I apologize for falling behind: Final Projects, Final Papers, Final Exams… we’re in the thick of wrapping up our intensive part of the semester, so things have gotten a little… busy. Before I summarize the latest two Czech’ns, I have to go back to our second extended excursion of the semester.

So, I’ve made this really big deal about Central Europe. So what? Big deal! Well, this semester is more than just about Prague and the Czech Republic. Indeed, almost exclusively the history of this semester has been about Czechoslovakia, a different country than the one we are in now. But now Slovakia is its own country. And if we’re going to take the opportunity to explore one country outside of the Czech Republic, we might as well do Central Europe at least a little bit of justice.

The trip started out with Krakow, Poland. I was swept away with the beauty of the city. I saw some of the most beautiful autumn days I had ever seen in my life. I did not capture photos of it, because I felt they would not do it justice (also I kept forgetting my camera in the hotel… but I really do also believe that photos would not have done the beauty of the experience justice). The first day, we spent the morning learning about communism in Poland, having just spent the last two weeks learning about communism in Czechoslovakia. What many of us picked up on was that the resistance to communism was much more violent in Poland than it was in Czechoslovakia. Some people attribute that to Czechoslovakia playing the “we’re always the victim card” (in reference to historical events, as well as the more recent Munich Agreement of 1938). Talking to our AD however, that would be over simplifying the situation. She said, as we learned about the next couple weeks, that dissidence DID exist in Czechoslovakia, but in a different form. For Poland it was in the manual laborers, and in this country it was up to the artists and intellectuals to lead the dissidence. I plan to ask our panel board (basically all our lecturers for the past semester) tomorrow, why they think that difference is.

In the afternoon, we broke into two groups. One group went to go into discussions with an NGO, and the other group followed our Polish host to Nowa Huta, an intact Stalinist district of Krakow, to go see the effects of the Stalinist communism on the area, and to see an exhibit as well. Then we regrouped to learn a little about an organization working to regain less desirable spaces (such as car garages) for artistic and cultural purposes.

We had the weekend off to go see whatever interested us in Poland. I spent Saturday largely on my own. I was too enamored by the beauty of the autumn scenery to try to keep to other people’s schedules and fast paces through the city. So I went to look at the Old Synagogue in Krakow, and got to see the outside of it, as it was in a religious session for being Saturday morning. After that, I made my way down to Oskar Schindler’s factory. I wasn’t too terribly impressed, but I think that’s because I was mostly on the inside, and by that time was being driven by the need for lunch, so I stopped at the nearby pizzeria, which was quite good (very typical). The next day, the schedule was completely taken up by the visit to Auschwitz. See the previous post to read about it.

Monday was our departing day from Poland, and sadly, our half-way point to the excursion. We spent the next two days (and that evening) in the Čierny Balog region of Slovakia. We arrived to a presentation about the region, and a very filling dinner (though not particularly traditionally Slovak, i.e. pasta). The next day, we visited the Marek family eco-farm, got to hang out with lots of animals, and learn about rural practices such as creating your own cheese, and all the legalities of what you’re allowed to name the cheese and what you’re not. There were 4 dogs, and 3 kittens (I think, maybe just 2) who were very peaceful for the most part. There were cows and pigs as well. It was quite the farm. Most of the day we were allowed to relax and explore, to take in the home at our own pace. Then we had the presentations, and in that time, flipping through one of their guest  books, I found the SIT group with our AD from 2011, which ironically happened to be the group with Joe, the previous Redlands student in the Czech Republic program. That night, we got to experience traditional Slovakian dancing. We had a dance team show up in costume, and show us a few very basic dances. I even won a little ceramic shot glass!

The next day was a rather inspiring one, as a writer. The morning was spent at the Vydra information center (the organization coordinating our visit) and then experiencing the old railway system. On the other end of that trip, we learned about the production of local traditional crafts. First we got to listen to a little bit of Heligon music (a small accordion instrument) and then examine homemade knives that were crafted (they were NICE, and not surprisingly, sold for about $300 apiece). Lastly we got to see the production of colorful woven threads (can be used for sturdy rope or as bracelets, like we were all given one – like a friendship bracelet kind of thread).

What was so inspiring however, was that afternoon. One group went to a couple’s home to learn about domestic life, while others, including myself, went on a walk through the Dobroč Forest, which was strikingly similar to the Black Forest in Germany. I got talking to a couple people during the visit about fairy-tales, and how this was similar to the German forest, and how so many Germanic fairytales take place in forests… this is why. There’s just something enchanting about them, especially when it is misting and raining like it was that day. It gives it a mysterious, though not an ominous, feel to the experience. When we finally returned, we had a chance for some hot drinks before our train arrived to take us back to the bus, to head back to the ski lodge.

Then we departed by the bus to head over to Žilina. Our first night there was really creepy. We arrived at this gigantic hotel, Hotel Slavia, which according to our AD is a socialist disaster of a hotel. The hallways are dimly lit, everything is evenly uniform, and the rooms were cramp. The doors creaked, darkness was a general theme, and we were pretty sure there were ghosts around every corner of the hotel. And the place was HUGE! Before settling in for the night, a small group of us went to this pizzeria for dinner, recommended by our AD, and the walk was very unsettling. People were just standing around, it looked like drug deals were going down, and the “public” in the central square was non-existent. It could’ve passed as a ghost town, in the US, no exaggeration. On the way back, we were pretty sure we were being followed, forcing us to group a little tighter together, and pick up our pace back to the hotel. After this, I returned to a completely dark room, a mistake to not have left the lights on, as the others had.

But there IS more to Žilina than this creepy hotel. The next day we visited this cultural center that was made by shipping containers and beer crates, using the highway entrance ramps as a roof to the building. That pretty much describes the character of this place. It was low budget, low cost center, devoted to reinvigorating the cultural scene into the city. After those morning presentations, we split into two groups again, one a theater group and the other a book making group. I went with the book makers. The first part of the afternoon we spent learning about this woman whose career is binding, repairing and restoring books. Some of the books were really intricate projects that you would never really find with a mass producing publishing company. There was even an ISP from an earlier student left at the house, which was really cool. After this presentation, we got to try our hand at making our own books. We folded the paper, sewed the little booklets together, glued the binding and the covers on, and then the next morning decorated the covers. Now I have my own little blue book with some gold stars stamped on the front of it, that I plan to use to collect quotes in.

And that was it! That was the entire excursion! We were free by 11:30 that Friday morning. I left to catch the earliest train out to Prague, because I was going to stop by one more country before my traveling came to an end: Germany! I was on my way to Munich to go visit a high school friend. Despite the stressful weekend, I’m very glad that I did spend the weekend with him. It was fun to catch up, it was cool to get to see all the different cathedrals around Munich, learn a little about its history again, and be in a rather familiar language again. When hanging around some of his friends, we were speaking German, and I could understand all of it, which was quite cool. The second night we did a bit of bar hopping, but I refrained from anything, partly because I wanted some money left for breakfast the next morning! But yeah, that was Germany in a nutshell, and I get to look forward to his visit to Prague in two weeks!

Until Next Time,

Joe