MARCH 5, 2007

During our stay in Presov, we slept at a rented a flat (about $60 USD/night) just a short walk (about 3 minutes) from the Miklus home. The bears stayed at the Miklus house.

Janka walked to the store every morning at around six to buy fresh bread and food. When she got home she played with the bears. Everybody loved Theodore and Tilly-Bear.

By the time Dianne and I woke up, washed, and came over to the house for breakfast, the dinner table looked like the photo above.

Although this looks like an excellent lunch, this is breakfast and it is very good. There is ham, salami, pepperoni (too hot and spicy for Lance’s stomach), tomatoes, cheese, pickles, and a hard boiled egg. There’s also fresh rolls, butter, juice, and coffee on the table.

After breakfast, Janka’s sister, Danka Trochanova. and her husband Vladimir Trochan (called Vlado) stopped for a few minutes to show everybody their new car. We brought out our cameras outside to take pictures of the car but they wanted us to take pictures with them holding the American teddy bears in front of their car.

I think the only reason they let us take this picture of their new car, an Opel Corsa, is because the teddy bears were in the photo.

Janka waved at us from the window of their home as we head back to Presov on foot. She stayed at the house to prepare a surprise for us when we returned home.

Here we are walking to Presov - more steps for Lance’s pedometer.

We passed this “Smart Car” walking to Presov. It is a two seater that’s perfect for driving around town. It’s good on gas, too. But what makes it smart is its size. Parking can be a problem in Slovakia’s larger cities. This car easily fits into tight parking spaces.

These photos show some of the businesses on the streets of Presov selling fruits and eggs. I also learned that Nonstop = Open 24 hours.

We had to take a picture of this for our son Tony. Is Fast Food a Slovak word?

We bought some jelly filled sticks called pirozky. They are like a jelly donut in the shape of a hot dog roll. They’re made fresh and ours were still warm when we ate them. On this day, our pirozky had marmalade filling.

It appears from the photo that the bakery also sells fax and photocopy paper but, of course, they don’t. If you look at the display window, there’s an arrow pointing to an upstairs business that sells office supplies.

At this souvenir shop we purchased some gifts to bring back to America with us. These are all handcrafted products made in Slovakia.

Then we went to a coffee shop for Vienna coffee. (Left to right) Dusan, Silvia, Dianne, Lance, Palo (Silvia’s boyfriend).

When we got back to the house this surprise greeted us: We were going to celebrate Christmas. The traditional meal is sauerkraut with mushroom soup (shown in the photo above), followed by potato salad and fish.

At the dinner table is (left to right) Dusan, Theodore (teddy bear), Dianne (holding Theodore), Lance (holding Tilly-Bear), Tilly-Bear (teddy bear), Silvia, Dusan’s little brown teddy bear, Denisa, and Janka.

There were Christmas presents for us to open. In this photo Dianne tries one of her gifts, a cigarette lighter. See? Instant fire.

These teddy bear bowls are perfect for soup or a bowl of cereal in the morning. We also received a matching pair of teddy bear coffee cups to go with these bowls.

We have a video of this event. Click the PLAY button on the player above to watch.

Later that evening we visited Milan (left), Dusan’s brother. Toasting with us is Milan’s wife, Emilia (called Milka). In the back of the photo in the white shirt with black horizontal strips is their oldest son, Milan. Standing in the doorway is their youngest son, Matej.

The son Milan went to pick up Milka to take her work (she starts work at 10 p.m.) and then to take his girlfriend and her sister to their home in Stara Lubovna (about 60 km from Presov). Milan is very proud of his girlfriend but she was too shy to come into the house to meet us.

No problem. We went out to the car and took her picture there. We are the paparazzi. So out we went into the darkness of night (it was very dark) and Milan’s girlfriend had no choice but to get out of the car so we could take her picture. As she got out of the car, I said in a loud voice, “American tourists. American tourists.” (Click, flash)