year and I don't want to risk doing the wrong thing.

History is a good panel to be on because usually only 20 to 30 kids take it, so it’s usually only one day. English, on the other hand, is four days this year and was five days in the past two years. Usually they try to divide the proctoring between two American teachers, but this year I am the duty native speaker, so I’ll be here all week, folks. This is because I was the only one who taught the fifth years their British and American history review course, and the English maturita for some strange reason includes a question about history/geography/social studies of English-speaking countries. So I’m the only one who knows the answers to all the history questions. The English tasks also include one conversation topic and one (British/American) literature question. The conversation topics cover everything from stereotypes of different nationalities to sport to whether it’s better to live in a village or a city.

While some people say that the maturita really has no bearing on students’ futures, it’s nonetheless an important part of their schooling and culture. And for about 11 hours a day for the next four days, it’s going to be an important part of my life, too.

Class Trip

In my time living here I have come to internalize a bit of the rivalry between Slovakia and Hungary. I think Slovakia is better than Hungary in almost every way (except at having Cherry Coke and Dr. Pepper). I’m especially perturbed by the Hungarian language and its complete linguistic isolation from any neighboring language. And even though Slovakia lost in the hockey, at least this time they didn’t lose to Hungary.

All that said, it’s a little hard for me to get into the message behind our class trip to Hungary: that we should be proud of Hungarian history because it is our Slovak history as well. For about 900 years present-day Slovakia was part of Hungary, first in the kingdom of Veľká Morava and later in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Most of any current antipathy between the two countries originates in the post-World War I era, when Hungary lost about two-thirds of its land under the Treaty of Trianon.

We—almost 30 third years, three history teachers, the financial secretary, and the secretary and her family, including her brother, who drove the coach—left Tisovec just after 7 on Wednesday morning and headed south and then west. On the way students gave short presentations (in English) on the history of the Hungarian kingdom. I took notes like a good student myself. We actually crossed into Hungary twice—we went in, then back into Slovakia, then back into Hungary again. I must admit I’m not sure why we did this, but it was a good illustration of how open the borders are.

Just across the Dunaj/Duna/Danube from Štúrovo (known as Párkány during the Hungarian years) is Esztergom, or Ostrihom if you’re Slovak. The basilica there is the third largest in the world. It was completed in 1856. I thought the most interesting part was the crypt, with brick arches and epic statues of Eternal Life and Eternal Perdition. It was also here that I discovered that the kids were going to take more pictures of themselves than of anything historical.

The next stop was Visegrád. There are two castles there: the reconstructed royal palace (királyi palota) near the riverbank and the citadel (fellegvár) up on a hill. The citadel is older, and the palace dates from the time of one of the greatest Hungarian kings, Matthias Corvinus. Matthias’ wife, Beatrix, was Italian and brought the Renaissance to Hungary. The royal palace has a Renaissance courtyard with the “Hercules Fountain” depicting baby Hercules strangling some snakes. The original, fragments of which are preserved inside the palace, was made of red marble, and ran with wine during banquets. The citadel of course has lovely views of the river and also wax-work dioramas of scenes of castle life that the headmistress and I agreed were full of silly inaccuracies (like lemons and oranges as garnish/decoration). The really great part was leaving the palace and getting on the coach to go up the hill to the citadel. In my non-teacher life I would’ve had to walk, and I’m grateful I didn’t have to do that with my kids.
We got a bit behind schedule somehow and arrived in the town of Szentendre around 5:30. Originally the kids were supposed to have free time and get dinner there, but we went straight to the restaurant. After we ordered I went back to the ATM we’d passed to get some forints. The ATM was only one turn away and should’ve taken about a minute and a half, tops, to get to. Even before my first lap around the block I was already thinking, “Oh, Ahab, you know better than to wander around a foreign town by yourself,* especially in your current fatigue-addled state of mind.” I managed not to get irreparably lost, though, and made it back to eat my beef stew. It was so good.

Our hostel was on the outskirts of Buda. It was a quick trip from there to the castle hill on Thursday morning. We walked around the president’s palace, Matthias Church, and the Fisherman’s Bastion. I was called upon to review the characteristics of Gothic architecture outside the church; I was hoping we’d go in, but we didn’t, alas for me. From there the bus took us to Pest and we went to the House of Terror. I think that it seemed even worse to me this time since I’ve been teaching 20th century history. Some of the kids were upset by the museum, as they should have been, so at the end of the visit the headmistress and I tried to explain why we visit museums like that, and concentration camps—lest we forget. As we left one of the girls told me that it was the first time she’d realized how bad things got during the socialist era (Hungary tried to rebel against the Soviets in 1956 and the attempt was answered with great cruelty). She said, “I thought after World War II it was better.” I told her I’d thought so, too, before I became a history teacher.

After all that, the headmistress let the kids exercise their democratic rights, and they voted not to visit the art museum. We had a brief stop at Heroes’ Square (Hősök tere, left) and then took the metro to some other square whose name is frankly unimportant. Then we all got two hours of free time.

