Hiking Club trips

At the beginning of the year, Adam and I got invited to join the school's hiking club, for a walk to the top of a mountain in the Western Tatras. We hiked to the top of Baranec, which was long, but beautiful!!!! This is a picture of all of us at the top. A good majority of the students in this picture are mine. Anyways, on the way up, I had an interesting chat with Nadja, who doesn't speak much English. She taught me, čučoriedki (blueberries) and brusnica (cranberries) because they grow naturally up in the mountains, and we were eating them to our hearts content. Our group also encountered a creepy group of Bratislava tourists. One of them, Tibor, "fell in love with me", and the rest of them stalked us girls and kept taking our pictures while we were hiking. Tibor was actually gay, but he wouldn't admit it to himself. It makes for some interesting stories, and Domenika, Ala, Vlad'a and I have gotten a few good laughs out of the incident.

The Rest of Prague

So...(this is how I like to start every sentence) Prague was an awesome adventure!!! Adam, the other American lector, our Slovak teacher friend, Terka, and I all went to Prague. Terka wanted to visit her brother Rastjo (aka Rusty), and of course Adam and I wanted to experience the city. I was REALLY looking forward to this trip because I wouldn't be with homesick girls, who missed their boyfriends. It was everything I could've hoped for and more! The weather wasn't fantastic, but it was nice, a little cold, but nice. We saw so much while we were there. We saw the castle, the golden lane (where Kafka lived), the many churches, Orloj the clock tower, and many various museums. Yes mom and dad, you would've been proud of me. I spent my vacation visiting churches and museums! We also took a day and went to Terezin or Theresienstadt. It is a town with quite a bit of history. It's mostly famous for the ghetto that was there during WWII. Visiting this place was so interesting because you could feel the sadness of what happened there, but it wasn't a feeling of despair. In the museums I learned about how Jewish culture flourished in the ghetto, even through the atrocities suffered by the people. After visiting the town, I didn't feel upset and bothered like I had after visiting Dachau and Buchenwald. It was more a feeling of reverence towards the people.

The rest of Prague was great!!! We ate at Subway and had great Chinese food, which tasted so good!!!!! We also got to hang out with Slovaks and Czechs, which was great fun! I would recommend it any day!