Saturday, October 6 This morning, I met Valeria at the Trencin train station at 9:20 as we were gonna be taking a 4.5 hour long train to Kosice, a city in eastern Slovakia. When we got on the train, there were 4 exchange students from Bratislava that we met with, and even more joined us as we went through more stops. By the middle of the ride, there was probably about 20 of us between two cabins in a train car (Slovakia has trains like in Harry Potter with the private cabins). We had a great time all together bonding and seating like 6 people in three seats. In the train were two former Slovak exchange students and one Belgian girl who was visiting her Slovak friend. I think all Slovak people were confused about why we were so international. When we got to Kosice train station, we walked to the nearby mall to meet with Rotarians and other exchange students. We got many instructions about the weekend and free marathon things (for the marathon we'd run tomorrow). We went to the marathon festival and got to introduce ourselves on stage. Then, we got to meet a bunch more former exchange students and student volunteers from Kosice who wanted to help us for the night! We then all walked together with a Slovak gold medalist in "speed walking" named Matej Toth. We paraded through the town with him for a while and got a photo with him. After this, we went to a nice Slovak dinner, then split up into groups for the night. We each had 2 Slovaks and about 6 exchange students. We got free time, so my group went to a nice cafe in Kosice and all got desert! We later met up again at a torch lighting ceremony and met some more former exchange students there (one of which spoke Polish!!!!). My group basically merged with another group, and we all went together to the Kosice light festival (Biela Noc, like in Bratislava last week.) Some of us ended up splitting up or going our own way, but for the majority of the night, it was me and 7 other exchange students with one Rotex (former exchange student) and a Slovak school girl to help us. She was absolutely the best tour guide ever, we all became so close and I am so grateful to have been in her group. We honestly didn't see so many of the attractions as I had done the last week in Bratislava, but we spent so much time walking and talking together and ate churros and Chinese dumplings. I honestly had such an amazing night together exploring the city, it was really amazing. We later met up again at the mall and went to our host families for the night. Me and Valeria stayed with a very nice woman named Lubomira who was a heart doctor. She spoke a little Spanish and English but was trying to communicate in Slovak with us. At home, her and her husband welcomed us so warmely and offered us SO MUCH FOOD, all home made and from their garden. It was honestly crazy how much more Slovak I could understand in Kosice vs. Trencin cause the eastern accent was more similar to Polish. It was an amazing day! Sunday, October 7 Sunday morning, I got up really early in my host family and ate a huge breakfast that they had generously prepared for me and Valeria. We ate quickly, then drove back to the city to meet up at the mall. When we were all together, we split up based on who was running the half marathon (only 3 Americans) and who was running the mini-marathon (the rest of us haha). All of us mini-marathon runners went outside in the square to watch the half marathon runners began. I had tied an American flag around my neck that I was going to run with, and another American guy noticed me in the crowds of people! It's really crazy how you can meet Americans everywhere!! At some point, the mini marathon began but we had to wait for everyone to start running and spreading out before we could even move haha. During the marathon, all of us exchange students split up completely based on our running abilities. I ended up running the entire marathon with just one boy from Argentina, Joaquin and we did successfully run/jog the full 4.5km. It was so fun to run with the American flag as so many people would scream "USA" or even just stare at me. The marathon went through the town square and beyond, then turned back around through the square. Joaquin and I finished in 25 minutes and were pretty dead after it. We got our metals and waited for the other exchangers to finish. The fastest of us was another American boy who ran it in 19 minutes, and the slowest were the Latinas (including Valeria) who danced the whole marathon haha! It was really quite a great experience!! After the marathon we all got together to watch/cheer on the half marathon runners and pass them water. We ended up getting yelled at like 50 times cause we kept on inching closer and closer to the road when we passed water, so we gave up and went back into the city. The walk there was so fun cause the girls from Florida were playing so many 2000's American songs from my speaker and we were dancing and singing along to them. In the square we got to eat Kebab or pizza if we wanted so me and Joaquin split a huge kebab plate. Afterwards, we went inside the beautiful town cathedral. I fell in love with this city so much! After the free time, we went to lunch at a restaurant. I felt so stupid for buying kebab before cause I didn't realize we were having another lunch. All of us exchange students sat alone in an isolated section and the waiter didn't speak English so he had me go to the tables with him and translate from Slovak to English for him haha! I felt bad cause I really couldn't eat much, I was so full. From lunch, we went to get our stuff then head to the train station. It was so sad to say goodbye to the Rotex and exchange students who weren't on our train. On the train was once again about 20 of us among 2 or 3 train cabins. The first two hours were so fun all together, but eventually the further we got, the more people left the train and we all got so tired. Somewhere during the two hours, we all got bored enough to go to the bathroom and shave a line off all of our eyebrows (I know we're all stupid haha) But it actually looked really cool and we all did it together! After Zilina, every exchange student had gotten off except for me, Valeria and the Bratislava kids. We had about 1.5 hours left but the train got SO FULL we couldn't sit together. In the cabin of the Bratislava kids, two gypsy women took their seats and wouldn't get up. We were translating to Slovak that it was our seats and we had the tickets to prove it, yet it took about 20 minutes and the help of other Slovak people to get them out of our seats. Then, in my cabin with Valeria and one other girl going to Bratislava, some Slovak woman very very rudely yelled at us in Slovak to stop talking, even though we were being so quite. We had all had enough of it, and decided just to squeeze in the isles with each other until it was time to go. Saying the final goodbye was sad cause it meant the weekend was truly over. I had such an amazing time and I really hope I can return to Kosice.
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AuthorNick Bilotti Archives
March 2019
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