The students who did this program in Krakow last year weren't kidding when they told us that all of our work would pile up at the end of the semester!!! I've got to buckle down for the next week and half and tackle my mountain of schoolwork, but when I come out at the other end I'll be taking off for two weeks or so of travel and then back to the States! So I'm currently sitting in my favorite cafe, Les Coleurs on the main market square in Kazimierz, enjoying a near-constant supply of coffee and little sugary cookie-wafers while I do my schoolwork using their wonderfully free wireless internet!
The end of the parents visit went well. We got back from the mountains a day earlier than expected (long story there involving good ol' Polish organization and our professors' failure to realize that Brad, Rachel, and I DID need to go to class on Monday) and Mom and Dad settled back into a hotel room in my building. Monday morning we headed into the center city and Mom and I did some souvenir/gift shopping in the stalls in the Sukiennice, a super old building that's been around since the middle ages and used to be the cloth merchants' hall. Dad found a good seat on the base of Adam Mickiewicz's (famous Polish poet) monument in the main square and buried himself in Michener's Poland. I had to go to class at 12:30 and left them eating their lunches (delicious kebab) in the Planty (the park that encircles the old city and was the defensive moat in the middle ages). I'm not entirely sure what they did while I was in class. I think some wandering around the Planty/outskirts of the old city looking at the monuments and buildings that are highlighted in my Krakow guidebook. We met up after class to catch a tour bus to the Wieliczka salt mine, which I saw in February and thought was a must-see for the parents. They enjoyed it, although Mom got huffy about our tour guide's misrepresentation of Copernicus' contribution to science. The tour guide said that he proved that the sun is the center of the solar system, but as Mom proceeded to explain (at great length) over dinner later, Copernicus only developed a good (not perfectly accurate) model that didn't prove anything. The equipment/knowledge, etc. required to actually prove the heliocentric model wasn't developed until much later. I like having brilliant, nerdy parents, although it does mean that I'm subjected to lectures over dinner. :)
Tuesday was another good day. Mom and Dad were on their own for a lot of it, since I did some homework in the morning and they went to Wawel to see the royal aparments, tickets to which had been sold out when they were at Wawel last week. I had class in the middle of the day while they tried to see the archeological museum...it has a fantastic exhibit on the people who lived in the Krakow area during prehistorical periods. But that museum has the weirdest hours and is only open until 2 on most days so they missed it! After my class and their tour of Wawel, we met in the Planty and went Kopiec Kosciuszko, Kosciuszko's mound. It's a mound of dirt constructed in the 1800s on a hill a little bit to the southwest of the city center to commemorate Kosciuszko for leading the 1794 uprisings against the major powers of Europe. Unfortunately, Kosciuszko's uprising failed and Poland ceased to exist on the maps of Europe in 1795 when it was divided by Prussia, Austria, and Russia, only appearing again after World War I. The mound incorporates dirt from every battlefield where he fought. The mound itself is a well-developed tourist destination with a restaurant and hotel built into the fortifications that the Austrians constructed around it when they had control of Krakow. The main reason for going is the view from the top of the mound, which is a gorgeous panorama of Krakow. We could pick out the main downtown markers: Wawel castle, Kosciol Mariacki on the main market square, the church of Sts. Peter and Paul on Grodzka Street which runs south from the main square to the castle. We could also see my dorm and it was fun to trace out my walking-route to various destinations. It also gave Mom and Dad a great idea of the layout of the city. Oh, and it was cool to see Nova Huta (the giant steelworks that were a huge Communist project in the middle of the 20th century) although it was pretty obscured by smog. I'd learned about Krakow's air being incredibly polluted by industry under Communist rule, but hadn't noticed it on day-to-day basis until I was that high up above the city...it didn't seem to bad, though and is certainly MUCH better than it used to be! Oh, the one other thing that struck me was how green the city is. Again, I'd always heard that Krakow is the greenest city in eastern Europe and one of the greenest in all of Europe, but didn't fully realize what that meant until I was that high. It really looked to me more like a city growing in a forest than trees growing in a city. Yay!
We really didn't have long at the mound, only about a half hour, and then we dashed back to the main square to make a 7 pm Chopin concert in one of the palaces fronting the square. The pianist was a Japanese grad school student studying piano in Krakow and played beautifully. I always forget how difficult Chopin is but when I see it performed I remember how impossible it is! Her performance was incredible. After the concert we ate dinner at a restaurant called Babcia Malina which serves great traditional Polish food.
