Shakira Would Be Proud!

So, tonight was the talent show at my school. Since the very first time I put it on, my kids have been obsessed with and known all the words to Waka Waka, by Shakira. Naturally, this was the number we chose for the talent show. Needless to say, it was the least well timed dance of all time, but it was also probably the cutest. Here's proof.

Shelby, Jackie, Christina and I also danced to Stop, by the Spice Girls, as a surprise for the kids. It was, to say the least, embarrassing. I was going to post the video, but a) I would be murdered and b) videos take about 30 minutes to upload and I just don't have the patience. At least I got to be a Spice Girl for three minutes which, let's face it, was every 12 year-old girl's dream in the late 90's!

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Right, so my posting is a month late again (must be having a blog baby...) but here is my Easter Holiday in a nutshell. What we did during the trip wasn't much to write home about - shopping, eating, shopping, drinking, shopping, eating - but the getting there was a little shocking.

On the Thursday before Easter Shelby and I headed out on what we would quickly find out was to be a somewhat cursed holiday. Our first mishap occurred at the airport, where our flight was delayed by 3 hours. We didn't mind so much about the time, but started feeling slightly uneasy when we heard announcements of "unattended luggage" in our terminal and then that our terminal was shut down because of it. Apparently, it wasn't a bomb, because I wouldn't be here writing this if it had been.

When we finally arrived in Sofia, we hopped in a cab to take us to the bus station so we could get to Plovdiv, our first intended stop. The cab driver tried to coax us into letting him take us all the way to Plovdiv, but as it's a two hour drive, we thought this would probably be ridiculously expensive. As it turns out, so was getting to the bus station. Ten minutes in this cab somehow cost us 40 Euros. Then, since we were already being ripped off, we tried to bargain with him for a ride to Plovdiv. We thought we had won (he agreed to our terms!), so took the ride... but we were wrong. A combination of terrible English/miscommunication/scheming from the cab driver ended up costing us a small fortune to get to Plovdiv. For the first hour and forty-five minutes, we were able to laugh about our loss. This became more difficult, however, when we arrived to the outskirts of Plovdiv and our driver called over another cab, dumped us and our stuff in it and drove off. Not only did we think we would have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for this new cab, but the driver spent the whole time on the phone. This wouldn't have been a big deal except that his voice was exactly the one you'd picture a mob boss/hit man to have, so we felt relatively sure that he was planning our deaths. He wasn't.

Originally, we were planning on taking the night bus to Istanbul that very night, but because of our considerable delay, we had to spend the night. We found a little hostel downtown and walked in to ask for a bed. Naturally, with it being Easter weekend, the place was full. They said we could sleep on the couch. We agreed - with the way things were going for us, we weren't likely to do much better. We didn't end up having to sleep there, though, because some wonderful guy gave up his bunk for us and slept somewhere else (or bed still ended up being in the common room, but at least we were mostly out of sight of the random people filtering in and out throughout the night!). We spent that night in Plovdiv eating and drinking, trying to forget about the ridiculous day we had just had. The world's best ice cream went a long way in helping us to forget.

The next day, we went to the bus station to catch the first bus to Istanbul. It was full. We figured there would be another one soon, since it's such a popular destination, but the next one wasn't for another three hours. We waited with more ice cream. The bus ride itself was rather uneventful, unless you count the two, yes two, Viktor Krum look-alikes travelling on the same bus as us. Their resemblance to Viktor Krum was almost as scary as the fact that they were 30ish year old twins who still dressed exactly alike. Weird...

When we finally got to Istanbul, we found our way to Cass' place (Shelby's friend who works there and was hooking us up with our very own flat for the weekend), had dinner, and went to bed. The next day, we got up early to go shopping. Travelling around Istanbul would probably be a little bit scary if you were alone, but with Shelby, who was lived there, it was a breeze. She knew what buses to take, how to pay for them (!!), and where to go to find the cheapest clothes! We hit up a few markets, the grand bazaar, and even managed to squeeze in some tourist attractions. We got loads of new clothes for the summer, all at ridiculously low (2-5 Euros) prices. It was wonderful. In the evening, Cass took us to a supper club to see her friend perform in what some might call a Tranny Show. He calls it gender-bending, since he would never dress as a woman in the day. Regardless, it was awesome. He was really funny, and the looks on the men's faces when he was making them slap his ass were priceless.

