Saturday, August 25.
Today I went to my first ever wedding! Valerias second host sister was getting married and invited me and Valeria to the wedding cause it was a super traditional one. We first went to the house of the bride to eat Gulaš and pastries. Everyone was wearing the traditional kroj (costume) and it was so beautiful. They started with some tradition of the groom arriving at the house and asking for the bride. Instead of the bride, he got a gypsy with a child, and the second time, a men dressed as a woman. Once the bride finally came, we all drove to the village church for the ceremony. It was all in Slovak so I couldn't understand much, but the singing and decorations were beautiful. After, we took a bus to an event center to eat dinner and listen to some speeches. The order of eating food and drinking certain alcohol was very specific at the wedding, but everyone at my table spoke English and was sooo friendly to me and Valeria. First we had a chicken soup, followed by stuffed chicken and potatoes, followed by dessert pastries. For alcohol, guests first drank champagne, then the traditional "slivovica" (from plums) and also "jablkovica" (from apples). After this, they had an open bar for beer or other alcohols. The dancing was a mix of very traditional songs/dances, and also normal folk music with typical slower dancing. Me and Valeria didn't know any of the Slovak dances and kinda did our own American/latino dances. We met two very nice girls (who go to my school) and they stayed with us the entire night teaching us about the wedding. A few random traditions took places and a traditional buffet opened with very Slovak food, but the biggest event took place at 12am, when the bride is "officially married". About 20 teenage girls in their traditional outfits came in with candles singer a very Slavic folk song in a line. They continued to sing while two of the girls change the brides hair from down to up, to symbolize the marriage. After this was about 40 minutes of circle dancing around the bride and her chance to dance individually with every single boy there (including me! haha). Around 1am, my host parents came to pick me and Valeria up and bring us home! It was a long and great day! Sunday, August 26. Today we had a huge family party to celebrate the birthday of my host brother, host father and host sister! Family came from all the nearby villages and I got to meet them all. They were all so sweat and brought me chocolate. My parents cooked more traditional foods and desserts and I made brownies and decorated it with an American flag (sorry for being extra.) My host cousins were all mostly under 4 years old, so there was lots of energy and screaming haha. Before sleep, after showering I went to the bathroom and noticed I was peeing blood. I got kinda freaked out, but told myself not to worry. Anyway, at 1am, I woke up with extreme pain in my right abdomen, (from a kidney stone.) I'd had this happened twice before in my life and it's easily the most painful thing I could experience. I texted in my whatsapp group of exchange students in CZE/SLO and they all told me to wake up my host parents. My host parents called my second host mom who's a surgeon, and she said to bring me to the hospital. The hospital was interesting looking at first. It looked exactly how I'd imagine a former communist hospital to look. At this point I was trembling a lot, so they knew immediately it was for sure a kidney issue. They took my urine and my blood and did tests. They gave me a strong painkiller, and eventually my kidney stone stopped moving and I felt no more pain. From their blood tests they found nothing inherently wrong with my kidney, but the stone did cause the blood in my urine, and a UTI. They put me on anti-biotics and told me to come back immediately if/when the kidney stone moves again, so they can see it on the ultra sound. It was honestly a terrible time, but my host parents were so nice and understanding and didn't make me feel bad at all even though we got home at 3am. Monday, August 27 Today my Rotary club hosted at a zipline climbing park in Brezina for an orphanage. There were about 50 kids there to climb and have fun. I went with my host sister and met Valeria and her host sister there. We climbed for about an hour then got to eat homemade gulaš and s'mores!!! Smores typically are not known about in Slovakia but I was teaching everyone how to make them! We played games with the orphans for a few more hours and then went home!
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AuthorNick Bilotti Archives
March 2019
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