Wednesday morning was departure morning for Mom and Dad, so we all got up early and went to the airport. I loaded them down with an extra bag that they checked for me, since I'll be going home with much more than I came with!
So it was great to have them here, as I told Dad in an email today...a little taste of home in Krakow.
Now I should probably get back to my schoolwork! Rachel just joined me in the cafe and we're going to reciprocally and strictly enforce study-discipline.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Rodzice w Krakowie (that might mean "parents in Krakow!")
The parental visit is going really well, minus some inconveniences related to the weekend we just spent at a mountain lodge in the Tatra Mountains... Fun weekend that involved a bit more walking than we'd originally been told and no private bathroom in each room (Mom's pet peeve). We did all enjoy the mountain atmosphere, though, and went on a lovely hike on Saturday! Mom, Dad and Professor McGarity ( the Swarthmore professor who runs the program) turned back after 4.5 km or so and a long mountain climb to spend a relaxing afternoon in the lodge. The kids and our Politechnika professor from Krakow proceeded on for a total of 22-ish km along a beautiful ridge and a strenuous climb to a real PEAK. Fantastic.
Other than our 2 days in the mountains, Mom and Dad have been doing all the tourist-y things in Krakow. A few museums, the royal castle (Wawel), walks around various parts of the city to admire the architecture, and today a trip to the huge salt mine in Wieliczka.
Oops, these pictures are in backwards order...
Professor McGarity and Dad playing radio.
The Group! Dad, Mom, Professor McGarity in the black hat and Professor Dabrowski from Politechnika in the tan hat and white shirt. And the back of Brad's head in the right side of the picture.
Dad and an energy advertisement in the main market square. There are all sorts of billboards up that have to do with the upcoming election for EU parliament. This one basically said "where do you want your energy coming from? VOTE"
Pigeon with a ring of bread around its neck that I saw in Kazimierz.
Dad and an old-fashioned post carriage in the main market square. I think they were selling postcards or something inside.
Other than our 2 days in the mountains, Mom and Dad have been doing all the tourist-y things in Krakow. A few museums, the royal castle (Wawel), walks around various parts of the city to admire the architecture, and today a trip to the huge salt mine in Wieliczka.
Oops, these pictures are in backwards order...
Professor McGarity and Dad playing radio.
The Group! Dad, Mom, Professor McGarity in the black hat and Professor Dabrowski from Politechnika in the tan hat and white shirt. And the back of Brad's head in the right side of the picture.
Dad and an energy advertisement in the main market square. There are all sorts of billboards up that have to do with the upcoming election for EU parliament. This one basically said "where do you want your energy coming from? VOTE"
Pigeon with a ring of bread around its neck that I saw in Kazimierz.
Dad and an old-fashioned post carriage in the main market square. I think they were selling postcards or something inside.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Procrastination!
I thought I'd hop on here for a brief post as I take a break from finishing up a paper due tomorrow...
Mom and Dad arrived Tuesday evening for their week-long visit here! I picked them up at the airport and we took a taxi into the old city for a stop at the 24-hour pierogi restaurant on Sławkowska street. On Wednesday they went to an art/Polish history museum (the Czartoryski) and had some time to explore the old city on their own while I was in class. We decided to go to a tiny chamber music concert in one of the churches in the main square on the spur of the moment. Fantastic concert and in the cutest Catholic church I've ever seen. It's absolutely minuscule but of course sumptuously decorated.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Continuing with the Czech Republic...
Sunday morning (May 3rd) we woke up in Slavicin, which is in the southeastern part of the country. We spent the morning at Hostetin, a teeny tiny village of 280-ish people that's been basically taken over by a Brno-based environmental NGO called Veronika. The NGO helped the village fund the installation of a reed-bed wastewater treatment system - so amazing to see after learning about similar treatment methods in our ecological engineering course! The basic idea is to use natural processes in the secondary stage of wastewater treatment although the wastewater undergoes a typical primary stage. The advantage is that virtually no energy is used in the wastewater treatment process since the primary stage is usually mechanical - sieves, screening, etc. Our guide from the NGO said that the electrical costs of the mechanical treatment are about USD 10 per year, and they have to pay someone to come 4 times per year for an hour or two each time to make sure that the reed-bed is healthy. The reed-bed is basically a wetland, so the community also gets the aesthetic benefit of a 25 foot by 25 foot wetland. Oh, and I should add that all of the wastewater is underground and accessible by the roots of the plants. Our guide invited us to walk through the wetland. :) Totally cool!
