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.