Day with Maria

It is 12:15 at night and I just had one of the most incredible days out of my whole time here in Slovakia. One of my students invited me over to spend the day with her and her family. They came at 1:00 pm and picked me up from Technopol (near my flat) and we took off for Langos (deep fried pizza thing) and Lokse (potato pancakes). Even though our communication was minimal Maria’s parents managed to shower me with so much love. They wanted me to truly experience Slovak food so guess what they did… ordered one of every type of Lokse on the menu! I have always wanted to do that! We had potato pancakes with goose liver, plain, with chocolate, and with poppy seed sauce. As if that wasn’t enough they ordered Langos.

Maria and I both ordered one with ketchup and cheese. We finished it off with a rich dessert. After our “snack” they took me on a nice walk to a field. Maria did a great job translating. I have to say there were many moments that I wish I could have gotten on video because either party had no idea what we were communicating. We just kept smiling back and forth!From there, we went to their home where Maria showed tons of pictures to me, and I was amazed at the videos she had of people when they were not looking… some of which I was in!
We went for a walk and stopped in at a neighbor’s house to ask for a Lokse recipe. Well, an hour later this same neighbor contacted Maria’s family and said that she wanted to show me how to make it! She dropped her plans and welcomed us in on the spot. The whole family went over to their neighbor’s house and made potato pancakes from scratch. It started off with boiling potatoes, mashing them, letting them cool, adding flour… and so on.

It is a pretty incredible process.I looked around at people throughout the night and realized time was not even an issue. Maria’s mom painted my fingernails, Palo, Maria’s brother, and father dreamed about opening up a Slovak restaurant, we talked, we laughed, we just relaxed. We just enjoyed spending time with each other. It was neat because even though I could not understand ½ of what was being said, I still felt so comfortable. We just sat around talking, listening, and enjoying each other. The night finally had to come to an end 11 hours later. We had such a good time. They all piled into the car and took me home at 12:00 am. Palo and Maria both walked me to my flat to make sure that I got in safely. This was one of my most favorite days in Slovakia. I was in the presence of some amazing Slovak people and enjoyed every moment with them.