The NGO also runs a small organic juice production facility in the village which produces the most delicious apple juice I've ever tasted. We got to try their plain apple juice, apple-beetroot, apple-mate, and apple-mint. All good, although the plain apple was my favorite followed by the surprisingly good apple-beetroot. The buildings constructed by the NGO (juice buildings, educational and hotel complex) are passive buildings. I'm not sure entirely what that means but they're really environmentally-friendly and efficient. The village also has a biomass incinerator that burns waste wood chips from the logging industry situated in the nearby moutains and and seed and pit husks from the slivovice (Czech brandy made from fruit seeds, etc.) production industry. Most of the heat energy consumed by the village during the winter is produced from this incinerator (so no fossil fuels used) and they turn it off in the summer when no one needs heat. Residents use electricity for hot water in the summer. I'm a little skeptical of how "green" biomass incineration is, though, since yes, you're recycling waste but you're still also releasing carbon dioxide and other polluting compounds to the atmosphere. I will agree that it's better than using nonrenewable fossil fuels, though.
After grabbing lunch, our luggage from the hotel in Slavicin, and a huge box of traditional Czech baked goods, we hopped on a train to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. The train station in Slavicin was awesome - one tiny building next to the tracks in the middle of some crop fields. Nothing beats an afternoon in a warm, sun-filled train car with a box of chocolatey, sugary goodies - it reminded me of Harry Potter. We arrived in Brno by 7 pm and Zbynek took us to our hotel and oriented us on the city map before giong home to his family. We wandered around the city a little bit (the downtown is tiny!) and found a delicious dinner. Pork loin and veggies for me.
Monday morning (May 8th) we met Zbynek at his office in the Department of Environmental Studies at Masaryj University. We spent the morning basically learning about the program there and some of the projects the PhD students are working on, and then went for lunch at a delicious vegetarian restaurant. Rachel's a vegetarian and had been craving something a bit lighter than all the heavy Czech potatoes available in the countryside. After lunch, we spent the afternoon at an NGO (the Czech name is long and confusing) learning about their projects throughout the country. We had a little bit of time in the afternoon to wander around the city and do some sightseeing. Our first stop was a crypt in the old Capuchin monastery where the air conditions in the crypt over the centuries had mummified the bodies of the monks buried there. The museum display just had all the dead bodies out and visible, since the monks had been "buried" simply by laying them on the ground in the tombs and leaving them there. It was really creepy, but kind of cool. Our next stop was the main cathedral - beautiful! We climbed to the top of one of the belltowers to get a view of the city. Our final stop was a quick walk around the castle, although unfortunately we missed the closing time for the museums. We ate dinner at a great restaurant. The Czech name translated to "Green Cat!"
That's it for now. We're leaving soon for a weekend in the Pieniny mountains south of Krakow but not as south as the Tatra/Carpathian mountains. We're supposed to do some river-rafting tomorrow and some mountain biking on Sunday, weather permitting...the forecast calls for some drizzles on both days.
Sunday morning (May 3rd) we woke up in Slavicin, which is in the southeastern part of the country. We spent the morning at Hostetin, a teeny tiny village of 280-ish people that's been basically taken over by a Brno-based environmental NGO called Veronika. The NGO helped the village fund the installation of a reed-bed wastewater treatment system - so amazing to see after learning about similar treatment methods in our ecological engineering course! The basic idea is to use natural processes in the secondary stage of wastewater treatment although the wastewater undergoes a typical primary stage. The advantage is that virtually no energy is used in the wastewater treatment process since the primary stage is usually mechanical - sieves, screening, etc. Our guide from the NGO said that the electrical costs of the mechanical treatment are about USD 10 per year, and they have to pay someone to come 4 times per year for an hour or two each time to make sure that the reed-bed is healthy. The reed-bed is basically a wetland, so the community also gets the aesthetic benefit of a 25 foot by 25 foot wetland. Oh, and I should add that all of the wastewater is underground and accessible by the roots of the plants. Our guide invited us to walk through the wetland. :) Totally cool!
