Hiking in Slovakia

       This morning, we took some of the Youth Group kids hiking in Czech/Slovakia. The place where we hiked has many different trails that lead to a ski slope where many of the kids go to ski and snowboard. We only hiked 6 km (about 4 miles) but it was a solid sheet of ice 90% of the way. Me, being the only American, hiked in tennis shoes while everyone else was in hiking boots...I fell 9 times. I was definitely the entertainment for the day! Everyone else was slipping around and fell once or twice but nothing like me; a pig on roller skates!

The main reason we were going hiking was to eat the amazing Blueberry Dumplings at the restaurant at the top of the ski slopes! Wow, they were so good!!!

     Each dumpling was about the size of a tennis ball and there were 4 of them, covered in powdered sugar and a delicious frosting-type sauce. YUM!

    After dumplings and some time inside where it was warm, we headed back down the mountain. The ski slopes are right on the border of Czech and Slovakia so the picture below is of me being in 2 places at once!!!! :) Don't ask me what the sign says because the only thing I can read is "Vsetin" and we were no where near the town of Vsetin.

   Though it was cold and windy, we had a great morning with each other. There were a total of 10 of us. I learned some new Czech words and met a couple of new people! I hope to make it back up there to have the dumplings one more time before I leave! It will be better to hike when there is no ice and next time, we can hike a longer distance!

This evening I went to Brad and Lucie's to celebrate their son Adam's first birthday! It was a great time to spend with people from church and again, learn more Czech!

This week will be pretty busy with teaching but I am still praying that I get more opportunities to teach in the high school here--it's the best way to tell kids about English camp and invite them to Youth Group!