Wine Festival, Parent’s Meeting and Visitors

Our last two weeks have been filled with growing school responsibilities as well as by visits with old friends. The weekend before last found us at a wine festival in Pežinok, a town about 35 minutes north of Bratislava and one of the several towns on the local “Wine Tour.” The “Small Carpathian Mountains” just to the north of Bratislava are the sites of several small wine villages that produce quite good vintages. The whites are light and dry while the reds tend to be smooth and fruity. While in one of the small towns, we saw wagon after wagon being pulled up to people’s homes and grapes being unloaded. Some were small trailers attached to a car and containing only a few bushels of grapes, probably for individual family use. Others were large farm wagons pulled by tractors and destined for a vintner who would offer the product for sale.

The wine festival was an event that took up most of several streets in the small town of Pežinok. We understand that the festival moves from town to town throughout the region during the harvest season. This event contained hundreds of booths, carnival rides, and entertainment of various sorts. The entertainers varied from costumed dancers and musicians to American Indians playing flutes and hawking CDs (click here for a video.) The booths sold local crafts (some very nicely made), junky toys, local food (sausages, kraut, slabs of pork, and general carnival fare), and Burčiak. The latter is very young wine containing a good bit of yeast. The local American teacher folklore is that it ferments in your stomach, but we only had a small glass so we can’t verify that tale.

The rest of that weekend was spent in trying to get ahead in our preparation for school by a couple of weeks since we were expecting our friends Doug and Barbara Faires during the next week. We were successful to the extent that we were able to spend time with them on both Wednesday and Thursday evenings and then travel together with them on Friday for a couple of days in Budapest. Another distraction was a meeting with the school parents on Monday of that week. This was somewhat stressful in that we could understand nothing of what was happening until after the meeting when one of our Slovak colleagues gave us a short version of the heated discussion. It turns out that the parents of a small group of nineteen students who had been moved into the school from another school that was closed were not happy with some of the arrangements and were raising questions. We were happy to be there to lend support to our Slovak colleagues and leaders, but we wish we could have understood the proceedings. In any event, it was good to be able to spend time with Doug and Barb as they began their three week tour of Central Europe. They are using Bratislava as their headquarters and will be here again in a week and then again several days later.

The trip to Budapest was very interesting and relaxing. It’s only a two and a half hour train trip and we were able to leave after our classes on Friday and arrive at our hotel in time for dinner. We stayed in a hotel adjacent to the Opera and it was a very fortunate place to be since the Opera was celebrating its 125th anniversary that weekend with Gala concerts on both Saturday and Sunday evening. We had left our fancy duds at home, but we didn’t have to miss much because they broadcast the concert on a giant screen with an excellent sound system on the street in front of the Opera. This is one of the main streets in the city, but they closed it off for several blocks, set up chairs, and arranged for the broadcast by what appeared to be the Hungarian version of PBS. The whole thing was free; what a great idea! There were people of all ages there, including young guys who went for beer at the intermission but who also applauded vigorously along with everyone else for the performances. It’s interesting to see such a different attitude toward music and art. We should talk to folks in Cincinnati about doing this.

We spent the morning on Saturday taking a boat trip to Szentendre, about two hours up the Danube from Budapest. It’s a charming arts community with a beautiful setting on the river. After a 45 minute train trip back to town, we walked around Buda, the old part of the city and enjoyed the beautiful views of the Parliament and city of Pest across the river. After walking across the Chain Bridge, we visited St. Stephen’s Basilica and then returned to the hotel for dinner and the evening of music in the street. On Sunday we spent the morning in the Museum of Applied Arts where we saw a very interesting display of Hungarian Art Nouveau furniture. While it had many of the features of other furniture from this era, there were rustic touches that were very interesting. After lunch, we caught the train back to Bratislava and finished the evening by preparing for the next day’s classes.

Into the routine – then vacation again!

