Tomas Update: Week 21 in Žilina

Ahojte všetci! Another week, another week in žilina! And what a week it’s been. I’ll just get right into it I guess.

Tuesday was pretty nice, we got out of the area near where we are normally, saw a cool Porsche, and met a nice lady with her dog who was 15 and had better sweater game than I do.

Wednesday it hailed in the morning! I thought it was like super hard rain by how loud it was, but it was definitely hail. Aside from that, we ended up seeing the same dog lady and the sweater dog. Also some super cool graffiti, and really pretty flower blossoms. The trees here are some kind of different because Maine is never this colorful in spring, and I really like it. All gorgeous yellows and pinks, and the flowers are cool too! Then we met a friend of the sisters’ by chance and he told us all about the námestie (main square) and it’s history, including an orphanage attached to the cool church that was used to hide Jewish children during world war II. He knows a ton about history and I’m not sure how I even understand because I don’t know half those words… Anyways, Wednesday was also our no English day, we made it with a collective 20 words of English from 630am to 9pm (outside of when we had to speak it to those who couldn’t understand). Going a whole day in Slovak is actually easier than I thought and is pretty fun, lots of great practice.

Thursday we went on a little run in the morning like we do… And I took the wrong keys out with us. No problem, but the backup keys were not where we thought they were and had seemed to have disappeared. We hunted for them for a while and managed to find them in another apartment here, they had been moved by accident. Safe to say I am checking my keys a lot closer now because that was a pretty stressful hour looking for the backups, as getting let back in was gonna run us 100€. Close one.

Friday was a small celebration for my birthday, sister Otto made a cake out of my mom’s classic recipe which was soooooo good. She has some sort of magic touch, because if it goes in an oven it always comes out tasting incredible. So thankful for the ottos and their support here in žilina, they really make sure stuff runs smoothly. Also our English class went off as usual, this week we talked about our hobbies and I learned to say “to wash the dishes” in Ukranian: мити посуд. I’ll get it down someday, for now Slovak is probably enough for me. 

Saturday was visiting some members and being outside some more, such a nice day and I even went without a sweater which is new. Then we had game night and I got destroyed in Catan by sister Christensen and met a man that actually used to live in Bangor! I figured I’d never see anyone from Maine as soon as I left but he was super cool and will hopefully come back next week!

Sunday, my birthday, I had to give a talk (same as last year… Not seeing a pattern I like) and so I spoke about hope and the purpose of life. This time I actually managed to make it 15 minutes which is good because I’ve always been too short in the past. I speak pretty frequently here as there aren’t a lot of options. Our friend Kristian came to church too which was super good! I translated out of English to Slovak for him simultaneously when needed, which is way harder and more fun than I figured. I gotta practice because I’d like to do it more. To top off Sunday, we had a lesson with an italian/Slovak family in Čadca, they made us gnocchi and we talked with them for a while. That was super cool and also like the second or third legit missionary style meal I’ve had while I’ve been here, we cook for ourselves pretty frequently. A great birthday present really, can’t ask for much more!

Then today, we went out to the Starý hrad (old Castle, it was used before they built a newer, better one), where I’ve already been but no problems here. We had to wait a bit so we played Frisbee in a field and I got some cool shots on my new nikon which was actually a ton of fun. We took like 400 pictures on the burst mode, lots of cool catches though. Then we hiked up to the top, I got some great landscape shots, and ate pizza at a restaurant before heading home for some Catan again. This time, I won with only like 5 or 6 roads, don’t know how I pulled that off but enemies were made. Just kidding, no mercy in the game but outside is a different story. Or so they say.

Anyways, that’s about it for me. Pictures may be late this week as I have a ton to sort through and I have to figure out how to not absolutely wreck my Google storage when I import off the Nikon.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qYoYaKPmkqFZHoVM7

Thanks for reading or whatever if you made it this far! I’ll see you all next week and thank you for the birthday wishes! Hope you’re all well and enjoying the melting snow.

S láskou, 

Starší Cundick