Slovakia Day 3

Whew! What a whirlwind day! Last night, we got back from the opera Boris Godonov (a russion, bloody, depressing opera) at midnight. We crashed, but we were up bright and early this morning to leave the house at 8 for a day of site seeing and visiting the US embassy.

We started the day seeing some of the sights around Bratislava with a tour guide named Martin Sloboda. At first I just thought, "Wow, this guy knows alot about Bratislava." Soon, i picked up our guide book and had an epiphany: Martin Slaboda WROTE our guide book. That guidebook stand over there? All Martin Slaboda books. That's right! THe resident expert on all things Slavic wss our tour guide. Wow. I started listening more carefully! My favorite slovak story that he told was about the tradition of eating trout/carp for Christmas. Several days before Christmas, the families go to the market and get a LIVE fish. They bring the live fish home and let it live in their bathtub for a few days (so that the kids can play with it or something). Then on christmas day, they catch the fish (which is supposed to be hysterical) and then the father of the family is responsible for killing the fish (hopefully away from the children as they have now become emotionally attached, i'm sure). and they cut it up and eat it for Christmas dinner. Bizarre, no?

After our tour, we got to visit the American Embassy (Holy security, Batman!) and speak with the American/Slovak Ambassador for about an hour. Honestly, i know it was a big honor, but I was struggling to stay awake.

After that, we did a few more tour spots and then stopped to get lunch. I got broccoli cream soup that was DELICIOUS! Turkey, and rice with raisons in them. Strange, but very tasty.

After that, we had a few adventures at the local post office looking for collectable stamps for a few members of our GSE team.

Then we wandered back through some souvenir stands, and eventually made our way back home.

Tonight we will be eating as a group with all of our host families at a local pub. Tommorow morning we leave for Prague bright and early!

No clue aobut interenet access in Prague, so you may hear from me only when I'm back in the states! It's only 4 days now!