I am a princess

We are onto our last country for  field period of Europe. We all packed our things onto the bus and we were off around 10 am. Within about 15 minutes of leaving our hotel we were crossing the bridge from Slovakia to Austria. In Austria there was beautiful open fields with wind turbines to create electricity for the country (obviously they are going more green then the US because there was not one or 2 windmills there were fields of them). Another thing we saw on our bus ride were grape fields... which reminded me a little of Keuka and the finger lakes region. 

We arrived for our destination, Schönbrunn Palace. When you arrive it looks like something from the movies! The grounds of the Palace have a strong history going back to the Middle Ages, but it was in 1569 that the Hapsburg royal family took control of the estate.  For the first 200 years each Emperor  tinkered with the ground but no one really finished building "true" Palace.  By the early 1700's, Emperor Charles VI was using it as a Summer hunting lodge.He did this because the grounds of the estate were at the time heavily wooded and only 4 miles from central Vienna. It wasn't until the mid 1700s when Emperor Charles VI gifted the residence to his daughter Maria Theresa that the estate started to blossom. Maria Theresa decided to finish the grounds as a "true" Palace and added many fascinating features such as: a huge garden, the mighty Neptune Fountain, a theater, a festive zoo, beautiful galleries,  opulent fixtures from Chinese lacquer panels, murals, colorful wall papers. As we walked through the rooms of the palace I was amazed to hear of the history each room had. I would have gone the tour again if I had time. My favorite room of the palace was the ballroom, I would have loved to have a birthday party in there! After completing the tour inside a number of us decided to explore the grounds..I wish I could have stayed here all day because there was so much to see. 

After leaving the palace, we arrived at our hotel got settled into our rooms and relaxed for a little. Some went swimming and others slept. Then we were off to get dinner at the mall across the street; however, when we got there at 6:30 pm they told us they were closing. This made me upset because I was famished ...guess its just some trail mix for dinner since everyone in Europe turns in early. In actuality we ate the dinner of champions ... ice cream. 

Bratislava

Today we were headed to Bratislava Castle. Our first adventure of the day was the tram ride..We got lost getting there because the changing of the routes because of flooding, but eventually we found our way. The tour guide that we had was actually Dr. L's previous student who is a certified tour guide for Bratislava.. She gave us a tour of the town and outside of the castle sharing many interesting facts. One fact is that the capital of Slovakia (Bratislava) is strategically places so that it is easy to get to by the surrounding countries/ capitals. After the tour everyone parted ways to find some food. For lunch, my group found the first restaurant we saw, this was because we were all starving. One of the comments made was "I want to go to one of the restaurants that not everyone else is going to" so that we were not all putting our orders in at the same time and it would save time. We allowed all the other groups to continue walking until we picked this restaurant but apparently they came back and two other groups picked the same restaurant. But that's okay because the food was amazing!!!! I ordered a tuna salad which came with lots of vegetable and surprisingly I ate them all. After that, we got to spend the remaining time shopping and enjoying ourselves. During shopping my group found a cute little Slovakian Pub and we all decided to go in for desert/ drinks. I ordered a coffee and it is exactly what I needed for the rest of the day. After eating we shopped for the remaining time until 7. We headed back to the hotel, had our group meeting which I got to talk to the famous Dr. Love one on one about the trip and finally headed to bed... But not until saying hello to my mom first :)

Gravity works!

I hate long bus rides and that is what today consisted of. First we visited Bojnice castle, which  is a medieval castle in Bojnice, Slovakia. It is a romantic castle with some original Gothic and Renaissance elements built in the 12th century. Bojnice Castle is one of the most visited castles in Slovakia. Fun fact- it is also a popular filming stage for fantasy and fairy-tale movies. One of my favorite parts of the 700 year old tree that is outside the front of the castle named after the King Matthias Linden, it is the oldest documented trees in Slovakia.

The second of stop off of the day was Cicmany. Lets just say I think all of us were excited to get off the bus because the crazy country roads were making everyone feel sick, at some points everyone was nervous that we were going to just roll back down the hill the bus had just climbed. Anyway, Cicmany is a small town that shows how people in rural Slovakia lived 100 years ago. The houses around this town were the first preserved  from 1272 which dates back to the start of the town. After a great fire in 1921, the village was restored to its original appearance with generous contributions by the state. Until the mid-20th century, the village was a center of sheep raising.

