Well it seems to be better already today. Or else it’s just that morning enthusiasm. The Sun, yes the real SUN ⛅️ is shining, and I can see blue skies up there. It’s not snowing, and the town is bustling down below. They are going to call me this morning sometime. I feel like walking around and exploring the town. Even had some leftover chocolate for breakfast. Those are all good signs.

It was a good day! I ended up staying in the hotel room (it was Hotel Centrum) watching tv Euro Sports and the Reich und Schön (Rich and Famous). Then I went down to the lobby, paid, and waited with my packs for them to pick me up. The hotel was more expensive, Bibiana told me, than the one last nights hotel. We had already arranged that I would pay for Hotel Centrum, which came out to 1430 SK (Slovak Krowns) $36 ganz (totally) cheap and it was all nice—clean, private, and roomy—with two couches, bed, tv, closet, clo (toilet), etc.

The phone call however, to mom and dad was about $80 for 20 minutes, so very expensive. About $4.00 per minute. I knew it would be high, but that’s very high-even for Slovakia and I was a bit shocked.

Before I left the room, I watched the bulldozer scooping up snow and blocking traffic while it dumped the dirty snow into waiting dump trucks to remove it to somewhere (?).

The driver took me to the school with another assistant, and then it started to snow once again. By now it was back to being grey. I sat and read The Herald Tribune about Clinton’s acquittal (which Fritz had already briefed me on) and Monica Lewinsky. I had some tea with Bibiana and visited with some of the teachers. One from Simi Valley and one from Las Vegas. Then the one I met yesterday sat down and talked to me, Mitchell I think. He invited me to go with him to see some photographic exhibition that one of the teachers here has on Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. That will be tomorrow morning, the driver will pick me up at 10:00.

 

This is an excerpt from my Košice Journal, documenting my exodus from a (relatively happy) bustling life in beautiful San Diego, to (voluntarily) take a post teaching English in the newly independent eastern capital of Slovakia  during a very cold winter 1999.