Beneath the Mountains

[Warning: There are very few pictures to accompany this post. That is because Lisa was off teaching in a town called Snina and is the keeper of the camera—seeing as it is her camera. I apologize in advance.]

Aerial view of Spišská Belá next to the Tatras.

We left Levoča and I made my way to a place called Spišská Belá for a week of solo teaching. Spišská Belá is a cute town that is situated along a main road that leads into the High Tatras mountains. Consequently, from the town, one can catch a breathtaking view of the mountains on a clear day. Fortunately for me, Spring decided that this was the week that it would awaken—ending this year’s brutally long Winter for good—and I was able to see the mountains most days during my stay. The walk to school was about 10 minutes long every morning, but it was one of my favorite parts of the day; once I got past the gas station, the landscape opened up invitingly and the mountains became available to any desiring onlookers.

Quite stunning.

My instructions were, once I arrived, to call the man who is in charge of my accommodation. He had apparently made it known that he wanted to personally pick me up and give me a ride to my room. His name is Julius and he is a very friendly older gentlemen—the kind of guy that just looks like he was always meant to be a grandfather. He picked me up when I called (like he said he would) and then proceeded to give me a driving tour of the town, its two museums, the two corner shops where I could buy food & showed me the school where I would be teaching.

Julius was a really nice guy. He always wore a navy cap that sort of resembled the caps that baseball players would wear in the 30s and 40s.

The accommodation was very nice, too. Basically, I had a two room suite to myself, complete with a table and chairs, a television, a full kitchen (my dinners most nights consisted of baked chicken and roasted potatoes), a full bath (with an electric towel-dryer),  two beautiful bay windows & seven beds. There was also some art on the walls—one of the pictures was a Van Gogh print.

This is all much more fashionable than what I am used to when it comes to company-provided accommodation.

***

The students I taught that week were very gifted in their speaking and were incredibly eager to learn/practice. [This is the most important thing when it comes to teaching English—you can have an entire class of brilliant students, but if they are boring excuses for children, you’ll never really get anywhere. On the other hand, the students could be total mouth-breathers with a collective IQ of 45, but, if they truly want to be there, everything will go well. Luckily these students were both smart and keen, the perfect combination.] I was received by two of the English teachers—Dada (short for Dagmara, despite the fact that the nickname sort of sounds like an English-speaking baby requesting his/her father) and Katka—both really welcoming people who went out of their way every day to make sure I was comfortable and entertained.

The school didn’t offer lunch for the staff, but every day I was brought to a local restaurant. In Slovakia, most restaurants offer what is called a “menu lunch” which is usually soup and a main course for around €3. It’s generally really nice, too. One day I ordered halušky with mushrooms—Slovakia’s potato dumplings in a sheep cheese (bryndza) sauce with crunchy pieces of bacon, a dish that I have mentioned many times on this blog.

There is no question in my mind that, out of the 15 or 20 times that I have had this dish, this was the best version of it thus far.

***

On Monday, I had to take a 40 minute bus ride to Ždiar (home of the Ginger Monkey hostel, a place that also gets mentioned quite frequently on this blog) because I left my adapter there and my computer was soon to die. After catching up with some people and playing with Wally and Čatka (look at the pictures at the bottom of my post “A Winter Tatra Trip” to see pictures of these two lovable canines), I decided to get lunch at a small restaurant with a guy from Hong Kong who works for a Chinese airline. I only had enough money on me to catch the bus back, though, so we decided that he would pay and I would run to the ATM after lunch. And I did. But the ATM was out of order—it is the only bank machine in town.

I never was able to pay him seeing as I had to make it back to Spišská Belá that night with the little cash I had on me. I felt pretty bad about the whole ordeal. He didn’t seem to mind too much, though. I think working for an airline pays better than teaching…

***

Like I mentioned, the weather was excellent most of the week. Because of this, I was taken on several walking tours of the town and its surrounding outcrops of houses and farms. On Tuesday, toward the end of my first walking tour, Dada took me to a hairdresser—my mane was getting pretty shaggy and unkempt. I had been afraid of this day for quite some time (I had even gone to the extreme measure of printing a decent picture of myself to bring in when the time came), but the haircut went very well and only cost €2.

Can’t argue with that.

The Strážky Castle/Manor House.

On Thursday, Katka took me to the nearby town of Strážky to visit the Renaissance manor house that was built on Gothic castle ruins—the castle was allegedly built upon the ruins of a Knights Templar monastery. Who knows about things like that, though. The building was pretty neat; it had kind of been turned into a gallery of sorts, featuring furniture from different time periods, a well-preserved historical library & paintings from many artists. The vast majority of the paintings, though, were from a man named Ladislav Mednyánszky who is known for his depictions of poor commoners in Hungary as well as his portrayals of Slovak landscapes.

He’s really good, too. I loved a lot of his work—very striking and sincere.

After leaving Strážky we met up with Dada and took a drive over to Kežmarok. It’s a nice town with a nice square and castle. We walked around for a little while, eating chocolate and commenting on passing dogs and things of that nature. We also sat down for coffee and discussed how my favorite animal is the sloth. They got a real kick out of that, let me tell you. Apparently, in Slovakia, discussing things like your favorite animal is not very common.

Imagine that.

That night, the three of us went to an upstairs bar called Drum Café for drinks. It was a relaxed place with cool photography on the walls and a fireplace roaring in the corner. After a while, the drinking/fireplace combination sort of made me overheat. But it was worth it.

On Friday, the students (who had been amazing all week, some of my favorites) presented me with a present consisting of four or five books all about the Tatras—especially the section of the mountains/villages near Spišská Belá in the Belianske region. They signed the inside of the largest book.

Ask me to see it sometime. It’s really cool.

***

Because the town of Spišská Belá is so nice, Lisa decided to join me there for the weekend. She arrived in the evening on Friday and, after getting situated at the accommodation, we met the teachers out again at Drum Café. It was a pretty fun night, but it we didn’t allow it to get too wild because we had made plans to go for a hike in the High Tatras.

We took a drive out to Štrbské Pleso, a large lake situated between a cluster of snowy mountains. The view was magnificent and the sun was shining, giving the whole area a very heartening vibe. We then took a hike from that lake to another lake called Popradské Pleso—this one was a little more remote, tucked away in a nook created by some higher mountains. Next to the lake was a restaurant/hotel, one of the few that exist within the National Park’s borders. We stopped there for lunch—halušky again—before heading back the way we came. It was a very pleasant afternoon.

Dada (left) and Katka (right) reluctantly posing with me for a Spišská Belá teacher pic.

Popradské Pleso as the sky began to clear some more.

The cottage-hotel next to the lake where we ate lunch.

Some hikers just get more excited than others.

Katka’s backseat teddy bears in the glow of a wonderful day’s sunset.

That night, we spent most of the evening at Dada’s apartment. She made us pirohy and some sort of wonderful garlic dip. We drank wine and, after talking for a bit, watched the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s—I had never seen an Audrey Hepburn film before and Dada is scarily obsessed with them, so it seemed like a good opportunity.

I liked the movie, too—it was really zany.

Today’s Recommended Song: Phosphorescent – “Sun, Arise! (An Invocation, An Introduction)”

Farewell.