Travel Pictures - Slovakia, 2003, Page 2/2

"On je iba kamarat, nesexujeme!", this was how Lubi had to calm down her grandmother in the phone, because grandmother was worried about some strange guy spending the night in Lubi's place. I visited Lubi's place during the loooong weekend (from 1st till 4rd of May). After Prague I was still recovering from some aches, but it didn't stop me from enjoying all the nice things Roznava has to offer :) Most certainly Roznava is one of the finest places in Slovakia. Btw. Finland lost. 5 - 1. It is the strangest thing. So many people wanted to share this information with me in the pub. Well, maybe next year..

btw. I learned some Hungarian: Egezsegedre, kerek egy sort, csokoly meg, adsz egy nyelves puszit and of course hogy vagy? (jol vagyok) :)

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Crazy Weeks

Budapest, 22th - 25th of May. Visiting Kata, seeing Matrix - Reloaded, Indian dinner with Laci's colleges, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, resting in parks, "I'm sorry, you are ugly" said Kata to a black "chicken", Saana running out of money, buying return-tickets, serious bedtalk (again), quick visit to Bratislava (me running out money)

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Praha, 28th - 30th of May. Impressive old town hall clock, walking, walking, walking, hostel elf, trafic jam, Alena guiding us, Petrin watchtower,

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Mama visiting me :) (Zilina) Looking for wedding gift, Finnish dinner, presents, missing the bus, (Praha) Emily, lost Israels, stolen wallet, 2x police station, sun-bathing

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Slovensky raj, Slovak Paradise, 6th-8th of June

A while ago we decided to organize a weekend of our own - by the trainees, for the trainees. I promised to also help with organizing, but some Finnish things kept me really busy during the previous weeks. So Danni ended up arranging everything by herself. Excelent job Danni :) Anita, Howard and Nathan were also sharing the fun with us..

Our weekend didn't start splendidly. First the train from Zilina to Poprad was late. Danni and Nathan were having problems as well - Their bus broke down. The weather didn't look and forecasts weren't either promising before the weekend. Despite of that we managed to arrive on (our) time, and enjoy the sun and absolutely amazing nature in Slovensky Raj.

On the first night we stayed in Smižany. Our accomodation was very nice. The beds very soooo goood. And the shower - must be on of the best showers in Slovakia. Girls seemed to like it a lot. On Saturday we were hiking for 9 hours. After 4 hours we (I'm sure, that I wasn't the only one) started to dream about getting a good warm shower. Who says that dreams come true. After six hours we had cold shower with low water pressure. Before that we climbed up to Tomášovský výhĺad and also got lost (ale iba trochu). Our path was challenging. There were chains, stairs, bridges, ladders and their combinations. Cool :) We saw many senior tourists on the path. How in the hell did they manage to make that journey. I wish to be as agile when I retire :)

On Sunday we had only short 5 hour walk. First up to river/waterfall called Sucha Bela (very very impressing) and then walk to nearest small town, where we were catching the bus to Poprad. In the village we were standing in front of a bus stop asking people for the bus station (where we were supposed to go in 20 minutes). We found out, that the "bus stop" was the bus station. Our way back from Poprad with train was interesting as well. The train kept making stops in the weirdest places and always suddenly. While not stopping, it was clearly speeding. In the end we got back to Zilina about 10 minutes late. Dobre :)

Couple of the pictures might require explaining. The white blow up thing is called Hu-Hu. It was with us, because I promised earlier to Genia to take it with me on my next hike. Hu-Hu itself is a longer story.

My Pictures

Danni's Pictures

Howard's Pictures

The amazing adventures of Hu-Hu

Velky Rozsutec, 15th of June

Some of you probably remember that on my second week in Slovakia my boss took me to Male Rozsutec (small Rozsutec), which is in the close by Mala Fatra National Park. At the time, we didn't have time to go to Velky Rozsutec (big Rozsutec) and I promised to myself to go back.

