Thursday, August 28, 2008

Arrival in Liptovsky Mikulas


I had a week of orientation in Bratislava with the fellow English teachers. I think there were 13 new and 3 returning teachers. The group seems great. Between all of us there are four different towns that will be receiving teachers. Those are Bratislava, Kosice, Liptovsky Mikulas and Tisovec. There were also two teachers that were with us for a day that will be in Martin at an Elementary School, I believe they are from the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod.

During the week orientation was geared towards teaching us how to survive in Slovakia, shopping trips, language lessons, etc. The larger group was split into four smaller groups, we were given 200 SK per group and sent on our way. With the shopping trip my group and I found out that there is no vanilla extract in Slovakia though there is vanilla sugar and vanilla beans. The list of items my group had to find were: vanilla or 00 flour, 2 cucumbers, lettuce, an adapter and Smedny Mnch (it's a beer called the thirsty monk). Well, we found the vanilla bean but did not buy it since it cost 99.99 Slovak Crowns; we bought the flour instead. We found everything else except for the beer. We looked around a good part of Old City Bratislava, I even used my German to talk to a bar tenders friends to see if they knew of the beer and where we could find it. We eventually gave up and bought ourselves some Coca-Cola instead.

When August 23 came it was almost a week since I arrived in Slovakia. This was also the day that the group would be heading to the various towns. We had a commissioning service in the morning/afternoon which was done by Arden Haug and the Bishop of Slovakia. The service was nice, and of course we took group pictures. I have to see if I can get a copy from someone. After the service we all had lunch together and then the groups began to leave.


There was a slight change in plans for my group and the group going to Tisovec. We were going to have separate drivers, but then one of the drivers could not come so the six of us went in a van together. First we went to Tisovec, that was between a 3 and 4 hour drive. The drive was nice, many corn fields were seen along the way. As we got closer to Tisovec we began to see the Low Tatras. They looked very nice and I am told there are many good places to hike and ski in them.


After the people in Tisovec had their paperwork filled out the rest of us left for Mikulas. Our route to Mikulas was changed slightly because of a road closer. Luckily the driver knew another route. It took us about two hours to Mikulas. Carol, Jenny and I were ready for an adventure because none of us knew where we would be living until we arrived. We were all happy with our arrangements. Jenny and I share an apartment and Carol has her own apartment in another building. We live about 5 minutes from the school and 5-10 minutes from the town center.


This weekend is a long weekend, we have Friday to Monday off. It will give me and the others a good chance to explore the area. Tomorrow, Friday, the three of us are invited to lunch at the Chaplin's house from our school. Saturday we will take a train to a near-by town an explore a castle and other activities with a fellow teacher. School starts on Tuesday with a church service and myself and the other two teachers will be taken for our check-ups as well as other appointments that need to be taken care of. It will be interesting to see what the weekend brings!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Arrival in Slovakia

The adventure begins on August 16, 2008. I left for O'Hare airport with my parents where they said good-bye to me as I took of to my second foreign country of residence. When I checked in at the ticket counter everything was going well. The worker told us that my bags were over weight so needed to pay a fee, there turned out to be other people in the group that also faced this problem.

After the bags were checked my parents and I headed towards security so that I could reach my gate in plenty of time. We said our good-byes and I headed on my way. My first flight went to Stockholm, Sweden so i got to see part of a country and airport I had not been in before. I left the U.S. around 4:30pm CST and arrived in Stockholm around 7:45am their time (7 hours ahead of CST). I had about two and a half hours in the airport, which was very nice and clean. In the gate area there was a TV where Olympics were playing. The time went by quickly which was nice because I was fairly tired.

My next and last flight was on Austrian Air which took me to Vienna, Austria. The plan landed around 12:30pm and I made my way out to the lobby area. I saw another girl that had been on both of my flights so I asked if she was going to Slovakia and it turned out she is another teacher from the group. We talked for a while and each watched each other's bags when we went to call home or use the restroom. After an hour and a half or two hours our in-country person made it to the airport and we went on our way to Bratislava. Vienna and Bratislava are not far apart at all, it probably took us about an hour to arrive at the seminary I am currently staying at.


Rebbecca, the girl from the flight, and I brought our bags to our rooms and came to find the people who picked us up had left already to meet more people at the Bratislava airport. We then decided to walk around the town some since we did not know who the other teachers were or where they were. We had a nice walk and got slightly lost but found our way back to the seminary. We arrived just in time because we saw people heading downstairs and they were from our group. We met the teachers who were here and two more arrived that evening. The two who arrived later each had delayed flights and both arrived without any luggage. Thankfully one has been reunited with all of her luggage and the other has one suitcase and the other is to be delivered tomorrow.

This week in Bratislava is meant as an orientation for us to Slovakia and to teaching in Slovakia. With this comes lessons on teaching, tips on what to do and what to expect. We also receive Slovak lessons, my vocabulary is slowly growing but I need to study so I really remember the words and numbers.

On Friday I will have a meeting that will talk about the school I will be at in Liptovsky Mikulas. There will be three teachers from the US there; myself, Carol and Jenny. They both seem nice and fun, I think we will have a good year together.

Saturday everyone will leave the seminary and go to the town they will live in for the year. Some will stay here in Bratislava but will move to an apartment. The other towns people will be in are Tisovic, Martin and Kocise. We all plan to travel and hope to visit one another in our respective towns.

So far things have been good. It is different to be in a country where your knowledge of the language is very limited. I am sure I will pick up more as the year goes on. I look forward to the rest of the week and to see what comes.