Eskimos and Hochschornes

One of the previous bloggs I wrote, (bloggs has two g's right? The computer tells me I'm wrong no matter how I write it but the website your on right now writes it with two g's so I will to) well before I get sidetracked I should probably tell you about some Eskimos and some Hochschornes because you probably don't know any and I don't want this post to be to disappointing.


Unfortunately I do not know any Eskimos, sorry to let you down but I'll get to that later. Fortunately I do know some Hochschornes. (this is the last name of a family in case you where confused) The Hochschorne are a very water-oriented family, what I mean is that everyone in that family is an incredible white water kayaker or canoer or something along those lines. 


The Hochschorne twins are Olympic gold medallists in the C2 canoe division several times over. They are the most successful Slovak athletes and certainly among the most successful athletes in the entire world.


My father knows both parents of the Hochschorne twins, their mother is currently teaching me to kayak. Their father is their trainer and manager and everything like that.


I was recently at a man-made white water facility, at that facility was not only the Hoksici twins but also the Japanese white water slalom team. There we saw the twins father who my father knows, we talked for a while and watched the twins train, they were really, really good.

Hochschorne brothers

Me with the Hochschornes in the background

As I have talked about the Hoksicis a lot a feel the time is ripe to discuss Eskimos. When I say eskimo, I don't mean a person, or in fact, any living being at all I simply mean a roll in a kayak, the link below is an example.

Having such an excellent teacher as Gaba Hochschorne (the Hochschorne twins mother) I learned to do an eskimo roll in around three weeks (I go kayaking twice a week) I think this is considerably fast. I'm not really sure if everybody else thinks so but I can think what I like.


Here are some pretty awesome photos of my eskimo. My very own personal eskimo.

Coming around

I'm actually coming out of the water

I love this photo

Me and Dennis

Different angle

Finishing up

This is what I've been up to lately. Since I told you what I'm doing you really, really, really, should probably consider commenting on this and telling me what's up.

Painting

The apartment my father used to live in when he grew up in Bratislava is now quite dilapidated. Although it is a living space, when we came it was uninhabitable, well at least not a pleasant place to live. In the beginning there was no heat, not for the house, not for the water, not for anything.


Now there is hot water and heating for winter. Even though there is heat there are still several problems in the apartment, these problems include but are not limited to; there is only one bed and four people (me and my family) are soon going to be living there, there is very little furniture (as in three chairs, two tables and some shelves), there is no refrigerator and the walls need to be painted.

Since there are so many problems we (my father and I) decided we should probably try to do something about these problems before we start to live there, which we will very soon.


My father has been working on painting for a while, so far he has painted the kitchen and some sections of other rooms. Today I spent my entire day helping him painting the apartment.

Fast hands

My fathers feet

We started and finished the first coat of the entrance room, which is considerable progress for one day.

Painting, painting, painting

I woke up in the morning and left to go paint and that's what I did pretty much the whole day. That's what I've been up to lately.

Kids Day

Today at my school we had Kids Day, which as you might have realised is a special day for kids. A boy named Oliver and I wear running the sword fighting event. As you can probably imagine this was an interesting experience for me.


Kids day worked like this, all the classes of little kids (I'm not exactly sure what grades) would go with their teacher, all around the central part of the school and participate in all the different events available. After participating in an event whoever was running the event would give the class a small slip of paper with an icon having to do with the event on it. The class would glue the slip of paper onto a larger paper.


Their were many crazy events of which I don't think would fly in the US, for example their was a rope going from the upper floor the the main door in the school, the kids would put on a harness and use the rope like a zip line. This wasn't the only crazy event, their were many more including blind soccer, blind eating and many others of which I have forgotten.


As me and Oliver were  in charge of the sword fighting it was up to us to explain the rules and make sure nothing bad happens. We were to explain the rules to every group, the rules were that if you got hit in the leg you had to jump on one leg, if you got hit in the other leg you died. If you got hit in one arm you have to put it behind your back and put the sword in your other arm. If both of your arms were cut off you died. Nobody was allowed to hit anybody in the head and you weren't supposed to hit very hard but we weren't really worried about that last one.


Since my Slovak isn't that great Oliver handled talking to the teachers and I was the practice dummy. Oliver would show the kids where to hit by hitting me with the sword and explaining the rules at the same time.


After a few times of going through this is started to get a little tiring, watching little kids try to sword fight isn't exactly that intriguing. Most of the kids didn't realise the point of a sword fight is not to hit your opponents sword, but to hit their body.


