Aracade Hotel Banska Bystrica

Parallel Workgroups Sessions 9:00 Parallel Workgroups Sessions Career Development WG Mobility WG Survey WG (chaired by Max Reinhardt) Funding WG Plenary Session 2 11:30 Election of the Board 13:30 Lunch 14:30 Outcomes of the workgroups sessions ...

... the dramatic mountains seemed to get bigger and bigger. I can honestly say they are almost on par with the Canadian rockies and I fell in love with them immediately. Thoughts of spending a winter at a Slovakian ski resort buzzed through my head which were halted when I almost ran off the road. Pretty and beautiful, yes. Distractingly dangerous, ditto. As we drove south away from the mountains we drove through numerous rather unsightly towns. We finally chose a small ...

... clothes stores, and when buying train or bus tickets. ° When not to be a tight-****: There are some occasions when money should not be your guide, even for the tightest of backpackers. In our opinion, this includes the following: - tipping for good service (in countries where tips are normal, the lack of a tip is a disincentive for future good service as much as a tip is an incentive), - medical treatment, - must-see attractions.

... dances singing and a chair lifting thing. Us lads followed this with the haka which went down pretty well although latter studies of video footage showed a few funnies. So its after midnight and the next event of the evening is another meal including a pig on the spit amazing! then as there was still 4 hours of partying to go there was more plum brandy and dancing untill at 5 am when we crashed into our beds.

... coffee stops, and currency exchange which were patiently accepted by Jurek, we were off coasting through rural Poland towards the Slovakia border. The sky was draped with a thick blanket of clouds that stirred and churned above us as we ate crepes filled with cheese and chocolate made by Adam the night before. The time melted away effortlessly and before we knew it we were at the border having our passports checked. The guard of course gave me a hard time with mine as I had ...

... front seat, his huge, round, tough-leather head hunched towards the wheel wearing thick glasses and a tooth-missing smile so witlessly content it ought've pushed me out of the vehicle. He was smart, though. Darkness fell. The quiet road wound up and over and beside green, wavy plateaux with night pine trees and - somewhere - an endemic species of flower. Julius' open bed carried supplies for his stone-carving company ...

... jumping in a hideously expensive taxi (twice the price of my train tickets thus far today) only to find he had (quite sensibly) left. So, 12 hours after leaving Budapest, not more than 100km away, I ended up in the middle of small town Slovakia on a cold night with no idea where I might find a place to sleep, and very few signs of life. I walked around in mild panic for a while and popped into a couple of bars in the hopes of finding someone that spoke english, or could ...

... to get them a tour to Canada. I didn't think that was really appropriate. My only other regret about the night was that I didn't get a group photo of everyone together. People started to drift out at around 2-2:30am. My parents stayed till 3am, which was a big achievement for them and something they hadn't done for "about 20 years", according to my dad. The hard-core party people stuck around though. I started doing some brandy shots at about 3:30 or 4am, on Leon's request. Up ...

... week. June 26 (Sunday), Krivan With the excess energy that a home-made Slovak breakfast provides, I decided to go for a jog around the village. Krivan is not exactly like the European villages of storybook fame, nestled in a valley with cobblestone streets, thatched-roof cottages and jolly shopkeepers peddling their wares. It is nice though. It is divided fairly evenly in two by the intercity highway and railway tracks, with the 'old' part ...

Banska Bystrica -> Bojnice -> Bratislava -> Senec -> Tunava -> Duthonka (16th to 20th August) English is sometimes handy to have when travelling - after arriving in Banska Bystrica (Bahn-skah Bis-TREE-tsah) we went to check out accommodation in a college dorm but unbeknown to us it was not very good. However, whilst the lady from the desk was checking out the room situation, Chrissy and I were noting/laughing at ...