 

You're going to miss me by my walk you are going to miss me by my talk

Today has been the best day ever! Words can not describe the experience I had today with the high school students. When we first arrived two students were standing outside with traditional Slovak clothing. When we exited the bus students were yelling out of the windows and waving to us to say hello!!! We went to the from steps of the school and met the administration of the school. Once introductions were finished they explained to us the welcome bread they had made for us. Next they stated they had a quiz for us about Slovakia...oh great...we were worried that we would fail because we knew some things but not everything. We entered the classroom where a number of students were waiting we took a set and the quiz began... I think we were all surprised how well we did haha. The quiz was a type of pre-assessment because after they had different groups/ partners teach about different topics such as: holidays, culture, food, music and we even had people dance for us!!! All of it was awesome!!! Once the presentations and tour were complete we were surprised with a talk show set up where students asked us questions about the US and we asked them things about Slovakia schools. The best part of the day was when we were surprised with the response that the bus was coming later and we would be able to play soccer with the students. While the girls and I were putting on our clothes to play, one of the administrators came in with a bag of green jerseys and shorts!!! It was AMAZING!   Let me tell you once we had those uniforms on we looked legit! We walked out and everyone was cheering for us it was a good time and a good workout ( I know I will be feeling it tomorrow). Once completing the game we had to head back to our hotel. The girls we had met the previous day were able to come back to our motel and have dinner with us again also. This time two other students from the school met us at dinner in Nitra. It was great to sit and talk with them all. Plus they were a great help when we were trying to order food and pay :) 

Although I have explained some of the things hat we did today, I cannot explain the feelings I felt when we entered the school and how welcomed we felt within this community. I am sad to leave tomorrow. I wish I could just stay here for the rest of the summer. I know I will keep in touch with many of the students I met today and learn as much Slovak as I can. Even if they make fun of how I say the words saying things like "good well....it's the best you can do" or "you are sounding too much like a French person with the way you pronounce your words"

Take a look at some of my favorite pictures of the day:

The grass is greener on the other side

Today was an excellent day, for one reason we were able to go to one of the elementary schools here in Nitra. Elementary schools here in Nitra are not the same as in the states, elementary schools here are grades 1-9. The school day for all students is similar to some kindergarten classes back in the states. They have shifts or a.m. or p.m. classes which means the day is taught in shifts. The school we attended is the second largest school in Nitra with 32 classrooms. In Nitra they use a looping system with students which means students have the same teacher for 4 years then they receive a new teacher. Their school year starts on September 1st and ends on June 30th. Students are required to attend school for a total of 10 years (kindergarten through 9th grade) of education. In March of their 10th year (9th grade) students take an examination that tells how well they are doing. Once students take they test they become unmotivated to do any of their work. The grades allow the students to apply for grammar school which is similar to high school. However, if a child shows intelligence at a young age such as 5th grade they can apply to enter an 8 year grammar school program. One of the problems here in Nitra is that people are over qualified for the job opportunity offered this is why many of the students do not continue past grammar school onto college or to a university.

After the school we headed to St. Franciscan church. This church is the second biggest church in Slovakia. The only church larger than St. Franciscan Church is the one at the castle. Many people around the castle and around St. Franciscan Church are dressed like monks because they are studying to become priests. On the way to the castle the first statue one will come to is the statue of Coregon. It is said that thousands of years ago when the Turkish invaded Nitra, the huge man helped to save the city by throwing big chunks of metal at the army that was attacking them. Legend has it that if you rub the big toe of the statue you shall return to Nitra again (even though I hate feet, I rubbed the big toe just so that I will return to Nitra). 

We have reached the Cathedral of St. Emerald in Nitra but, outside of the cathedral is a statue of Pope John Paul II the quote underneath the statue states, "I always wanted to visit Nitra she tells us about the first century". Once inside the cathedral you can see that it is under construction, however it does not distract for the beauty of the rest of the cathedral. When in the church you can see that there are three separate churches in one. The first is the Romanesque Church which dates back to the 11th or 12th century. The second is the upper church, which was started by the Bishop Mesko Piastovec, from Poland. It was build between 1333-1355. After being destroyed by the troops of Frantisek Rakoczy the Bishop at the time of 1710-1720 rebuilt it. Since then all paintings have been preserved. The last Is The Lower Church which a build between 1622-1642. Throughout the castle you can see the different colors of stones this represents the different parts Korea ages of the castle. Every time they had an attack, the castle was rebuilt with different materials and styles.

