Travel Diary Chapter 3
I hope I'm not boring you to death but this has been great for me to filter my observations, thoughts, feelings, etc.
Ironing
Because we failed to pack a shirt & tie for the banquet, we had to purchase them in Slovakia. I had to ask the hotel if I could use their iron. Now this was another interesting adventure. Usually in Canada there is a iron and ironing board in the hotel room or they will deliver such to your room. In the hotel we stayed in Slovakia, I was asked to bring my shirt to the front desk, follow a gal to the ironing room and she would have to supervise me using the iron and then lock the room when I was done. Now this was no ordinary room. It was a small room with lino flooring, 3 tables, 2 small machines - maybe both washers...not sure, a few lines strung across the room with a couple of coveralls hanging with clothespins. The window to the room was open. The light fixtures were just bulbs hanging in the room. There was one table covered with a blanket and a sheet spread across it and a very old iron. I was trying to figure out why I needed to be supervised to do my ironing. Like was I going to steal the iron or maybe the lightbulb? I shouldn't be making fun! I think really it is just a ritual left over from the communist days. I did have a chat with the gal about their laundry habits in their own homes. She was actually pretty good in English. She said they have small washers but most people don't have dryers. They hang their clothes on their balconies to dry and therefore have to iron everything. She had spent 4 hours the day before ironing her stuff at home. I noted later how everyone's clothes on the tram, bus, train are crisply pressed. So even a mundane job like ironing a shirt became an adventure for me.
Days Following the Summit for me were R & R
Friday afternoon we had some free time to go down into the heart of Bratislava and walk along the Danube River and enjoy the "old" city. Right down in the middle of it, we found MacDonald's. We just wandered and enjoyed some fresh air. Friday evening my husband started into meetings and he was busy all day Sat. and Sun. I linked up the director's wife from the States. She was so like my sister, it was wild! We talked and talked... She & her husband have had a similar journey to us so we related very well to one another. They have 2 boys and her husband has walked through depression, ministry stuff...we just enjoyed fellowship. It was so cool. We even took the tram by ourselves downtown again and walked by the Danube. I had taken 2 books with me and read one by Donald Miller "Searching for God Knows What".
Oh...I have to tell you about my adventure going to swim. There happened to be a swimming pool in the hotel so I decided for a workout that I would run the stairs and then swim. I've told you about the lights. Well I found my way "to" the pool but coming back to the changing room was another story. There were no lights on so I'm groping along this dark hallway and find a doorway. I was trying to find a light switch and waved my arms to see if I would trigger a light to come on when all of a sudden a person appears out of the darkness and in another language seems upset that I'm doing something wrong. I stood perfectly still in my swimsuit wondering if I was supposed to have a towel or I wasn't allowed out of the pool or if in the arm waving thing I had done something very inappropriate. What I finally figured out was I was going into the men's change room instead of the women's...because I couldn't "SEE" to see pictures or read signs. Dah!
After eating the same meals all week the 14 of us left, decided to eat out. The one night all 14 of us were trying to get bus tickets. You have to purchase 10 min, 20 min, or 30 min tickets depending how long your ride will take you. So there were 20 people lined up at this little box to get our tickets. Meanwhile our fearless leader was getting impatient to get going. We had been told what bus to take to get to our destination but our leader ran ahead and we all thought he had talked to the bus driver and he just yelled "This one Mates". So we all ran like crazy and boarded only to find out he had no idea where we were going. We rode and rode...way out into an industrial area. My husband was thinking we may have to start a church plant. Anyway our American cohert in his American "shyness" yelled "Does anyone speak English?" Of course if you did, you didn't want to confess when there were 14 English speaking people overtaking the bus. Finally 3 people who could speak English spoke quietly to 3 of our crew and we got instructions how to get out of our dilemna. Thank goodness all three instructions were the same. Our leader's response was "We are making a memory." That we did! We had so much fun.