The NGO also runs a small organic juice production facility in the village which produces the most delicious apple juice I've ever tasted. We got to try their plain apple juice, apple-beetroot, apple-mate, and apple-mint. All good, although the plain apple was my favorite followed by the surprisingly good apple-beetroot. The buildings constructed by the NGO (juice buildings, educational and hotel complex) are passive buildings. I'm not sure entirely what that means but they're really environmentally-friendly and efficient. The village also has a biomass incinerator that burns waste wood chips from the logging industry situated in the nearby moutains and and seed and pit husks from the slivovice (Czech brandy made from fruit seeds, etc.) production industry. Most of the heat energy consumed by the village during the winter is produced from this incinerator (so no fossil fuels used) and they turn it off in the summer when no one needs heat. Residents use electricity for hot water in the summer. I'm a little skeptical of how "green" biomass incineration is, though, since yes, you're recycling waste but you're still also releasing carbon dioxide and other polluting compounds to the atmosphere. I will agree that it's better than using nonrenewable fossil fuels, though.
After grabbing lunch, our luggage from the hotel in Slavicin, and a huge box of traditional Czech baked goods, we hopped on a train to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. The train station in Slavicin was awesome - one tiny building next to the tracks in the middle of some crop fields. Nothing beats an afternoon in a warm, sun-filled train car with a box of chocolatey, sugary goodies - it reminded me of Harry Potter. We arrived in Brno by 7 pm and Zbynek took us to our hotel and oriented us on the city map before giong home to his family. We wandered around the city a little bit (the downtown is tiny!) and found a delicious dinner. Pork loin and veggies for me.
Monday morning (May 8th) we met Zbynek at his office in the Department of Environmental Studies at Masaryj University. We spent the morning basically learning about the program there and some of the projects the PhD students are working on, and then went for lunch at a delicious vegetarian restaurant. Rachel's a vegetarian and had been craving something a bit lighter than all the heavy Czech potatoes available in the countryside. After lunch, we spent the afternoon at an NGO (the Czech name is long and confusing) learning about their projects throughout the country. We had a little bit of time in the afternoon to wander around the city and do some sightseeing. Our first stop was a crypt in the old Capuchin monastery where the air conditions in the crypt over the centuries had mummified the bodies of the monks buried there. The museum display just had all the dead bodies out and visible, since the monks had been "buried" simply by laying them on the ground in the tombs and leaving them there. It was really creepy, but kind of cool. Our next stop was the main cathedral - beautiful! We climbed to the top of one of the belltowers to get a view of the city. Our final stop was a quick walk around the castle, although unfortunately we missed the closing time for the museums. We ate dinner at a great restaurant. The Czech name translated to "Green Cat!"
That's it for now. We're leaving soon for a weekend in the Pieniny mountains south of Krakow but not as south as the Tatra/Carpathian mountains. We're supposed to do some river-rafting tomorrow and some mountain biking on Sunday, weather permitting...the forecast calls for some drizzles on both days.
Monday, May 11, 2009
So I guess I'll try to write a little about my trip to the Czech Republic, although I've missed a lot of important things from before then as well such as Innsbruck, Venice, and life in Krakow. Oops!
We caught a 6:50 AM (absurdly early) train on May 1st for the Czech Republic, and slept for the three hour ride until we arrived in Ostrava, the third largest city in the country and pretty close to the border with Poland. We had a bit of a panic when we got to Ostrava because I remembered from trips through the city on my way to and from Vienna that there are two train stations and we weren't sure if we were at the correct one. We tried asking a conductor on the platform after jumping off the train but he didn't know English or Polish (that was odd). Luckily though, a pretty sketchy-looking man approached us as we spoke with the conductor and turned out to be our guide in the Czech Republic! His name is Zbynek Ulćak, a professor of Environmental Studies at Masaryk University in Brno. We only saw him wear two shirts for the entire 6 days that we were with him - a blue/gray one that he would wear during the day and a forest green one in the evening when we would go to restaurants for dinner. Zbynek turned out to be one of the coolest men I've ever met. He knows absolutely everything there is to know about anything and turned out to be really personable and fun to spend time with.
Our first day we spent in Ostrava. In the morning we were at an old coal mine that had closed in 1991 and been turned into a museum/tourist attraction in '93. Our tour guide of the museum and mine was a guy named Daniel who was dressed kind of like a cowboy. He didn't have a hat, but he had the denim, the belt with a huge buckle, the leather boots, etc. The museum was located in the old miners' guild hall and had really nice exhibits with old machinery from the mines and some pretty cool models of machinery that were too large and cumbersome to be brought back aboveground. The tour of the mine itself was fun although similar to our tour of the Wieliczka salt mine in February. The only difference was that the coal mine still had huge pieces of machinery set up, some of which would even run so that we get some idea of the conditions of working in the mine - it was REALLY noisy!