Now I had a weekend with nothing to do. No plans, and no money to do it. Hiking always sounds a good plan in this sort of situation. Only person crazy enough to go with me was Anita. The only thing missing was a map, which we borrowed from Ivo. On the morning it looked like rain. I have to admit, that I would have stayed home, if Anita had not send me the SMS saying that we should go.

So we went. Memories came back to me, when I saw familiar places. We took the bus to Štefanova, and while doing that, we managed to practise our Slovak. The bus to Štefanova didn't seem to appear in any schedule, but it ran anyway. We decided to take the other way to Velky Rozsutec than I had taken before. This route was a tough climb in the beginning, and I was wondering how will Anita survive, because I was having problems as well. But this way the end part of the hike would be lighter.

After several breaks, and me pushing Anita up the hill ;) we made it. We arrived to this sign saying that it would still take 1h15minutes to up. I think we used 2 hours. I was waiting. Anita was waiting, and then running for a short while up the hill and then waiting. And I was waiting. It was quite funny. This was a hiking route, where one really needs to climb. Even better than the ones we had in Slovensky raj.

The view was amazing. I'm sorry, that I don't have many pictures of that, but my batteries decided to die right after we arrived to the peak. Maybe because Anita took so many pictures of me climbing the tree earlier :) We spent quite a while up there just enjoying the magnificent landscape, which was very picturesq. The sky didn't look real at all. Actually it looked like a a big oil painting.

After long pause, we headed down to Medzi Rozsutec. Though we had rest on the way as well. I was playing as usual and I managed to get a rock size of my fist into my forehead. And Anita almost twisted her ankle badly. Too bad I don't have picture of either of these moments :) From Medzi Rozsutec we could have gone up to Male Rozsutec but decided not to and continued back to Štefanova. This route I knew.

After hike we were sitting, drinking beer and eating ice cream. I recall that Anita was practicing her Slovak as well :) Overall: Great hike to a great place with great company :) and it didn't even rain...

Danni's farewell party in Banska Bystrica 20th - 21th of June.

It starts to be painfully obvious to all us old trainees, that for each and everyone of us, there will be our time to leave Slovakia. And that day is fore sure coming. Danni came to Slovakia around same time as me, so having farewell party for her touches deeply. Luckily leaving Slovakia doesn't mean dying and there is life after traineeship, though it can be very hard to believe that standing in our shoes. However, enough philosophy... action.

We had nice party. Most of the trainees came to see the end of our beloved English girl, and that means good party. The neighbors also joined the party at 10pm saying, that we should be quiet. It was Friday night and they had things in their asses. What can you do? We grabbed all the alcohol and headed to a park. In the park some gentlemen started to look thretning so we decided to move into a night club. Almost all alcohol had been consumed anyway.

After dancing, drinking and good talks we headed back home to sleep. I just had one problem. Hoger was sleeping in my room, and he is famous for snoring. And there is a reason for that. I decided not to go kick him all the time to make him quiet (there was no way to wake up the guy by kicking), so I tied a charger cord (the only string I could find) to his toe and just pulled that whenever he started. The arrangement worked fine, and Hoger's face the next morning after he found out the charger cord tied to his toe, was immemorial. Howard was as well sleeping in the room, but in some point he decided to carry his bed to next room. He is bothered by someone's snoring. Isn't that ironic... :D

The camera had an accident called gravity during this weekend, which resulted in 7000sk bill. No, I didn't drop it. For this reason no pictures from my camera for couple of weeks.

Life or something like it

I'll dedicate this chapter for unlucky coincidences. I have encountered some lately. It all started...

... in Prague, I guess. First I twisted my ankle quite bad, and then I broke my bag somehow. I was on sick leave for one week because even walking was terrible painful. It was a good thing to have the health insurance. At the moment my back is quite ok, though it starts acting up, if I sit too much. I need to go running regularly, if I want to keep sitting.

After this I a rock size of my fist hit my head in Rozsutec. It landed just in the middle of my forehead when I was climbing. This was totally my fault. Luckily it just bled and the headache was gone as well the next day.

