Slovakia Day 5 – Club Meeting & Baking!

The entire time I have been in Slovakia, there has been surprise after surprise. Today was no different, being surprised and having to expect the unexpected the entire day.

I want to give a little shout out to everyone that posted all of the positive comments on my last two posts, it’s really cool and I really appreciate it. It is tough to take the time everyday and sit down to write these, but those comments really help! Thank you!

Anyway, I woke up this morning with a knock at my door, and outside of it was my host mom. She informed me that we were going to “Europa”. Now I must admit my brain still ins’t completely transferred over from California life, so when I heard her say that, I thought she was saying “ropa” as in spanish for clothes. Europa, as I found out later, is a shopping mall, and it was very nice. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my memory card in my camera so I was just walking around taking pictures and having them saved to nothing.

After we got back from the mall, my host mom and I worked on making kysnute rozky, which are these little croissant looking rolls that have jam inside. My host mom put the jam inside and rolled the dough, I put some kind of egg on the outside of them. We let them bake until they looked and smelled just about right, then we worked on the next batch. I was very curious on why we were making so many of them. After a while I just figured that we were making a bunch because she wanted them to last a while.

Once we were done, I went to my room, and not long after she said that we were leaving for Belko’s house. Who or what Belko was, I had not idea. I just saw that she had the trays of kysnute rozky in hand. When we got there, it all made sense. They had told me that they were having a welcome party this week, but I hadn’t been told when. Belko, who is my youth exchange officer, was hosting the party at what I assumed was his house. His house was amazing by the way, it looked like he lived on a golf course.

Once I sat down and started eating some goulash that they had given me, and I had the opperunity to talk to some of the other students staying in Banska Bystrica. I was able to meet Ashley, who was from Florida. She is staying actually not too far from me, I might see if she wants to do something before school starts on Monday. I also got to somewhat meet Nikola (I think). Nikola is from Taiwan, and I am not too sure where she is staying, she was pretty quiet. I met so many people that I don’t quite think that I will be able to get them all down here. Sorry!

Our local rotary club had made a cake for us, and apparently it is customary for the students of our local club to cut the cake. It was a little awkward, not going to lie. But it was a cool moment, so I will let it slide.

It is interesting how much colder it gets here in Slovakia at night. It was 81 out during the day, and it dropped to the mid 60s once the sun had gone down. I was definitely cold, but everyone seemed to be having a good time and I was able to talk to other people from my district so it was nice.

Tomorrow I am going to see if I can get some kind of phone plan, because I have not had service sense I left California. It would be nice to be able to call my host family in case of an emergency, just saying. Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed this post, and I hope tomorrows is interesting! Dobru noc!

All of these pictures were taken on a Sony A6000. If you are looking for a great light weight camera that takes fantastic pictures, I would definitively recommend this setup here.

Sony Alpha a6000 Mirrorless Digital Camera with 16-50mm Power Zoom Lens

Slovakia Day 4 – Unfortunate Visit to a Police Station & Slovak Snacks

I never though anything could be worse than waiting at the DMV. I thought that the DMV held the position for the longest and most painful wait in all government offices. However, I have unfortunatly found that this is not true, and that the Slovakian Police office is officially the worst place to wait.

Today I got up around 7, because I was told that we needed to go to the police station to get my residency visa. It was only me and my host dad that went, so not much conversation went on (he doesn’t speak much English). When we got there we signed into a kiosk and waited. And waited. Our number eventually got called, an hour and a half later. I am not too sure what happened in the room, but apparently we did not have all of the correct documents and would have to finish at another time. Of course, I thought this meant another day. Oh no, I was terribly wrong.

Once I got back, I asked my host dad if it was ok to go and walk around and explore the city a bit more. He gave me what I thought was a yes, and he dropped me and Sophi, my host sister, off in the town square. Sophi went to take a bus to her friends house, and I went exploring.

Found this while walking about, looked pretty neat.