We ate lunch in the old miner's pub after the tour and had our first taste of Czech food - pork in a delicious creamy sauce with a huge side of potatos. Rachel and I both had lemonade to drink (of course after the local beer, Ostravar) which is always an adventure in Europe since every place somehow interprets the idea differently. This one was a pink grapefruit drink with a hint of lemon and half of full of bits of fruit. Tasty, but not lemonade.
Our afternoon activity in Ostrava was a hike to the top of a huge slag heap a few kilometers from the city center. It's a hill, the highest one around, made of jumbled rock that had been excavated during the coal mining process at a nearby mine. The heap had later been covered with some topsoil and planted trees to make a beautiful green park of sorts, crisscrossed with trails for hiking and mountain-biking. The cool part about the heap is that all of the leftover bits of coal mixed in with the rock that were uneconomical to mine a few decades ago are slowly burning in the middle of the mound, creating places where the ground surface is really hot and steam and other gases are visibly escaping. Zbynek explained why the coal burns even though it's under a huge amount of rock: all of the smaller particles (including coal dust and small bits of coal) end up at the bottom center of the pile with the large rock ends up on the outside of the mound. The spaces between the large rocks allow air to enter the mound and a chimney-effect occurs where air is sucked in at the bottom and flows up and out through the top, providing a constant flow of oxygen that allows combustion. Anyway! There was a beautiful view of the city in all directions from the top of the heap, and the surrounding area was surprisingly almost entirely green. I thought it was great although also a little depressing or empowering when Zbynek informed us that all of the green we could see used to be industrial wasteland that has been since been planted under land reclamation plans. Zbynek kept emphasizing that nature is better at reclaiming landscapes on its own than when we tamper with natural processes, mentioning that reclamation planners often include nonnative species or install weird mixes of soil types that are inefficient for reclamation and more costly.
Our final tour activity of the day was to ride the elevator to the top of the new town tower in order to see the view, which was similar to the view from the slag heap and about as high. We could see Poland, Ostrava, the old and new steelworks, and the main shaft towers for several no-longer-in-use coal mines.
Our second day in the Czech Republic, May 2, also started early with an 8:15 departure from the hotel. Our accommodations on the whole trip were really nice - Rachel and I shared a hotel room, very nice ones, every night, Brad had his own, and Zbynek shared with his brother-in-law, Michal, who was along with us for part of the trip. Anyway, we left on the second morning and drove to a nature preserve located in the White Carpathian mountains and maintained by a small NGO. One of the founders of the NGO took us on a long hike on the lower slopes of the mountains to learn about the composition of the forest and about the logging industry which had decimated it decades ago.
We spent the afternoon at the Valaśske Muzeum v Prirode (there's a carrot symbol on the first r and on the e in the last word, but I don't how to make them on my computer), a museum documenting the rural life of the Wallachian people over the past couple of centuries. They had a reconstructed wooden town, a museum exhibiting crafts and folk art, a museum full of old modes of transportation, and a valley filled with reconstructed water mills of various types: felting, saw, blacksmith, and a non-water-powered oil press. It's really impressive how much people were able to accomplish using essentially just wood.
After the museum we had an hour-long ride to Slavicin and then dinner in a small 18th-century Renaissance-y castle that had replaced an earlier one from the Middle Ages. Rachel and I went to bed really early because of the early start we'd gotten that morning. The bathroom setup in our room was really odd, with the shower bottom about a foot-and-a-half off the ground and the sink located such that half of it was actually inside the shower!
That's it for now, because it's late here and I want to do some reading before class tomorrow. But hopefully I'll get back into the habit of making fairly regular blog updates!
We caught a 6:50 AM (absurdly early) train on May 1st for the Czech Republic, and slept for the three hour ride until we arrived in Ostrava, the third largest city in the country and pretty close to the border with Poland. We had a bit of a panic when we got to Ostrava because I remembered from trips through the city on my way to and from Vienna that there are two train stations and we weren't sure if we were at the correct one. We tried asking a conductor on the platform after jumping off the train but he didn't know English or Polish (that was odd). Luckily though, a pretty sketchy-looking man approached us as we spoke with the conductor and turned out to be our guide in the Czech Republic! His name is Zbynek Ulćak, a professor of Environmental Studies at Masaryk University in Brno. We only saw him wear two shirts for the entire 6 days that we were with him - a blue/gray one that he would wear during the day and a forest green one in the evening when we would go to restaurants for dinner. Zbynek turned out to be one of the coolest men I've ever met. He knows absolutely everything there is to know about anything and turned out to be really personable and fun to spend time with.