We experienced our first full week of classes during the week of 7 – 12 September. All went well and we felt that we may be able to cope with all the classes and uncertain schedules. The students continue to be pleasant, although we’ve begun to run into excuses – “Professor, please accept this work tomorrow because … (fill in the blanks with your favorite reason.)” Phil had to substitute for Sue in her third year English class one day because she was “assigned” to go to one of the apartment buildings housing American staff to supervise the cleaning of the heating system. This supervision didn’t call on her knowledge of higher thermodynamics, rather it was a matter of keeping an eye on the workers doing the cleaning. There still seems to be a level of mistrust in the society that we find interesting.




We were anticipating a day off on Tuesday 15 September for the Slovak National Holiday in honor of “Our Lady of Sorrows,” Mary, the patron saint of Slovakia. On Wednesday of the previous week we found out that the Director of the School had decided to cancel classes on Monday as well since most of the dorm students would probably miss class anyway. Not being ones to waste a four-day weekend, we busily got to work and planned a trip to visit Phil’s family near Dolny Kubin and perhaps extend this into a trip into the High Tatras if the weather permitted.




We left by train at around 8:00 on Saturday morning and traveled for a little more than three hours to Kral’ovany where we caught another rain for the short (17 km) trip up to Veličná, the birthplace of Phil’s grandmother and near the home of Phil’s cousin Iveta. The trip began in the broad plain of the Danube, then travelled north in the valley of the Vah river with the low hills of the Malé Karpaty (Small Carpathian) mountains to the west. We passed though land that was primarily agricultural (corn and sunflowers) except near some of the larger cities where we encountered auto plants and other heavy manufacturing – Peugot/Citroen near Trenčín and KIA near Zilina. The train from Kral’ovany ran alongside the Orava River and was a beautiful trip into the Malá Fatra mountains just to the west of the Tatras.

Iveta and her children, Ninká (12) and Maťko (8) met us at the Veličná stop and took us to their home for lunch. After partaking in the usual toast of slivovits, we sat down to a delicious meal of mushroom soup (with mushrooms from the nearby mountains and vegetables from Iveta‘s garden), fish and potatoes. Iveta’s husband had driven on his 4X4 ATV up into the mountains to pick blueberries, so we had a delicious cobbler for desert. Iveta’s parents have several large gardens where they grow vegetables, potatoes, and fruit, and where they keep a goat that they milk to make a wonderful, low-fat goat cheese – we could easily market this in the US. One of Phil’s cousin’s wife was celebrating her 62nd birthday so, in the usual Slovak tradition, she prepared delicious cakes and treats for a party. We spent much of the weekend eating the delicious food and drink prepared by various family members. It was special that so much of this was grown, gathered, distilled, etc. by the members of the family. It’s a much different lifestyle than we are accustomed to either in Bratislava or at home in Kentucky.

We’d like to give you some insight into family relations and local customs. Iveta and Phil are second cousins whose maternal grandmothers were sisters. Iveta’s mom’s brother Pavlo also represents another line of the family with Phil and Pavlo’s children similarly related. One of the reasons that we have corresponded extensively with Iveta is that she is a teacher of English in elementary school and so serves as an interpreter on our visits. We discovered that we understand a few more Slovak words and phrases than we did on our previous visit, but generally we are only able to give “stupid smiles of misunderstanding” during much of the conversation. One of our goals this year is to be able to have a meaningful conversation with all family members before the year is out. One of the things we learned about Pavlo was that he served in the Czechoslovak Air Force in some kind of navigation role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We’d love to be able to talk with him about his and our experiences at that time.

