Kendra and Košice

Our week at school was busy with normal routines as well as extra preparations for two upcoming events - "Speaker's Corner" (we are practicing with our six student entries for this public speaking competition next week in Žilina), and the song I'm directing for the school ball on Valentine's Day (which I'm having separate rehearsals for, at the primary and secondary schools.)  Our after-school and evening activities were normal as well, except that we were informed that church choir won't start up again until mid-February, which is kind of nice to not be so rushed on Mondays for a while.  

We took the day off on Friday, so that we could get to the airport in Košice (the 2nd biggest city in Slovakia, in the eastern part of the country) to meet Kendra's flight at 2:05.  It worked out well for us to go visit our Global Missions colleague at his Lutheran high school in Košice ahead of time.  Our pastor was kind enough to let us borrow the church car for the weekend, which really helped out a lot!!  

"A Mighty Fortress" greeted us in the entry-way into the school!  Someone came out to meet us right away and took us in to see the principal's secretary, who made us some hot tea while we waited for the principal to arrive.  We visited for a while, then we were taken on a tour of their facilities.  

This is a science classroom that looked pretty high-tech and modern. 

There is a slight shortage of classrooms when the language classes split in half for conversation classes, so this class met in a library area with their American lector, A.J., who we had met last spring in Prešov.  

Their large workroom for 24 teachers reminded us of our old one.  We met some of the teachers, and they are really friendly and nice.  

Next we went into a chemistry classroom, where there was a college professor as a guest lecturer.  He was giving a demonstration using dry ice - very interesting!  

Super-cooling some objects with liquid nitrogen.  

We were really envious of this language lab for conversation classes.  Our students have to set up their desks into a u-shape for each class, and we have to carry CD players around to the classrooms for listening exercises, so this would be great!  

There is even a music room where the choir rehearses, they have music classes, and it's all decorated with photos from concerts and tours involving student ensembles from the school.  Nice!!  

Last but not least, we visited Jacob's classroom, where his students were giving powerpoint presentations on various U.S. geographical regions.  

After Jacob's last class for the day, we went to lunch in the school cafeteria with Jacob (at left), the principal (on the right), and an assistant principal who heads up the English department.  It was great getting to see Jacob in action, and he's obviously doing a great job there.  We were just sorry to cut our visit fairly short!  

We picked up Kendra at the airport, then returned to Liptovský Mikuláš for a kapustnica (sauerkraut soup) party at a colleague's flat in a nearby village.  These five teachers are office partners, and they had wanted to get together for a traditional pre-Christmas party, but there was no time in December, so it was moved to this weekend!  It just happened to be Tim's "Names Day" on Friday, so they presented him with some candy and many good wishes before we started eating.  

It was a nice party for the eight of us - good food, good conversation, and good fun!
(Left to right:  Tim, Kendra, Daša, Laura, Miro, Eva, and Vierka)

On Saturday morning, we took Kendra to see the wooden church at Svätý Križ.  The lady giving the tour let me take a couple of pictures inside, which isn't usually allowed.  These are painted panels on the balcony --- one with my initials on it!   

And this is the main altar of the church - very old and beautiful!  

Next we headed to NE Slovakia to see a castle we've never been to before, L'ubovńa Hrad.  The roads got progressively worse during the morning due to the snow, but Tim is a veteran Iowa winter driver, so it was no problem!  

It was pretty cold too, though nothing like the polar vortex conditions in the Midwest!  We bundled Kendra up with an extra coat, scarf, hat and gloves to keep her warm!  

No, Tim did NOT carve our initials inside a heart on the wall of the castle tower ---- someone else had already done it!!  LOL!! 

This castle, like others we've seen in Slovakia, dates back to the 12th century and has been added onto during different time periods and in various architectural styles.  It was of course used for defensive purposes first, and then much later as a hunting lodge.  

It was snowing too much to see views in the far distance, but even the castle below was pretty to see.  And from this window we should have been able to see the mountain we climbed last fall - "The Three Crowns" - just across the Polish border.  

More snow-covered scenery below the castle.  

There were only a few other brave souls out in the elements visiting the castle that day!  

We stopped at a nearby salaš/restaurant for lunch after hiking around the castle and its grounds.  The hot soup, bryndzové halušky, and pirohy were all delicious!  (We wanted Kendra to taste the Slovak national dish for sure!)

On the way back from L'ubovńa, we saw this stork's nest atop a fire station.  

It's closed during the winter, so we only saw it from the road, but Spiš Castle is the largest castle in Slovakia --- very impressive!  