Next things started to happen to my stuff. My camera, which isn't actually mine, was accidently dropped - gravity. This ended up to cost 7000sk. That is a lot of money, especially if you have enough just for normal living. As a comparison I get around 8700sk in month after taxes. Luckily the responsible ones are sharing the repair cost with me, so this wasn't total disaster for me financially..

The same weekend I hit my head again, while talking on the phone and entering a "restaurant" in Banska Bystrica. These doors are just too low here. I remember hitting my head also on the first time I visited that place. Learning is painful, but practise makes you perfect. uh :D

My favorite and only sandals... broke.

Last week I came home and noticed that some keys (6 in total) on the keyboard of my laptop weren't working anymore. It was bad day even before this happened. After some research with Mamut, we found out that this is a common problem with this computer, if it is on for too long. So, we turned of the computer, and it worked fine the next morning.

On the same evening I was calling to Howard and asking him to join me and Anita for a dinner. He basically answered the phone: "Please, don't kill me". I was thinking about it. It turned out that gravity had did it again. The cover of the light above the computer had come down and landed on the keyboard. Guess how many keys were broken. Basically keyboard works, but 6 keys were away now. There was also a small scratch in the screen and touch pad. Those don't really matter, but 6 keys missing makes typing hard. Mamut contacted some people to find out can we buy those small plastic things which are under keys and broken. The answer seems to be no, we can't. The only way to buy a new key, is to buy a new keyboard (2000sk). Brilliant, but that is business, I suppose. Fuck no. We started to fix it. With some effort (special thanks to Anita) we managed to fix 4 keys. But still y and h are missing. One of them maybe can be fixed (after some glue), for the other ones the white things are in too many parts. So it seems we'll either jointly buy a new keyboard (again 3 people sharing the cost btw), or try taking the thing from under some less used key.

Hmm. So the point. If you think you are having a bad day, or bad luck, just think how lucky you are. It still hasn't got any worse :) I'm still alive and kicking and soon going back home (if I find money for that)...

Anna (trainee, Ukraine) was visiting us nice, beautiful, brilliant Žilina trainees during the weekend 5th - 6th of July. With more trainees things are always more interesting so we were happy to have her. Anita and I had plan to go biking. This plan didn't turn out well, after we didn't find any air in the tires of Anita's loan bike. We also lack the means to put it there (though, we did try). Soon it started to rain as well, so we picked up Anna from the station late and headed to center for some breakfast (around 1pm). We sat on the terrace of Carolina, when it started to rain. This rain, and pauses of not raining continued through out the day. The only thing to do was go from pub to pub, look for soft drinks and enjoy each other's company. We played also with water drops - this I cannot explain, but it was fun. Later we watched one of my favorite movies Requirem for a dream. Things were pretty serious after that :D

On Sunday we went hiking. The plan was to visit old Strecno (the ruins) and new Strecno. The weather seemed to be unstable, but I decided to take sandals anyway. The first thing I forgot was my socks. Next thing was my food into the fridge. With money I fixed both of those problems :)

On the train Anna started to do her make-up. Does anyone else find that strange when going hiking:D But she looked even prettier afterwards, so I guess there was some point to that. We also found new inside joke about "checking equipment" when Anna was in the toilet and train was slowing for our stop. With more efficient "guy equipment" there wouldn't have been any problem :) Flow rate, pressure, rusting, regular check up, etc. jokes were in the air. Concerning this topic, Anita shared with us some Chinace culture. There the polite way to let people know about need to check equipment is for women to go to "the hut of listening the rain" and for men to the "tower of viewing the waterfall" :) Nice :)

The weather turned out to be ok. Though it rained, but only when we were close to a pub :) New Strecno castle is in much better shape than the old one, but personally I like the old one better. There is more spirit. Btw, the movie Dragon Heart was filmed in the new Strecno castle :) (and I've been there, you must be so green now ;) )

So, what happened to my sandals. Well, nothing. Even my white socks were clean after walking all the day in various terrain. This has never happened before. I mean, that I could keep something clean for one day...

With me hiking/tramping/long walking were Anita, Anna, Erika, Janka, Janka's sister, Danka, Rene and Mišo.

