No TV!!!

I have now been in Slovakia for 7 weeks and I have not watched TV once the whole time! Proof that you can live without TV! I have been too busy to even think about it. We don't have a TV in the dorm so there hasn't been even the temptation. I have spent the evenings in much better ways: getting to know the other Trainees and learning all sorts of things about their towns, countries, and cultures; learning to cook new foods; playing games and teaching others new games; learning traditional dances; shopping at Optima together; and watching video and movies together. I will miss this atmosphere so much!

Last entry in Košice

This will be my last entry in Košice, Slovakia. Today is the last day of my internship and thus the last day that I can use the computer and internet. My internship has gone really well and I have learned so much. I am sure that I have learned even more than I realize. I will miss my co-workers and I hope that someday we will see each other again. Perhaps I can come back and visit or they can come and visit me in MN.

This weekend I plan to visit the city center some more. Saturday we plan to go to some of the museums in town. Sunday still needs to be planned but some of the options include going to the bobsled track again, walking around the city center, or going to a walking or hiking trail nearby.

On Monday I will take the 6:13am train to Budapest. I will check in at my hostel and then spend the rest of the day touring Budapest and having Gulas. On Tuesday morning I will take my three flights home via London and Chicago.

Goodbye Pali

Last night most of the IAESTE trainees said goodbye to Pali. Pali is leaving today for Vienna. He will be there about a week. Most of us are leaving within the next week so we wont see him again. Pali is such a fun guy that I am sure that none of us will forget him. He invited us all to come back next summer and have a reunion party. We'll see...

More wanders in Kosice

Yesterday afternoon we were planning to go back to the bobsledding track but we found out that the bus schedule really didn't work. Instead I spent some more time wandering around the Kosice city center. I went to St. Elizabeth's Cathedral and asked to go up the Royal Staircase inside the church. At first the woman was confused about what I wanted. Most people ask to go up the bell tower so she thought that was what I wanted too. I showed her the guide book and she understood. The other man helping with entrances came and unlocked the very small old wooden door to the bottom of the staircase for me. He waited at the bottom of the stairs while I went up and explored and took pictures. For some reason my camera wasn't cooperating and so many of the pictures are blurry.

After visiting the Royal Staircase I wandered around until about 5pm. At 5pm there were some bells ringing for a church service to begin so I followed them into a church. I wandered into a Calvinist service! I had never been to a Calvinist service before and it was interesting... oh wait, maybe interesting isn't the right word for it. The church is very plainly decorated. There were five songs that were sung accompanied by an organ and in the middle of singing them a female minister spoke/read. I of course had no idea what she was saying since it was in Slovak but a couple of the songs were similar to the Lutheran songs I am used to. After the service everyone shook the minister's hand as they left the church.



This morning I also visited the city center on my way to work. I got a later start than I had originally planned so I didn't stop to get a melon. I found the House of Art, The Oldest Preserved Synagogue, parts of the old town wall, the New Synagogue, and the 12 Apostles building. One interesting thing about the old town wall sections is that when they were discovered and restorations were underway on them they left sections of the road paved differently to show where the old walls were located. This was done in the 1990s. I didn't read this in any of the historical literature but figured it out when looking at a section of the wall yesterday.

Hot water and magic dragon

Earlier this week we noticed that in the kitchen we now get HOT WATER! When the water was off in the kitchen last week they must have fixed it so that we get hot water. We didn't notice the hot water right away, however, because the faucet says hot water to the left and cold to the right but it is actually the other way. It's nice that we can now wash our dishes with hot water instead of cold water.

Another new development this week is that the iron dragon has reappeared at the end of the little stream on Hlavna street. When Martin and I were reading about this little stream and taking pictures of it before we noticed that the dragon was missing. On Monday somehow it reappeared as if it was never gone!

Rákóczi Crypt, Múzeum Vojtecha Lofflera, and Billiards

Tuesday after work I met with Dubravka, Ivana, Ersi, and Tasuku in the city center. I really wanted to see the Rákóczi Crypt inside the St. Elizabeth Cathedral that I wasn't able to see on Monday so I went by myself while the other had some coffee. The admission to the Crypt not only included entrance but also a little tour explaning the painting in the church about Rákóczi's life and about the crypt itself. The tour was in Hungarian but there was a nice man who spoke Hungarian and English who translated some of it for me.


After visiting the crypt I met with the others and we went to the Múzeum Vojtecha Lofflera which was the private art collection of Vojtecha Lofflera located in his home. The ladies running the museum didn't have any other visitors and I think they were quite lonely and bored so they gave us a complete tour of the place. They did their best to try to explain everything about the art to us even though they didn't speak hardly any English. Dubravka and Ivana were able to understand some of the things that they were saying and they translated to English a little bit. The ladies were sad to have to close the museum at 6pm. I think they would have liked to have us longer.


After returning to the dorm for some dinner Magda, Ersi, Maria, and I went out again to the city to play billiards at the place we found last week. On the way we stopped at the singing fountain to take some pictures. I couldn't believe it but I have been here six and a half weeks and I hadn't yet seen the fountain lit up at night. We ususally leave the city at around 6 and don't return until 10 or later when the fountain has already been turned off.

