Saturday a.m. we all met as planned for a trip to the country house or cottage. Maria, Vladimir, and Christinka picked me up out in front of my apartment.

Today I was to learn how to make the famous Slovak Specialty Dish – Bryndzove Haluzsky in a hands on personal cooking lesson. This was a big event for both me and for the family. I have documented the entire experience here in a post.

Cleaning Up

Elena was already at Shirava, the Slovak Meer (Lake). It’s the largest dam in Slovakia, and people go swimming there in the summer. (One of my students had told me that he swims there. Incidentally, Ivanna has a friend who works at the Kosice public swim pool. There they only change the water once a year, because it takes seven days to fill up and its very expensive.)

All of a sudden it was 17:30 and we were supposed to pick up Elena at Shirava at 15:00. As we were leaving they all took a hand in cleaning, dusting, straightening, and putting it all in order. We got ready, finished the dishes and left by 18:15. First, we stopped at Vlado’s parents house, who live where he was born, just down the road. His sister and her daughter were living there too. The girl was excited about getting a new dog and was looking through a dog picture book.

Contact with America

Grandma was rattling on, talking to me in Slovak, like I could understand her. She was digging, rummaging through a closet, drawer, finally pulling out an address of a distant cousin in Pennsylvania -or was it Texas. “No.” I said, I didn’t know them. She had lost contact, but kept the corner of a cardboard box with the return address scribbled on it. That was her contact with America.

She was not pleased to hear that Elenka was at Shirava. It had became a “dangerous” place lately.

Drinking Fire Water

Grandpa was cute, very wrinkled with pretty blue eyes, sporting a nice wool sweater and a cap. He gave us the old fashioned Slovak greeting and farewell. He had a nice flower and vegetable garden.

We had a drink of “Fire Water” Slivoviče made by Maria’s father from his own plum tree. The grandmother doesn’t like that he makes it. That was the afternoon of our trip to the Country House.

Saturday 8 May, 1999