SlovaKian

An unrelated kindergarten story -  The kinder and I are out for a walk and chance upon a new addition to the local petting zoo, llamas. That's cool, everyone loves llama, so we stop to look at them for a little bit. The kids initial excitement wains when the llama wander off and no amount of 'Come here llama' will return them. "Miss K! Why is the llama not listening to me?" 'I'm not sure the llama understands what you are asking it, llama's don't speak English.' "...AH! THEY SPEAK SLOVAK" 'Llama are not originally from Slovakia, they are from South America, like child z's mummy,  so I don't think they speak Slovak either.' The child quickly beckons child z over and insists she talks to the llamas. Within a few minutes all of the children are shouting "Hola" into a field of llamas.

Yesterday Danka, Jordan and I took a reasonably unplanned trip to Vienna to see the Christmas markets. Everything was shiny and/or delicious. Potato's as big as my face filled with garlic sauce and ham, pasty rolls filled with soft meringue (devilishly difficult to eat without immersing your face goo) , seeing my first Starbucks in many months and running for trains.  See above a tree covered in winged violin decorations.

Preparation for our (new instated) yearly Christmas show are hotting up. I'm not sure if the children realise yet but every day we do a full rehearsal and my iTunes is full of dodgy renditions of Christmas carols. Items of note this week include recatching the climbing bug again. (I don't think I ever mentioned climbing before huh...) and a cancelled children's class which resulted in a quick substitution for a ladies cake and coffee evening and being treated to a proper Slovak Sunday lunch.

After a weekend away in Czech Republic it's good to be back.  Gradually managing to have some involved discussions with the children, including ones about corners, watercolour painting and the perils of eating chilli's.  Also, since yesterday, there has been snow sitting on the ground making playtime infinitely more amusing and evening walks a little magical.

Afterwards I went to 'help' at a friends children's class. She is part German and makes the best ring cakes. 

In that vein I will stop grumbling about this bizzaro cafe and make a plight to cheerfulness and appreciate living in a country where I can celebrate this occasion freely and joyfully and think of those elsewhere who do not have this liberty.

Day 70. (20th)  Image is from super trendy coffee house/book shop/ hipsterville that Maeve and visited during her stay.  Today was the Baha'i holy day, celebrating the birthday of the Báb, one of the central Baha'i figures and manifestations of God. We went round to a local friends house where we baked bread together, went for a forest walk to find rosehip and drank lots of coffee together. 

Today we took another trip to the charming land of Banská Bytrica. We set off at the ungodly hour of 6 am so we could have a meeting pre-class. We nearly ran out of petrol and the coffee machines were broken at the service station, but aside from that we all got there safe and sound.  The children were unbelievably charming as always and the families hugely generous but I didn't take any pictures this time. This is from the previous visit.   

Day 68. (18th) Got down to business at the kindergarten today with pretty good results. Strictforyourowngood-cop was born.  In the evening I headed out to Bratislava to meet a friend at a undetermined location but while on the bus in my phone forced a restart. This would have been fine but it then demanded the PUK code. So unsure where to go, I used my newly found Bratislava skills to go into town, find an o2 shop, communicate my predicament and boom. For the small price of 1.50 Euro all was solved and we had a lovely evening.  Lots of potential for lovely pictures. Camera was at the bottom of my bag and I was lazy... 

Day 67.  (17th) Today was an training day so I took a trip to the big kindergarten in Bratislava to see how everything is done by the pro's.  It was a little worrying to see how many things I have to sort out but conversely was reassuring to realise that most of these issues were only small things. This is Maeve and I hanging out at Hrad. 

Day 66.  (16th) It's getting cold! When I decided on what made the cut and what didn't when packing it didn't occur to me that a kindergarten teacher spends at least an hour outside every day.  Today was fine, although its now the time of year to be contemplating parents night (eep) and I think I still have some discipline issues to sort out. Tomorrow we will be throwing a 'courtesy' tea party.  Also at the feast yesterday we sorted out that I can help every week in the local children's classes! 

Day 65.  (15th) Busy varied day. Maeve left, which was a bit tragic as the time went so quickly. The children were feeling a little devilish and the coffee sleep deprivation from the previous night led to all being grouchy.  All change in the afternoon, everything worked out nicely and then it was feast (of knowledge) this evening. 

Day 54. Night coffee. (14th) Back to work while Maeve beat me to Vienna. I should be caught up in a week and a half when I am going too. Kindergarten was a very pleasant dream of a day. Lots of enthusiasm towards becoming pro's of the alphabet. In the evening after doing some work prep, we both went to meet my colleague down in Stupava and got coffees that prevented us all from sleeping for the next 5 hours.