Monday Evening Wanders

Monday after work I got a ride from my co-worker, Marek, to the city center. I told him that I was going to meet some of the IAESTE people for dinner in the city center and he said that he was going there too to meet his wife so he could give me a ride... very nice of him. In the city I planned on visiting St. Michael's chapel and some other things in St. Elizabeth's Cathedral but soon found out that they are all closed on Mondays- the little information packet we received when we got here was wrong. Instead I sat inside St. Elizabeth's Cathedral for a while and read about The Altar to Košice Martyrs in my Košice guide book. At 4:30 I left and went to the Franciscan Church to listen to the evening mass and hear the beautiful organ music. I left just before the mass was to finish because I needed to meet Ersi, Tasuku, Ivana, Dubravka, and Magda for dinner at a Greek restaurant (Magda and Ivana met us but didn't stay for dinner). Shortly after we purchased our food Maria, Vladimir, and Pali also joined us for dinner. The Greek food was pretty good and Ersi said that it was similar to what she would have at home. The restaurant also has some sushi and Tasuku tried some of it. He said that it wasn't real sushi but imitation sushi. He said that we should all come to Japan to have really good sushi.

Monday morning market

On Monday morning I woke up a little bit earlier than normal so that I could go to town before heading to work. I took the number 10 bus into town and then walked around taking pictures and reading about different buildings in my Kosice guide book. I read about the Thalia theater and the Greek Catholic Cathedral. The main reason I wanted to go in the morning was to see if there was a morning market in the market square near one of the churches and the Golem pub. There was indeed a market with lots of vegtables and fruits. People were selling black berries, watermelons, other melons, peppers, potatoes, and cucumbers. The melons looked and smelled so good. I think that I will try and go again on Thursday and get a melon.

Sunday

Sunday morning Ersi and I accompanied Martin to the train station to say goodbye to him. We waited with him for a while and helped him get his luggage onto the train. After we said goodbye and returned to the dorm we went back to bed because we were still tired from the party the night before.

Sunday afternoon we went to the town to have a coffee in one of the outdoor cafes by the singing fountain. While we were there we talked about all of the things that we still wanted to do in Kosice before going home. We made a little schedule for the week so that we could try and fit everything in. After finishing our coffees Ersi went back to the dorm and Dubravka and I walked around the city for a while longer. I had brought the Kosice guide book with so we looked for some of the sites in the book and read about them. We saw the Executioner's Bastion, the Jakob Mansion and walked down the craft street once more.

Martin's going away party

On Saturday evening after our day of traveling around Southern Slovakia we had a going away pizza party for Martin. Martin was going home to Austria on Sunday morning. We ordered the pizza at about 8pm and again they took 2 hours to get to the dorm. They were worth the wait though! We also enjoyed some blue jello that I made special for the occasion. All of the IAESTE trainees were at the party including myself, Magda, Dubravka, Ersi, Tasuku, Ivana and her friend Markus, Maria, and of course Martin. Unfortunately the party started after the dorm's visiting hours were over so the lady at the front desk wouldn't let Lucia, Pali, and Vladimir come up. We all went down to speak with them for a few minutes. I think that everyone had a great time dispite having to say goodbye to Martin.

Southern Slovakia

On Saturday Lucia and Pali (IAESTE Kosice Leaders) rented a couple of cars for us to do a day trip around Southern Slovakia to see some castles and caves. Maria's mother and two of her mother's friends had come to Kosice on Friday night and joined us on this trip as well. In one rented car was Lucia, Maria, Maria's mother and two friends. In the other rented car was Pali, Magda, Ivana and Ivana's friend Markus who was also visiting for the weekend from Vienna. Vladimir also drove his car and Martin, Ersi, Dubravka, and I rode with him.


The first stop of the day was a cave, Jasovská Jaskyňa. We got there just a little too late to go in with the first group of the day so we took a little walk up to the little church on the hill of this town. It seems that every little town or village in Slovakia has a little church like this one. After some nice pictures we headed back down to the cave entrance. This cave had beautiful stalagtites and stalagmites with various colors and designs. There was a tour guide but he basically led us around and turned on the lights and automated voice recording in English. I think he could have been a little more personal. I think we even skipped one of the rooms that we were supposed to see.

The second stop was a castle. I will have to look up what the name of it is. This castle is apparently the most beautiful on the outside so we didn't pay to go inside or have tour. We were also a bit behind on our schedule for the day so we wanted to move along to the other sites. We did have a fun encounter with some goats at this castle though and we got some great pictures of the surrounding area.

The next stop was a mansion that used to be a castle, the Kaštieĺ Betliar. This was a very beautiful building. Outside there was a fountain and lots of things going on for children such as crafts and singing and people dressed up in costumes. The tour of the castle was in Slovak so Lucia and Vladimir translated for us into English. Maria's mother and her mother's friends didn't speak much English so Maria translated into Spanish also. The Andrassys were the previous owners of the mansion so there were a lot of things on display that belonged to them. The mansion was beautifully decorated. After the tour we walked around the grounds a little bit and had some of the lunch that we brought along.

The last stop was the ice cave. I didn't realize until we got to the stop but I had been there before with my boss and his boss on our trip to the cell phone towers. There was a little bit of a hike up a trail in the woods to get to the ice cave. Some of the others weren't expecting this and were a bit tired when we got to the top. The ice cave was worth the walk though. It was a little bit expensive for only a half an hour tour, 6 Euros, but they probably need the money to keep the place nice. The cave is about zero degrees Celsius inside so all of the people from the southern parts of europe were really cold. The ice flows and shapes were really beautiful.

After the cave we simply headed back to the dorms to have dinner.

Japanese Dinner

On Friday evening Tasuku made us all some special Japanese soup and a rice dish with seaweed. He made everything with food that he had brought from Japan. The soup had to be continuously stirred or the contents would settle to the bottom. The sticky rice was really good and had different flavors including salmon and a fruit flavor. This was Tasuku's first time cooking but I thought that everything was really good! He invited us all to come to Japan to try these dishes and more from professional chefs.