After a lovely Easter church service I was blessed to be in the company of this Slovak family. Maria, on the far left, used to attend the C.S. Lewis high school where I have been involved since I came to SK. Her family has reached out to me and invited me to be part of their circle and I am so very grateful to them. Here we are at a nice restaurant in a small village near to where they live. The walls were decorated with traditional Slovak items, as you can see behind us. My menu selection was the traditional SK Halusky (ha-lou-shkee) which is a mound of small dumpling like food smothered in cheese made from goat milk and bits of bacon sprinkled on top. It’s a ‘stick to your ribs’ kind of lunch.

Being so far away from my own family on Easter is still a strange experience for me. Having friends like these makes it not only tolerable but very pleasant indeed.

On a recent trip to the north of SK to teach at a prison for juveniles I stopped for a visit with my friend Martin and his mom. I originally met Martin at the summer baseball camp and continue to be good friends with him. (pictures from the prison trip will be posted here in the near future).
We had a great little adventure together as we went to see a castle about an hour from their town (they know how much I like seeing the castles). On the way there we went through a region known as Orava which is famous for producing a type of string cheese known as Komacka (co- ma-ch-ka). As you drive through this area, there are little old ladies sitting by the side of the road waiting to sell you the cheese they made. As your car approaches they struggle up out of their chair and hold out a bag of cheese saying “nech sa paci” (neck- sa –pah- chee) which is a common SK phrase meaning like ‘help yourself.’ The cheese is quite tasty, a bit salty, but good.

So, of course we had to stop and sample some of the local goods. This lady was quite camera shy. She was covering her face and laughing as I tried to take her photo.

The cheese cost about $5. It was as much fun to play with as it was to eat.

Finally we arrive at the castle. Magnificent!

The castle is known as the Oravsky. As with most castles in SK, the history of this place is long and complicated. Records indicate that people were inhabiting this space as early as the year 1000. After the building of the main castle and many of the walls in 1267 it changed hands by one means or another a dozen times until a great fire in the 1800’s destroyed significant areas. It was immediately rebuilt according to the historical architectural records and restored to what you see here.

The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

This is the Citadel where soldiers trained and honed their warefare skills and strategies.

There is a muzeum in the castle as well with some interesting things to see. Yes, these bears are native to this area still today. This guy is named Yogi.

One of the great things about castles is you almost always get a wonderful view from a high vantage point. Oravsky is no exception. This is the Vah river.

Also on this trip I made a stop in Bojnice where the baseball camp is held each summer and where many of the participating families live. I make it a point to stop and see whoever happens to be available at the time. This day I mostly spent with my friend Peter who is a senior in high school. I was fortunate enough to have a home cooked lunch with his dad and his grandfather at the family cottage just outside town where they grow a variety of fruits and vegetables. While the food was fantastic, the stories from grandpa about WWII were even better. In one story he tells of watching a midair dog fight between German and American fighter pilots as dozens of B-52 bombers are on their way to bomb Germany.Peter did all the translating for his grandfather.

No matter how many times you see the Bojnice castle, it never gets old. I have posted many other photos of this magnificent structure on the blog before but a couple more from a beautiful sunny day couldnt hurt, right?

Later in the day Peter and I were joined by our friend Janka. It was a fantastic day to sit in the sun near the Bojnice castle and talk about life.

Recently I was invited to attend a training weekend by a SK organization called Nova Nadej (New Hope) as an observer/facilitator. New Hope is a Christian organization which facilitates a variety of programming for children and teens around Life Skills and the development of biblically based values and ethics. This particular gathering is a training for adults, from various walks of life, who work with children in one capacity or another. The focus of the training was Conflict Resolution. In this photo I am doing a teaching and activity on identifying and developing effective communication skills.

These types of activities were not so prevalent during the communist years. Recent times has seen quite a surge of interest among the Slovaks for experiences like this where they can sharpen their skills and learn something new.

One of the activities was to break up into small groups and to work together to create a means by which a normal egg could be dropped from a lofty distance and sustain no damage. The only materials the groups could use were a normal sheet of paper, a little strip of tape, 2 or 3 toothpicks, a tissue, a small plastic bag, a short section of string and a few other items. Despite the variety of strategies used in each group, I am happy to report all the eggs survived the fall. If you look closely in this shot the parachute option was chosen by this particular group.

After the training, which was in the High Tatras mountains, my friend and translator Tomas, went on a little adventure of our own. Tomas likes castle ruins as much as I do so he was excited to show me the 2nd largest ruins in SK. The ruin is known as Lietava. The history of buildings on this site dates back to 1213. Unfortunately we had a rainy day and not the best light for photos. I will definitely go back to this site as it was the most impressive I have seen since I have been in Europe.

Tomas (toe-mah-sh) is on the left.

Let me introduce you to another wonderful Slovak family who have become dear friends of mine. Sasa, Fero,(mom and dad) Simon and Sara(the kids). They are one of the families who are heavily involved at the local high school where I am also engaged and they graciously welcomed me into their home for a lunch a few weeks ago. We had a nice Sunday afternoon together. I thank God for people like this who warm up my heart with their fellowship.

A home cooked meal for a bachelor is like a swim in the ocean on a hot summer day.

I was thoroughly outsmarted by Simon in our game. No surprise there. I just kept telling him "you are the wiener." You can see there on the table pictures of my neices and nephews. I had the privilege of sharing some stories about my family back in Mn. Thank you my friends.