Fall Break

"Never travel alone." It's solid advice, and advice I've heard repeated constantly since I was first introduced to the concept of the buddy system. But a rather wise young man whom I've had the privilege to meet a few times shared his version earlier this semester: "Always travel with a friend. That friend can be God, but always go with a friend." So, parents, before you berate me for going solo, consider that I was not alone in my fall break travels. Really.

Despite the fact that I could only commit one week (and during the off-season), I applied to WWOOF in Slovenia. I got a response from a family living just outside Litija, and so I bought train tickets and headed off.

Getting there was a bit of a fiasco. When buying my tickets, I had printed off the information about the two trains (or two series of train connections) that I wanted to take. The gentleman behind the counter instead printed out (and charged me for) an international rail-pass...though I didn't realize this until later. Having the rail-pass meant two things: I paid more than I had been planning on and my ticket listed different transfer stations than the print-outs I was following. The consequence? I got kicked off the train somewhere between Bratislava and Budapest because my ticket wasn't valid for Slovakia. After buying a ticket to get out of Slovakia, I bounced from info desk to info desk and train to train until I finally made it to Ljubljana.

Had I been traveling with other people--and consequently responsible for them--this would have been a much more stressful experience than it was. In fact, it would have been so stressful that I might not have been able to appreciate the views of the Austrian and Slovenian countryside beyond the train windows. And that would have been a tragedy, because the views were breath-taking. I would almost consider buying another rail-pass just to take that train ride again. Almost. As a side note, having the rail-pass was useful once I was train-hopping to get back on track. Of course, I wouldn't have been in that position in the first place if my ticket had been for the connections I wanted...but what can you do. It was an experience.

Strangely enough, I ran into NYU students on the last leg of my journey. They were going to Zagreb and we sat in a compartment with a Croatian boy who just thought that the other students (two girls who were very NYC glamorous) were fantastic. It was cute watching him try to impress them. In the process, he taught us some Croatian phrases (which we pronounced in a Czech way, prompting him to rebuke us and warn us that doing so made the words sound more Serbian...which would get us in trouble) and told us about his favorite food and drink: Ćevapi and Rakia.

I got off the train in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and spent three hours walking around the city center. I stopped at a lounge called Makalonca Cenik for tea and then met up with the parents of family I would be staying with. For the sake of their privacy, I'm not going to put their last names up here...but if you are seriously looking to WWOOF in Slovenia, feel free to email me and I'll forward you their info.

Their small farm is about an hour outside of the city and 15 minutes from Litija. By the time I got there the first night it was too late to look around so we just went to bed, but I knew from talking with Mateja (the mom) and Sandy (the dad) just on the car ride that I had made the right choice staying with them instead of touring Europe over break.

I'm not sure what was more refreshing: being outside a city or inside a family. There were roosters crowing, leaves changing colors, and vegetables growing. The comfortable smell of the wood stove and the voices of the kids (ages 4, 14, and 15)...listening to loud (Baltic and Serbian) music and spending time in a kitchen...There were moments when I felt like I was home at the start of the fall and winter holidays.

While I was prepared for anything, I'm so glad to have ended up with a family. After two years of hosting WWOOFers, they all spoke really good English. Because of this, I had a chance that I rarely have in Prague: the chance to have genuine open conversation with non-expats. And I'm so so glad to have been welcomed by this particular family because they were all such kind and interesting people.

I watched multiple "American Pie" movies with the Tim (the 15 year old) and Žan (the 14 year old), nodding when they pointed out "American style" film camera tricks and blushing when asked about various sex-toys. Actually, by the time I left I had spent large blocks of time in conversation with each of the boys. We talked about education systems and politics. We talked about movies and music. They asked what I thought about gay rights, whether all Americans are really bad at geography, and how we celebrate holidays. Sometimes we listened to Pink Floyd; sometimes we listened to Lepa Brena. We discussed the definition of 'rock and roll' and the rules of texas hold'em.

Interestingly, when I asked them about school we usually ended up talking about food. Though their parents had moved the family out of the city, both boys take the train to a city school--a Waldorf school at that--where they are in the minority when they identify as farmers, bring sandwiches made on 'black' whole-grain bread, or eat vegetarian. Apparently, people really give them a hard time about being vegetarian...a discrimination problem that I can't comprehend after living at NYU.

