Church Choir and Cotton Candy

Another school week has flown by, and we continue to enjoy the glorious spring weather!  For a while there, we had clouds and fog a lot, but now the views of the mountains surrounding Liptovsky Mikuláš are beautiful again.  It is really warm in the afternoons too!

This week, some of our students had a taste of America.  One of my goals this year is to bake cookies for all our classes, but obviously it has to be done in shifts!  It was fun surprising a few classes with chocolate chip bars and Hershey-kiss peanut butter blossoms!  The kids decided they like American "cakes" (which they say instead of "cookies"!!)  So now I only have 5 of our 11 classes left - plus my after-school class at the Basic School.  

O.K., it's story time.  Monday night at church choir rehearsal, Tim was afraid I would get kicked out!!  I think I've mentioned that I've become kind of the de facto director of our little a cappella ensemble of about 16-18 singers.  I have been running the rehearsals anyway.  They hand out music, look at me expectantly, so I rehearse the number, work on parts, etc. until it's dobre ("doh-bray" = good), and then we all pass in the music.  Next tune, same routine.  Well, I was working on dynamics a little too exuberantly, evidently, because I almost knocked over a 2' high cross on the pastor's desk.  I whacked it accidentally, it wobbled and almost fell over, so I made a mad grab to keep it from toppling!!  Whew!  The tenor and bass sections were singing at the time, but the women all saw it and were laughing hysterically.  Of course I was mortified!!  And then later, I pulled out a classic Everett Johnson line during rehearsal, and Tim figured that really sealed the deal that I'd get sacked!  The tenor section (including the pastor) had a rough time on one phrase with two B-naturals that they kept singing as B-flats.  The pastor finally got it, but the other tenors kept singing a half-step flat.  It was even more painful for a while with the dissonance.  (Which is really unusual - the men are actually quite good singers!)  So anyway, eventually they all nailed it once, everyone else smiled, said "ahhhh", nodded, and looked pleased.  That's when I asked the one guy who speaks English and can translate, to tell them: "Let's try it again now, just to make sure that time wasn't just an accident."  (Thank you, Everett!)  Well, the place went up for grabs.  They were laughing for a long time, so we couldn't even sing for a while!  Afterwards Tim said they'd either fire me or keep me around just for entertainment value.  Thanks a lot!!   ;-)  

Today's school lunch involved liver, so some of us decided to forgo that menu and head out for lunch instead!  Katarina and I had delicious salads, and Tim had pork - all yummy!

Janka joined us later, since our lunch times didn't align very well.  It was interesting to note that going out to lunch in a REAL restaurant with a fresh flower on the table and a quiet, peaceful ambiance, brings the same reaction to Slovak teachers as to American ones........we felt like 'real' human beings!!  ;-)   

Some of my wonderful Basic School kids in my Thursday after-school class, playing a vocabulary game, kind of like "Go Fish" - fun times! 

Today after school we were able to get the bikes out again, and we headed up the hill where we used to go running last fall, to the little village of Trstené, a few kilometers away.  It was neat seeing the houses and gardens in the village as we pedaled through, and then the ride back down the hill was awesome with the views of the mountains.  

This is our bike storage room on the ground floor of our block of flats.  LOTS of bikes!!  

Some grape hyacinths right outside our block of flats, which remind me of our garden back in Ankeny!  

Forsythia in bloom outside our building.  And there are many violets sprinkled in the grass too, but they don't show up so well.  

This is the first flowering tree we've seen this spring.  We imagine the trees will soon be spectacular, judging by all the apple and other fruit trees that were bearing fruit last fall!!  

We saw this unusual flowering tree in the town square area - the top part of the tree was budding out with leaves, and the bottom half had branches which drooped more like a weeping willow, and those hanging branches were covered in these lovely lilac colored blooms.  And it was just outside a flower shop, so it was really a pretty scene!  

More flowers bursting with color in the sunshine, in the town square area. 

I thought I heard live music, so we headed towards it and discovered this accordion player.  So we decided to just sit on a nearby park bench for a little while and soak up the sun while people watching.  The hustle-bustle of people being outside walking is always amazing to us, and with the weather so nice, it seemed like the entire town was there!  Families with small children and strollers, older folks with canes, people on bicycles, dogs on leashes, and many, many people walking --- with ice cream cones, with brief cases, with grocery bags, with back-packs --- wearing shorts and tank tops, jeans, business attire, and everything in between!!   And we were listening to live music in the background the whole time!  

Well, while we were sitting there on the bench, the guy running this little stand came up and spoke to us in Slovak, and without waiting for a response, he started heading the other way and waving to us.  From the few words I understood, I was pretty sure he wanted us to watch his stand for him just for a few minutes while he went somewhere, so I just smiled and said, "Ano" (= yes!!)   So here I am monitoring the candy stand!!  :-) 

When he came back, he told us to wait, then made us some cotton candy, Slovak style!   We tried to pay for it, but he wouldn't let us.  He made it fresh - there was none of that nasty, granular, pre-made bagged stuff they sometimes sell in the U.S.  

This guy's spun sugar definitely has a different texture than American cotton candy.  It is much finer and more delicate, and it isn't so overly sugary sweet either.  It was amazingly light and airy!  While he was gone, we just shook our heads in amazement that here we were, watching over a candy stand in Slovakia for five minutes.  We must have looked trustworthy!!  :-)  

The other big news for the week was that there were TWO letters in two days waiting in our mailbox at the flat!!  Tim always checks the mailbox as we come in, and sometimes he teases me, as if there might actually be mail for us instead of just junk flyers and advertisements.  But the past two days he was truthful, and we were really excited about letters from Ankeny and Boone!!  Curran's butterfly drawing is now on our refrigerator, and we have photos from days gone by of Tim's golf buddies!     :-)   

And in just a month, we'll be winging our way back to Iowa for a few days to celebrate Beth's graduation from DMU as a physician assistant!!  It will be great to see family and friends, even very briefly!  Hopefully by then, Iowa will be having warm, beautiful spring weather too.   :-)