A Weekend in a Willage

Greetings all! I have been aching to update my blog with what has been new in the last few weeks, but I was waiting for photos to do so (I am not good at taking photos myself, so I have to rely on others, imagine that).

Two weekends ago, I went with three other friends - Amy, Kendra, Sonja - to Tisovec (pronounced "tee-so-vits") for the weekend to visit other Americans - Eric and Carsten. Eric was my roommate during training in August. Tisovec is a small village in the middle of Slovakia. Slovaks have trouble saying "v's" at the beginning of sentences, so they say "w's." It sounds like something Bugs Bunny would say. "We went to a wittle willage."

To get to Tisovec, we had to go on a three and a half hour bus ride and then another hour and a half bus trip. Getting there wasn't a bad as getting off. Going back was a straight five hour bus trip, no bathrooms.

We arrived sometime around 10 p.m. in Tisovec and had to wait for Eric and Carsten to pick us up. We had no idea where we were or where we were going. We thought that maybe if we walked a feet or two we'd get lost because Tisovec is so small.

The school in Tisovec is quite new, just over ten years old. It is much nice than our school in Bratislava. We became nearly jealous of their school. It had new desks, new chairs, and a beautiful view from the window. Nevertheless, our school has one thing that they lack in Tisovec - bathroom walls.

We visited their school Saturday then went on a glorious hike above the city. Tisovec is surrounded by hills, so the hike and the view was simplying amazing.

We hiked around for about 4 or 5 hours. It was a nice easy hike for the first 2 and a half hours. Then the hike went somewhere I didn't want to go.

Carsten, a very outdoorsy guy, led us around atop of these huge rocks above the hills. I began to wonder when I signed up for rock climbing. I just kept thinking that I had to stay very close to the ground and take no risks.

The picture on the right shows my demeanor quite well. Everyone looks fairly happy. Carsten, the first person, couldn't be happier. Me, I take after my mother, I couldn't wait for the end.

Later on the hike we were walking down a slope which was raised on both sides of it like a half-pipe. The slope was quite slippery. It was covered in wet leaves. Everyone else had nice hiking boots while I had my trusty tennies. For those of you who don't know, my body has no brakes. My knees have trouble with pressure. It is very difficult for me to stop my momenteum. So, while walking down the hill, I slipped a little and my legs started moving a little faster and I couldn't slow down. I was at the back of the pack as the happened, so I passed others as I began unintentionally running. It felt like skiing. All I could do was yell, "Move out of the way. I got no brakes." Realizing that a fall would cause quite a number of bruises if not breaks, I started banking left and right. I was running downhill from the left to the right until I could jump onto a tree.

The picture on the right captures the scene very well. Kendra had time to take a photo of me hugging my new best friend in the upper left hand corner of the tree. Kendra and Amy thought it was quite funny. I'm sure it was hilarious.

Anyway, that about captures the weekend. We left Sunday morning to return to Bratislava refreshed by the fresh air and good times with friends.