well, two things have happened.
1. WARM WEATHER
2. i can't log on to the school's internet with MY computer anymore, meaning that all my pictures are trapped, trapped inside my macbook instead being out here in the world. and that makes me angry and depressed, and then i just drink in the bathroom and cry myself to sleep instead of chin-up-ing it and just posting picture-less blogs.
so, with that in mind, what has happened in the last like, six weeks in slovakia?
1. Svatojurske Hody. ohhhhhhhh svatojurske hody. my, oh my, svatojurske hody.
1a. being violently ill for a week following svatojurske hody.
1b. did i mention that hody was a big town celebration and there was beer EVERYWHERE for like two cents and music ALL NIGHT and i didn't sleep for DAYS but no one else did either? I have some good memories. One of which is dancing in a pottery studio around four-thirty in the morning.
2. went to Zagreb for about a week again. i still don't understand why i am not allowed to be in two different places at the same time. If i could, then one part of me would live in zagreb, no questions asked. It's all about the sidewalk cafes, the red-umbrella-ed fresh market, the mercedes-benz buses, and the hidden, smoky jazz clubs. The roses, the Foxlife channel,* and the batcat.
*Foxlife is a channel on croatian tv that, as far as i can tell,exclusively shows reject american tv shows, such as "Less than Perfect" and "Caroline in the City."
Also, strangely, the only commercials that are shown are FOR the foxlife channel. I've become mildly obsessed with these commercials, especially since the theme for foxlife is "identify yourself" which just kind of makes me angry.
as in : "Life grows. it changes! it surprises. it excites. Foxlife. Identify yourself!"
(NO FOXLIFE I WILL NOT DEFINE MYSELF BY YOUR CHANNEL, NO NO NO)
3. went to Graz, Austria on an "excursion" (Am. Eng. FIELD TRIP). good stuff, austria pretty and expensive, pretty much is exactly what you would picture if you have ever seen the Sound of Music. We stayed in the snazziest damn monastery i have ever seen.
4. Vienna, where i bought lots of books while overcome with emotion at the sight of an INTERNATIONAL USED BOOK STORE. oh god, it was great. I also went to the Mumok, (museum of modern art) where i was rather surprisingly disappointed. Then i went to the Naschtmarket and bought a kebap for three euro and it was twice the size of my head. mmmmmmmmm kebap.
5. Smolenice to visit My Canadian Friend.
she's so pregnant! and miriam, at two-ish, is learning both english and slovak, and says "paci sa...dakujem!" and "dobry den!" so sweet.
6. teachin' english, playin' hackeysack. yes, actually, mildly obsessed with the hackeysack. Olga and i also invented a game involving two frisbees and one hackeysack. we call it Svatojurske Hasbee.
7. oh yes. also i have classes, that i go to, and in these classes i ask intelligent and thought-provoking questions.
of course.
8. I finally made up my mind once and for all that when school ends, i am moving to chucktown, sc, and i will take it from there. i have been changing my mind back and forth about this issue - stay in europe another year or not...and i had to just MAKE UP my mind, and not play around anymore. so i am looking forward to going home...but i wish that europe was closer to america. there are lots of people and things that i am going to miss here.
.....................BUT I WILL NOT MISS............................
TRIPE.
so there are like, two foods out there that will make me throw up. i've got a strong stomach, really, and i'm not picky. these foods are:
1. Liver on my occasions
2. Tripe on all occasions. or even thinking about this.
Yesterday, Olga and i went to Vlado's (next door) to fetch his ladder (during a game of svatojurske hasbee my hackey landed in our gutter). SO i walk in, and his aunt (who is very kind even though she doesn't speak a word of english) pulls me aside and offers me a bowl of dobra polievka, dobra polievka (good soup). and i do mean PULL, she grabbed ahold of my arm and pushed me towards the table in the wine cellar.
So i think Hey, what the hell, she's just being nice...the least i can do is go eat a bowl of soup. I sit down, vlado pours me a glass of wine, she slices bread and heats up the soup, before placing it in front of me. and what is it? horror upon horros, it was a nice steaming bowl of držkova - TRIPE SOUP. oh god. horrible.
ugh, ugh, ugh. i was sending daggers through my eyes at olga, who apparently didn't understand at all. so i ate it. oh, it gives me chills to even think about it...it feels exactly what i imagine a mouth full of worms would feel like. there was a lot of pretend chewing on my part, followed by wine gulping.
so that was my traumatizing soup experience. but we got the ladder, and got the hackey, and all was well in the world.
that's all for now.
ps. the sun starts rising at 4 in the morning here. i saw it last night and was mildly amused.
