madarsko... SOM BOLA TAM! [[hungary... I WAS THERE!]]

hey!
sorry it's been so long since the last time i posted... over a month... oops...
things have been going really well here lately.. i've been having my ups and downs with pretty much everything but my friends, but now all is on the up....... so that's good.

okay, so..
i totally went to hungary sunday night to watch hungary vs. japan in hockey with my second host parents and my current host mom and it freaking ROCKED. i got to meet some people on the team [[my second host father's cousin plays]] and my second host parents bought be a shirt from hungary and i totally got a sweet hungarian flag painted on my face..... and it rocked.
i like hockey!!!
it brought something to light for me, though, slovaks around my town HATE hungarians. i've heard before that they had some problems... slovakia was under hungarian rule for a long time and now hungary wants to take over this part of slovakia that's all little villages where most people speak only hungarain......... blah, blah, but i thought most of it was just boys being overdramatic and such, but i wore that shirt in school the next day and juraj told me that i had bad timing because some hungarian-speaking woman was attacked in western slovakia not too long ago and more than one of my friends either walked up to me and zipped up my sweatshirt or told me it should say "slovakia" or they said something like "you know slovaks hate hungarians, right?"
i didn't realize that it could be THAT bad...... i mean, i figured it was just like wisconsin and illinois... everyone knows the bears suck and FIBs can't drive, but even though we talk a lot of smack, it doesn't really mean anything.
crazy stuff...

what else...?

i've been looking into colleges here... there's a really good one in presov, the third biggest city in slovakia, and i'm working on writing an e-mail to the head of the english department to ask if i can come see it because getting into college here as a foreigner is very difficult and it's different for every school, i guess, so i have to go there and talk to the people before i can do anything else.
but presov isn't too far from where i am now... maybe an hour and a half or something...? so i should be able to get there pretty easily.
we'll see what happens...
but for any slovak school i go to, i will need to take a year-long slovak language course where it will be like a normal school day, but with nothing but slovak....... a.l.l...d.a.y.... haha.
it's okay, though, because i really like slovak..

which leads me tooooo...
my slovak is improving dramaticly.
for serious. haha.
i was just in the capitol [[capital?]] a few weeks ago and i took a test in slovak that would determine whether or not i can travel around slovakia without a rotary chaparone and though i don't have my test results back, i got an e-mail telling me how to ask for permission to travel alone........ so i think that means i passed.
WOOT!!!
and on the train ride home, i had to spend a couple hours with people who spoke absolutely no english and i was able to have a good conversation with them and it really made things click for me... and since then i've been speaking more and more in slovak and i've been getting more and more comfortable with how i can speak and it's just super cool.
and i'm totally thinking in slovak... like, to the point that when i listen to music sometimes, i translate it in my head from english to slovak and it's cool.
and, though this isn't really a good thing, TWICE today juraj showed me something and asked "čo je to po anglický?" [["what is it in english?"]] and all i could think of was the slovak word for it.
i just looked them up and i was actually TOTALLY RIGHT about one of them [[i didn't know the spine was nerves, though, i thought it was bone part. hmmm.]] but i still don't know about the other.
what's the little case thing that people put pens in? it's like, just long enough to fit a pen in, wide enough for, say, three or four pens, and it zips shut........... or maybe we don't have a name for them?
because i don't remember seeing any before i came here.
unless i did.
meh.

anyway, i don't really know what else to write about....... i'll probably think of more later, but, yeah... i've got nothing now.

ooh, there's a christmas market in town today and for the next two days... it's neat. just like a flee market... cool stuff!

ANDDDDD they have been letting me teach english classes ALONE lately... i have two classes and they aren't every day, but the kids are really cool... one group of freshman and one group of sophmores [[sp?]]. they're NEAT!
and it's cute because sometimes when i see them outside of school, they'll come up to me and talk to me in this combination of slovak/broken enlgish and we totally go back and forth like that... or with me trying to speak slovak and them trying to speak english and it's sweet. =P

anyway, that's all for now...
i hope everything's going well there!
i love you all!!!
<3

i don't have enough time to write everything out, but...

mom said she that many people already know this, but i've been off the computer for a while because i got bit by a dog [[not badly]] and had to stay in the hospital.
the whole situation is STUPID and complicated, but i'm okay and hopefully everything else will be, too... SOON.
i will write about it when i have time, which i don't now... meh.

it won't let me put in the actual pictures, for some reason, but here are some links...
here's the bite...
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff156/xxche/slovakia/people/ME/dog%20bite/nov7to8002.jpg

in other news, it snowed for the first time this year the other day... and it's super pretty.
so now for a happier picture...
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff156/xxche/slovakia/places/roznava/random%20stuff/firstsnow001.jpg

i love and miss you all... and i hope everything's going well there.
<3

okay, so i lied a little.... but someone sent me this and i thought i'd share...

