Okay so just wanted to say hi quickly before I head out for the weekend. I'm going to Banska Bystrica for a Rotary event and I'm super excited!

Things have been very good here this week! I'm beginning to feel significantly less homesick and am starting to get back to my busy normal self. Hip hip hooray!!!
I've been busy trying to complete some enormous scholarship applications this week so that was wonderful. Not. Argghhhhhh sometimes I love computers and sometimes I don't. I had to do one application in a program that wouldn't let me save the data unless I owned the commercial version of it. And if you think about this that would be totally okay if you were living in Canada. Simply fill out the form and print. But I'm way over here in Slovakia and so I had to fill out the form print and re scan it to an email so that I could get it to my parents who then mailed it out. Fun fun fun. The printing was the first struggle. My dad was away on a business trip (with his computer) so I had to use my computer. This meant I had to install his printer onto my computer, which should be simple enough. NOT. The printer installation software was in English thank god but for some reason some of the windows would come up in Slovak. and then to make things more complicated the settings section down loaded in portugeuse or spanish or something! So to make a long story short I sat there for hours trying to get the silly printer to cooperate with me with google translator open all the way. Eventually it did work but not the way it was supposed to. I had to print two pages at a time and then turn off the printer and turn it back on again then print the next two pages. Why? I have no idea. But it had something to do with the regular paper size being two inches longer than the regular paper size in Canada. And since the settings section was in portugeuse and no one here knows a single word of that language and google translator can only be so much help, I just gave in and did it the way the printer wanted. Slowly but surely (two pages at a time) I got the dange application finished! pheewwwwww! Just one more to go. But at least this time I know what I'm in for.

As for stuff that actually has to do with slovakia, not much has happened this week. It's really turned into just everyday life, which is kind of nice to be honest. But I will tell you how the weekend was. My family and I went to stay in a weekend house (like a little cottage. Everyone here has one.) near Bratislava. It was so nice!!! We arrived after a 2.5 hour drive (mind you we went across a quarter of the country) to the home and the owners of the home (our family friends) greeted us in the driveway. But they didn't just greet us, they handed us shots of alcohol! I was surprised but I've learned to just go with it, so there we were saying nazdravieh (cheers) in the street, it was hilarious. So we then proceeded inside where it smelled delicious and I was overwhelmed by lots of people. All the youngens were swiftly sat at the table and given full plates of food. (no we weren't asked what we wanted or how much we were just given). It was so yummy!!! We had duck (cooked like a turkey) and purple cabbage and thin crepe like things covered in oil and salt. mmmmmmmmmm. It's one slovak meal I can get used to. And apparently it's duck season right now so Ill be seeing more of it.
After the good food it was just time for visiting and chit chatting. This is always a little difficult for me because once I'm introduced and say where I'm from everyone goes back to their typical slovak conversations which I have a lot of trouble participating in (go figure!). Later on in the evening, all the men went outside in the freezing cold to have a fire, smoke cigars, and drink. Very typical activities for the men here I must say. Meanwhile the ladies were left inside to clean up the mess left by mostly the men, and to chit chat quietly over tea and magazines. It was nice I enjoyed it.
In the category of more food, I got to try a roasted chestnut and it was very different than I expected. They are like gushy on the inside and crunchy on the outside. I'm not sure if I like them or not but it was cool to get to have one, a rael one picked of the tree and roasted in an open fire.

Well thats it for now. On tuesday I'll let you know how the weekend went. There is supposed to be a table tennis tournament so we;ll see how that turns out. Never played it in my life so should be interesting!

love
p