We were really disappointed that the weather was so overcast, because we never got to show Kendra 'our' beautiful mountains.  We just kept pointing out where the mountains WOULD be, if the clouds weren't in the way!!  So we eliminated our hike up into the mountains near Hrebienok due to all the snow.  Saturday night we did walk around the centrum here in L.M. and even went inside the catholic church for a peek.  Later we had fun skyping with Kendra's parents, Tom and Carol, back in Bettendorf, Iowa.  

On Sunday morning, we got up really early to drive to Košice through the snow.  I found a service online which listed a congregation providing an English translator, so we went there for a 9:30 service.  It was very much like an American contemporary service with guitars and praise music, a few hymns, scripture readings, as well as the sermon.  The translation was done in a sound booth in the balcony, and we heard it through headphones.  It worked well that way.

After church, we headed out to see some of the sights in Košice, starting with this Renaissance bell tower.  

Next we went to St. Elizabeth cathedral, which is the biggest cathedral in Slovakia.  

The inside is very impressive - tall and Gothic!!  We took Kendra out for one last lunch in Slovakia, and we even located the little restaurant we liked so well when we were here for an overnight trip just after New Year's last year!  The only unfortunate thing was that the skies never did clear enough for Kendra to see the mountains on the drive over.    :-(

So here are some pictures I took on the way home to L.M. after seeing Kendra off through security at the Košice airport.  (Just to prove to Kendra that we do indeed have mountains here in Slovakia!)  

Sunset out the car window! 

A sunset and a church steeple!!  :-)  

More mountains in the distance on our drive home - beautiful!!  

After we got home Sunday evening, I washed sheets and towels, then made some cookies to take to the staff at school on Monday in honor of Tim's 'names day' last Friday when we were gone.  It was so much fun to have Kendra here to get a feel for our 'home away from home' here in Slovakia!    :-)

The Week in Review

What a week we've had!  It's been very busy at school, and we've put in a lot of long days, going in early for meetings or rehearsals, and staying late getting work done.  Three days this week (two for Tim), we've been involved with competitions instead of teaching our classes, which is kind of a double-whammy.  For those days, we lost all our preparation time during school, plus we had to spend a lot more time preparing for subs than if we were just getting ready to teach our classes ourselves.  On top of that, for some reason, our semester grades were due on Friday, even though the semester doesn't end until Jan. 31.  But, the week is behind us, and we are doing fine after a restful weekend!  

Monday was the Speaker's Corner competition at our school, which we are in charge of.  We heard some good speeches, and we'll now begin preparing the winners for the next round of competition in Žilina on Feb. 6.  Wednesday I went with Saška and two primary school students to the area English Olympics competition, where I was the native speaker to help with the oral parts of the testing.  I read aloud the listening sections for each of the three levels, and then I did role-plays with all the students.  In one of my scenarios, I was a parent who had cut off the electricity in my teen's bedroom because he/she kept playing music too loudly.  I actually had one student yell at me, "I HATE YOU, Mom!!", which was great!!  LOL!!   Then Thursday, Tim and I both did the same thing for a secondary level English Olympics area competition that was hosted at our school.  It's fun seeing how kids from our school stack up against kids from other schools --- ours are super!!  :-)

The primary school competition day went by really quickly, and this is the only picture I got.  I was just coming into another room to read the listening section out loud, as these students were finishing up the written grammar section.  

In the evenings, we gave some lessons and played some volleyball - it was great seeing our friends again after Christmas break.  Tim played basketball on Friday night, and the guys were glad to have him back.  Saturday, we went on a long walk and got a lot done around the flat - like washing sheets, towels, and rugs, and baking some cookies too.  

But today was the first truly blog-worthy day since we've been back.  Lots of photos coming……………

We went to church at 9:00, and Zuzana was there to translate.  She had gotten the scripture verses from the pastor ahead of time too, which was helpful!  For the first time in our experience here, they eliminated a hymn and cut the service short, so that anyone who wanted to make it to the ecumenical service at the Catholic church at 10:00 could get there on time.  So the three of us decided to at least go and check it out.  

As we approached the church, we were surprised to see a whole bunch of news media vehicles all around the church, and many people heading towards the doors.  

Zuzana had heard that the service was to be televised live, because it was a really big deal!  Wow!!  

When we got around to the front of the church, there were a bunch of official-looking cars, men in suits, and police officers all around, so we assumed there must be some V.I.P.'s inside already.  

There were people still crowded around the front door trying to get in --- mostly all the Lutherans who had just gotten out of church.  LOL!!  

We finally got inside just after the officiants all processed down the center aisle, and there were about 16 of them, including the bishops of both the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches in Slovakia sitting at the front.  The place was packed, so we finally found a place to stand in the far back corner of the church. 