In addition to the wonderful meals, Slovaks pride themselves on other forms of hospitality. On entering the home and frequently thereafter, a guest is offered a small glass of dangerously clear liquid. This could be slivovitz, a distillate of plums, hruškavitz, a condensate of pears, or some other fruit liquor. The custom is to look each other person in the eye and offer a toast of “na zdravie” (to health) to which the formal reply is “nech slúži” (let it serve us), followed by tossing the drink down is one swig. So far, we’ve mastered only “na zdravie” and peering into the eyes. The custom of fruit liquors has an interesting history. While Slovakia now enjoys excellent locally produced wines, the past Austro-Hungarian monarchs laid claim to all wine production and the local peasants were only able to drink beer or whatever else they could produce. This led the local folk to develop distillates of the juices of the several fruits that grow bountifully in the country – plums, pears, apples, etc. thereby leading to today’s libations. In addition to drinks, Slovaks also lay out plates of locally-made or home-made cheese, vegetables, and delicious small treats called koláče. These are thin cakes with fillings made of fruit, nuts, or poppy seeds. Sue promises to work on developing her skills a kolač-making.

After enjoying the family’s hospitality along with trips to an old village in the mountains as well as to church and a walk about town in Dolny Kubin, we returned back to Bratislava on Monday morning. We had previously planned to travel into the High Tartras, about ninty minutes by bus to the East, for some hiking on Monday, but the mountains were socked in by clouds and threats of rain. We are postponing that trip for a couple of weeks until a time when we can meet Iveta and the family for a day of mountain hiking.

We spent the Tuesday holiday preparing some clases for the coming week and then went to Devin castle just outside of Bratislava. This Slovak castle is located at the confluence of the Morava River with the Danube and overlooks Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic. It dates back to the ninth century as a castle fortification but contains ruins of a Roman settlement as well as archeological evidenc of habitation back into the Bronze Age. Unfortunately the castle is in ruins since it was destroyed by Napolean in the early nineteenth century.

Today, Wednesday 16 September, we returned to school to find slightly new schedules. Hopefully these are final (at least until some event requires changing them again). We only had a few changes to ours, the worst of which requires Phil to stay slightly later on Wednesday and Thursday than previously and requires Sue to have a relatively late class on Friday afternoon. We also have our scheduled “Substitute“ times, so we need to be aware of thee opportunities to replace absent teachers. Life goes on, thank God!

A Short Week of Teaching

Since last Tuesday, September 1, was a national Holiday (Constitution Day – honoring the establishment of the Slovak Republic in 1993), school did not commence until Wednesday. We took advantage of the holiday to take a trip to Vienna with Janna and Arden Haug. Arden is the Director of European Missions for the ELCA and is headquartered in Bratislava. Arden and Janna showed us the ropes of getting to Vienna by train and then getting into the city by tram along a scenic and convenient route. The train trip took only an hour and cost 14.30 Euros, including a 24 hour transportation pass for Vienna.

After arriving in Vienna, we walked along many shopping streets and especially enjoyed a visit to the Julius Meinl store where, among other things, we were able to find decaffeinated coffee. You’d think that this would be a simple feat in a part of the world that prides itself on its coffee shops and cafes, but other than freeze-dried Nescafe, this is all we’ve been able to find. After lunch at the Nachmarkt, we met Gail and Randy Mundt who will be teaching religion at the Lyceum until two other teachers arrives later in the year. Randy, a Lutheran pastor, is currently serving the Vienna International Church and Gail is in the process of seeking ordination in the church. They will commute several days a week to help cover the courses of the absent colleagues. Arden and Janna had to return early to Bratislava, so we were on our own to find our way around town and then home. We went into the center of the city, to St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the surrounding shopping area. The cathedral is built on the site of an earlier church from 1147 and is a magnificent gothic structure with beautiful stonework and woodcarving.

The time from catching the tram to the Vienna railroad station to stepping off the bus near our apartment in Bratislava was little more than an hour and a half, but the journey was different from other travel experiences. We had visited Vienna as tourists in the past and were fascinated by the city, but this time was different. We were traveling to the “big city” for a day and returning home to the friendly, quiet confines of Bratislava; it’s beginning to feel like home.