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind.
She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her.
She told her boyfriend, "if I could only see the world, I will marry you."

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend.

He asked her,'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?'
The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.

Her boyfriend left her in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.'

This is how the human brain often works when our status changes.
Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who was always by their side in the most painful situations.

Life Is a Gift

Today before you say an unkind word -
Think of someone who can't speak.

Before you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone who has nothing to eat.

Before you complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone who's crying out to GOD for a companion.

Today before you complain about life -
Think of someone who went too early to heaven.

Before you complain about your children -
Think of someone who desires children but they're barren.

Before you argue about your dirty house someone didn't clean or sweep -
Think of the people who are living in the streets.

Before whining about the distance you drive
Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet.

And when you are tired and complain about your job -
Think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job.
But before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another -
Remember that not one of us is without sin and we all answer to one MAKER.

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down -
Put a smile on your face and thank GOD you're alive and still around.

mam rada moje kamaratky! [[i like my friends!]] <3

so we actually celebrated my birthday yesterday.... and it was crazy!

the best part, though::
i told some people in my class that i'm going to have a slovak language test around christmas, and that if i fail, i can get sent home... and when they gave me presents, they gave me a cute pink pillow with a teddy bear, some chocolate, and two books for learning slovak, since they know i don't have any yet. [[i bought some that my english teacher found for me over the internet, but they aren't here yet.]]
and it was really cute because some of them told me that if i ever need help, i can ask them and they will help me... and then simona said "because we don't want you sent home at christmas."
and it was just really cool...

so i'm going to stop typing now and go learn slovak! =P

here's my pillow::

ja som osemnast! [[i am 18]]

so my birthday was amazing... we just hung out in town all night and went dancing and it was sweet.

i officially have a little acoustic guitar, but no lessons, so i guess i'm just going to sit around and play, which should be fun... and no cost, which is amazing.

i noticed this morning that i think i have a stye, so i went to the hospital because i figured i might get lucky and get some good free advice about what medicine to buy in tesco, since i have no idea how things are labled here, but even though i know where the hospital is, it took me forever to figure out where to go because they don't have a front desk or anything. you just walk into this one door and there are three hallways and you have to just... pick one. haha. so i just wandered around and asked people where i should go since i didn't see anyone who worked at the hospital and i got directed back and forth in slovak untill i narrowed it down to one place and the looked at my eye and gave me medicine for free, even though i asked how much i should pay... and it was really nice.
and it made me think about how freaking NICE everyone here is to me, even people i don't know.
i think they like that i try as hard as i can to speak to them in slovak... because my slovak is getting a LOT better. [[even though it still kindof sucks. =P ]]

in other news, this is the cutest thing i have ever seen::

...and i didn't believe them when they said it was a small town.

okay, so for slovakia, roznava is a small town, but i kept telling people that my town is so.much.smaller... and i figured that, this being a city, gossip would be less rampant, right? wrong.

so, when i first kindof noticed that something was going on was when i was talking to my friend's brother because he added me on icq. and i was like "...do i know you?" and he said that i didn't, but that "everyone at school is talking about you."
ok. neat. but i'm an exchange student, so i guess that makes sense... but then it's not just like "there's an american here... and look, there she is." like, i met some girls before who knew what class i was in, who i sat with, what music i listen to, my favorite band......... and they showed up to the place my friends and i go every friday the next couple fridays. it was weird.

and then today, i was standing in line for lunch and i heard someone say "ona je americanka." and i looked up there was this whole group of people staring at me. and it was akward.