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Ostrava,Olomouc, Prerov, Kromeriz, Czech, 11th-13th of July

My plans for in constant change. I had double booked this weekend by accident, and it let to all sort of problems. In the end, Friday morning, the other (hiking) plan failed and I decided to try still go to Czech, after saying that I wouldn't go. Because of this Anita and Mišo weren't going either. Now I had to convince them to change their plans, again. Dobre. Luckily they did.

Mišo went early and Anita and I came later to Ostrava. There was nobody waiting for us. We sent them a message "We are here, do you want us" (message which was later reused...). We were thinking how to spell that in Slovak - the word "us" being the problem. Damn those cases :) Soon Mišo and Dani arrived and we went to buy tram tickets. Dani and Mišo were first convinced that one makes one calls with these ticket automates :)

We headed to the center to find something to eat. In the center was a big music festival and a lot of people were on the street wondering around in some state. We first went to a place, which is cheap and has full plates (not like normal restaurant). Unfortunately the kitchen was closed already, and the food from this place remained as a dream. Next place was pizzeria. Same thing. We started to think that maybe the magic number 23 had something to do with this no food phenomenon.

I ended up eating delicious chicken burger :) We stayed at hotel for free. Accommodation for the trainees in Ostrava is ... nice :) Btw, there was a full moon. We woke up early the next morning. Or we tried. It was a battle for Anita and me. Dani and Mišo were calling us. Ring... ring... ring... tired...

The program for the morning was Mišo's shoe shopping. They have excellent selection in Ostrava. Just perfect. Too bad, that I'm broke. Anita had major difficulties not to buy shoes as well. After shopping we split. Mišo and Dani had to get their stuff from hotel and Anita and I headed to railway station. While waiting our train, we reused the text message... They came on a last possible minute. We went to buy tickets. Surprisingly they sold us group ticket without us asking for it. This kind of ticket is cheaper and something unknown to us in Slovakia. Good customer service Czech railways :)

We went to Olomouc. This is a famous city for its architecture and not without a reason. The first task was to find accommodation. Because we love Anita so much, we tried to her accommodation first by stuffing her to luggage locker. However it turned out, that they have stupid rules about putting live animals to lockers. Ou well ;) Luckily we met one AIESECer, who told us that there is a AIESEC meeting in Ostrava on that very weekend. We got a phone number, which after some trying led us to very cheap accommodation with other AIESECers :)

I suppose the picture of Dani holding a ticket in her hand requires some explaining. We were talking a lot about cheating in all its forms. Mostly cheating in exams and cheating in public transport. This was the topic when we entered the tram. Anita, Misho and I had ticket. She didn't because for her it was ok. Surprisingly she spotted a "ticket controller" just before tram doors closed. She ran out barely making it. We were laughing as hell. Our case was proved. Then the "ticket controller" started hugging this girl, whose ticket he was "inspecting". Controller my ass :D You can imagine that we got good laughs out of this :D In the picture Dani has just arrived with the next train and she has bought a ticket... To Dani I have to confess, that I have traveled quite a lot without ticket many many many times in Budapest. However that is another story....

Another problem was, that we were getting hungry (mainly me). They came up with joke that, that the Finn needs to be fed every 4 hours. Not a joke :) We met AIESECers in one "semi outdoor pub", where we had some chicken. This chicken turned out to turn my stomach upside down later. Bad chicken! Before midnight we made a short visit to the center. There was supposed to be a concert, but by the time we arrived, it had finished already.

We had another early wakeup on Sunday morning. We "borrowed" some Harry Potter posters from the AIESECer for Anita and Howard. Howard borrowed his camera to me on this weekend and he deserved something for that :) Kroměňž was our target. We were to meet some other trainees and AIESECers there. Actually we would catch their train is Přesov (and there I finally learned to pronounce Přerov). We had some time before their arrival, so we decided to go see Přesov. Ok. Maybe not the most exciting place in Czech, but there are plenty of Škodas. So many that it felt like a Škoda exhibition. Though, this isn't that uncommon feeling in Czech or Slovakia. Anyway I used the opportunity and took some pictures. I like the one where are Škodas from different decades.

