All the metal-on-metal noise I reported on the last entry was NOT caused by railroad workers trying to keep us from sleeping. It was all about the gauge, or width of the rail track. When trains leave or enter Ukraine the wheels must be changed or altered because the width of the track is different from most other countries in Europe. What's amazing is they can make this change to a whole bloody train - 25 or more cars - in less than two hours.  There must...

    One evening while Elenka was conversing with one cousin or another and I was contemplating a knot on the side of a tree trunk I heard her say to herself, "Twelve and twenty, twelve and twenty, why do I always mix these two numbers up?"   Jolted from the knot, I said, "Twelve is dvanásť, twenty is dvadsať."    She looked at me as though maybe the knot in the tree had given her the proper translation and began speaking Slovak again. Without ...

 The shots we took of the balcony restaurant should perhaps include an interesting little tale. Elenka and I both ordered roast duck. When it arrived it was cold and somewhat tough. When the meal was over Elenka complained to the waitress. I threw my best Slovak into the fray saying the duck was probably old. The waitress replied, in Slovak of course, which I had absolutely no understanding of, saying that the chef would never cook an old duck. After I'd dig...

    When I am not walking up and down the hills of central Slovakia, I spend the better part of my day surrounded by groups of Elenka’s – see ending regarding name change – relatives. They must think I'm peculiar as I sit for three, sometimes four hours smiling with them and listening to them. They know that I speak no Slovak. What they don’t know is that it's because I’m on an entirely different plane, not really listeni...

  Ellen can get caught up in as many as three conversations with her relatives at the same time. At lightening speed they hammer away as she tries to keep up with her limited command of the Slovak language. It must be like trying to listen to several heavy metal bands simultaneously then having to decipher the words and meanings of each. Couple this with me jumping in every so often: "What does this word mean? What did he say? Why are they looking at me like t...