and okay, so maybe none of that's that big a deal, but the part that really bothers me about this whole thing is this, because without this, i probably wouldn't still be thinking about it at all...
so i was talking to veronika today. she's my neighbor and one of my closest friends here. and she was like "...so i heard stevo was at your house yesterday. wooow."
and i was like WTF. howwwwwww do you know that? and why does it matter?
and she was like "oh, someone told me they saw him at your house."
but there was totally no one on my street, because we just stood outside by the front gate.... and no one walked by or anything... the whole time.
and then later someone else asked me if i like him. someone i had never talked about him with before...
and it's creepy.
and i don't like it.

meh.
and it's officially about 1:30 am and i'm really tired, so maybe i'll feel dumb freaking out about this tomorrow. but... GAH. drama, drama... silly people.

in other news, i'm going to my first slovak birthday party tonight... my friend/classmate bianka is turning 18 on saturday, so it should be neat.

alsoooooooo i am going with veronkia and her family to the highest hill near roznava on sunday... it's called volovec and i guess it's really cool. so... it should be really cool. haha.

good night!

hoorah!

this makes me happy... i didn't think i would find a countdown with penguins, but i totally did.
and since it won't work on my myspace because of some other codes i have that i don't want to take out, i'm putting it here.



woot, woot!

and it's on a friday, too... which is the big night here.
aah!

mam rada fotky. [["i like pictures"... or it might just say "i like picture" i'm not sure... haha.]]

so i had my first "moment" or whatever here yesterday.
i was sitting in this old abandoned building that the russians used during world war 1 and it's all messed up and broken down and AMAZING... and i was looking out into the moutains and it's fall, so there are all these pretty colors................... and i was like "...people LIVE here. people see this every day."
and it was weird, because i've had this thing lately where everything kindof feels like a dream, like none of it it real. and that's when i kindof broke out of that.
and then i realized... "I LIVE HERE." for the next year, i am one of those people.
and i just kindof sat there. and looked.
and it was like everything just... clicked. it was neat.

i have pictures of the building and the stuff around it on my photobucket...
xxche/slovakia/places/buildings and castles/old russian bunker.

and by "and stuff" i mean that i discovered that my camera has micro... so i went crazy with that one.

in other news, i am going to go play volleyball with the people from the church again in, like, 10 minutes. yay!

ooooooh... and i totally have some pictures of me and my friends from friday night and last night. woot!
xxche/slovakia/people/friends

grandma karen...

i had my first slovak potatoe salad at lunch today.
my friends were all talking about how good it was.
and i told them they should try my grandma's... because it's totally better.

<3

volejbal je dobré šport. [[volleyball is a good sport.]]

ok, so last week one of our friends signed me and my friend veronika up for a volleyball tournament in roznava... i thought it was going to be an actual big thing, since he made a big deal out of how "we'd better win or.... [[random threat]]." but it was actually just this little thing on an outside court in a rec center run by the church.

it was cool because my team won both games and everyone kept telling me that i was really good at volleyball and one guy said that if all girls in slovakia played volleyball like me, everything would be good.

soooooooooooo i am going to start playing volleyball in school next week. there isn't an actual team, but there is.......... something else, i guess, so i'll be doing that.

i started going to church here, too. i go with the boy who signed me up for volleyball, veronika, and another boy we know who will ONE DAY be a super-huge film director. haha. it's different, but cool... the pastor guy does a little speaking, but a bunch of the teenagers get up and read from a book [[maybe a bible? i'm not sure]] and sing and stuff. i guess different kids read every week. the guy tried to get me to read, but i don't understand enough slovak that that's a good idea.

the coolest part about the church thing, fo sho, was wheni left the church the first time i was there... it was a few days after the volleyball tournament, and i saw a nice nun i had talked to between games and i smiled at her and she winked at me. i didn't know nuns winked! haha. i have also seen her shopping, playing fooseball, and riding a bike.... she's neat.

in other news, i met with the lady who used to teach my host father's music class when he was in school. she wants me to play guitar for her singing group... all the kids are between 10 and 15 and they are AMAZING. i totally want to do it, but i'm definitely not good enough. there is a music school in roznava, though, so if all works out, i will start going there and taking "classic guitar" lessons. which i'm thinking means acoustic? i have a friend who goes there now for guitar, and she says it's really cool... one of my host brothers in my second host family also goes there, and the sister from the family i think will be my third. the lady who runs the music school agreed to lend me a guitar... so even if i'm not able to go to the school, i will still be able to practice. and for the record, it's not like a regular school... i will still go to the same school, i will just go to the music school afterwards a couple nights a week.

