Friday 28th
The flight to Vienna was delayed by an hour so I busied myself reading Rivers of Babylon by Peter Pist'anek, the only Slovak author translated to English I know about. From Vienna airport I got a bus directly to Bratislava airport which took approximately 1hr. Met the Miss and her sister at the airport, and we drove to her parents house in Banska Bystrica (BB), about 200km away from Bratislava. After a warm welcome by all the family I was treated for a late dinner with duck and sweet purple cabbage. We spent the rest of the evening drinking Ballantines whisky, which quickly became the signature drink of the holiday.

Saturday 29th
Visited BB centre and from the few remnants of the Christmas market we tasted Trdelnik, punc and gorg. Tredlnik is a piece of warm, soft pastry, coated with sugar, walnuts and cinnamon. Punc is a sort of mulled wine but not quite so, and grog is like hot whiskey but with rum and other spirits instead. We went shopping in the newly built Europa shopping centre, and I was impressed two things:- a) finding Murakami and Chuck Palahniuk English books in a bookshop, and b) the number of miniskirts in clothes shops.

In the evening we went for dinner in a Slovak Coliba (wooden restaurant) called St. Christopher Coliba. Tried Halusky the Slovak national dish and liked it alot. The dish is made from potato dumplings covered in a sheep cheese called bryndza. In the middle of the dish there were some cubes of bacon for the taste. Apparently in Slovakia the bacon is 5/6 fat and 1/6 meat. Although it's quite unsightly it's still very tasty. After dinner we went to an oriental style bar serving a full menu of teas and shisha pipes.The place was really cool and very informal. We say, or rather lay down on carpets, and there were even people playing chess and other board games.

On our way back home we were wandering around the city outskirts and passed through the village of Malachov. We discovered a new world full of snow and frost, as if coming out from a fairy tale. The place was only a couple of minutes away from BB but it was full of snow unlike the town. There was even a skiing resort with night skiing, something we made use of on the following day.

Sunday 30th
In the afternoon after breakfast and lunch we tried to go skiing at a popular resort called Donovaly, but all the skis and boots were rented out. It was a bit annoying because the weather was perfect, sunny and not so cold. We then went to Malachov and managed to rent boots for me there. Skiing in Malachov was ideal as the piste was not so steep and wide, with enough snow and not so many people, the best scenario after about 7 years away from the slopes. It seems that skiing is like riding the bike though, you'll remember what you have to do once you start going down the hill with that funny feelings of the alien boots and skis.

In the evening we had vegetable soup with dumplings, and chicken legs with rice and stewed fruit. Even though I'm not a big fan of soup I liked all the soup I had here, because the soup is not very thick and has lots of water. Another interesting thing is that they eat sweet stewed fruit with the main dish, some of which her mum (mamka) prepares herself, like the sour cherries, pears and plums.

Monday 31st
The highlight of the day was the end of year dinner, which traditionally in the family is a replica of the Christmas dinner. The table was prepared in the main dining room near the real Christmas tree. An extra chair and plate with waffles for the "potential visitor" was prepared as per tradition. The dinner started with a tape recording of grandma saying grace, then we ate a clove of garlic with honey for good health, and mamka made a cross with honey on everyone's forehead.

The dishes were:-
Kapustnica - Sour cabbage soup and first class mushrooms collected from the forest
Pork and cod fillets in a homemade breadcrumb crust and potato salad
Opekance s makom - A desert with small sweet breadcubes, loads crushed poppy seeds made into a paste with some milk

Traditionally poultry is not eaten during the end of the year because otherwise luck will fly away with the bird.

After dinner I gave everyone a little present and then watched some Slovak TV about national celebrities. At around 10.30pm we went to the town square where there was some live music (folk and later some Slovak songs played with a disco beat). Before midnight we went back home and as the clock struck we drank champagne and fired some fireworks. Father fired his pistol in the air several time too. After our celebrations were over we watched some of the other major fireworks that were fired from all around the city. Before we went to bed we watched a Russian fairy tale called Mrazik, which the misses kindly translated for me in English.

The rest of the pictures of the Slovak holiday.