In Kroměňž we visited botanical gardens, the castle and saw some sites in the center. This small city is well preserved or renovated, I suppose. The weather was changing its mind constantly. Rain and and sunshine took their turns :)

I didn't get to know very well the other trainees and AIESECer, who were there. I didn't feel like making new friends. And as well I wanted to talk to Mišo, because we don't have so many changes to meet anyway. For me it was enough to get to know old friends better. Well, one new friend Dani. I loved our discussion, argument and/or sharing of views about cheating. For sure I'll remember you for long time :) Another momentum which will stick is Mišo's reasoning. He is the most logical person I have ever seen. If someone ever claims that I'm logical, then he or she should meet Mišo :)

Anyhow another excellent weekend :)

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High Tatras - Rysy, 20th of July

When I a year ago arrived to Slovakia and went for a small hike to mountain Rozsutec, I soon had a dream to go see the High Tatras (Vysoky Tatry). The problem was to organize a trip. My colleges promised to organize a hike there. I was thrilled. We were supposed to go last week, but after seeing weather forecasts we decided to delay the trip and instead I went to Czech. Last weekend we tried again and now everything was perfect :) This was kind of company hike, but I managed to bring some friends of mine with me. Kata, Anita, Anna, Irenka and Ola. From my company Vlado, his 2 children, Igor, Mariana and Pistaj came. So together there was 12 people. The more the merrier :) Small problem was that we had space in cars for only 10 people...

We left Zilina 5:30 Sunday morning. I and Kata decided to stay in Anita's room so we wouldn't wake up everybody else (sure, this is one reason ;) when we go. I had packet my rucksack the previous night. Of course I forgot some important stuff to my room. I didn't have the key to my room, but that is another story. I found myself knocking on the door and trying to wake up people. They didn't. Later I found out, that Howard had spent the night in hotel (maybe because we were having only cold showers last week) and Mamut's location is still unknown to me.

We drove to Poprad, where we had to wait for a while for Anna, Irenka and Ola. After reorganizing we fit into cars and drove to our "final destination" - Strbske Pleso. We began preparing ourselves. Anna brought a purse with her. She is always so elegant :)

The hike to Rysy was about 8km distance. Naturally we cannot fly there the direct way, and the walk took about 5 hours. In this time we climbed around 1000m. On the way we saw some unbelievable scenaries. I tried taking pictures for you, but you better go there and see them personally.

There is couple of picture, where you can see cloud on the left and mountain peaks on the right. The part you cannot see is Poland. There was a hut up there, about 200m below the peak. It felt good to buy hot chocolate and sit down on a real bench after 5 hours of hiking. I bought the map of the area and also a "Rysy" T-shirt. They aren't selling these in every shop, are they ;)

On the peak I sent a message to my lovely second-cousin Kaisa saying that I'm at 2500m on top of Rysy. My purpose was to make her jealous of course. She answered that she had been in Austria on top of some peak just last week. Guess was the height of that mountain 2400 or 2600 meters... :D

On the way down my left knee started to feel a little sored. Kata also had problems with her left knee. This sharing thing goes too far :D On the way back the started to be really painful, but somehow we managed to limb back to the cars. When we finally were back at the cars, I couldn't walk anymore.

Overall, EXCELENT hike with MARVELOUS people :) I want to do this again. The only thing I could pass the next time is the following morning, when I couldn't walk without help... However today the knee is much better :)

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Bike tour - Bratislava - Vienna, 26th - 27th of July

Ivo and I had an idea. We want to go for biking tour and also camp somewhere. Destinations was unclear, but there was will to go. The only thing missing was time. Finally we decided to cut our plan and go simply to Wien. Well, was it simple. Hell no, but for sure it was fun :) It was as well the biggest physical excersise I've done... ever. Sad to say, but anything I experienced in the army didn't come even close.