ALSO [[and this is what i'm super excited about]] i will probably be going to kosice with juraj tomorrow... it's the second-largest city in slovakia [[besides bratislava]] and it's only, like, 30 minutes away by bus. it should be sweet... i guess it's BEAUTIFUL. there are a ton of shops and old buildings... and i guess there's an amazing cathedral. yay!

i added some more pictures, but just ones that were taken before i got my camera. they're in::
-- xxche/slovakia/places/host familys vineyard
-- xxche/slovakia/people/me
-- xxche/slovakia/places/landscapes
-- xxche/slovakia/places/buildings and castles/krasna horka
and there's also one just under slovakia... a picture of the math test i'm SUPER proud of!

it seems like a lot, but there are only a bunch of pictures are in the vineyard one... there are only, like, two in each of the others.

i love and miss you all!
<3

FOTKYAPARAT!

hi! i'm sorry it took me so long to re-post again, i hope you're all still listening! i just always have so much to say, and never enough time to say it... so i think that if i wait a while, i'll have more time, except that then i have more to say as well... it's a vicious cycle.

i FINALLY have a camera. i walked around town yesterday taking pictures and i put them on photobucket.com, but there aren't that many of slovakia yet... i have some pictures other people have taken on there too... if they were taken by other people, the person's name is in "[[]]"

my name for the site is "xxche" again and i made it private because... i felt like it. so the guest password is "redfish13" [[like one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish... because i was thinking about that story when i decided. =P]]

i went to a town called nova paka in the czech republic over the weekend... there are pictures in there from that, too... we had to dress up in clothing from the '20s and '30s, so some of my friends in roznava helped me find the dress i wore. i like it loooooooooots.

school is still good, though slightly boring because i can't understand enough to learn anything and i feel bad distracting my classmates. i took a math test a few days ago and got it back today... 92%! yay! juraj [[the boy i sit with.]] and i decided that we liked math, since he got 100%, but then the teacher started telling us about the next chapter and we both got confused and changed our minds.

i have been sick for the past week... it's not cool... but everyone else in school is too, so i guess that's how it goes. it's totally slovak, though, because i've never felt like this before... when i first got it, my head was spinning and i felt like i was going to throw up and i was coughing and my nose was running... and it was all really bad. but it's getting better now and i only have the last two... so i guess that's good.

i am going to go to a rotary meeting soon, so i have to go get ready. i promise that from now on i will try to write in here at least every other day...

thank you for your comments and i still hope all is going well! if you could tell me a bit about what's going on back home, that'd be neat... i want to hear about all of you too!

<333

ahojte!

My first official post in my brand new blog... I hope everything and everyone is doing well in America!

Everything here is amazing.