Right!?!?

I didn’t take too many pictures, but I had a great time walking around. The weather was just right, with little no no humidity. I eventually found my way around to the SNP, where it looked much different with all the crowds gone. I even found some kind of Russian plane, although I couldn’t tell you what it was.

After that, I walked to a store right across the street from our flat and bought some food to try. Here is the excerpt from then. Sorry if the writing is different from now, I wrote it something like 5 hours ago.

 

I don’t know where or how I am going to edit this in later, but for now I am going to just write this down. I have bough a ton of snack foods, which I think are Slovak. It’s tough to tell which is what, because I can’t really read what they are. I kind of just went with stuff that screamed eat me. I got all of this food for 6.04 Euros, which comes out to 7.21 USD. I find that crazy, because when I was in the store I was ready to spend $10+ on all of this.

The first thing I am going to be trying today is the bread. It is fairly soft from the outside, and it smells great. I went and tried to translate the “lekvarove” on the packaging and it gave me “marmalade”. I have never had marmalade nor do I have any idea what it is, but I guess I will have to find out

After taking the first bite I have found that it is a bread with jam inside? Maybe that is marmalade. Either way it was really good for 0.70 Euro. And of course, I can’t have a Slovak meal without something to wash it down with. So I got some raspberry Kofola. Or what I think is raspberry, it could be squirrel flavored for all I know.

I can confirm, it is not squirrel flavored, but it really doesn’t taste much like raspberry. It tastes just like the original Kofola just… Fruity? Not really much of a difference in taste as far as I can tell.

That is all for the food today, I can’t make any promises that I will write about them all because they all look so good and it is hard to restrain myself from eating them all. Are there any foods that I should look for in the store and try?

So that was my adventure trying some Slovak food. While I was writing this, I was told we have to go back to the police station. I had no idea why, I just got in the car and went. This time was not so bad, I only had to wait something like 4 1/2 hours this time. Not too bad. Although on the plus side I did get my visa apparently so I don’t think I will have to go back there anytime soon (hopefully).

I am writing this much earlier in the day, so if anything else happens later today I will have to either write another post or include it tomorrow. Dobru noc!

 

Rancho Cucamonga with a Czech Exchange Student

I feel bad for dragging our exchange student around everywhere, but I was just so excited to be able to show her around that I almost couldn’t help myself. Yesterday I got to meet our new exchange student from the Czech Republic, Linda Tran. She is 17 years old, and she is currently a senior at our local high school. Yesterday we went hiking, walked around the mall, and drove all through Rancho Cucamonga. I am excited for her to be able to meet my friends that I have here, and to be able to take her to other places around the city!

Once they had driven back from Big Bear, I wasted no time asking her if she would like to be shown around the city. She very enthusiastically said yes, and we hoped in the car and drove off. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do, but really a lot of it was just where the road took me. We had talked before I had met her in person, but it was still a little awkward at first. Nevertheless, I pushed through that bubble of awkward and we talked all about how school was and how my trip to Texas had been (spoiler alert: Texas is hot).

The first place we went was the Etiwanda Preserve. I had done a bit of a miscalculation, I must admit. Every time I had gone/hiked up the preserve, it had been with people from my cross-country team. Because of this, previously I had almost always ran or at least walked at a fast pace up the hill. I had severely underestimated the length of the trail, and the heat of the sun up above. By the time we got to the top, we were both tired and I was all gross and sweaty. Thankfully at the top of the preserve there are trees that surround the creek so we were able to get some shade from the sun.

We didn’t hike too far up the preserve, only enough to really enjoy the view there. Not related to this trip I made yesterday, but someday before I leave for Slovakia I want to hike up the preserve and see if I can find the source of the creek there. I can already see the title of the blog post : Finding the Source: Etiwanda Falls.