School opened on Wednesday with a church service in Velký Kostol (Big Church), which is adjacent to Malé Kostol (Small Church) where we worship as members of the Bratislava International Church; more on that in a later blog. The service was attended by students and faculty from the Palisady school (elementary and middle grades) as well as the Lyceum, so the church was filled. Everything was in Slovak and the entire liturgy was chanted, even the Bible readings. This reminded Phil of attending Slovak services at his grandparents‘ church in Whiting IN. Since Slovak is a completely phonetic language, we were able to sing along with the hymns. We didn’t understand much other than the Apostol’s Creed, but this was an interesting experience.

Wednesday and Thursday went by without us meeting any classes. The students met with their class teachers during the entire day on Wednesday and on Thursday, the advanced students met with a few classes. All first year students were tested in English and German and we got to grade the German exams – all multiple choice, but extremely tedious and boring. We were introduced to school lunch on Thursday and this looks like a pretty good deal. It turns out that we buy a month’s worth of lunch tickets for less that 14 Euros; this is probably government subsidized. Each lunch consists of soup, a main dish, and some salad or fruit and they have been generally quite good. Colleagues have warned us of two hazardous meals – “liver” and “sweet lunch.” The former is self-explanatory, but the latter requires some elucidation. This may take the form of spaghetti-like noodles with powdered sugar and poppy seed or, as we had yesterday, a form of sweet pound-cake-like material swimming in runny vanilla flavored sauce. Luckily, the soup was hearty and very good.

Finally on Friday, we met with two classes each (out of a total of Phil’s six classes and Sue’s seven classes). In both cases, the meetings went well or at least as well as could be expected. We each met with a class of first year students and there were a lot of “deer in the headlights” looks as students encountered classes entirely in English for the first time. Sue also met with her third year American Literature students and they were very responsive and conversed well in English. We also have several first period classes each week, so we’ll open with devotions. We can share devotions just as we share preparation for our common American Lit classes, so there are some efficiencies to be gained.

Friday evening we enjoyed a cookout with the other American teachers and Arden and Janna. It was good to kick back with this group; we’re definitely the “oldsters” but they are very good at involving us in the full life of the community. Saturday found us travelling to Hornbach’s, the Central European version of Lowes for various pieces of hardware and tools. We came away with a hammer drill for only 25 E (it actually worked fairly well) and an assortment of screws, wall anchors, picture, frames, seat cushions, and several plants. Of course all this had to be schlepped home on the bus, but we are now crafty veterans of the transportation system and returned home without difficulty.

Saturday and Sunday were also highlighted by the annual Coronation Festival. Bratislava became the coronation city of Austria-Hungary following the occupation of parts of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire. Each year, one of the 11 kings and eight queens who were crowned in Bratislava between 1563 and 1830 is honored with a mock coronation, food, drink, entertainment, and fireworks. This year’s honoree was Maria Anna of Spain who was crowned in 1638. The festivities were centered on Hviezdoslavovo Square (next week’s assignment is to pronounce “Hviezdoslavovo” like a native) and included crafts, a group of medieval Coney Island rides, food, and Sunday’s coronation. Click on this link, Bratislava Coronation Festival 2009, for a movie of parts of the festivities, including the parade from the castle to the Old Town.

It’s Tuesday of the second week and we’re well into our tentative schedule now, having met at least once with all our classes. The students are all respectful and seem genuinely interested in learning English – we’ll see if this impression lasts into the coming year. We had mentioned in an earlier blog how all the students in a class move through the same sets of classes in lock step. It is true that they take all the same classes together as a group, but the term “lock-step” gives the wrong impression – it’s much more like the drunkard’s random walk that we studied in Probability class. For example, Phil is teaching one class that meets at 10:10 on Monday, 12:05 on Tuesday, and 7:20 on Friday (yes, that’s a.m.) Now build a schedule of six such classes, five of which meet three days per week (at two or three different times of day) and the other that meets every day (in four different periods). Phil uses an Excel spreadsheet to find his way through the week. We used the word “tentative” above since we are not assured that this is actually a final schedule. More on this as certainty prevails.