Settling into Bratislava and Orientation

After landing in Vienna in the afternoon of Sunday, August 16, we were taken by van to Bratislava, about an hour away, and brought to our apartment on Svardova Ulica. This is a 70 or 80 year old apartment building that has served several purposes in the past, including as housing for the faculty and students of the Lutheran Seminary. We are housed in the “Penthouse” located on the fourth floor – that’s four fights up in the European system – so we get lots of aerobic exercise every day since there is no elevator. The apartment consists of two large rooms that we use as a bedroom and a living room/study, a small kitchen with all the usual appliances, and a bathroom with tub and washing machine. The toilet is situated separately off the kitchen, of all places! The apartment had been thoroughly cleaned thanks to the efforts of Claudia and David Nelson, and was easily ready for move-in. We’re still shopping for gadgets, plants, and artwork to make it our own, but we’re confident that it will be a wonderful place to live during the coming year.

It is very easy to get to the most interesting parts of the city since we live only two blocks from the old town (Stare Mesto), and a similar distance from the edge of the shopping district. We have spent almost every evening walking in this very charming district. It is full of twisting stone streets with several beautiful, large squares, all surrounded by buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries. This part of town contains restaurants, shops, and hotels as well as buildings that reflect the fascinating history of Slovakia. These include the cathedral where the Austrian and Hungarian monarchs were crowned including Maria Theresa who built the castle that overlooks and dominates the city. On a walk through Stare Mesto a couple of nights ago, we encountered many musical events including Roma street musicians, a violin duo playing in front of a restaurant , a Christian rock group at one square, and Brazilian music at another. The hall where the Slovak Philharmonic performs as well as the Opera House and National Theater are also included in this part of town. These all reflect the variety of people and experiences that we hope to encounter in the coming year.

We began our stay by shopping for some of the staples that we didn’t find in the apartment. There are good size grocery stores within easy walking distance, including a TESCO that was apparently purchased from its previous owner, K-Mart. Shopping is only a little bit of a mystery, since we can rely on the pictures on the packages and can generally tell the cuts of meat from past experience. We’ve not had any real surprises so far, except that decaffeinated coffee is unavailable – I guess we’ll go through our days with a “buzz”. TESCO is somewhat like a super WALMART, so we have also found some of the items we needed to settle into our apartment there. Today (Saturday, August 21) we went to the AU Park Shopping Center and found it to be very similar to large malls in the US. There were many shoe stores, teen clothing stores, etc. but a feature that we liked when Phil shopped for a pair of hiking boots was that all the sporting goods stores were located in the same area and this seemed to be true for other types of stores. For larger pieces of equipment like lamps and pictures we’ll be taking a trip to IKEA in the near future.

Our travel has been primarily on foot, supplemented by trips via bus to the places more than a half mile away. The buses are very convenient and of three types – regular buses (autobus), electrical buses (electriky), and trams (electrical buses that run along tracks). Both of the latter two are powered by overhead electrical lines are quick and quiet. We purchased three month passes (~50 euros) that allow travel on all three types of vehicle and find this an incredibly reasonable way to get about. We’ve never had to wait more than about 5 minutes for a bus and generally don’t have to walk more than a couple of blocks to catch one or to reach our destination after getting off.

Restaurants and cafes are also very convenient to our home. We’ve found places where you can get a good dinner and pivo (beer) for about 5 or 6 euros and some charming restaurants in the Stare Mesto where a very nice dinner can be had for about 15 euros. The food is heavily oriented toward meat and potatoes, but vegetables and salads can be had without too much difficulty. We ate many lunches (obed) and dinners (vecera) at the Evangelical Theological College (Faculty) facility of Comenius University during our week of orientation at this school. The lunches were served as the main meal of the day and consisted of soup, main dish and side dish, and fruit or salad. Dinners were slightly lighter but still very filling. Were it not for the four flights of stairs and mile or two of walking each day, we’d probably have gained several pounds by now, but we’re actually feeling very well and getting into fighting trim.

The weather is similar to that at home in the Cincinnati area although perhaps a bit more windy. The temperature was in the mid-80s most of last week with clear blue skies and moderate humidity. Our apartment isn’t air-conditioned, but two fans help to keep it comfortable. The weather changed dramatically yesterday (Saturday) as a cool front moved in resulting in drizzly conditions all day with dropping temperature. This morning, we awoke to clear blue skies and temperatures in the high 60s; very pleasant. Since Bratislava is located in the Danube valley, up against the small Carpathian Mountains, there always seem to be cool breezes that moderate the temperature. We’ll see what effect they have during winter.

