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' …………………..