I live with a family whose son is on exchange in Nevada right now. Both my host parents are really nice and they speak pretty good English, so they have been helping me learn Slovak. My host father likes a lot of the same 70's/80's music I do and after I got here, I played the Charlie Daniel's Band for him and he liked them a lot. Their house is pretty big... two stories and a basement. I have my own room with a little terrace that looks out into the mountains... with a couple houses slightly in the way. The family has two dogs, Orvil and Otelia... both labs, one black and one brown. [People here have good taste in dogs too, obviously.] They look different, though... they're shorter and stockier-ish, i think.
My school is close enough to my house that I can walk so I walk to school with my closest friend, who is my neighbor, and some other girls. School is pretty okay, I can't understand much, but I am trying, and i think the teachers appreciate that. I don't have to do the homework the other students do, but sometimes the teachers give me assignments like researching an American author and talking about him in front of the class, or talking about what I learned about American's entrance in WWI... and I get to say those in English, so it's not bad. There are two English teachers at my school and both of them are super nice [though one is much better in English than the other... hmmm.] and I help out in English class. Like in LUHS, the school day is set up to have 8 classes, but here if you don't have a class, you don't have a specific place to be... so we sit in the hallways, leave the school, go get lunch... or whatever. I don't have to be to school untill 9:30 on fridays because i don't have the first two classes and I get to leave early every day but Tuesday. Lunch is another thing that is different... there is no designated time for lunch. My school doesn't have a cafeteria, so we have to go to different schools or home to eat. I walk with my friends to a school that is... maybe 1/4 mile away to get lunch, since lunch is really good there. When we have lunch depends on when we have classes. If we have a break after noon, we can eat lunch at 12 or 1, if we don't have a break all day, we have to wait untill 3:30. Between classes there is about 10-15 minutes to sit and chill, which is really nice and most people bring subs and stuff to eat then... some people eat one every break, which is amazing to me since EVERYONE is super skinny. and sometimes there is even more time because teachers can be late to class or not show up... my English teacher didn't come to class today, so we got a whole hour free.
My classmates are really nice. Everyone has been helping me learn Slovak and I have been teaching some of them the English words for things, but they have a very good grasp of the language. For the first week of school, I sat next to a boy named Juraj ["ur-ee"] who I met before school started, since I hang out with his "group." There are a lot of cool names here, but his is my favorite i've hear so far. And everyone has English names... Juraj is George, Zuzka is Suzana... It's neat.
The people I have met here are a lot like my friends at home. Everyone is outgoing and fun. My favorite person I have met here so far is a kid everyone calls Kenzo. He likes all the same bands and music as me, but I especially like him because he is the only person I have ever met whose eyes are always shining, no matter what is happening, like whatever is going on at that second is the coolest thing that has ever happened to him before. It's really cool, and it makes everything seem that much more fun.
The thing that suprised me most about schools and people, though, is that there don't really seem to be any "social classes" [other than gypsies/everyone else]. No one looks at anyone else as a "geek" or "punk" or anything. The girls who would definitely be in the "popular" group in my school sit and talk to the "geeks" all the time. I think it's different because they have all been in the same class for the past three years, and most of them have known eachother since grade school. Another difference is that there are no sports in school. There are town teams, but not school teams... and when these teams have games, they sometimes travel outside the country to play, which is really cool.
There is a festival going on now in my town. It is called the "Tempus Art Festival" and it will be going on for the rest of the week. There are different acts going on every day and night, they never do the same one twice, and the actors are from 9 [i think] different countries in Europe. This is the third year of the festival, and it's really cool. I went to the first night with some friends to a dancing show... i don't really know how to explain it, because it was REALLY weird, but it was only two dancers and they did acrobatics, acting, singing... everything. it was neat.
Other than that, I have been able to go to castles, museums, a disco, and my friends' houses... a well-rounded experience. The coolest thing I have been able to do so far is to dance with gypsies, which I don't think is really highly looked-upon here, but it was amazing and fun. We went to this old town that was supposed to be like Slovakia "back in the day" and there was music playing, so we found where it was coming from and there were a bunch of gypsies dancing and singing, so my friends and I just jumped in and started dancing, it was AWESOME. Also, on one night of the festival there was a live band playing, and they closed down the town square so people could hang out and dance so my friends and I went there and "pogo-danced" [which is like moshing, but slightly less violent.] I also taught them how to do the macarana [which is probably totally spelled wrong.] because the band played it, but not all the people i was with knew what to do.
I haven't had a food yet that I didn't like at least a little and I have never been hungry... people here eat so much more than me! The best thing I've had so far though is "banan a čocolat" which is a banana, two strawberries and a piece of orange on top of fudge-stuff on a plate topped with whipped cream [and by "topped" i mean the entire plate is covered] and drizzled with chocolate. Absolutely amazing!
My rotary club doesn't have many meetings, they have only had one since I've been here. They are all really nice... we went to a nice restaurant and I got to drink coffee and try to talk to them in Slovak. It's neat, when you get coffee here, you always get a little cookie to dip in your coffee or, sometimes, a little piece of candy and whenever I go out with anyone now, without me saying anything, they give me the little cookie/candy. it's neat... definitely a sweet deal.
Speaking of Slovak... my Slovak is getting pretty good, and I can carry on short conversations with people who don't speak English. It's really funny trying to figure things out when I am with people who don't speak English or don't remember how to say some word that I don't know in Slovak... I was talking to one of my friends and he tried to tell me something about a shark, but I couldn't understand so he acted out a wave, then a person swimming away, and then moved his arms up and down and said "hum, hum" untill I understood.

So this has been a super-long blog, I will try to update as often as I can, but I'm sure nothing else will be this long. Also, if I can, I will put up all the pictures I take/get other people to take for me. Please excuse all spelling errors, because I'm sure my English will get worse as time wears on and I am way too lazy to go look things up. If you have any questions, ask away... I hope everything is going well there, please keep me up to date!

Love,
Chelsea