Slovakia

Dobry Den! We have been in Slovakia now for almost a week and we love it! There are almost no other tourists, a very low crime rate, everyone is very friendly, the temperature is hanging in at +14, and the prices for nearly everything are low (Mike is thrilled that beer only costs $0.85 for a half litre bottle in the bar!) What a great place! Too bad we have to leave so soon, but we hope to come back to this region of Europe to continue exploring after we have worked some in Ireland.

We stayed the last couple of nights in a little village in the Mala Fatra mountains where the autumn leaves were such brilliant colours. Outside the village, we watched a shepherd herding his sheep (although the dogs were really doing most of the work), saw many wild swans on the lakes, wild pigs on a closed ski hill, and hiked up (500 m up) some jagged peaks for beautiful, misty views of the valley. We spent the previous few nights in a Slovakian city called Kosice, where we were the only ones poking about in a medieval torture chamber.

It has been fun working in a totally new language again, and we have ordered some Slovakian mystery items in restaurants, but nothing that has turned out any worse than deep-fried cheese. Most people here think we are from Germany, and speak to us in broken German, which doesn't really help things much. We usually manage to communicate somehow in a chaotic combination of English, a few words in German, Polish and Slovakian we have picked up or might understand or can look up in our small 5 language dictionary, maybe a bit of Spanish and occasionally using some of Mike's sparse French, but mostly using wild hand gestures. This has given everyone some good laughs (think a young Slovakian girl who also speaks German asking Mike what time he wants breakfast, reading off a prepared English cue-card. He responds "Nine" (as in "o'clock"), she hears "nein" (no) in German , she asks "Nicht?" (none?) and he responds "No, no!" which confuses her more. Of course, in the end, finger and hand motions clarify things and it sorted itself out as it always does, despite our great surprise).

We have also been meeting lots of other backpackers on our travels, who have given us some good laughs, and great advice about places to visit, and hostels for when our hospitality club hopes fall through occasionally. The last guy we met was travelling around with a reindeer skin pillow from Finland! Our backpacks are filling up with completed journals (I am almost finished my second one) and warmer clothes for the changing season. We have socks from both East and West Germany and Slovakia, sweaters and boots from little villages in Poland, and some novels that we should really be trading in soon for some new ones. We carry more books than anything else!

We hope to put some more photos on our site soon, but not all the computers we find make this an easy task. Keep checking back though!

Sending all our love from Bratislava,

Carli-Ann and Mike