Rotary weekend

Last weekend (12-15) was the rotary Christmas meeting. All the students in Slovakia came to Bratislava. Friday, we had Secret Santa, and I received a ginormous Teddy Bear. On Saturday, we went to Vienna, my first time there! We didn´t make it to the large Christmas Market, but we visited some smaller ones. It was absolutely beautiful!

The Mikulaš treats

Sorry the one is sideways.









This is from Mikulaš!

Mikulaš!!

Yesterday morning I had agreat surprise; Mikulaš came! In all of Europe, Santa comes on the sixth of december, to good children. You are supposed to polish your shoes and he will fill them with treats, but now he just leaves it at the foot of the bed. He was very good to me: I got two bags of chocolate and various treats, plus an Advent calendar!
*photos to come, because camera still won't upload..

Welcome to December!

The Vianoce Trhy (Christmas Market) is officially up and open.
My camera won't upload pictures right now, but when it will I will post them!

A green-ish X-mas..

I am very sad to write this, but there is officially no snow in Bratislava, because all of the two centimeters we got melted days ago. The temperature is between 6-11 degrees celsius during the day, and four at night. It reminds me of mid October, except that there are no colourful leaves, and it also resembles Victoria in that everything is still green. It rains quite a bit too, but not constantly. The forecast is predicting the weather to remain at present temperature/state, which I find very depressing.
Anyways, teaching the Prima went well. Two of my classmates and I played games with them, and they understood almost everything! In other school news, they changed the sound of the bell; we have a bell that signals the beginning and end of each lesson, and now instead of ringing, it does a musical chime followed by 1 minute of a randomly-machine-chosen song. It is creative, but the staff hasn't decided yet if it will stay in place. Sometimes I like it, but other times not so much, depending on what song plays.

Well, bad news here: all the snow melted and the temperature has gone back up to about 6 degrees. My snowman is no more. :-(
Tomorrow I will be teaching Prima again(they are the 11 yr old students). I taught them once before, trying to give them simple details about canada. Tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'll teach, but I will give them something..

Snow!

Bratislava got snow today! Not very much, but still.

Blazer

This is my Rotary Blazer in all its pins and glory.

Legality...

The Canadian embassy.. I don't have my visa yet, so I am technically here illegally, but next week I will receive it.
Today is officially my third month here. I can't believe how fast the time has gone! My language skills are improving ever so slightly, and It is much easier to navigate through town.

Fair photos

Here are more Photos!

My hair is mussed from a ride. and yes, that is a Canadian flag in the bakground!

Holland Fair

Ah..My computer crashed so it was at the repairman's shop last week. Anyway, last weekend, I went to a fair from Holland. Most of the rides I went on were upside down.

Halloween

Friday, Oct 24-I went to a Hallowe'en dance at my friends school. Hallowe'en isn't celebrated here, but they were doing it like an American school. I went as a prom queen, but I forgot my camera.

Here is an older one that I forgot; On monday Oct. 13 went to the presidential palace for a special event (my host father's brother had the invitation) and I saw the president, Ivan Gasparovič!
The president's whole face didn't make it into the picture though.

This is the lead singer for Animal Collective.




This is me at the concert, but the lighting isn't very good..

First Concert!

I went to my first real concert on Friday October 16th. It was a band froom the US called Animal Collective. Their genre is a mix of indie/punk/rock. It was absolutely bizarre, but good.

Slovan Hockey

The fans covered themselves with two giant Slovan banners!

And this is the game in progress..

Pardon the late update:

So I haven't been able to update my blog for the last two weeks because I wasn't staying at home; my host parents went to Florida, so I stayed with my host sister at her appartment in Karlova Ves, a part of Bratislava. It was nice to be closer in town, and spend some time with Miška.

Last weekend I went to a Slovak hockey game. It was like watching a dynamiters game, but more fun. The reason is the fansare incredible! They have so man cheers and so much positive energy. Unfortunately, Slovan (Bratislava's team) lost 4-2 to Zilina.

Sunday evening Service

On sunday evening, we went to a church service in Dubnica before we left. It was beautiful! sorry though, no pictures of the inside, as there were so many people, and the service was about to begin. The front behind the altar had complicated and gorgoeous sculptures/statues, and lots of flowers.
At the back was a pipe organ, although it wasn't ornate. There were stunning glass windows above the altar as well.

Timing Coomputer

This is My computer where I timed the players (they had five minutes to throw six balls, alternating turns depending on who was furthest from the white ball) and score-kept.

Anička and Martina taping

The excruciatingly long process of setting up the courts..If the tape was off 6 meters by one centimeter, the head would make us redo it a couple times. Eight courts, multiple tapings, a very long night.

