Heading to Hurghada!!

So, after our late-night sight-seeing expedition in historic Brno, we caught the earliest bus from the train station to the airport, at 6:30 a.m.  By the time we reached our destination, we were the last remaining passengers on the bus, and we went through the sliding glass doors into the completely empty airport.  There was absolutely NO ONE there - not one other passenger, not one worker at the café, not one security worker, not one agent at the ticket counters or rental car areas - the place was completely deserted, so we were surprised it was even open!  But thankfully, the very clean restrooms were open, so we brushed our teeth, used the facilities, and then stretched out across seats in the waiting area to take a nap for a couple of hours.  About 8:30 someone started cleaning the floor, some workers came in to open the café, and gradually the place got busier.  How crazy!!  

After our Brno airport nap and breakfast we had brought from home to go with hot tea from the café, we were ready to get in line for our boarding passes.  

Ready to walk outside and board our waiting charter plane, with all the Czech travelers on their way to resorts in Hurghada.

This palm tree put us in the mood for a tropical destination!    :-) 

And away we go!!  We had really good seats a couple of rows behind first class.  

The captain was great about telling us where we were, in both Czech and English.  This is a Greek island we passed over.  

And here is the Egyptian coastline on the west edge of the Red Sea.

As we approached Hurghada, we were wondering if we had made a good choice.  The day looked cloudy, gray, and overcast, and the town seemed just as colorless and lifeless as the surrounding desert.  

The Czech tour company did a great job of greeting us after we went through Customs, and everyone was assigned to a bus for the ride to our various resorts.  The agent for our bus spoke great English and was delightful in explaining everything.  He came inside with us at the hotel and made sure everything was all fine with our check-in, and he set up appointments to visit with us on Sun., Tues., and Thurs. in our hotel lobby.  Unfortunately, it was dark by the time we arrived, but the place looked pretty nice, and we were looking forward to seeing it by daylight in the morning.  

After being a little sleep-deprived after our night in Brno, we slept very soundly that first night, then woke up eager to check out the resort outside.  Of course our first destination was the beach!!  

And we immediately knew that we had indeed made a wonderful choice for our spring break travel destination!!  The resort, the beach, and the sea were all gorgeous!!  Each and every day was certainly a 'magical' one this spring break.  

A view of the sea from our hotel room balcony.  The brown tent in the foreground was one of the specialty restaurants, the Beduin Tent, which served authentic Egyptian food.  

There were several swimming pools, and this one was just outside our room.  

Our room was on the second floor a little to the right of the picture .  When we booked the trip, I wasn't sure how nice the resort would be considering how low the price was, but our expectations were definitely exceeded!!   We think the great bargains were a result of the recent decline in tourists due to the political unrest in Egypt in past months. 

The layout of the resort as well as the vegetation, style of rooms, and atmosphere in general really reminded us of Cancun resorts.  It was very similar to Playa del Carmen, and we really felt like we were in a tropical hide-away.  

Marko, our tour company representative, was awesome all week.  

What a wonderful place to spend a week in Egypt!!  

The moon was beautiful Sunday night, but my camera couldn't quite capture it.  In person is was quite romantic!  

So that brings us up to Sunday evening, when we went to bed early to be ready for a very early wake-up call the next morning.  Excursion time to Luxor on Monday!!   

Valentine's Day Ball

Well, I'm WAY behind on the blog, and I apologize to everyone who has been checking for new posts.  It may take me a little bit to get caught up, but don't worry, there will be photos and short recaps of the last couple of weeks!  

Starting from where we left off --- after the English Olympics Feb. 10th …………….

Our school also held a Model United Nations event this week, and I was invited to observe the students in action. 

The students were representing different nations, and they all took things very seriously and did a really good job.  

The Model U.N. moderator and his assistant kept things running smoothly.  

The Lutheran and European Union flags on the front podium area at our Model U.N.  