Food was actually a frequent discussion topic. We talked, as expected, about Thanksgiving turkeys, fast food chains, and ready-made frozen meals. The boys introduced me to Blejska Rezina and begged me to make "American style" pancakes (though not for breakfast due to the sugar content). Spending time with Mateja meant also talking about hydroponic farming, bread making, cereal-based coffee drinks, jam making, squash, and herbal teas. Mealtime involved gathering everyone who was home around the table, joining hands to say grace in Slovene, and spending time all together...which was enjoyable even when I couldn't follow the conversation due to my linguistic ineptitude. Mealtime was when I learned that salad is eaten from a common bowl, everyone uses his or her own knife for putting spreads on bread, soup is common as a starter for lunch, and cream cheese should never (outside Philadelphia) be mixed with jam on the same piece of bread.

Much of the work I did was also centered around food. I cut apples for drying, juicing, and jam-making. Lots and lots of apples. I also picked beans, gathered raspberries, raked leaves into the compost pile, and even cooked a few times. After weeks of writing papers and reading academic articles, working with my hands was such a relief!

Midweek, I spent a morning wandering along the Chestnut Touristic Trail that started near Saint Anthony of Padua pilgrimage church, wound through the mountain woods, dipped into the valley, and circled back toward the farm where I was staying. Taking time to be alone with my thoughts in the woods was such a luxury! There were a few touristic farms on the trail (complete with carvings and paintings that reminded me of the Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs that I'm used to), but I didn't get too close to any of them. I do wish I had known that there would be shops selling local honey where the trail intersected beekeeping paths. I'd have brought a few Euros along.

As wonderful of a time as I had, the most memorable two stories are both from my last few hours with the family. Throughout my stay, Žan had been working on a project for school which involved writing/illustrating 30 pages about the chicken house he and Sandy were building. When he showed me his work-in-progress, he also explained to me the benefits and needs of a certain breed of chicken that he wanted to buy: the silky. This is important background information for the first story. So...

Saturday, my last day, was also Žan's 14th birthday. This was a week after Tim's birthday and a week before mine. For his birthday, Žan got to pick what foods we had for lunch. He picked grilled cheese and tomato soup (which is what I like on my birthday if I'm home!) and french fries. I have wonderful pictures of him feeding Sandy french fries!

We were finishing eating and Žan had a bottle of non-alcoholic 'champagne' that he was very excited to open. As he was getting ready to pop the top, Sandy brought a big box with a bow into the room and set it on the floor. Everyone got up and hugged Žan and wished him a happy birthday, and he thanked them but then said he would wait to open the gift because he wanted to open the champagne first. And that's almost what happened...but then a small thumping sound came from inside the box. Well! You can probably guess where this is going. Žan temporarily forgot about the champagne and rushed to open the box. He was surprised and delighted to get three silky chickens as a birthday present. He rushed to bring them outside to the chicken house, leaving Mateja and Sandy victoriously beaming across the kitchen table. I'm so glad to have been part of that moment.

After lunch, I only had a little bit of time left. I went outside to make mudpies with Zala, admire the new chickens, and attempt (with Žan's support) to ride a unicycle. Then the boys suggested we ride motorbikes. This led to the second story, which I'm going to copy/paste from an email I sent to one of my friends back in NYC:

"After a fantastic fall break (which I'll write more of later), the time arrived for me to part from my Slovenian host family. I made mud-pies with the daughter, cheered for one son as he opened his birthday present (chickens!), packed, ate grilled cheese and tomato soup...and found myself with an hour to spare. The birthday boy suggested I try his unicycle, which I did without much success. Then his brother brought out their motorbikes and they insisted that I try just once before leaving. For about 10 minutes, it was lovely. Then I crashed in the fantastically graceful way only I can. Bleeding from both knees, both palms and my shoulder, I limped back to the house with the boys. Their mom tied a bandage around the worse knee so that it wouldn't bleed through my jeans any more than it already had. We laughed because I'm a clutz. We laughed because I hadn't shaved for a week so Mateja bandaging my knee also meant everyone admiring my hippie leg-forests. We laughed because we didn't want to say goodbye.

"I hugged everyone and, looking like I'd just gotten mugged, hopped onto a train. Transferred once. Transferred twice. While waiting for my train in Vienna, I was approached by three NYU in Prague students who needed help getting home. We all sat in the same train car and traded travel stories.

"13 hours later, I was back in Prague.

"14 hours later--because they re-routed the trams for construction so I walked-- I was back in my dorm.

"I didn't have my key so the security guard let me in to my room.
I promptly took the longest shower of my life, cleaned my room, curled up, and went to bed."

And let me say, I was looking out the skylight before falling asleep around 7.30 am on Sunday, and I was so confused. It was still dark out! I'd woken up at 7.30 the day before to bright sunlight! I was too travel-tired to realize that it was daylight savings time playing tricks on me.
When I woke up, I spent Halloween grocery shopping and catching up on homework.

I could only take a few pictures because my new camera has a small memory card, but they're all online if you want to check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/101917038422029660027/FallBreak?feat=directlink