Friday was full of the normal school activities, plus an extra trip walking to an office in the town center to have our signatures notarized for our application for next year's work visas. Friday evening was also normal - volleyball for us both, basketball for Tim, and grocery shopping for me.
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| I've mentioned it before, but our primary school is presently housed in a rented building. An old communist era army barracks on the lot adjacent to our H.S. athletic field is now being renovated for the primary school to move into. The workers are finishing up the new red tile roof, with many skylights! |
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| This is the art on the side of the building that is being covered up by the styrofoam insulation, which will be then covered with a layer of cement/plaster, and then painted. We've watched this process occur on some blocks of flats, and it's interesting walking by our future school every day on the way to and from lunch, noticing the progress being made close-up! |
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| Saturday morning Tim left early for another of the school basketball tournaments. About mid-morning I decided to stop by and watch for a little bit, for the first time. |
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| The games are 4-on-4, and the teacher team didn't have any subs, but Tim is in really good shape, so he was usually the first one up and down the court, and he made lots of points while I was there! His jumper is still golden and he can drive on the younguns! |
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| I got lucky with my timing, because the game I saw happened to be against our H.S. team, and all 4 of the guys are in my sections of classes. So it was good I could be there to support my students, even though the teacher team prevailed!! ;-) |
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| My students, Tomás and Tomás, Jakub in the distance, and Marek under the basket. :-) It was such fun watching them play!! |
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| After the basketball tournament, we had a quick lunch at home, then headed out for a bike ride on a beautiful summer-like afternoon. The flowers on the town square are beautiful now, so of course we headed that way first. |
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| We're loving the lilac blooms this spring. The fragrance is heavenly as we walk or bike past the bushes full of blossoms - from white to lilac to dark purple varieties! |
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| There was a Saturday afternoon wedding at the church on the square! Such a perfect day for wedding photos! :-) |
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| We decided to head east to Okoličné, because when we went to Janka's house for the lasagne dinner, we had gotten glimpses of the area and wanted to return. There were many beautiful gardens in the village, and we stopped by this stream that flows into the Vah River behind the village. (It's technically part of L.M., but a distinct neighborhood.) |
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| We headed along a bike path to see where it led, and we discovered we were in Podbreziny, where we've been several times by car or bus. Lo and behold, we spotted Zuzka on the other side of the creek, so we crossed a bridge to say hi! Tim invited us for cakes in honor of Mothers' Day, which we enjoyed on an outdoor table. (The "White Russian" cake was fabulous, by the way!!!) |
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| While we were sitting on the terrace enjoying our cakes, Erik and Miška happened to be walking by. I had to take this picture when I saw the guys were each wearing a shirt from the other's native country!! (Especially with the HUGE ice hockey game coming up on May 14 between Slovakia and the U.S.A. in the world championships!) Since the weather was so nice, it seemed like everyone in Podbreziny was out walking, so we ended up seeing several other friends, colleagues, and students while we were there. :-) |
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| This is the bike path to Podbreziny, along a picturesque creek. So pretty! (The translation is "under the birch trees") |
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| Enjoying our bike ride views! |
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| More flowering trees along the town center, next to the city hall. |
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| Sunday was Mother's Day, and Tim continued his tradition of serving me a delicious and visually beautiful 'breakfast in bed'!! He's a keeper - just in case there was any doubt! |
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| At church, there was a special Mother's Day theme, starting with kids reciting poems and other sentimental readings about mothers. They were darling!! They also sang a song, then presented their mothers with a flower afterwards. |
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| Zuzka had invited us to go to another famous tourist spot on Sunday afternoon, rain or shine, and it was raining, but we had umbrellas!! :-) She drove us to Vlkolínec, which is a historic village where time stands still and some people still live in old, old houses that were typical for this region a century or more ago. |
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| Some of the houses serve as a museum with antiques that have been used fairly recently. People lived in this house until the 1980's. |
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| This is a life-sized nativity scene, which is very typical of the wood carving that is traditional in Slovakia. |
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| The village of Vlkolínec is nestled into the mountains, and it's difficult to reach by bus, so that's why Zuzka offered to drive us there! Despite the rain and chilly temps, there were other tourists visiting as well. |
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| This is a bell tower from the 1700's, again typical of this region. The wood shingles were very common, as the people living in the mountains had lots of time to make shingles during the long winter months! |
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| The village church also had the wooden shingles. To the right, behind the stone wall, is the cemetery where we heard a cuckoo bird calling. We've never heard one before, and it was astonishing how much it sounded like a cuckoo clock! It just went on and on and on! |
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| There were many wooden carvings throughout the village, and most of the houses were very brightly colored like these. |
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| We hiked up the hill beyond the village a little ways to take in the mountain views and the village below us. The rain had even stopped by then. :-) |
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| It started misting again as we were leaving, so this isn't very clear, but some of the steep hillsides were terraced for growing crops. |
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| Sunday night Tim took me out for Mother's Day supper -- at Good Mood Pizza -- our new favorite pizza place which was recommended by my students! Slovakia was playing Russian in world cup ice hockey, so the place was full of fans watching the game. We just may have stopped on the way home later for some Mother's Day zmrzlina too!! :-) |
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| On Monday, we met Pat'ka at the train station bright and early to head for the immigration police office in Žilina. It was cold and rainy again, unfortunately, but the good news is that our applications were both stamped and accepted on our first attempt this time! Photos and fingerprints - done too! Evidently getting a work visa renewal is not as difficult as applying the first time. So now we'll just wait for a call in a month or so, then go pick up our new work visas, hopefully by the end of June!! |
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| Last fall, we were afraid of taking any photos at the foreign police office, because of how intimidating it looks with all the bars and locked doors. We didn't want to get arrested for illegal photography before we even got a visa. So this is Tim's "serious" face this time!! |
Tuesday was a BIG day at school because the U.S. vs. Slovakia hockey match was being played at 11:15. We joined our classes that period with a couple of other teachers' classes in the auditorium to watch the game online on a big projection screen. Of course it was perfectly justifiable in our curriculum --- one of the Maturita topics is Sports/Leisure, and we told our students they had to talk in English the whole time, so it was great for our conversation classes!! :-) Since we don't follow hockey at all at home, we were caught up in the excitement for the Slovak team, and I was cheering right along with the kids as Slovakia scored the first two quick goals and proceeded to beat the heavily favored American team 4-1 to advance beyond pool play. The U.S. had already qualified, so it's great that both teams will continue playing!!
Tuesday night I baked another couple batches of cookies, so we could take them to school for more of our students. I'm checking off the list, and I only have 3 classes left to treat with American baked goods. The students were surprised and very appreciative! Tuesday was also a BIG day because Paul turned 27 - WOW - where has the time gone?? We did get to IM with him a while on Skype, but couldn't talk because he was at work. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAUL!!
Today (Wed.) it finally started warming up again after a few really chilly days. We got the extra bed moved out of the spare bedroom finally, so there will be room for our guests to stay next month! The custodian and IT guy from school helped load it onto a trailer. :-) After school, we were tempted to go outside for a bike ride to enjoy the weather, but in the end, we decided to catch up on a lot of stuff that needed doing since we've been gone so much lately --- housecleaning, laundry, emails, and now the blog! So now I'm caught up. Sorry you regular readers had to wait so long between posts!! Thanks for reading and sharing our adventure and our mission!! We appreciate your prayers, emails, and comments! God bless!!
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