On Wed. Feb. 12 we were invited to dinner at the home of two of our students, Cyril Fogaš and Nikola Fogašová.  Yes, they are brother and sister, and their names demonstrate the phenomenon of Slovak family names.  Almost all the girls' names have 'ová' added onto the end of their fathers' names.  It's the same for husbands and wives.  For example, my student Eva Mrázová is married to Ivan Mráz.  You may have noticed this for Slovak Olympic competitors, hockey players, tennis players, etc.  Anyway, back to the dinner, we had a lovely time visiting with the family, ate some delicious gulaš (goulash), bread, and later some cakes, and thoroughly enjoyed meeting some interesting new people.  (I forgot to bring the camera though - sorry!)    :-(

Then on Thursday after school we finalized our spring break trip plans.  There had been a lot of ups and downs in the planning all week - the first trip we decided on was cancelled - the next choice was full (probably with others from the cancelled charter!) - and finally our sweet and helpful travel agents found a wonderful bargain-priced, last-minute package deal with flights and an all-inclusive resort, leaving out of Brno in the Czech Republic.   We were so excited to find such a good deal to Hurghada, Egypt for a week at the beach on the Red Sea!!  

My sneaky husband managed to have this bouquet of roses waiting for me on our kitchen table when we got home from school on Thursday!!  He made a stealth trip to the florist, home, and back to school again, all while I was teaching an after-school lesson in my office.   Tim figured since we'd be leaving on our trip Friday, I could enjoy the roses longer if he got them a day early.  The chocolate bar Valentine is from my two wonderful adult students, dear friends Eva and Tana.   :-)  

Friday was a crazy day at the primary school.  They were celebrating "Carnival" (Karneval), like in Venice or Rio or New Orleans, I guess, but elementary-school style!  And because it was the last day before spring break, everyone really had a lot of fun with it.  

Music and laughter echoed in the hallways starting at the beginning of 1st period.  They were all dancing in this classroom! 

All the younger kids were wearing costumes just like at an American Halloween party (Oops - now the P.C. term is "Fall Party" - right??  LOL!!)  

Even the teachers got in on the fun, wearing fun costumes too!!  I hope Saška won't mind me sharing her humorous story.  She's on the right, the primary school principal, and she was dressed nicely in a professional looking dress and boots - NOT in costume.  Well, one student asked her if she had dressed up as an Indian grandmother!!!  YIKES!!  She often wears nice jeans and a dressy jacket to school, so she wasn't as offended about the 'costume' comment as she was about the 'grandmother' part!!  LOL!!  

These three teachers were hamming it up too --- I think my favorite costume of all  (besides Saška's indianská babička) was Zuzka in the center ---- she claimed to be 'Barbie, 30 years later' --- HAHAHA!!  

Then, Friday night was our school benefit Ball, a very formal affair!  We never take taxicabs, but since I was in heels and a long dress, we asked Zuzana to call a taxi for us just this once.  Well, instead, she surprised us by appearing at our door, and she chaffered us to the ball in her own personal limousine!  :-)    Thanks, Zuzka!!  

Our Headmistress, Janka, and her husband, Roman, welcomed everyone to the Ball with a toast as we arrived at the House of Culture.  

Erik was again the Master of Ceremonies at the Ball, along with Dominika, who is one of Tim's students.  

The program started out with a dramatic reading accompanied by music.  

Next, our choral group of H.S. students and staff from both the primary and secondary schools performed Sandi Patti's "Love in Any Language".  It has lyrics that were especially appropriate for a bilingual school in Slovakia with American lectors!  Here is a link to a YouTube version of the song, but it's not us singing, obviously.  I hope to add a photo later of our group performing, taken by someone else in the audience, because I forgot to ask someone to take a picture with our camera.  It was really meaningful to sing with our students and colleagues again at this year's Ball!!  

Love in Any Language  (At the beginning, we changed the words to sing "I Love You" in Slovak and Polish instead of the really difficult one after the Russian!)

