Life in the freezer

Dear all,

So here we are already at the beginning of February. Hard to believe that the last four weeks have gone by so fast.

Conditions here are chilly to say the least (see right). In fact I can say with confidence that I’ve never experienced temperatures quite like this! For two or three days last week we had lows of minus 18 (that’s roughly 0 degrees Fahrenheit for the oldies/Americans among you!).

On the other hand, this is a lovely end to what has been a very snowy year for us – from February in Surrey, to December in DC and NY, to January in Slovakia. Being a poor snow-starved Englishman, I have never quite lost my fascination for the white stuff, so that’s one thing I won’t be complaining about! In fact, I sometimes feel quite tempted to give the people I see out there shovelling and salting a jolly good telling off, though they wouldn’t actually understand me, of course :-)

The office party, which happened the day after my last post was pretty lively to say the least! Seemed that a lot of people were drinking spirits - straight spirits in fact. After all, why spoil perfectly good alcohol with mixers?! Oh well, you know they say it's the impurities in wine and beer that screw you up. When in Žilina... Needless to say, the office was a world of pain on Friday ;-)

On the Sunday, we were invited to dinner at my colleague Jitka’s parents’ house. Where, along with sampling some lovely local home cooking, we were inducted into one of Slovakia’s specialties – home-distilled spirits. Perhaps the most unusual was a caramel butter schnapps that was served hot – veeeery nice! Seems Slovaks definitely know how to do hospitality!

After dinner, we took a drive out through the area’s breathtaking mountain and forest scenery, all blanketed in snow, to visit the Slovenský Betlehem (Slovak nativity scene) in Rajecká Lesná. This is a huge multi-tiered carved wood extravaganza which measures 8.5x2x3 (metres), took 15 years for the creator to complete, and depicts the history and way-of-life of the Slovak nation crowded around a central nativity scene. It has to be seen to be believed! Hopefully this gives you some idea:

This is Jitka, my American colleague Rob, Karen & me in R. Lesná.
 
So, the plans keep on pretty much making themselves, much to our delight – you can stare at four walls anywhere on Earth! Next weekend we will be the guests of another colleague Martin’s family (also Jitka’s fiancé) in Banska Bystrica for the whole weekend, Mum & Dad are here the weekend after, then we may go to Poland, and finally there is a company holiday at the end of the month!

This weekend just gone, we decided to visit Prague in the Czech Republic. I’ll be posting about that tomorrow.

All the best,
Mark