The next day, we went down to the Hammam (Turkish bath) for a serious taste of Turkey. It was so bizarre, yet so nice at the same time. Here's how a Hammam works:

1) Take off all your clothes, except your thong.
2) Enter a room full of equally, if not more, naked women.
3) Sit around the edge of the steaming-hot room, dousing yourself in cool water while awkwardly watching all the other people in there doing the same thing.
4) Get called by a scary, naked, Turkish lady for your turn to be scrubbed down.
5) Lie face-down on a slab of ceramic in the middle of the room while scary naked Turkish lady rubs you raw with a loofah.
6) Turn around so she can do the same to your front side. Grow increasingly uncomfortable with the whole situation as a group of old French ladies in one-piece bathing suits enter the room and look at your judgmentally.
7) Have hair and eyeballs washed by scary naked Turkish lady while trying not to drown in the water she is tossing into your mouth.
8) Exit the room wrapped in a sheet, not knowing at all what to think of the whole experience.
9) Discover what appears to be a hickey on your neck while putting your clothes back on and wonder how the hell that got there.

After the excitement/awkwardness of the bath, we finished off our day with an amazing dinner of baked potatoes and strawberry-kiwi-chocolate waffles. Yum!!

The next day was already time to go, so we hopped on another bus back to Sofia. Turns out Sofia is kind of scary and sketchy, so we did nothing but eat and sleep. Our flight back to Vienna left at six o'clock the next morning, so we weren't so upset to have an excuse to go to bed early.

I'm sorry it took so long to write this, but I've been feeling distinctly unmotivated lately. The school year should end in May.

To Hold You Off...

I'm too lazy to write about my Easter holiday in Turkey and Bulgaria for now (maybe one day...), so here's an amazing picture of my craziest student to tide you over. I'll leave it to you to decide which one I'm referring to.

You Don't Can!

I have nothing interesting to report, but some people (you know who you are!) have been harassing me for a new post, so I thought I'd tell you about an incredibly frustrating habit that my students have and which I seem unable to break. Usually, when my kids do something annoying, I ask them to stop (sometimes 3, 4, or 5 times) and they do. When they say something that is so grammatically incorrect that I cringe when I hear it (I can something go buy?) I have them repeat the correct sentence after me and they usually get it after a few repetitions. This latest thing, however, is driving me insane.

Somehow, my kids have gotten it into their heads that the correct way to say that someone can't do something is to say you don't can. It makes no sense and they will not change! The other day, I heard some of them saying it and I started wondering whether this was a common thing amongst Slovak children. So, I went next door to grade 2 and asked one of the students to come see me (a student whose English is not so strong... if anyone would make a common mistake, he would). I looked at him very seriously and said "Fedor, can you fly?" He gave me a strange look and said, simply, "No." Fair enough. So I said "Say, No, I ___ fly." Easy enough... he said "No, I can't fly." That settled it for me. Only my kids have a freaky habit of saying I don't can.

My visit to grade 2 struck some curiosity, though, and the second graders promptly started asking me why I was asking such silly questions. I saw no harm in telling them what I had been looking for. They did not believe me that my students would say such a thing as "don't can", so they followed me back to my class for proof. I called over a repeat don't can offender and asked him the same question I had asked Fedor. He said "No, I can't fly." Of course, the one time I want him to say I don't can, he says I can't. Fine. I tried another student. Again, I can't. Are you kidding me?!? The second graders looked at me like I was insane (again) and left the room. My students looked at me like I was insane (definitely not the first time) and resumed their games. I rolled my eyes and sat at my desk.

Not ten minutes later, after reading our morning message which said "Happy Wednesday" although it was Thursday, the kids all shout out, in unison, "You don't can trick us!!!" Officially, they're doing it to torture me.

Large Men, Unproportionately Small Swimsuits!

This weekend, Johanne, Shelby, Jackie and I headed to Piestany for a nice, relaxing spa day. Piestany is known in Slovakia for being a spa town and this is literally the only thing it has going for it. When we got there, we felt like we had just gotten off the train in a ghost town. There is nothing around, nothing to see, and the bus only comes every two hours! Thankfully, the bus came just half an hour after we got there and dropped us off downtown. Of course, downtown is just as bare as the train station was, but still, we were somewhere. We walked around down there for a while (i.e. saw it all in 30 minutes - including the entire downtown shopping mall), grabbed some lunch, then headed for Spa Island, which is what we were there for to begin with.

Once we got onto Spa Island, the scenery changed entirely. It's beautiful there! The buildings are super old (in a cool castle kind of way), there are huge gardens everywhere and there are little ponds every here and there that smell like rotten eggs, but that's really only because they are natural hot springs. We walked around the island for a bit, taking in the scenery, then headed for the Balnea Esplanade Palace, where we bought day passes to the spa.

Our first stop within the spa was the pool. There was a whirlpool within the pool and the whole thing was heated to a comfortable 34 degrees Celsius. We were just sitting in the whirlpool relaxing when a very large, very hairy man came to join us. He was the first of many very large, very hairy men we would see on the day, all of whom seemed to be wearing bathing suits which were inversely proportional to the size of their guts. Anyway, this man in particular is worth mentioning because he proceeded to sit on top of one of the jets (one of the ones coming straight up out of the ground) and bounce up and down with his eyes closed, seemingly enjoying himself a little too much. We thought he might stop soon enough, but he just went on and on and on. We left the whirlpool.