Our first day we spent in Ostrava. In the morning we were at an old coal mine that had closed in 1991 and been turned into a museum/tourist attraction in '93. Our tour guide of the museum and mine was a guy named Daniel who was dressed kind of like a cowboy. He didn't have a hat, but he had the denim, the belt with a huge buckle, the leather boots, etc. The museum was located in the old miners' guild hall and had really nice exhibits with old machinery from the mines and some pretty cool models of machinery that were too large and cumbersome to be brought back aboveground. The tour of the mine itself was fun although similar to our tour of the Wieliczka salt mine in February. The only difference was that the coal mine still had huge pieces of machinery set up, some of which would even run so that we get some idea of the conditions of working in the mine - it was REALLY noisy!
We ate lunch in the old miner's pub after the tour and had our first taste of Czech food - pork in a delicious creamy sauce with a huge side of potatos. Rachel and I both had lemonade to drink (of course after the local beer, Ostravar) which is always an adventure in Europe since every place somehow interprets the idea differently. This one was a pink grapefruit drink with a hint of lemon and half of full of bits of fruit. Tasty, but not lemonade.
Our afternoon activity in Ostrava was a hike to the top of a huge slag heap a few kilometers from the city center. It's a hill, the highest one around, made of jumbled rock that had been excavated during the coal mining process at a nearby mine. The heap had later been covered with some topsoil and planted trees to make a beautiful green park of sorts, crisscrossed with trails for hiking and mountain-biking. The cool part about the heap is that all of the leftover bits of coal mixed in with the rock that were uneconomical to mine a few decades ago are slowly burning in the middle of the mound, creating places where the ground surface is really hot and steam and other gases are visibly escaping. Zbynek explained why the coal burns even though it's under a huge amount of rock: all of the smaller particles (including coal dust and small bits of coal) end up at the bottom center of the pile with the large rock ends up on the outside of the mound. The spaces between the large rocks allow air to enter the mound and a chimney-effect occurs where air is sucked in at the bottom and flows up and out through the top, providing a constant flow of oxygen that allows combustion. Anyway! There was a beautiful view of the city in all directions from the top of the heap, and the surrounding area was surprisingly almost entirely green. I thought it was great although also a little depressing or empowering when Zbynek informed us that all of the green we could see used to be industrial wasteland that has been since been planted under land reclamation plans. Zbynek kept emphasizing that nature is better at reclaiming landscapes on its own than when we tamper with natural processes, mentioning that reclamation planners often include nonnative species or install weird mixes of soil types that are inefficient for reclamation and more costly.
Our final tour activity of the day was to ride the elevator to the top of the new town tower in order to see the view, which was similar to the view from the slag heap and about as high. We could see Poland, Ostrava, the old and new steelworks, and the main shaft towers for several no-longer-in-use coal mines.
Our second day in the Czech Republic, May 2, also started early with an 8:15 departure from the hotel. Our accommodations on the whole trip were really nice - Rachel and I shared a hotel room, very nice ones, every night, Brad had his own, and Zbynek shared with his brother-in-law, Michal, who was along with us for part of the trip. Anyway, we left on the second morning and drove to a nature preserve located in the White Carpathian mountains and maintained by a small NGO. One of the founders of the NGO took us on a long hike on the lower slopes of the mountains to learn about the composition of the forest and about the logging industry which had decimated it decades ago.
We spent the afternoon at the Valaśske Muzeum v Prirode (there's a carrot symbol on the first r and on the e in the last word, but I don't how to make them on my computer), a museum documenting the rural life of the Wallachian people over the past couple of centuries. They had a reconstructed wooden town, a museum exhibiting crafts and folk art, a museum full of old modes of transportation, and a valley filled with reconstructed water mills of various types: felting, saw, blacksmith, and a non-water-powered oil press. It's really impressive how much people were able to accomplish using essentially just wood.
After the museum we had an hour-long ride to Slavicin and then dinner in a small 18th-century Renaissance-y castle that had replaced an earlier one from the Middle Ages. Rachel and I went to bed really early because of the early start we'd gotten that morning. The bathroom setup in our room was really odd, with the shower bottom about a foot-and-a-half off the ground and the sink located such that half of it was actually inside the shower!
That's it for now, because it's late here and I want to do some reading before class tomorrow. But hopefully I'll get back into the habit of making fairly regular blog updates!
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