Parents’ Visit: Slovakia
After about four hours of driving out of Romania, we arrived in Kosice, the second biggest city in Slovakia. It is a beautiful city with a huge downtown and a beautiful church right in the center. The church also has a little brother church next to it. Once while Burke was staggering along taking photos from half a block back he met a friend. His new friend caught up to us all and met my family and showed us part of the city.
Big Church, Little Church
Our second evening in Kosice we partook in the holiday activities. It was basically the equivalent of All Saints Day, where everyone goes to the cemetaries in quiet honor of their loved ones. They bring candles and incredible flower arrangements to decorate the graves and memorials. At the enterance of the cemetary was a huge cross with a breathtaking amount of candles and flowers surrounding it. The site was so beautiful and moving.
DT Kosice
The final day of our holiday from school was spent at Spis Castle. It is one of the biggest castles in Slovakia and all of Eastern Europe.
Spis Castle
B+L top of Spis Castle
Once back in Banska Bystrica we got resettled into seminormal life. My parents generously came back to my English lesson and shared their opinions on the country and once again were able to help some Slovaks practice their English. They also stopped in at school a few times. I introduced them to some of the kids at school who were of course so nervous to speak to them. One fourth grader Danielka really surprised me with her desire to speak to them despite being so nervous. She did a great job though. To further the English themed days, we played multiple games of scrabble. I think overall I prevailed so if anyone wants a challenge, all you have to do is fly to Slovakia and it’s on.
Approaching the High Tatras
On several occasions we all experienced Nici’s wrath when no one wants to play with him between the hours of 3 and 6 am. Scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch.
Mom put all of their "stuff we'll use everyday" stuff in this basket. Clearly Nici had some objections to that.
Joan:
You have a good memory of what days we did what activities. I wish I had kept a diary. Burke’s tagalong friend was with us for hours, pointing out sites and interesting buildings. I think he had a great time acting as our tour guide!
Doug:
Kosice, the city, another beautiful “centrum” (downtown, old town mall- closed street, millions of paver stones).
Burke’s new friend and I got acquainted when I dropped out of shopping in one of the bigger department stores on the centrum. He had been to the U.S., but now I forget where and why. He said his father had engineered the displaying of an archeological dig right under the mall/centrum. He went on to say he was a student at the university on the mall, but he was no younger than 40 years. (Of course, I say I’ve been a junior at Wright State for 35 years–so no better.) He did offer to buy me a beer. But I declined.
We all had an unspoken looming fear–based on not knowing whether our friend was an asset or a liability. This grew acute when he reunited with us after our lunch break. Before lunch I thought he’d made reference to being Jewish so when we were in the department store, I asked about the name Schindler on the escalator, guessing that was the Schindler’s List industialist who’s list saved many Jews from the Nazi death camps. Our friend didn’t seem to get it until I pointed to the name. Then later, after lunch, he wanted to show us four synogogues. We took in one that was within a couple of blocks of the restaurant, but we were out of time then and bid our friend fairwell.
Spis ? Castle–huge. And I can see why it was never overtaken. It was quite a steep walk up to the castle. If I’d been lugging a weapon up the hill, I couldn’t have lifted it when I got to the castle let alone after having another ordeal of some how getting in. Of course, paying an admission fee was definitely the easiest way to breach the stone walls.