May 16

This morning was quite interesting. We got up at five thirty and packed up. After a quick breakfast, Ahmed picked us up at seven. He piled all our luggage on a two wheeled cart which then outweighed him nearly three times over. we all piled on to a bus with not a little effort and headed over to terminal two. Upon arrival, we unloaded all our luggage on the cart again. When we got into the terminal they told us that we needed to be in terminal one. So we turned around and headed back to the bus to repeat the process. Back at terminal one, we finally found the right spot and cut to the front of the business class check in line, courtesy of Ahmed. Once checked in I had to run 150 yards and around the corner to get Opa a wheelchair. Then I had to run back with the wheelchair. Opa got in the wheelchair and I ran back again. After a bit of finagling, a golf cart came and licked us up. We were through security and at our gate in 7 minutes or so. The rest of the boarding procedure went quite smoothly. I noticed that the seats had more legroom in the economy section on this flight. Once in the air, I was awed by the landscape below. The city and towns are all in little clusters, separated by Forrest and farmland. Unlike our sprawling cities and towns in the US, over here they pack the everyone into dense areas of population. It's quite picturesque. Unfortunately, at this point we have no idea where the camera went. As we climbed higher clouds obstructed my view of the ground for most of the rest of the trip. On the plane they brought us each a moist towelette, then a sandwich, then our choice of beverage, then a Lindor truffle for dessert. Much more sophisticated than US flights. Another interesting observation is that they offer newspapers as you board every flight. I slept for the remainder of the flight, waking up as the plane hit the ground. When we arrived in Warsaw, we were running late. A man met us at the bottom of the steps with a van. After a bit of confusion while they tried to locate our bags, they rushed us to the terminal. The young man led us quickly through security and on a mad dash through the terminal. I felt rather important as he moved people aside and rushed us through the crowd to another van which ferried us out to a little 44 seat prop job. It had even less legroom than the flight over from the us. from the air, the city looked fairly similar to Germany. I'm amazed at the amount of Forrest that is growing with in amongst the cities here. And small towns are often spread along a main road, so the town may be a couple miles long but only half a mile wide. When we arrived in Slovakia, I noticed that the airplane taxis with only one engine. There was A little bit of apprehension as to whether our bags had made it but they did. When we came out of the airport we were met by 8 or 9 Slovaks. They were very happy to see us. One knows English fairly well and is able to translate. Also, Phillip and Marion understand Slovak pretty well and can be understood by using a mix of Slovak and Serbian. One of the sisters could speak German, which Opa of course speaks fluently. They loaded us up and took us to a bed and breakfast. After we unloaded our stuff, we went to the elder brother's house where they fed us a delicious three course meal. There was a form of chicken noodle soup, salad, grilled chicken, chicken in white sauce(my favorite of the main courses), rice, potatoes, and for desert ice cream sandwiches, coke(made in Bratislava), cherry strudel and poppy-seed strudel. It was terrific. From there we went and visited the ruins of an old castle. They had a piece of the wall from ww2 that separated Slovakia from Austria. It still has bullet pocks in it from soviet soldiers shooting people trying to escape the country. I would have liked to have climbed the hill into the castle but the older folk were ready to be done. So we headed back to the bed and breakfast to get warmer clothes and then headed to the Bernalakova church. After a quick tour, we sat around and conversed for a while. Then we sang a number of songs. It was really awesome. Some songs I was able to sing along with by heart. Others I just tried to sing along by reading the Slovak words. It was a really neat experience. After a while, we finished singing and went back to socializing while the women prepared a meal. As soon as it was finished, we dined on pasta salad, various breads and pastries, loaded baked potatoes, and hot dogs that had been split and filled with cheese and bacon. For desert we had more pastries, and a cup of dried fruit topped with ice cream. We left the church at about nine thirty. We stopped for water since the tap water may not be safe. When I laid down in bed, I decided to put this all in writing. When I got out my laptop, I checked for wireless just in case. Lo and behold, there was a connection available! So here I sit, in a comfy little bed, posting this. Please excuse the poor sentence structure and what not. I wrote all of this down bit by bit throughout the day as we did it. I then just copied and pasted it from my iPod notes to here. I didn't take the time to proofread it. Regardless, God bless you all, and to you all a goodnight.