After leaving the cathedral, we entered the catacomb. I was surprised to hear from my fellow classmates "oh my there are bones down there!", do you know what catacomb means? Anyway, within the catacomb they showed us the defense walls and how the castle was protected with two layers of walls. The reason for which they placed the base here is because they had a very good view of the entrance from this point. The Catacomb was used as a cemetery. You can visibly see two human remains one a female and the other a male both around the age of 35. This concluded the program for the day, however this did not conclude my learning about Slovakia.

After the program we were all aloud to goo explore Nitra and find dinner. Of course one of the girls in my group had made connections with one of the girls from the high school we will be visiting tomorrow and wanted to meet up. We met them in Nitra and went to coffee and dinner. They taught us Slovak words such as thank you and hello my name is, none of witch I can type, I have difficulty even saying them. We asked them about what we will do tomorrow unfortunately they could not tell us...we will just have to wait till tomorrow. I am super excited for tomorrow and the program they have made for us, one thing I am I truly excited for is to play soccer.

Goodbye Prague hello Nitra

Today we left Prague and took at 4.5 hour bus trip to Nitra. Nitra is the hometown of one of our professors that is on the trip. Once we arrived in Nitra we dropped our things off in the hotel and headed off on the town. This was an exciting experience because for once in the past few days it was not raining so I decided to make use of one of the nice outfits I packed. We walked to the restaurant where we ate an amazing meal. Once finished, we didn't have to order dessert because of Dr. L's mom made treats for us and let me tell you they were Awesome. We headed back to the hotel an ate the wonderful desserts and talked about our plans tomorrow and the fact we will be walking everywhere which I am ok with....exercise is good for the body. Now off to bed...need to wake up early  to head to the first school and see the castle in Nitra. 

BAF!

     Honestly, as I sit here trying to write this blog I can not remember the day...it was fun filled with many different adventures...the first that I recall was breakfast. I was not very impressed with it. When you think of complimentary breakfast with the hotel you may think of bagel. toast, maybe make your own waffle? Well, not in Europe. Here you had three options toast, yogurt (which does not taste like yogurt from the states), and cereal (kind of like Special K cereal in the states). You can guess what I had...toast and "cereal". First of all you can't go wrong with toast...the bread was good, however my cereal was a different story I had milk with it and also like the states it was warm milk :/ whatever...ate it anyway didn't know when the next time we would eat was.

     The second adventure of the day...The Petrin Observation Tower..looks like a mini Eiffel Tower. As we climbed the tower which took us about 4 minutes but with the rain and wind it felt more like 20 (my cartdio for the day). After the tower we took the tram to the Prague Castle which was my trivia question yesterday! Did you know...The Prague Castle is an ancient symbol of the Czech islands and the most significant Czech monument and one of the most important cultural institutions in the Czech Republic!I think everyones favorite part was taking pictures around the castle and especially with the guards! After the Castle we headed for lunch (note this is around 430) where we were able to taste some of the local cuisine in which I was kind of nervous after eating breakfast. However, It was awesome! We ate chicken noodle soup and goulash (not like the goulash my father makes). I couldn't have asked for a better meal! It was very good comfort food for being out in the cold and rainy weather. 

     For the final part of the day we went to St. Charles Bridge in which we were able to take pictures we were also able to see The Old Town Bridge Tower and The Powder Tower. After crossing the bridge we walked though Old Town. Once there we split into groups, my group decided to sit outside at a local cafe and have coffee. It was much needed and a good opportunity to warm up while we waited for 6 o'clock to roll around to hear the bells ring (which is kind of a big deal...it reminded me of when you head to a water park and they have the bucket that fills up and when it is allmost full everyone gathers around in a huge crowd and everyone waits for it to dump, well thats what everyone did except they waited for it to ring). After this we headed back to the hotel to relax, blogg and run to the store for a "make your own dinner".

Trivia Question:  What is special about the Powder Tower?

The Powder Tower is one of the most remarkable momuments of medieval Prague. It marked the begining of the Prague royal route and the end of an important road from Kutna Hora, where silver was mined for the royal treasury.

Some Photots from today....

The reason for which this blog is named....Here in Europe dogs do not say woof they say Baf! (found this in the subway station)