Once we had made our way back down the mountain, we just drove around for a little while. I showed her the other schools in Rancho Cucamonga; Los Osos and Rancho High. I had shown her where I have gone to school for the past 4 years, and I had shown her where I worked during the school year. I have really missed being able to just drive down the road with the window down and enjoy the view.

Afterwards, we went to Victoria Gardens, where I showed her all the good places to eat, shop, and chill. She claims that I know a lot about the mall, but I don’t really think that as a good thing. To know the mall and to know what restaurants, stores etc are good, you need to spend money there! I told her that I have spent way too much money and time at the mall. She did seem to enjoy it, so I hope that I can go back sometime and show her the other parts of the mall that we didn’t get to.

I didn’t take any pictures of this unforunatly, but after dinner we had a big water balloon fight with all my brothers and her. You will have to take my word for it here, but I am guessing that we had gone through about 250-300 water balloons that evening. It was a lot of fun, but it was a real pain to clean up. The water balloons stuck to the pavement so sweeping didn’t really work. I was really tempted to go and google the best way to clean up water balloons.

The night ended pretty amazingly. After she had finished her homework around 8:40, we had driven back up to the preserve to go and look at the light in the valley. I have seen it countless times, but she seemed to really like it. I don’t know if she was saying it out of consideration or not, but we lost track of time and realized that we needed to be home. My mom didn’t seem to happy about it, but she didn’t say anything. I don’t think I will push my luck next time.

To wrap things up, I am really glad that I am able to show her around all of the neat places in Rancho Cucamonga. I hope that I was not just dragging her around and having her bored the entire time, but it did seem like she enjoyed it. I am going to have to ask some of my friends about some of the cool places I can take her. For some reason, I really do enjoy being able to show people the things that I find joy in, and I find it extremely satisfying and amazing when they can enjoy it too. Today I think will be a fun day too, lets see if it is fun enough to write something about hahaha! (have to admit the picture of us at the preserve looks really awkward)

Uvalde Day 9: Tubing and BBQ

Today was the first official rest day for the 18m Nationals! Today was VERY exhausting, even though it was a rest day. We tubed, BBQ, and had a great time. Only thing I can really complain about it the mosquito’s… I feel like they just have it out for me! I might have to stay in Texas now because I have become a regular food source for them…

For the first time in over a week, I have finally been able to sleep in. Well, kind of sleep in as my dad decided to use the room I was in for work at some ungodly hour. But after I had finally crawled out of bed, we had decided where and what we were going to be doing for the day: tubing down the Concan River. I had talked to a very nice older lady yesterday at the library and she had recommended that we go to Neals for all of out tubing needs. Once we had gotten there and had rented our tubes for the day, we headed up a shuttle to the drop off point.

Because there hadn’t been much rainfall that year, the water was moving at a much slower pace than normal. Normally it would take about 2-3 hours to get back down to the shop where we rented the tubes, but they said because of the slower moving water it would take 4-6 hours. With this in mind, we moved fairly quickly down the river, walking and pulling along our tubes whenever the river widened and slowed down. But I had a great time going down, especially when the “rapids” came. They were not exactly rapids, as they were fairly slow. Even though they were slow, they were the perfect speed to relax and just have a little thrill.

killer tank top tan

Once we had gotten down to where we return the tubes, there was a part of the river where it widened and got much deeper than it was before. So we stopped there and I had my dad hold my tubes while I went and jumped off of the rocks right down in the middle of the river. I had a real great time doing that, showing off doing all sorts of flips off of them. Once our fun there was over, we carried the tubes up a hill to drop them off, and then started the half hour drive home. The drive back always seems shorter.

Once we got back, the fun for the day wasn’t quite over. We had to run over to the local H-E-B to pick up some steaks for the BBQ we were invited to later that evening. We rushed back to our room, put on some dry clothes and then out to the pool area of our BNB. The pilots all had fun, talking about pilot things, and I got the time to just sit outside and relax.