We swam around the pool a little longer, and discovered the doggy door that would take us outside. Normally, I would say that swimming outdoors in March is for crazy people, but it's really much warmer in Slovakia than it is in Canada, so it wasn't so bad. Basically, your body stays warm while your face freezes. If you have balls of steel (which we do), you can get out of the pool and run to the hot tub, which is even warmer than the rest of the pool and makes you feel better about being outside. Of course, you then have to get back in the (now) cold pool to get back inside, but it seems that no one thought of this before acting. Oh well. We survived.



When we got tired of the pools, we headed inside to take advantage of the multiple saunas. They had given us sheets (literally bed sheets) at the reception when we arrived and said "These are for the sauna". We had no idea what that meant when they said it, but the "No Shoes, No Bathing Suits, Only Towels" signs made it pretty clear. So, wrapped in our bed sheets (which made me feel like I should have been having sex all morning - which, with the selection of men on display, I assure I was not) we started visiting the saunas. The first one was a "Finnish Sauna", which means that there were incredibly hot rocks in one corner over which water had been poured to created some steam. It was soooo hot in there... Shelby and I only lasted about five minutes.

We then decided to try the Steam Room. Shelby stayed a while. I stayed about 30 seconds because I felt like I was drowning. I met Jackie in the hallway and we headed to the "Relaxation Room", which was my favourite. It was utterly silent and full of reclining chairs. You just went in there, sat down, and chilled. Awesome. That is, until the man in the corner started snoring... like a freight train! He was so loud! I think he woke himself up at one point, but then fell asleep again right away.

Anyway, after about an hour in the relaxation room, we decided to head out. We sat in the regular sauna for a few minutes, then headed back to the changing room. On the way there, we noticed something that must have been put there just for me. It was - wait for it - a foot disinfecting station!!!! Wow! Basically, you stick your foot in this little machine and it sprays you with a Purel-type spray. Pretty useless, really, but I enjoyed it nonetheless!



After an exhausting day of swimming, saunas and resting, we headed back to Bratislava, where we will now wait until Rob gets here for another quick jaunt, this time to Prague!

The Florida of Europe

After much debate about where we were going to go for Spring Break (Egypt no longer being a viable option due to the fact that we wanted to return alive), Johanne and I ended up spending this past week in Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands, Spain. Form everything we'd read, the weather should be gorgeous ("spring all year round" they said), the beaches beautiful, and the hotels relatively comfortable. They were right on all counts. The one thing everyone forget to mention, however, was that Gran Canaria appears to be the Florida of Europe - that is, a place for old people to go to escape the winter. If we had to take a guess, Johanne and I would probably say that the average age of guests at our hotel was about 80. At least once a day, we would notice something that would make us feel like we were living in a retirement home. For instance, tapioca was a staple on the dessert bar. Flan was also a main attraction. One day we even saw... wait for it... stewed prunes!!! Disgusting. The food selection wasn't the only thing making us feel like we were surrounded by old folks. The sheer amount of leathery, saggy skin was shocking! Everywhere we looked there were old people who looked like they may have been the reincarnations of brown leather couches. Also, the main form of entertainment at the hotel - bingo!!! At first, we thought that maybe our hotel catered to the elderly and, somehow, we had missed that part of the description when we booked it, but we were pleased to discover that, throughout the island, octogenarians outnumber people under 35 by a ratio of at least 4 to 1. All in all, while we saw many things (notably breasts) that we wish we could unsee though unfortunately we cannot, the omnipresence of old people made us feel incredibly young and happy.

Old folks' homes aside, we had a really good time. As you would imagine from an all-inclusive vacation, it wasn't so action-packed. We spent a lot of time by the pool or on the beach, soaking up the sun (since we all know that we haven't seen any of that in a while). On Sunday, however, we rented a car and went to explore pretty much the whole island. The inland part of the island is exceptionally hilly, so it was pretty funny to watch Johanne freak out every time she thought she was going to have to stop on one of the steeper hills (standard transmission, you know!). I can't say that I blame her too much, though. Those hills were pretty serious. At one point, on the way back down, we coasted (i.e. no gas, just brakes) for 12 whole minutes without the speed of the car ever dropping below 40 kilometres per hour. We got to take in some really beautiful scenery from the top, so it was a really good way to spend a day out of the sun (we may or may not have gotten burnt on the first day...)

Anyway, so as I said, we really didn't do much of anything to thrilling, and I therefore have nothing to say here. I just wanted you all to know that we survived the old folks' home and are now looking forward to retirement.

The city of lights... and chocolate!

I promised that the next post would be happier, so here it is - PARIS!!!

