So far...

Wow, it took me about thirty seconds of staring at the blinking cursor to remember how to speak English. I just have a few minutes before we leave to go to the disco (!), so here come my experiences so far in easy-to-swallow morsels. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the bullet points!

• My first day, Barbora (my host sister) and Ivena (her friend) took me shopping at Europa shopping center (pronounced "eh-oo-ro-pah"). We stopped for blended drinks, non-alchoholic, of course, and headed down to the city center, which was awesome and old and stuff. We met up with Peter, who will be my host brother in my third host family. He spent a year in Nebraska, so he speaks flawless English. We all walked down to the holocaust museum, stayed there about two minutes, then went and got ice cream. I had grapefruit flavor, which was fantastic.
• The next day, Brano (my host father) took me to all the places to get my visa and stuff, which was sort of a hassle, but okay. We ran into another rotary kid, Haley, and her host mom at the police station. Haley does not speak a word of slovak. Literally. She didn't even seem to be trying to make herself understood. I myself have eschewed every part of my English grammar and most of my vocabulary in an attempt to communicate, and it seems to be working pretty well. Anyway, that night, we went to a kid's birthday party, which was at Donovaly. There was a folk band that played all these slovak folk tunes, which was really spiffy. There was a baby boy that belonged to one of the women at the party (which, for some reason, had no other children present). A middle-aged woman introduced him to me as her "son in law", but somehow I thought she was mistaken.
• Today, Ivetka (my host mother), Barbora and I went to the mall to find some luggage for Barbora's trip to America. This afternoon, Barbora, Ivena, several random men, and I piled into a car to go to a football game. Not soccer, mind, football. I am so in Europe. Our team won, and I discovered one of my new favorite drinks: Kofola. They explained it as "Slovak Cola", but it has this licoricey sort of bite to it. Fantastic. After the game, we rode back in the bus with the team, who all flirted with me, despite the prodigious language barrier. Barbora translated what she could, but it was still hilarious. We went to what I think was a sort of post-game barbecue, except with goulash instead of hot dogs. Then we went home and watched Top Gun in Czech. Which made me laugh.

Also worthy of note:

• Almost everyone smokes almost everywhere.
• Driving is dangerous.
• Seat belts are optional.