Dubnica Weekend

Well, I had a very interesting weekend, and I'm sure most students will not be able to say they participated in something like it; I helped out at a bocce game for handicapped students! It's an annual 'Boccia' tournament in Dubnica (about two hours from Bratislava) for people in wheelchairs. It was a fairly exhausting weekend, as we had to stay until 2:00 am putting tape on a gym floor for the courts. At 7:00, we had to go back to the gym to begin the day. I was a time keeper and spent about 8 straight hours sitting in a chair in front of a score/time computer. On sunday, same routine but we had to take the tape off the floor, which was much faster than putting it on. I had a good time, and I made some new friends.

I finally found some rechargeable batteries for my camera (I am just happy I found some batteries), so you can expect to see more pictures of whatever my random mind takes photos of. This weekend I will be going to Dubnica with a slovak friend, so there should be lots of pictures next week!

Still no pictures :-(

Sorry it took so long to update, I had issues with the computer. Also no batteries for the camera yet, but I'm looking! go on facebook to see some pictures of me here..
On sunday Sep 29, I went to a soccer game, Slovan(Bratislava's team) vs. Košice. Slovan won 2-0. It was really cool, because the fans were all so enthusiastic, and I lost count of all the different cheers & chants they have! On Monday, I went to my second rotary meeting. It is very different from Kimberley, as it is a men-only club. The meetings commence at 6:00pm and go till about 7:30. This week they had a presentation about the american banks, by a man from Austria, so it was in english. I am updating this in computers class, and after this I will be going swimming for PE in the school pool. I don't know if I'm nervous or excited..

Orientation

This weekend (19-21) I went to the rotary orientation weekend up in Strečno. There were the students from Slovakia as well as the 20 or so students from the Czech, so about 55 total. Friday was just two hour drive up, and then introductions in the evening. Saturday was the eventful day-in the morning we went on a raft trip down the River Vah for about 1:30 in seven degree overcast weather(Brrr), Then we walked up to Hrad Strečno (Strechno castle). Friday evening, Rotary had something extremely fun planned for us..a Disco! A DJ came in and we had strobe lights and a disco ball. It was the funnest weekend here so far. :-)

Family photos

Finally, here are some family photos!












This is me and my host-mum Darina


This is the back of our house,
















And this is the front.

This is Janko(pron. Yankoe), Daniela, and me in Daniela's kitchen.

This is Freško, the horse I rode on Sunday.

Banska Bystrica

This weekend, I went up to Darina's sister's ranch up in Banska Bystrica. I got to ride a horse for the second time, and I also got some lessons. Daniela(Darina's sister) has so many horses and I rode a mare calledLíza and another one called Freško. (pronounced Leeza and Freshkoe). It was an educational weekend as well-I learned how to rub down a horse, put on the saddle, and clean out the hooves. I also helped clean out the stable.

Johanna's report of Skola!

I have now finished three complete days of school, and it is very different from Canadian schooling. It's called Gymnázium Ladislava Novomeského, a secondary school, but some students go there since the age 11. The classes contain about 20 students, and everyone stays together for the classes; you change rooms and teachers, but not classmates. So, I haven't met that many other students. The students are nice and most speak english, but only a couple of the teachers do. I also took the correct busses independently today, after a few attempts yesterday. I take a bus from school to downtown Bratislava, then an inter-city bus out to Marianka. Yesterday I tried to take the bus from school to Aupark(the biggest shopping mall in Slovakia) and instead of taking me thirty minutes, it took me 1:40!

Well, tomorrow will finally be my first day of school. I will start at 8:00am! The weather here has been really hot, upwards of thirty degrees every day. I had soccer practise yesterday and it was +32. I have been swimming lots in their pool. I have now met Michal's and Darina's parents, so I know the relatives who live in Bratislava. I will post pictures of my host family tomorrow.

I had my first soccer practise with the girl's team on Wednesday. It was nice to go out for a run and meet some other people. It is a team of about fifteen girls, most are 18-19.

This is the view from where I had the schintzel:

On the day I got back from language camp (Sat. Aug. 30th), we went to Austria for the evening with my host mum Darina & our next door neighbours. Michal (host dad) rode his motorbike there. We visited the outside of this hrad (castle), then we went out for dinner at this nice place by a lake that touches on the border of Hungary, and I had Wiennerschnitzel.

This is me, Lauren (from Toronto, Canada), and Fabiola (from Mexico) We are at the school forthe language camp.

So, I haven't had a chance to write for a while, but here it is. I got back from the language camp in Turany yesterday, which was a blast. I drove up with anotherstudent named Allie on Saturday the 23rd, and starting Sunday, we had 8 Slovak classes a day for the next five days. I made lots of friends, with mexicans, brazillians, and americans. There were only two Canadian girls. On Monday, we went into Martin and went ten-pin-bowling. On Tuesday, we watched a professional whip-cracker, who also played a traditional Slovak instrument. On wednesday, I rode a horse for the first time! The food was pretty gross, and included deep fried slabs of cheese as burgers.

Meeting Alvaro before I go

Me, Alvaro and my brother Colin in our kitchen on Alvaro's first day here. The table is laden with Brazilian gifts.

Jo & Fro!

This is me at Premier Lake, floating on an itsy-bitsy raft with my dog Frodo.