Ivo and I borrowed Ivo's father's and mother's bikes. They were good bikes and up for this trip. We traveled by train from Galanta (Ivo's home) to Bratislava and spent the night there. There was one AIESEC party, which we attended and afterwards headed "home" from MC office to MC flat by biking (10km). I must admit that I was scared to bike in "big" city togetger with the cars at nigthtime.

Our goal was to leave 9 o'clock from Bratislava. 10 o'clock is closer to reality. My camera didn't have the date and time set, so don't exactly know. Though, who cares anyways :) We crossed the border in Petrazalka around 11 o'clock (~15km). Then we were in Austria. I have travelled from Bratislava to Vienna by car and by train, but this was my first time by bike. Next time maybe by boat or by plane :)

We followed Dunai biking tour, which mostly went on top of damm through the Donau-Auen national park. The damm was about 30km long straight road. Interesting. There were many bicyclist doing the same tour. We had heard an urban legand, that in Austria bycyclist has to have a helmet. We were actually worried, that we wouldn't get in without helmets. Many bicyclist seemed to have helmet, so we figured that maybe they have similar legand about Slovakia and they are on their way there. Anyways later it seemed clear, that mostly pensioneer bycyclist seem to use helmet. Another striking difference was our clothing. Austrians take bycycling much more seriously ;)

"The technique isn't here"

Števo's tire broke. Luckily we were prepared and had spare with us. The problem just was that we weren't that experienced in changing the tire. It seemed to be very difficult, so I commented:"I'm sure there is some easy techique to do that", to which Števo replied: "The technique isn't here". Maybe so, but we managed to do it anyway :) Other problem was that the vent didn't match with the pump. You know what. A comdom can came handy in surprising places :) Ivo had to make the sacrifice.

In one point the biking path and the damm went different way. We were asking an Austrian, whether he could tell us which way would lead us to Vienna. "Many ways go to Vienna", was his answer. We chose the damm.

The first sign of civilisation was the big chemical plant, which is close to Vienna. The biking tour went trough the plant. Again, interesting :D Right after the plant we started to see people with few swimming suits. Conclusion was that the beach is near. Where is Vienna? We decided to ask the next people we would see. This old couple came towards us. Naked. We didn't ask for the way. Guess what kind of beach was this. And this beach continued for couple kilometers. So many naked people. It felt like a finnish sauna. Some really nice looking personalities as well, but mostly elderly Austrian seem to love freedom of nudity.

Finally we reached the borders of the center. One clear sign of that was, that there weren't so many naked people ;) We stopped to look at the map. We were supposed to go to the 17th district. One woman came to us asking for 5 euros, for ice cream I think. With 5 euros one can eat in a restaurant in Slovakia. It is not trivial sum even in Austria, or have I lost the whole concept of money. Ou well, we said, that we are coming from Slovakia and somehow she understood. She also help us with our 17th district problem. "All I know is that it is very very far", say said. Doooobre :D

We stopped one guy, who tried to help us. Though somehow he also was lost. Then another guy stopped without us asking for it, and started to give good advices how we can get to 17th district. Brilliant :)

Wien is a good city for bicyclists. Their needs have been thought and I felt quite safe biking on our own roads after the experiences in Bratislava :) This didn't prevent us from getting lost. Števo looked very dead already and Ivo and I didn't want to do any extra kilometers either. After carefull pondering we found our way. On the way we found "No camping" -sign pretty much in the center...

Chris was already waiting for us. Ivo had sent a message earlier that we will arive 14+. It was 17 o'clock I think. We had biked 83km on that day. My ass was killing me!! Sitting down wasn't a joy. My legs didn't feel that good either. However I was very happy that we had reached our destination :)

During the evening we spent some time tasting some wine, slivo and absolut vodka. Tasting only, because the next day we were heading back... Chris and Tanicka wanted some official pictures of theirself. I complied. You can judge my success. Chris had a plan how to get us out of Vienna... the shortest way. We decided as well to go back along the normal road, not the biking tour.