Last time we visited Budapest we didn’t get to go in the big market hall when all the stalls were open, so I headed there. I will miss European markets when I leave. Most of the greengrocers had strawberries out, and when I walked by the first stall and smelled them I had to have some. I consulted my phrasebook and found a vendor who was not busy and looked pleasant. Standing in front of the strawberries I smiled and said hopefully, “Fél kilo?” It worked like a champ. I paid about 500 ft. for my half-kilo, rinsed them at a little sink, took them outside, and ate about half of them straightaway.

Then I succeeding in locating both Cherry Coke and Dr. Pepper, and of course got a milkshake from Mickey D’s.

When we reconvened (the kids had almost all gone to McDonald’s, too, and shopping), we took the metro back to Hősök tere and the bus met us there. You have not seen a bunch of kids more eager to go home from a pleasant two-day trip than these ones. Admittedly it was noticeably warmer in Budapest than in Tisovec (a thermometer as we were leaving said it was 32°), but when one of the girls described the weather as “tropical,” I LOL’d.

My biggest concern during the trip was whether or not these kids were actually making any connections between what we were seeing and what they’d learned in class. I’m certain a few of them were willfully ignoring any possible educational tidbit—I do teach them, after all, I know what they’re like—but I think most of them got something. And though one girl got a little sick, no one got drunk or arrested or woke me up in the middle of the night, and that’s really all I could have asked for. It was fun to laugh at them and the silly things they did and said, too; two of the girls were giggling about something as we walked to Hősök tere and I asked what they were doing. Miška said, "Majka fell in love with the construction worker" we'd just passed. Majka defended herself with "He has beautiful eyes!" and looked for him very unstealthily the next two times we passed by the same place. Teenagers.

In the end, no matter how much I complain about not understanding Slovak and Slovakia, there is no mistaking the sense of relief I feel when I get back from having left the country.


*Clearly I do not truly know better.

Trenčín

Slovakia, as we have no doubt previously discussed, is not a big country. It is about twice the size of Wales, or four times the size of Jamaica, or, like, a twentieth the size of Canada (thank you, Across Cultures). It should take about 10 hours to drive clear across the country east-west, or about five north-south. But as I didn't have the foresight two years ago to buy a used car and learn to drive stick, I still have to rely on public transportation, and so it took Robin and me six hours and three buses to get to Trenčín on Friday afternoon.
We liked the city immediately. The center is a short walk from the bus and train stations, passing the rock outcrop the castle's built on. Trenčín has many lodging options, but we stayed in the Hotel Grand. It is by far the swankiest place I've stayed in Slovakia. Accordingly it was a bit spendy. I regret nothing.

A stage with a big screen and a sound system were set up in Mierové namestie, the main square, and a crowd had gathered to watch Slovakia play (and, unfortunately, lose to) the Czech Republic in the hockey championships. We watched most of the game in a restaurant called Mexiko. Their interpretation of enchiladas was pretty wide of the mark, but the mojitos were good.

On Saturday morning we got to see the town without a lot of people around before heading up to the castle. There's a covered stairway that goes partway up the hill and leads to Marianské namestie, a little square consisting of a church and a smaller chapel. There was a mass in progress, but even if the church had been open, it was too full of scaffolding to see anything interesting.

At the castle gate we bought our tickets for the tour starting at 9:45. (The photo fee was a very reasonable .70€.) Tours start at the gate to an inner courtyard, so we looked around some before and saw a baby trebuchet and a new phenomenon, castle goats. At the outset our guide told us she didn't speak much English and then proceeded to give us the most salient points in perfectly serviceable English.

Trenčín's recorded history dates back to the Roman Empire, when Roman soldiers defeated a local Germanic tribe and then wrote about it on the cliff that the castle would later occupy.* The oldest part of the castle is a rotunda built in the 9th or 10th century of which now only ruins remain. Much of the castle was destroyed by fire in the late 18th century and thus there's been a lot of reconstruction, but whatever. I'm giving this one a pass. The most famous master of the castle was Matúš Čak (Csak in Hungarian), who held the cool title "Lord of the Váh and the Tatras." The tallest tower is named for Matúš and dates from the 14th century.
Tower-climbing story of the day: This one is unique because there isn't one continuous staircase all the way up. You go up a floor, walk through a room to a different corner, and take a different staircase. They're all pretty narrow and have very short doorways. Only the last one is a spiral, too.

Our tour over, we went back down to the lower area and saw that there was a mini historical reenactment camp set up, including an old-school wooden merry-go-round. Then Rob spotted a guy shooting arrows, and asked him if she could try. It was a euro for four arrows and we both had a go. I SHOT ARROWS IN A CASTLE. Just clarifying that for the record. For another euro, the blacksmith at the forge let visitors strike their own commemorative coins by whacking a simple die with a hammer. Trenčianský hrad wins for activities.

Then, as so many of these stories go, we ate some ice cream and departed the town.

Trenčín is a good place. You don't really need to be there more than a day; it would be a good excursion from Bratislava.

The next post will be about a special mid-week adventure happening this Wednesday and Thursday. For the sake of my third-year history class, I'm going back...to Hungary.

*Guidebooks will tell you the inscription can be seen through a window at the back of the Hotel Tatra, which is built right up against the cliff. Said hotel is currently under massive interior reconstruction and is closed for a bit, so don't plan on being able to see the writing anytime soon. There's a replica on display at the castle.