Arrival in Kosice, Slovakia

Hello from Kosice, Slovakia. First of all I have learned how to pronounce the name of the town, Kosice. It sounds like this Ko-sh-it-s-e- The last e sounds like the e in bet.

The trip here was quite an adventure. Everything went as planned up until I arrived in Kosice. The plane flights went smoothly. I met a number of people along the way including a group of soccer players going to Italy for a tournament and a group of people from a church going on a mission trip to Hungary. On the last flight I met a young lady named Addy who is studying archeology at a University in Wyoming. She was on her way to a dig in Romania and was going to meet a group of students there and would be camping there. Also on that flight I met a professor that worked in the Electrical Engineering department at the Technical University in Budapest. He was very nice and called a cab for Addy and me to share to get to my hostel. After checking in at the hostel Addy and I went to the train station where I got my ticket for Slovakia. It was so much cheaper to buy it there than to buy it online. Then we went to dinner at KFC because she really wanted American food. Afterward she waited for the train and I went back to the hotel to go to bed.

The train to Kosice was early in the morning. On the train a met a guy from Mexico who was studying in Spain. He was also on his way to Kosice. He was going there for a friends wedding. In Kosice, there was supposed to be someone from IAESTE coming to meet me at the train station, however, when I arrived there was no one there. I waited for an hour and tried to use the phone but the number I had didnt work. I asked for directions to an internet cafe so that I could check my email, contact the IAESTE receptionist, and get the address for the dorms. When I got into the center part of the town I found out that the shops are all closed on Sundays and the internet cafe wasnt going to open until 3pm. I wandered around for a while trying to figure out what to do. I found the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel where they had a receptionist who spoke English. They let me use the business computers and I emailed the receptionist telling him where I was. I waited for a while. I was getting really hungry so I told the receptionist where I was going to eat and left for lunch. When I got back the IAESTE person still wasnt there so I showed the receptionist his number again. She said that I was probably dialing it wrong so she dialed it. The IAESTE guy, by the way his name is Vladomir, picked up right away and said he would be there in 5 minutes. He came and took me to the dorms and checked me in there. The rest of the afternoon I had to myself to unpack and nap. What an adventurous first day in Kosice!