Most of our time during the first week has been spent at the facilities of the Evangelical Theological Faculty concentrating on orientation to teaching in Slovakia (and Poland). We were joined by six other new teachers as well as several returning teachers in a program that introduced us to teaching English and other subjects to students with other first languages. We are the only two new teachers assigned to the Evangelical Lyceum in Bratislava this year, three of our fellow students will be teaching in Ticovits in the foothills south of the Tatra mountains, one will be teaching in Kocice, and the other two will be teaching in Cecien Poland (a first-time site for ELCA teachers, previously staffed by Missouri Synod personnel). We were all engaged in hard work and developed strong friendships during our time together.

The training for teaching was led by Claudia Nelson, an experienced ESL teacher who had been one of the first American teachers to teach at the Lyceum in Bratislava in 1991. She gave us a deep understanding of the issues of sounds of words, grammar, and vocabulary that challenge English language learners. She also modeled many effective methods for working with these students as she taught us. We were given techniques for classroom management as well as for grading and assessment that are appropriate for the students who we will teach. While our heads were spinning after the three to four hours a day of intensive engagement with Claudia, we all left with much more confidence in our ability to face the tasks ahead in the coming year. Sue especially came away with an understanding of how differently high school students are taught today compared to how she was taught in high school. Phil thinks of the difference as between the “guide on the side” and the “sage on the stage” and, since mathematics is still taught primarily by the latter method, he also appreciates the challenge ahead.

Other aspects of the orientation involved language training, an orientation to post-communist Europe, some hints on living in Central Europe, regular devotions, and social times. Jana Hoschekova, a local language teacher introduced us to Slovak through simple conversations and a brief introduction to its grammar. We appreciated her enthusiastic approach but came away realizing how much work we’ll need to do in the near future to understand and be understood. Dr. Andrej Postrednik, Dean of the Evangelical Theological Faculty gave us a presentation on post-communism that highlighted the advances and difficulties that have followed both the conversion of Czechoslovakia from a communist form of government to a democracy in 1989 as well as the “Velvet Divorce” that generated the separate Slovak and Czech Republics. Among the positive features he cited are the emergence of an active civil society, the use by churches of their facilities in more creative ways than was allowed under communism, the rapid growth of the economy, an open cultural space to exchange ideas, and especially the freedom of travel and exchange. He stated that “Had someone told him thirty years ago that today he could travel anywhere in Europe without border checks and use the same currency throughout; he would have thought that person to be crazy!” We also heard a presentation from Dr. Michal Valcho, Director of the Martin Bible School, who spoke on the role of religious education both historically and specifically in post-communist Slovakia. He reminded us that, before the Counter-Reformation in the 17th century, nearly 90% of the people in Slovakia were Lutheran, whereas that number is only 7% today. He took us through the struggles of Lutherans from that time, through the domination by Hungary in the early 20th century, the Nazification following 1938 when Slovakia was a puppet regime of Hitler’s Germany, and into the time of Communism. Especially in this latter time, the churches were used only for Sunday worship and for funerals; all other services were taken over by the state, making religion irrelevant. Out of this heritage comes a variety of attitudes – one is reflected in the quotation from communist times, “If you don’t steal from the state, you are robbing your family.” This helps explain the attitudes that our students may have toward cheating and plagiarism. He also noted the weakened sense of responsibility of citizens for their and other’s well-being due to the earlier government control. He sees the role of the church in the future as expanding into the areas of social service so the churches members are providing Christian love in showing care for others. We also experienced daily devotions and insights into adapting to Slovak life from Rev. Arden Haug and Rev. David Nelson. Arden is currently the Resident representative of the ELCA in Europe (as well as our link to the ELCA) and David previously had held a version of this position. Both shared valuable thoughts on our spiritual growth and impact here as well as on customs and practices in the region.

We finished our time of orientation with a commissioning on Saturday led by Rev. Haug and Bishop Klatik, the General Bishop of the Slovak Lutheran Church (Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession). After a group photo and a final lunch together, we bid our fellow students safe travels as they headed out for their assignments. We were fortunate that one of our colleagues from the Lyceum took us by bus to school where we will begin our preparation for teaching next week.

The Evangelisky Lyceum is located on the opposite side of the Danube from the old town area of Bratislava in an area called Petryzalka; the site of many huge Soviet-style apartment blocks, but now a prime residential district of the region. It’s only a short bus ride from our apartment and we’ll begin making that trip regularly beginning with this coming Monday. We have received our teaching assignments. We will both be teaching an English class that meets five days per week and that focuses on American Literature, but also contains components of grammar and conversation. Sue is also teaching six sections of an informatics (computer science) class for first year students, but each section only meets for an hour each week and consists of just 12 students. She will fill in her twenty hours of teaching responsibility by serving as the English language librarian, with primary responsibility for keeping track of the English language textbooks and other resources like novels, magazines, and newspapers. Phil will also teach two sections of American Social Studies to first year students and three sections of British Social Studies to second year students. We knew of these teaching assignments earlier in the summer, so we had begun collecting materials and doing some preliminary reading. For now, there are only ten days left until we meet our students for the first time, so we are busily preparing for our classes.