We had exactly the number of paper slips so that each group could have one slip, after every group left we thumbed through the reaming papers trying to somehow magically make them disappear. After a while we did run out of slips of paper, not everybody had finished so we just chilled and watched what everybody else was doing.


After everybody finished we didn't have to stay, so I had lunch then left. Over the course of the day I saw more then enough children for two or maybe even three lifetimes.

The Circus

I've never been to the circus, until now. It was may birthday on May 19 so my father thought that for my birthday me, him, and some of my cousins could go to the circus.


I took the bus then the tram and soon arrived at my grandparents apartment. Neither of my grandparents was there at the moment. My father gave me a box of eggs and told me to go to my uncles house and tell my cousins to come here.


I walked to my uncles apartment which is in the same building as my grandmothers just on another floor. When I got to my uncles apartment I gave them the eggs and after a little while me and my two cousins were back at my grandmothers apartment.


After we made some sandwiches and gathered food and packed it into out backpacks we got on the tram and left. After we arrived in "Medics Garden" (that's where the circus was) we met up with our other cousin. 


We sat down on a mat we had brought played cards, ate, and watched "Juicy Lucy" hang from a rope with her foot and sing song about showering. When Juicy Lucy finished we left and went to the big circus tent.


In that big tent we were to see "Witty Look" that is a Japanese unicycle duo. Before we saw the unicycles a man wearing a green hat in all green cloths with his face painted green came into the tent riding a green scooter. The green man put his scooter on stage then proceed to pull an unlucky and unwilling "volunteer" towards the stage.

Witty looks poster

The green man then stripped the man down to his boxers commented on how the mans armpit smelt and then dressed him in a green dress. The green man pulled several more "lucky winners" to the stage and then got married to the man wearing the green dress. After the marriage the green man got on his scooter, dropped some sparklers or something like that and left.


We waited a little while, then a women wearing funny cloths with a sparkely pink bow tie in her hair came on stage. Soon a man wearing similar funny cloths appeared on stage. After a series of quite hilarious pantomime acts the two got out their unicycles and started to cycle.


The duo jumped rope and jumped two people, all while on a unicycle, the man also rode a unicycle that was about six feet tall. They did many other things to but these were the most notable.


After the show was finished we went outside and just kind of hung out for a little while. Another show was to start soon and we wanted to see that one too. The next show was called "Shake, Shake, Shake!"

Note: Not my photo

The show started with a man dancing an old dance.Soon he stared climbing two poles set up with a platform at the top. He looked slightly like a squirrel, although he may have looked like a squirrel he must have been a lot stronger than a squirrel because soon he showed us his "horizontal pullup" which is exactly what it sounds like.


After a while he called up a "volunteer" to dance with him. The volunteer seemed very timid and we thought she must have felt terrible. Soon the volunteer showed their true nature, both changed very quickly into disco cloths, they also got their afros going. Shortly the Dj cued the 70's music and everything got going.


The acrobats started doing their thing, the man climbed up the pole and the women followed they linked hands and the women jumped from the platform they had been standing on atop the two poles. The man had his legs locked on the platform. The women did many crazy stunts, flips spins twists and all that other great stuff. After a good deal of acrobatics, 70's dancing and laughter the act was over.


When the circus ended we went to my fathers apartment which wasn't very far away. We played a few games of cards, I didn't understand the rules of the game and apparently they didn't understand me because they certainly were not kind to me. 


I was pretty hungry so I ate an entire loaf of poppy seed bread, by myself. It was late so I went back to the Várys house and soon was sound asleep with dreams of Japanese unicycles, crazy flips and crazy 70's music and  dances.

The Israeli Ambassador

I walked into school and everything was normal as was to be expected because it's not a surprise if you expect it. The day continued normally for about two or three hours.


After about three hours I noticed some abnormal things, there was a barricade set up next to the stair case leading to my hallway, this is very unusual, there were also very many funny looking men whom I had never seen before.


It turns out those "funny looking men" were police who were wearing tuxedos. They even had a small, black dog that probably would have bitten your hand off if you tried to pet it. The reason for the barricade and the dangerous looking men in tuxedos was that the Israeli ambassador to Slovakia was coming to visit our school.


The ambassador started with showing us a movie by a popular Israeli music group, it was really crazy, the point it made was that Israeli is a little country with a big influence. I think that is true, not only because of what I learned but because I am always hearing about Israel in the news.