Sunday

I had a small headache. Propably from all that sun on the previous day. Chris went and bought us "poor Slovaks" some bread and then we headed back. We calculated that the road ahead of us would be shorter than the day before. Chris came with us to show the shortest way out of Vienna. It was 14km from his place to the border of Vienna. The road, which we had chosen, had some lack sides. The wind was literally strongly against us. And it had up and downhills. And in the end we found out, that it wasn't so much shorter. Good side was, that we could see all the villages on the way. Some of them are pretty cool :) I especially liked Hainburg, which partly inside a castle and one has to enter the gate of the castle in order to drive trough the village. I bet the constructor of the castle didn't guess, that there would be trafic lights in front the gate on some day :) (there is a picture...).

If are planning to pass away, you might want to go to this suburban in Vienna. It has all sort of services for you and me, when we aren't here anymore. Funeral service, crematoriums, flowershops and of course gravestone makers. What is so freaky, is the concentration of these services. With good luck one can find gravestones on sale: All for half price, and one special stone only 1598e... I wonder whether I can get this engraved into my gravetone :D

Around 16 o'clock we arrived back to good old Slovensko :) The last 20km I had only two things keeping me going. The first thing... hmmm-mmmmmm :) The second thing I can share. Cold beer. We made a deal to go to the first place where we could get beer in Slovakia. Soooo goood :) We were suffering from dehydration after biking 4 hours in 30 degrees, so can you imagine the feeling. Though rest of the thirst I fixed with Kofola (goes also by name communistic cola). It is a drink that I've learned to like after difficult beginning :)

We took the bikes back to Galanta and I stayed the night there. Early morning (7:58) I took a train back to Zilina and arrived to work around noon. Before that I had time to get lost in Galanta on my way to railway station. Luckily people can speak Slovak and so can I :)

Nice, physical, stress free, cheap, perfect weekend :) For sure I won't do anything like this soon again.

Anita's, Howard's and Tero's Farewell party, 8th - 9th of August

We did it the Žilina way. Not so much planning :) People can come and go how ever they want. Of course this lead to some confusion about everything. All was sorted out before the end of the weekend.

The official party was on Friday (this was decided on Friday :) in AIESEC office. A lot of people arrived, but I was sad that some trainees couldn't come, because, for instance, stupid bosses.

Official program was short. We received the new cool Žilina T-shirt as farewell gift :) We love it. Good design Hoger :) Anita and Howard had a short speach. I had even shorter. What can I say. No words are enough to express the gratitude I have for this bunch of truly amazing people, who I have met during this year: Alena, Anders, Andrea, Anita, Anja, Anna, Ayako, Carsten, Dani, Danni, David, Ed, Emily, Genia, Hoger, Howard, Chris, Iewa, Igor, Irenka, Iva, Ivo, Janka, Joy, Kamilla, Kata, Klepo, Lora, Lubi, Mamut, Mariana, Martin, Mayra, Mišo, Nathan, Peter, Sandra, Sannid, Stanka, Veronika, Vlado, Vlasta, Wilson, and Zuzka. I'm grateful I had the chance to meet you and many of you I learned to know much better. Traineeship can be about many things, but for sure it is about people. You are for sure one of the best people I have ever met. If you happen to visit Finland (or where ever I'll be living) be sure to give me a call, dobre :) I'll promise to drop by as well, if I happen to visit Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech, German, Hungary, India, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, UK, Ukraine, or USA. Did I forget someone? Knowing me, I propably did. Don't worry. You are still my friend, if you are not on the list ;)

and closing words of the party...

Rest of the night hardly requires explanations :) Just don't jump into too many conclusion about my love life because of some pictures (ja tämä koskee erityisesti rakasta äitiäni) :D You will not find my lovely girlfriend there. Unfortunaly she couldn't be in Žilina with me this weekend :(

On Sunday it was Anita's time to go. We (Howard, Lubi and I) went to the bus station to see her off. Long goodbyes are so difficult...

Rodrigo was very excited about his new digital camera and took around 230 pictures during this weekend. Some of them are very interesting.

Epilogi

2nd - 5th of November, London. Trainee reunion :))))))) Anita, Danni, Mayra and Sandra.