My office partner, Peter (at right, playing bass guitar), worked with this talented group of students to prepare an awesome song.  The lead singer, Terezka, is Saška's daughter.

This group of folk musicians did a terrific job of entertaining, first during the buffet dinner, and later on stage.  

The food tables were beautiful, and everything we tried was delicious.  There were also tables of hot foods being served by the caterers.  

These were the cutest little stuffed tomatoes I've ever seen!!   :-)

The Master of Ceremonies, Erik, and Tim --- guys in ties, volleyball teammates, basketball buddies, colleagues, and two good friends!!  

There was more entertainment after dinner, including our student Juraj, the professional ballroom dancing competitor and his partner.  I took about 15 pictures of them, trying to get a good one, but they were moving too quickly.  Trust me, they were amazing!!  

The huge pile of raffle prizes.  We left before the drawing, but Saška took our tickets and claimed our prize for us - a gift bag with a couple of T-shirts, a bottle of wine, a flash drive, and a Parker pen.  

A fun night at the ball!!  After all the entertainment, we did get out on the dance floor a while before we had to leave.  

We felt a little like Cinderella at the Ball, because we had to leave early this year.  Our charter flight with the Czech tour company was leaving Saturday morning, so we had to travel there during the night.  We did take a taxi home from the Ball, not a pumpkin coach, and then we changed clothes and walked to the train station (1/2 block away).  The 11:15 train took us to Ružomberok by 11:35, where we waited an extra half hour for our 11:55 express bus to Brno.  We slept on the bus and arrived around 4:00 a.m.  The travel agent said the local buses to the airport started at 4:00, but it turns out NOT on Saturdays!  The first bus wasn't until 6:30, so we were stuck in downtown Brno for a while.  

So, why not go sight-seeing, rolling our suitcases along behind us??   We decided to just head up towards the well-lit cathedral we could see on top of a nearby hill.  This is an enormous sculpture in the middle of a big square on the way through old Brno.  

The cathedral is completely surrounded by buildings, so all our views were very close-up.  Of course nothing was open, so we could only look from outside, but it was impressive!  

The front entrance to the cathedral.  (I couldn't get far enough away to get the whole front in the picture!)  I looked it up on the internet, and it's the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul.  

This tower was also all lit up, so we headed there next.  What an adventure wandering around Brno in the dark, in the wee hours of the morning!!  :-) 

This is the bottom part of the building with the tower from the previous picture.  It looked to us like a town hall, and Google later confirmed that it is the Old Town Hall building.  

As we walked back towards the train station, we saw these handy-dandy Maturita test prep books in a bookstore window.  Evidently the Czech students have the same type of state exams as our Slovak students do, in order to graduate from high school.

The Christmas street decorations were still up in downtown Brno.  And there were a surprising number of people out and about too.  Some were groups who had obviously been in bars most of the night, some were just people quietly walking through the streets, we saw several police cars and taxis checking us out, and there were quite a few workers cleaning the sidewalks and streets as well.  It was an interesting and novel experience sight-seeing between 4:00 and 6:30 a.m., but one we are not likely to repeat!!  ;-)  

And that's it for the first 'catch-up' installment of the blog.  Our Valentine's Day ended as we heard the church bells chime midnight while we waited outside a deserted Ružomberok bus station, and the night continued as we explored Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic.  The 2014 Olson spring break adventure is ……..….  'to be continued' …………………..

English Competitions

Last Thursday, we met our five Speaker's Corner competitors at the train station just before 7:00 a.m. for our trip to Žilina.  We had been working individually with all these girls for about a month, and they all did a terrific job of preparing for this public speaking competition.  

Patrice, Maria, Katarina, Dada (Daniela), and Karin.  (A sixth student, Jana, rode to Žilina with her father, who shuttled her back and forth between Speaker's Corner and another competition she was in the same day.)

 Our travels went smoothly, and we actually ran into our colleague, Matt (teaching in Martin) with his students on the bus from the train station to the school.  