As it turns out the Israeli ambassador was not born in Israel as you might guess, he was born in Soviet Russia. He also lived in Costa Rica before Israel.


Thankfully the ambassador spoke English and the entire presentation was in English. The ambassador told us about Slovakia and Israel's relationship, apparently it is very good. He also told us a little about why Israel is special and many interesting facts about Israel.


When I think about Israel I think about camels, soldiers and Jews. The ambassador only knew about one camel in all of Israel. The part about soldiers is true, boys and girls must both go to the army at the age of 18 boys for three years girls for one. While in the military the soldiers must carry their guns where ever they go so it is not an uncommon sight to see bands of people walking around with assault rifles. Some dance clubs even have special places for soldiers to deposit guns. Not all of Israel is Jewish, only a mere 80% of the population.


Israel is in the Middle East, and most places there have oil, Israel is the only one without oil, or anything else. In Israel there are almost no natural resources. Most Jewish families greatly value education (Israel has the second highest literacy rate in the world) so many people in Israel are very smart, Israel has lots and lots of technological expertise. Many things like cell phone cameras, computer chips, and many more things of this sort we first created, thought of or expanded on in Israel.


The ambassador was very funny, he was also a very stereotypical Soviet Russian. He looked more fitted to be a politicians bodyguard than a politician. He also had an impressive accent.


It was interesting to listen a real Soviet Russian who is now Israel's ambassador to Slovakia talk about politics, especially Israel and Slovakia's relationship. 

Beginning of the End

In Slovakia in some schools there are four grades, in others there are five. On Friday May, 13th all Slovakia's seniors finished school. When I say "finished" I mean they only have tests left to graduate school. They got out on Friday now they have a week to study then they take the what many have told me is "the biggest exam of their lives".


Even though graduating from high school is generally considered a good thing, I think it is always a little sad. As Friday is the seniors last day together they absolutely must do something crazy, it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. The entire class makes something that resembles a poster, it reminded me very much of signs carried at a protest. The entire grades pictures are on the poster along with their names.   


The Students parade usually around their school with their poster, they collect money, which is apparently used for drinking at the pub later. They also make as much noise as possible. They dress up in fancy cloths like suits and ties, get out their noise makers and parade throughout the streets chanting "Give us money" and for some reason many people do.


We saw many groups of students participating in this it looked like a lot of fun. I wish we did this in the USA because it's a memorable way to end your high school career. It's also the last fun thing they do all week, they have to study pretty much all week long. That second part is the only thing I don't like about the whole deal.

White water races

On Saturday I saw my first white water slalom kayak race. When my father was young he used to white water canoe, I am now learning how to kayak. 

On the Danube river

Trying not to fall

Me, my father & the belly of the kayak

I took the bus to Bratislava's "Botanical Garden" and then waited at a gas station. I was waiting for my dads old canoeing partner's wife who would drive me to the race.


After about 25 minutes I saw a small dark red Škoda car, it had two bars on top of the roof for carrying many things, but in that families, mainly boats. My grandparents have a car just like this and it is very common in Europe.


After driving for about 30 minutes in silence, mostly because of my linguistic problems we arrived at a rather big and artificial looking sports center of some kind. 


It was obvious something was going on, there were cars everywhere and many trailers with boats of all sorts on them. We walked in the obvious direction of the water. When we got there it had already started and many people had taken there run.


I walked to one of the three concrete bridges, there was Radko (his wife had driven me there). I leaned on the bright blue round rail and asked Radko who had been canoeing partners with my dad how they had done in races and things like that.


There were some truly amazing kayakers and canoers, for certain not all, but some. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently there were two brothers there who had together won several Olympic medals, there mother is teaching me how to kayak.


Some of the people there weren't all that great at kayaking or canoeing or whatever. One kayaker flipped over and instead of flipping back around started swimming. Many others flipped over, which is very common and happens to everyone, but they were able to flip back around and continue on their way, it was very interesting to watch that, especially when it was the canoes.


The main difference between kayaks and canoes isn't the boat or the paddle, it's the way you sit. In a kayak you sit with your legs extended in front of you, in a canoe you sit on your legs or kneel. The paddles and boats are also different but they are not the main difference.


After about four or five hours of watching Radko and his wife drove me home, I had to fight not to fall asleep on the way, I think I lost that fight, not badly but a defeat.


I was dropped off at my grandparents apartment where my father is living, I saw him, told him about how it was and then went back to the Várys.