The Final Day of Teaching

Our final day of work—Friday, June 14^th—was a bit of a blur. Under the stipulations of the itinerary we had built for ourselves. Our plan was to skip lunch, leave school, catch a bus from Benešov to the nearby town of Senohraby (everything else afterward resting on the fact that this bus wouldn’t be late), and then catch a train to Bratislava. In Bratislava, we were to rush to the other side of town and make it to the only Tatra Bank we knew of that would be open later than 5:00. Once there, we were going to close our bank accounts, hurry back across town, find some food and then catch the last train to Budapest—where we had already booked a hostel for the night.

This was our plan. And it went mostly as expected, too.

Except, in Bratislava, the train to Budapest was 70 minutes late.

And then it was 140 minutes late.

Then 160…170…and finally 180.

And the Rains Began to Fall…

North of Bratislava, close to the Austrian border, is a town called Malacky (pronounced: Mah-lat-ski.) After our weekend in Brno, Lisa and I met up with several other teachers for a week of teaching in this location. With less than 20,000 people, it’s not a big place, but serves as a central hub for a number of surrounding villages.

Re-encounters: Nitra & Brno

When we arrived back in Europe for our second round of teaching in March, Nitra was the first town in which we taught (check out my post “Nice To Meet Ya, Nitra” to read about my first visit.) Back in March, they told us that some teachers would be returning for a workshop in May—as it turned out, we were to fulfill that duty.

Our Trip to Slovak Paradise

After our week in Vranov nad Topľou, Lisa and I took a relatively short trip toward the center of Slovakia. Our plan was to meet up with our friend and colleague Jack for the weekend in a village called Smižany (pronounced: Smee-zha-nee.) Besides being the largest village in Slovakia—or so one of the teachers had told us—Smižany is better known for being adjacent to Slovenský Raj, one of Slovakia’s best national parks which literally translates into ‘Slovak Paradise.’

After traveling for several hours, we arrived in the village and had to walk about twenty minutes away from the train tracks to reach our accommodation—a cute little dwelling that sported comfy rooms, a very welcoming staff and an incredibly convenient proximity to the national park.

Some Slovak Hospitality: Part III

For one of our most eccentric weekend trips to date, Lisa and I traveled to the town of Terchová. Besides being home to Juraj Jánošík—Slovakia’s legendary Robin Hood-like revolutionary figure—Terchová sits against the edge of Malá Fatra National Park (check out my post “Journey to Minčol” to read about our first hike through this glorious Slovak wilderness reservation.) Our first trip was incredibly successful, but mostly because of chance. This time, we had done some more research to discover the best natural attractions in the park.

In the week leading up to this excursion, I had been teaching in Považská Bystrica and Lisa had been in Bilina, Czech Republic. Lisa didn’t arrive until about 11:30 that night; for this reason, I had to find the accommodation in Terchová on my own. I got off the bus in the center and, after glancing at a large map of the town for a couple minutes, located the street on which I needed to be. It wasn’t too far, but it was one of those bothersome streets that curls back on itself and doesn’t meet up with the main street—those weird hangnail roads that are always the most difficult to find.

Teaching Tales

[This post sadly does not have many pictures to coincide with the tales below. Fortunately, though, if you can stand to make it through the first half or so, you will be rewarded with a fresh, healthy crop of castle photos—those are always amusing.]

From Olomouc, I traveled alone to the town of Považská Bystrica in western Slovakia (while Lisa rode on to Bilina, Czech Republic, near the border of Germany) to work for a week in the nearby village of Papradno. Považská Bystrica is nothing too special—a town with about 40,000 people that has a concrete-dominated center and a large highway bridge running over it that looks like it was made out of leftover materials from a BP gas station.

It’s a pretty place average in almost every regard.

Good Ol’ Olomouc

We left the faux-beach town of Senec and headed west; Lisa and I wanted to check out the city of Olomouc, Czech Republic. Olomouc has been on our list of places to see for quite some time now (we actually applied to some jobs there back in the day, if my memory serves me correctly.)

As we travel, we constantly run across the names of certain hostels—the places that are accepted as being some of the hippest, most enjoyable hostels for backpackers. Names that quickly come to mind in that list are the Ginger Monkey in Ždiar, Hostel Blues in Bratislava, The Loft in Budapest, Hostel ELF in Prague, and countless others. In Olomouc, there is a hostel known as Poet’s Corner that has a large amount of credibility within the backpacking subculture—it’s a name you hear as often as any of the other big ones out there.

So, needless to say, we made a reservation.

Across the Iron Curtain

Our next teaching destination (just Lisa & I this time) was a town called Senec (pronounced: Sen-Yetz) which, by all Slovak standards, is a very bizarre location. Basically, Senec is a medium-sized town about 30 minutes away from Bratislava on the train. Based on appearance alone, it seems like a wealthy area—it was certainly the most “suburban” town I have ever seen in Slovakia.

This is not to say that it was as cookie-cutter as a suburb in the States, just that many of the houses had proper lawns and their owners seemed concerned about flower arrangements and other things of that nature

Journey to Minčol

Because Žilina had made such a nice impression on us during the week, Jack, Lisa & I decided to stay there for the weekend. Our company found us some nice, cheap accommodation; we dumped our baggage there after school and headed out into the city for some afternoon wandering.

More Castles? Yes, Please.

The village of Rosina, an outcrop of the larger city of Žilina, boasts roughly about 3,000 residents. This is where Lisa and I were told to teach (after our debacle of a hiking weekend in Liptovský Mikuláš) with our friend and coworker Jack and two other teachers—Sam & Caroline. When we boarded the train in Liptovský Mikuláš that would take us to Žilina, we conveniently ran into Jack and Caroline. We sat with them, talked about work, talked about things that had nothing to do with work, and just enjoyed the ride as the countryside whizzed by us. Toward the end of the journey, we passed through a town called Strečno; this town would otherwise be pretty boring, except for the fact that it has a majestic, half-ruined castle perched high above the Váh River. The rocky crag that supports it looks as if it were formed for the sole purpose of supporting a castle with that much grandeur.

Jack, Lisa & I instantly decided we would somehow wind up visiting that castle.