That's one of our pastors giving a welcome to everyone in attendance.  (He's the one who started up the choir I direct at church, Pastor Bochnička.)  The next speaker introduced the mayor of Liptovský Mikuláš, the director of this region, and the President of Slovakia, Gašparovič!  So this was a really big deal!  

The top leaders of most, if not all, of the churches in Slovakia were taking part in the service.  This is the group that was in my camera range, but an equal number were on the other side.  In addition to those from the two major churches, the pastors were Baptist, Methodist, Brethren, Seventh-Day Adventist, Reformed, Greek Orthodox, and many others listed in Slovak.  

I took this picture just to show the circus atmosphere with all the TV cameras inside.  There were lots of cameramen plus still photographers everywhere.  The big boom camera on the left was moving up, down, and all over the place!! 

Ivan Mráz is the husband of my good friend and student, Eva.  He conducts the Catholic church choir, who sang at the service.  (He's in the black, with dark hair.)  Their son Ondrej is at the back left - a beautiful singer!  We were glad to be able to hear Ivan's group perform and lead the congregational singing as well.  They even did "How Great Thou Art" in Slovak as a choir anthem.  :-)   We got to join in singing with the congregation: "Kumbaya" and "They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love" and "In Christ There Is No East or West"  --- of course all in Slovak too.  

There was a small string ensemble from L.M. playing Purcell's Trumpet Tune for the processional and a Vivaldi concerto for the recessional.  Nice!! 

We had to duck out just a little before the end (it was an hour and a half long), to make it to our next engagement, but it was really a wonderful experience to attend this ecumenical service!  Zuzana couldn't translate every word for us, like she does at our church when we're tucked up in the balcony away from other people, because it was so packed that we would have disturbed other worshippers at this service.  But she did share quite a bit of overview, softly, and it was neat that all these different church leaders were emphasizing our one-ness in Christ and encouraging everyone to overlook differences and past grievances in order to join together to spread God's love throughout the world.  It was such an uplifting service!

When we left, I noticed these two obvious secret-service types just outside the church doors.  I couldn't resist taking this picture for our family members in close contact with the FBI!   :-)   (I told Tim and Zuzana to pose for a picture, but I'd really be focusing behind them at the presidential security guys!!  

O.K., now the real picture of Zuzana, our wonderful translator, colleague, and friend, and Tim too!   

And Zuzana took one of me as well.  

We walked home, changed clothes, and were soon picked up by Michal, one of Tim's basketball buddies, for Sunday lunch at his place.  Michal, his wife, Bibi, and daughter, Kristina, greeted us, then we went to the flat next door where his parents, Ján and Eva had the table set up.  The meal was delicious - mushroom soup for the first course, then a roast duck dinner with red cabbage, stuffing, and knedla (kind of like slices of crustless Wonder Bread), followed by yummy desserts, of course!    

Michal and his family after dinner.  The artwork is by Michal's sister and her husband.  Michal's mom sings in my choir at church!   

We asked about all these trophies in the living room and found out that Michal's father is a champion model airplane maker!  

We got to see some of his light-weight planes.

This box holds parts for about six of his planes --- notice the Slovak flag decals!!  Ján flies his planes and competes internationally all over central Europe.  

We really had a nice time visiting with Michal and his family, though there was a lot of translating throughout the meal.  He had picked us up at our flat in his car, but we ended up walking home, which was good after such a big meal.  It took about 1/2 hour, since they live in Vrbica, near the basketball gym where Tim plays.   (Vrbica is actually one of the oldest sections of Liptovský Mikuláš.)

On our walk home, we passed by the infamous Vrbica pub where Tim goes for a pivo with the guys after playing basketball every Friday night, so I just had to get a picture of it in the daylight!  :-)  

After we got home, we had about 15 minutes until it was time to be picked up again by Saška, to go for a short hike near her village of Bobrovec.  Our weather has been unseasonably warm here, and today it was about 50º F --- almost springlike!  So it's nice to get outside and enjoy the fresh air.  

It was getting towards dusk by the time we reached our destination - a really pretty waterfall up on a rocky hillside.  It was about 20 feet high.  

Our hiking group - Samuel (a family friend), Zuzka (one of our seniors), Terezka (a freshman), Tim and Saška (our primary school Principal).  

Saška and her husband Ignac have just finished remodeling their house, and everything looks really spacious and nice.  This is their new living room, where we had hot tea and cake, then played a trivia board game.  It was in Slovak, but they were super translators!  It really reminded us of our Sunday evening "Game Nights" back home in Ankeny!!  :-)  

So there you have it, our fun-filled Sunday in Slovakia!