Tomorrow is the start of another contest day, which is something that I somewhat dread. I am just tired, and want to relax for another day or so. But, there is nothing stopping this next day from coming, so I might as well make the most of it! I will try to do something interesting so that this is an interesting read! But until then!

Uvalde Day 6: BBQ and a Sweet View

Today, I was a little worried I would have to start hitching up our trailer to go retrieve a hopeless pilot in a field. The gaggle was tasked to the south today, where cloud base was no higher than 3000′ MSL in its worst spots. However, lucky for me, the glider that my dad is flying is a HPH 304 Shark, which has a jet. Because of this, I was saved the hassle of trying to find him, and I was able to go to the BBQ that was hosted by the Contest Director, Mark Huffstetler at his own estate.

The property that the BBQ was hosted on was absolutely amazing. They had their own personal lake in their backyard! It was almost surreal just how large and expansive the backyard was compared to something that you would see in the suburbs of Southern California.

The BBQ that we were at was a bring-your-own-meat kind of deal, so I had to run down to the local H-E-B to get some barely above average steak. The crew there cooking it however, did a fantastic job, I believe they were both from the restaurant at the airport Hanger 6. Once the meat was out of the grill, it smelled and tasted like a slab of meat that you would find at a high end restaurant. Other than the meat, the other food provided was exceptional and really made a fantastic meal.

I found this little guy and couldn’t help myself.

I don’t know if I can talk up the view enough, it really was spectacular. Everything there was just so serene, I do think I could live there. Or maybe not, considering the heat. That is something I will have to consider another day.

After digging through some folders, I found these pins! I don’t know if I was supposed to be wearing this during the contest or what, but hey, they are here now. I still have pins from when I was in places like Tennessee, Argentina, Slovakia, and many more. The pins that you get that say “crew” on them is something that I like to collect, kind of like how people would collect post cards. It lets me know where I have been, and it helps me remember the great memories I had in those places.

I know this post is very jumbled and the ideas are not very well structured, but you will have to forgive me. I am having some kind of allergic reaction to the wasp/hornet/??? sting that I got yesterday, so I took some benedryl to help alleviate some of the swelling. That really is not helping me stay awake to write this, so that might explain the lack of structure. I am going to be making two posts tomorrow, one for the daily Uvalde update, another to go over what I talked to my host family in Slovakia about. Tune in to that tomorrow, and I will see you then!

Pictures and Michigan Update

I have been very busy, traveling to Michigan to visit family, and driving up and down state to their cottage in Lewiston. However, the time I have had and the memories I have been able to make have been absolutely life changing. I am going to be very sad to have to leave them for a year, but I guess that is only what comes with becoming an exchange student!

I have plans on traveling around tomorrow, I am going to the mall with my cousin chandler tomorrow and I am hoping we will be going to a certain store while we are there… I will update with pictures and a full review tomorrow!

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I just thought that I would post some pictures of what I have been up to. Quite a few of my pictures are of my family on our pontoon boat. Please enjoy!

Go Kart Adventure – Dropping for a Monster!

I haven’t been able to really be able to post much because I have been in Michigan for the past few days. I first flew into Detroit airport on July 12th with my younger brother, however the very next day I drove up to Lewiston, where I have been working on, driving, and abusing the poor go kart that we have.

We first arrived at our cottage in Lewiston, my first thought was swapping the engine out on our go kart. We have had this go kart for years, and the engine in it had finally quit. I am not sure of the model, but judging the feel of it I will guess that it is a 6hp engine, made by Tecumseh. However, after probably 10+ years of abusing that engine, I doubt it was producing anywhere near its advertised horse power. Thankfully, we had gotten a 6.5hp 212cc Predator engine.

The first thing that we had to do, was check for comparability, and see if we would have any issues with the mounting of it. After everything was checked we started to dismount the old engine. The old engine had blown pretty vigorously I am told, although I wasn’t there when it happened.

