Jan and Maria Leno October 11th 2006

 

Cecehov

This is the town of Cecehov where my Grandfather was born. We have come a long way to see it and have no idea what we will find. Our friend Maria from the hospitality club has arranged for us to be able to meet my Grandfather’s cousin Jan Leno and his wife Maria. Unfortunately she ended up have to tell them of Albert’s passing.

This is a picture of Jan and Maria. They were very nice people and welcomed us into their home as family. We had some copies of old family pictures. I wished that I could have brought some current pictures to leave with them.
This is a picture of the main street of Cecehov. There are not really any other streets. Our expectations were that Cecehov would be an impoverished rural town. What we found instead was a beautify kept little village.
This is Catarina and her mother. Catarina did some amount of translating for us. She was very embarrassed to use her English. We gave them some pins and they gave us a business card holder and some coins with the Cecehov town crest.

Eating Out

This is the Wiking restaurant next door to our hotel. Very cool decorations.
Beef Wellington. Probably the best tasting dish I have ever had. Laurel and I split this beast. Cost: an excessively (for Slovakia) expensive $18.
Our other dishes were very good as well. Total cost for a very nice meal for 4 people with wine and beer was around $30

Arrival in Michalovce

We have arrived in Michalovce! Unfortunately we had no idea where our hotel is located. On the way into town there was a billboard for our hotel. Laurel is able to get a picture of it. We show the photo to different people along the way and they keep pointing us in the right direction until we arrive at our destination.

Our hotel is located in the town center which is not open to cars. The kids all think that the center of Michalovce is pretty cool.
Laurel and I have the best veggie burgers for lunch that we have ever had. They have not tried to imitate hamburgers with ground vegetables. These are REAL veggie burgers and they are REAL yummy.
This is an interesting old building in the center that they were in the process of restoring.

Driving In Slovakia

This is my first experience really driving a car in a foreign country (other than Pavel’s van in Czech Republic). It was a good first experience. The roads were good, the traffic was only slightly insane, and they drive on the correct side of the road. This is a Skoda Octavia rented from PetCar in Kosice. Pavel has selected that car and I really like it.

The scenery was very nice but I had to drive. :-( 

Train Travel to Kosice

This was our first experience with the Slovakian trains. Our first train ride was a 1 hour stretch from Bohumin to Hermania (or something like that). We were in a compartment with a Russian soldier named Demitri who talked to us the whole time in Russian and seemed to get very frustrated that we could not learn Russian well enough to respond to him. I suspect he meant well but he made us all a bit nervous. Pictured above we are on the sleeper train to Kosice, SK. We found it to be comfortable and it felt safe to us. Our porter happened to speak English which made things easier for us.

I really like the sleeper trains as a way to travel while we are on vacation. You are in one place. You go to bed (which you need to do anyway) and you wake up somewhere new. You do not have to waste your day traveling.


This bicycle/ski shop was actually in the train station in Kosice. 

Side Trip to Poland

The Kassan’s were kind enough to take us on a side trip into Poland to a very special water-park. As we are crossing the border Pavel lets us know that we will be well inspected as many Americans go to Poland to buy babies that have been imported from Armenia. We suspect that many Americans going there are paying excessive fees to adoption agencies not realizing or wanting to realize that they are really purchasing their children.

Apparently this luxury hotel and water-park is mostly owned by rich Russian investors. It was quite a spectacular place. Very nice for both older children (good swimmers), and adults. There are areas for younger children also but it is the water slides that make the park really good for kids. Many of the slides you could not have in the United States because of the liability issues.

The hotel itself was very nice. I’ll will post some pictures from the brochure when I get a chance.

Life in Bohumin

There is crime in the small town of Bohumin just like anywhere else. Here the police have their CSI kit and appear to be investigating the break-in of a shed.
Sleeping linens seem to be much the same throughout Europe. A mattress with a fitted sheet. No top sheet and blankets in a Duvet(sic?). The pillows are the width of a King sized pillow in the USA and are 1.5 times as tall.
Our daughter pointed out that we could use the map in the boys bedroom to figure out where we are going.

Centrum (downtown) Bohumin

What better way to end a couple of hours in class than with big ice cream. Our daughter and the ice cream are twins I think.
This is a public posting site. Lost dog, things for sale, that sort of thing.
Bohumin town center was much prettier than we expected.
One interesting difference was the way people queued in line for buses. Very orderly. They were queued up like this before the bus arrived. Perhaps this is a positive trait remaining from the communist period. One of our guide books stated that Ostrava was very supportive of Communism and thus did very well during the communist period. I think our friends in Bohumin were offended by this and did not believe it to be true. Our friends in Prague said that all the western guide books are hugely inaccurate or at least take some liberties with some facts.

Goodbye Class

Class picture
Czech classmates say goodbye
Goodbye children! New friends wave goodbye from the windows. Classes in Czech Republic are less formal than classes in China. 

School in Bohumin

Our children were lucky enough to be able to attend Mrs Kassanova’s 5th grade class in Bohumin. Our daughter had meet one classmate: Sally the previous day at the park so it made for an easy first time visit to a foreign school. Visiting foreign schools is no big deal for our son now that he has done this a few times.
Our daughter in class.
5th grade is 5th grade no matter where you go! Our children had a good time visiting the class,
Our daughter and Mrs. Kassanova.

Bohumin Czech Republic

Pavel arranged for bicycles for both our family and his family so that we could do a bicycle ride around Bohumin. We are in front of his new office for ABChemtrans.
We had our first experience with Tesco. Perhaps the same company as Target in the united states. It seems to be set up the same and carries many of the same brands and products.
Pavel has a very warm and hospitable home. Here we are all watching Czech Superstar. (the Czech version of American Idol. We now own the CD!
Here are the kids waiting to go off to school.