I'll fill you in on more on Chapter 4...
Ironing
Because we failed to pack a shirt & tie for the banquet, we had to purchase them in Slovakia. I had to ask the hotel if I could use their iron. Now this was another interesting adventure. Usually in Canada there is a iron and ironing board in the hotel room or they will deliver such to your room. In the hotel we stayed in Slovakia, I was asked to bring my shirt to the front desk, follow a gal to the ironing room and she would have to supervise me using the iron and then lock the room when I was done. Now this was no ordinary room. It was a small room with lino flooring, 3 tables, 2 small machines - maybe both washers...not sure, a few lines strung across the room with a couple of coveralls hanging with clothespins. The window to the room was open. The light fixtures were just bulbs hanging in the room. There was one table covered with a blanket and a sheet spread across it and a very old iron. I was trying to figure out why I needed to be supervised to do my ironing. Like was I going to steal the iron or maybe the lightbulb? I shouldn't be making fun! I think really it is just a ritual left over from the communist days. I did have a chat with the gal about their laundry habits in their own homes. She was actually pretty good in English. She said they have small washers but most people don't have dryers. They hang their clothes on their balconies to dry and therefore have to iron everything. She had spent 4 hours the day before ironing her stuff at home. I noted later how everyone's clothes on the tram, bus, train are crisply pressed. So even a mundane job like ironing a shirt became an adventure for me.
Days Following the Summit for me were R & R
Friday afternoon we had some free time to go down into the heart of Bratislava and walk along the Danube River and enjoy the "old" city. Right down in the middle of it, we found MacDonald's. We just wandered and enjoyed some fresh air. Friday evening my husband started into meetings and he was busy all day Sat. and Sun. I linked up the director's wife from the States. She was so like my sister, it was wild! We talked and talked... She & her husband have had a similar journey to us so we related very well to one another. They have 2 boys and her husband has walked through depression, ministry stuff...we just enjoyed fellowship. It was so cool. We even took the tram by ourselves downtown again and walked by the Danube. I had taken 2 books with me and read one by Donald Miller "Searching for God Knows What".
Oh...I have to tell you about my adventure going to swim. There happened to be a swimming pool in the hotel so I decided for a workout that I would run the stairs and then swim. I've told you about the lights. Well I found my way "to" the pool but coming back to the changing room was another story. There were no lights on so I'm groping along this dark hallway and find a doorway. I was trying to find a light switch and waved my arms to see if I would trigger a light to come on when all of a sudden a person appears out of the darkness and in another language seems upset that I'm doing something wrong. I stood perfectly still in my swimsuit wondering if I was supposed to have a towel or I wasn't allowed out of the pool or if in the arm waving thing I had done something very inappropriate. What I finally figured out was I was going into the men's change room instead of the women's...because I couldn't "SEE" to see pictures or read signs. Dah!
After eating the same meals all week the 14 of us left, decided to eat out. The one night all 14 of us were trying to get bus tickets. You have to purchase 10 min, 20 min, or 30 min tickets depending how long your ride will take you. So there were 20 people lined up at this little box to get our tickets. Meanwhile our fearless leader was getting impatient to get going. We had been told what bus to take to get to our destination but our leader ran ahead and we all thought he had talked to the bus driver and he just yelled "This one Mates". So we all ran like crazy and boarded only to find out he had no idea where we were going. We rode and rode...way out into an industrial area. My husband was thinking we may have to start a church plant. Anyway our American cohert in his American "shyness" yelled "Does anyone speak English?" Of course if you did, you didn't want to confess when there were 14 English speaking people overtaking the bus. Finally 3 people who could speak English spoke quietly to 3 of our crew and we got instructions how to get out of our dilemna. Thank goodness all three instructions were the same. Our leader's response was "We are making a memory." That we did! We had so much fun.
I'll fill you in on more on Chapter 4...
posted by ladyyvonne | 10:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home