 

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After taking off the engine, we go to working on getting the clutch and the throttle to correctly align. The clutch on the new motor had not correctly aligned, as it was designed for the older motor. Because it didn’t align, the clutch stuck off of the drive shaft about an inch an a half, which was a pretty large distance when you consider that the drive shaft is only 4 inches long. Our next issue was the throttle, as the throttle on the old motor was in a different place than on the new motor. Because of this, we had to trim the throttle a bit, and cut away some of the plastic covering. After that, it was just minor adjustments to have it set!

Adjusting the sprocket wheel and the clutch

Working on the throttle

After a long night of working on the, we finally got to try the go kart out! It REALLY moves! The old engine was supposedly 6hp, but after years of wear and tear, I am sure that it wasn’t anywhere near the advertised horse power. With this new engine, I was absolutely destroying the trails. It threw me back into the seat and I had the time of my life.

A6000 Pictures, Free Slurpies + 7/11/17

The A6000 is a very fun camera, especially for a beginner. It took me about an hour to really understand the basics of the camera, but now that I am getting to know it, I am finding out all of its unique quirks. It is very versatile, its image capture is so clear that it is almost hard to wrap my mind around. The zoom could be better with the stock lens it came with, however I could always upgrade the lens. The only thing I could really gripe about is the auto focus during video shoot. It works well on a relatively still object, however when I tried to take a video of a puppy it had a little bit of a difficult time. (I still love the camera though).

I am going to be leaving for Michigan tomorrow morning at 7:30, although I don’t know what time my flight leaves, all I know is that it arrives around 3:00 PM. I will make sure to take tons of pictures on the way so that you all can see. Wish me luck!

Swim lessons with Austin

Cutie pie ❤

Free slurpie on 7/11

So serious

Scion FRS is such a cute car

Couldn’t leave out the 86

 

Creative Writing and other Updates

First to start with, I have been interested in creative writing. I have always wanted to be an author, even from a young age, however I slowly became drawn away from that idea once I realized my lack of talent. However, no one can sue my if I want to continue this dream, and possibly create a short story series right? I have considered this prospect greatly, and it has become rather intriguing. My only problem with this is that I am afraid that my writing quality will be rather poor, and I will be embarrassed with the wild and fantastic stories that I come up with later down the line.  Whatever choice I make, I hope that it is the correct one, and I hope that it is one that I will be proud of in the future. One of my biggest fears is living my life with regrets; never being able to turn back time and do what I had not.

On a much nicer note, I am going to be getting a Sony A6000 camera tomorrow, and I think that will drastically increase the quality of this blog. Whether or not anyone reads this is another story, but I think that with high quality images brightening up every blog post I will certainly be able to bring in more traffic. However that thought makes me think, why do I want to bring in more traffic? I tell myself and other people that I only write this blog for keeping my personal stories and adventures cataloged, but I don’t think that is the case. I think, that I secretly deep down want the attention from my peers and the unknown on the internet, however I am too afraid that I will make a mistake that I will regret later down the line. This ties back in with what I was saying earlier, about wanting to do creative writing.

I am going to be leaving for Michigan this coming Wednesday, July 12th, with my seven year old brother Austin. I am hoping that I will have time to master the camera before then, so I can take high quality pictures before I leave. We are going about a week before my mom and other brothers, for reasons that I have been told but hadn’t cared enough to remember. It will be an interesting week, as it will be the first time I am seeing my cousin Chandler face to face in about two years. Of course, I keep in contact with him online, talking to him when we play similar games, but I have been curious what he is like outside of the monitor per say. My other cousins from the other side of the family are extremely harsh online, however in person they are very likable and kind people. Along with seeing Chandler for the first time in a while, I will be seeing my Grandpa “Papa”. I see him as the leading father figure in my life, and I am extremely excited to be able to see him. We are planning on dropping a new engine in the go kart we have, although I do not know the specs of it.

I should stop rambling on, as it is probably not incredibly interesting. However that level of interest in my writings does not matter exceptionally because no one reads them anyway.