These past two months have been kind of busy, what with the holidays and everything, and time seems to be going by very quickly. Just three days ago I hit my five month mark of being in Europe.
Our holiday vacation was very long, just over two weeks, and spending my first ever Christmas in Slovakia was amazing. Slovaks have a lot of traditions for their holidays that every family follows, which is different from what I understand Christmas to be in the USA. For one example, people eat a piece of garlic and then honey for a sweet and healthy year to come. That was interesting. And once the family sits down to eat for Christmas dinner, no one is allowed to get up from their seat until the meal is over. Christmas in Slovakia lasts three days, from Christmas Eve on December 24th, and then there are two days of Christmas after that, and we spent the whole time with family. It was very nice.
School has definitely improved after the holidays. I'm no longer the foreign girl who sits in on classes, but have become a part of the class. The people who used to talk to me once or twice a day now talk to me regularly, and people who didn't talk to me at all before are now starting to talk to me. I feel like I've finally been accepted by my classmates, which is wonderful. My German teacher wants me to learn German through Slovak now, which is an interesting experience. The word "garage" sounds the same in all three languages though.
We had a Rotary Christmas meeting in early December for all of the exchange students in Slovakia. They took us to the Bratislava Christmas markets, and then to Vienna. We also had a language test on which I scored an 87% on the written part and a 100% on the speaking. Last Monday I finally gave a presentation about the USA to my Rotary club, after it had been rescheduled many times. It went well.
On February seventh we are changing host families again. I feel a bit of trepidation at changing because I feel like the time with my second (and current) host family has been so short. I feel like I've barely gotten time to get settled here and feel like part of the family before I have to move again. I can do it, though. My next host family is actually in the city of Bratislava, rather than being in a village outside of it, like my first two host families. This means that I won't have to deal with lengthy public transport like the train and the bus. Only trams, trolleys, and city buses now.
We have another Rotary meeting for Slovak inbounds this weekend in the city of Banská Bystrica, my friends in school have told me that it's one of the nicest cities in Slovakia, and I'm excited to go because an exchange student from Brazil by the name of Karina lives there, and I'm excited to see her.
That's all I can think to report for now. I'm so happy to be living here in Europe, it's amazing!
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