In Žilina, we had a mini-reunion with the American lectors from Bratislava (Sue) and Martin (Matt).  After the semi-final round of competition, ten finalists were announced, and six of the ten were students from our three Lutheran schools!!  And this was a national level competition, with students from the entire country, so we were all really pleased with our kids' efforts.  

Our school, EGJT, had three finalists this year, the most of any school entered.  We ended up with a second place and two third place winners.  It was an exciting day!!     :-)  

Friday after school we visited a local travel agent to check on 'last-minute' travel deals for our upcoming spring break.  We had sort of hoped to do a little cross-country and/or downhill skiing right here in Liptovský Mikuláš during our week off of school, but since the weather hasn't cooperated, and no snow is in the forecast for next week, we decided to explore some other options.  We've heard that the last-minute package deals from here can be really good, so we just asked the travel agent about great prices for some warm destination.  We'll see where we end up going!!

Then Friday evening Tim played basketball with the guys while I stayed home and watched the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics.  It was great fun, since I'm such an Olympics junkie!!  (And Sunday afternoon we were excited about the Slovak gold medal in women's biathlon!!)  The rest of the weekend was pretty low-keyed, sleeping in on Saturday, going for a walk in the spring-like weather, getting housework and laundry done, blogging, skyping, and even playing some Yahtzee and Greed at the kitchen table.  Sunday after church we stopped for tea at a coffee shop with Zuzana, and enjoyed another walk in the warm sunshine.  

Monday we met at the train station for the same early train to Žilina, then transferred to another train to Čadca, up in the NW part of Slovakia, near the Polish/Czech border.  We went with Katka (the English Dept. chair) and our four student entries in the English Olympics.  This competition involves written testing in grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and a listening section.  The oral part of the test includes a role play situation and a picture description.  As native speakers, we were invited to read aloud the listening portions of the tests and be the interlocutors for the role-play.  (In other words, act out the other role with the students being tested.)  We did the same thing last year, so it was nice heading into both Speaker's Corner and English Olympics knowing what to expect this time around!   

On the train ride --- Katarina, Zuzana, Jakub, Molly, and our colleague Katka.  There was actually some sunshine and blue sky over the snow-covered mountains, providing us some beautiful views out the train window.

Poor Jacob had to deal with all these women all day long!!  :-)  

There were a total of five native speakers there to help with the competition, and we were kept busy going between the eight centers reading and role-playing, while the students were being tested all morning.  After a nice lunch in the school cafeteria, the results were announced in each center.  

Zuzana was awarded first place in her division!!  YAY!!  

Zuzka with her 1st place certificate and her prize - ironically, "The Book Thief", which is the movie we saw with Zuzka and her mother a couple weeks ago!!  

And then we went to Katarina's center, and she had just been awarded first place in her division, and was given the same book for her prize!!   YAY!!!  

We are so proud of ALL our competitors, and very excited to see these girls win their divisions and move on to the national competition in Bratislava later!!  

We walked back to the train station on a sunny afternoon and went by this odd bronze fish-submarine sculpture on a fountain!  

We see these train crossing signs fairly often, but I've never gotten a photo of one before. The kids were good sports about all my announcements of "O.K. - photo op - smile!!"
And it gave Tim a break from being in front of the camera!  LOL!!       :-)

We went to volleyball tonight and had a really fun time playing 4-on-4.  It was a good workout with close-scoring games and good-natured competitive spirit.  Now we're watching the Olympics again - just like we would be at home except the announcers are speaking Czech again - we have the TV on most any time we're home to see how the games are going.  

And we're really fired up about a slopestyle skier from Liptovský Mikuláš who will be competing for Slovakia tomorrow.  Her name is Zuzana Stromková, and she's the sister of our Slovak daughter Janka's boyfriend.  (Did you get that?)  :-)   So, everyone please cheer for her!!  She has been doing really well in World Cup competitions in Europe, the U.S. and New Zealand, so we are hoping she'll be awesome at Sochi too!!   GO ZUZANA!!!