Pictures from Martin

Here are the photos from our trip to the outdoor National Slovak Museum yesterday, which for some reason wouldn't load last night.    :-)

This was a carriage house, and you can't really tell the perspective, but the door is over 12 feet high and can accommodate large horse-drawn carriages.  Carriages, horses, and travelers could all be lodged overnight.

These beautifully painted wood walls were in a priest's summer garden house.

This is a bell tower near a church

House of a wealthy family from the Liptovsky region

More Liptovsky houses - these were more common

These sheep all had bells around their necks, and the sounds were so melodious!  

Tim and Jana having fun!

This one-room schoolhouse reminded us of Iowa ones!

I was fascinated by this fence - hard to see in this photo 

Jana's favorite place to swim - the water is so clear and blue!!
It was crowded on such a hot day. 

The view of Liptovsky Mikulas and the lake from high on a hill above the town

A village on the other side of the hill

The High Tatras

I couldn't resist taking this picture of Jana and her mother returning to their car after our lovely time at the
outdoor restaurant table, enjoying new Slovak treats and friends!!

Today we got to school and started working on our lesson plans for the first day of school next week.  Soon we were fetched to go get some paperwork signed concerning our visa applications.  We walked with the school secretary and another colleague, Zuzana (like Susanna) to help translate, and went to some local authority.  That all went very smoothly.  Then we walked briskly to another office across town to find out about health insurance through the school.  We think we're already insured through the ELCA, but we'll find out for sure next week.  We ended up being late to an all-staff faculty meeting in the auditorium which was all in Slovak.  Zuzana whispered translations for us!  The dynamics were just like an American staff meeting, so we felt right at home even not understanding much.  :-)  We were also introduced and warmly welcomed.  

Lunch was at the same hotel restaurant the teachers always go to on the work days - very close to the school and quite good lunches.  Today I had red cabbage and sausage with boiled potatoes - Slovak meal - and excellent!  And Tim went with the Italian option and had penne pasta with cream sauce which was also good.    The soup today was cream of broccoli - not like ours at all - thinner consistency and very flavorful.  We are really enjoying the soups here! 

After lunch we got some more work done, then we left to help Carol (who we are replacing) move some items which she had left in our flat (where she also lived), into her new flat for the month.  She borrowed a large 2-wheeled cart from the school custodian, and that really helped.  It looked a lot like Tevye's family moving out of their village, so I was singing "Fiddler on the Roof" songs!! LOL!!  Carol's flat is only a couple of blocks away, and we took 3 trips, so now she'll have all her stuff back.  We were grateful for the elevator!!  Then we rearranged furniture in the two bedrooms a little, so now we are ready for visitors in the spare bedroom!  :-)  

For supper, we sliced the last HUGE apple from the Bratislava seminary, filled water bottles, and walked to the central part of town.  We found a little sandwich shop and ordered 2 baguette sandwiches for only 3.50 Euros total.  It turned out they were HUGE foot-longs, so we each had half and saved the rest for tomorrow.  We enjoyed our supper sitting on a bench on the square, watching the fountains and crowds of young people gathering on a Friday night.  We stopped by a gelato shop for a cone - they are only .40 Euros (.80 for 2 scoops)  - a bargain!  And so good!!  There was a live band playing on the stage in the square, and they were really good.  They seemed young, but really talented musicians - mostly a girl band.  They did about half the concert in English and half in Slovak, and we really liked the music - good old rock & roll!!  

So that was our day - tomorrow we learn to take the bus to see the famous Wooden Church.  After sleeping in, of course!!  :-)