Slovakia Service Stories: Our first Slovak Sabbath

Sabbath in Slovakia - Sunday, July 19, 2012
We set the alarm to be sure to get up in time for church. We were really looking forward to it because this may be our last opportunity to attend worship in English for a while. Because we arrived a day early for training, there was no breakfast served, so I had cold pizza left over from last night - and it was delicious!! (Brings back Clarke memories!) Our little group learned how to take the bus down to the central part of the city, where we first stopped at a coffee shop where we all sat outdoors on wicker furniture. (Tim and I had hot tea, of course, and it came with a darling little one-bite cream puff!)

View of outlying areas from our dorm room balcony at the seminary.

Another view from our balcony

And the other direction looking off the balcony

At the coffee shop before church - Cafe Dias - which is Slovak for Cafe Diem like in Ankeny!! :-)

Menu, napkin, and bus ticket from Sunday morning.

The front of the church

A church window

We walked to the small Lutheran church where services are held in English for an international population in Bratislava. The interior of the church was gorgeous, the organ was amazing, we had a great sermon on the Lord's Supper, and we were incredibly blessed by the whole experience. Afterwards we went next door to another coffee shop where they evidently have Lutheran fellowship hour after church every week - we went into the interior courtyard - very old and picturesque. Then we went to a restaurant adjacent to the ancient fortified part of the city, where we actually ate lunch on a back basement stone patio that was on the bottom of the former moat around the fortress!! The weather was gorgeous for all the al fresco eating and drinking too. :-)

St. Michael's Gate - leading into the old city

Eating on the patio where the moat used to be

The steeple on the Seminary, on our walk back from the bus stop

After church - in front of the entrance to the seminary dormitory and classrooms. (Our room is on the left, looking over the hillside down behind to the left)

After taking the bus back to the seminary, most everyone was tired from jet lag and wanted to take a nap. Katie, our friend from Ohio, agreed that we should go off to explore on our own for the afternoon instead! So the three of us tried to find a short-cut to walk back down to the old part of town. We took several really steep streets and staircases, happened onto several embassies accidentally, and walked through a cemetery dating from the 1700's along the way. Then we just wandered around seeing the sights, such as the old gate into the city, the narrow cobblestone streets, the main square with a big fountain in the middle and government buildings on the perimeter, and the presidential palace. We had some lemonade and mineral water at, you guessed it, a little outdoor patio tea shop, off in a tiny alleyway we discovered. We made it back in plenty of time to clean up and join everyone else for our welcome dinner at the seminary dining hall. The food has been mostly meat and rice or potatoes, mineral water to drink, and different cakes for dessert. But there is always a big bowl of fresh fruit when we leave, so we pick up a peach or an apple for later. Yum! We met the rest of the new teachers who arrived Sunday as well, and everyone is getting along well. We were all pretty tired, so turned in pretty early, though it is very hot so not so easy to sleep comfortably without air conditioning. We do see delightful sunsets from the balcony of our room!