Last Friday, Shelby, Danko, Jackie, Christina and I headed straight to the airport for our flight to none other but the city of lights, Paris. We arrived really late, got lost trying to find the hostel, and pretty much feel asleep instantly upon finding our beds. We were in town for 3 days, though, so we had more than enough time to make up for a slightly more boring than acceptable first night.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early (this is, unfortunately, an occupational hazard) and partook of the hostel's free breakfast. Generally, this wouldn't be anything to write home about, but seeing as it's Paris, the pastries were delectable, the hot chocolate rich and the croissants melted in your mouth. It was a good start to the day.

Seeing as Shelby and I had already been to Paris, we decided to let the others decide what we would do with our time. They wanted to join a free walking tour of the city, so we made our way to Place Saint-Michel at 11 o'clock. We met our tour guide, a very eccentric yet somehow still sarcastically funny girl, and headed off to see the sites. Under her care, we saw and had history lessons about the Cathedrale de Notre-Dame, the Paris opera house, the birthplace of Friday the 13th, the Louvre museum, the "love bridge" and other such Paris landmarks. By the halfway point of this 3 and a half hour walking tour, we were freezing our tatas off and were more than happy to accept the Starbucks our guide offered up as a break area. However, the twenty minutes she offered us to go in and warm up absolutely did not strike our fancy, so we ditched the tour and decided to see the rest of the sites on our own. Having been to Paris previously and being the proud owner of a pretty good memory and somewhat reasonable sense of direction, I took it upon myself to act as our tour guide. Mostly, I just made up stories about crazy kings taking over places and building whatever buildings we saw, but my charges seemed to be enjoying my commentary, so it worked out in my favour. Also, with one of our own as the tour guide, we were free to stop somewhere warm every time the wind got to us.




My first order of business on this tour was to find us a pain au chocolat. After all, Danko, Jackie, and Christina had never had one fresh out of a Paris bakery, so it really didn't seem fair to make them wait any longer. The joy and wonder had to begin immediately. Luckily for us, there are bakeries littered around Paris, including in the Jardin des Tuilleries where we were at the moment, so the pastries were directly within our reach. It was like a party in my mouth...

We finished out the afternoon visiting the Arc de Triomphe (including the world's largest - and therefore scariest - roundabout), les Champs Elysees (where I saw the absolute largest Sephora ever of all time... Heather might have cried), the Place de la Concorde, the Eiffel Tower, and the Trocadero. In and of themselves, nothing too terribly fancy, but I have to say that they all make for excellent photographic opportunities. By the end of the day, we had been out in the cold walking for about twelve hours, so we found a nice spot for dinner, drank some French wine and retreated to the hostel, where some of us were so tired we fell asleep in our clothes (I won't name names, but I can assure you that it was not me).

The next morning, we rose early again and set out for more great adventures. Naturally, our first stop was yet another bakery, where chocolate for breakfast seems like not only the logical choice, but an absolute must. We then went to take a closer loos at the Cathedrale de Notre-Dame. I took my tourists to see the back of it, as it is far more impressive than the front (twss?), then we headed inside - free on Sundays! - where Jackie and Christina decided to stay for mass. Shelby, Danko, and I now had an hour to kill, so we decided to wander off in an as of yet unexplored direction. We headed down a street that led us directly to City Hall, an old building which was undoubtedly some kind of palace once upon a time. Directly in front of it was a great big outdoor skating rink. Somehow, despite not having put on skates or even considered skating in about 13 years, I was overcome with such an urge to go skating that I managed to convince Shelby and the Donk to at least go check out what it would cost. Well, for five euros each, how could we reasonably say no? We rented our somewhat worn-down skates, laced them up, and hit the ice. It was an incredibly scary, yet wonderful way to kill an hour in downtown Paris. I am also proud to report that none of us fell on our asses, or faces, or other body parts - not even once! This even includes those moments when we felt that silly pictures were in order (i.e. dancing to Beyonce, "figure skating", and capturing the look of utmost concentration on our faces).

Unfortunately, this is me "dancing" on skates.

When the girls finished at church, they took the Donk and went to check out the Louvre, this time inside. Shelby and I had already been in there and had no interest in revisiting the Mona Lisa (she is highly disappointing in person), so we whiled away the afternoon in a coffee shop. To our delight, they sold "maxi" pains au chocolate - that is, chocolate-filled pastries the size of my head! What a good day!


That evening, we went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower (where we froze, again), watched in awe as it lit up and glittered, then headed out for another delicious meal accompanied by some shockingly inexpensive yet delectable wine. We once again found it shockingly easy to fall asleep that night.

On Monday morning, this glorious weekend of chocolate, cold, palaces, and frenchness unfortunately had to come to an end, so we got back on the bus that would take us to the airport. We departed Paris at 16:00, and the only thing I could think of was when I would have the chance to visit again.

Paris, I love you.