Hotel Sandor Pavillon Piestany

... some of the countryside. Trenchin itself is only a small place but quite peaceful and the castle again rests above the city. After having a walk around the castle we headed back to the train station to catch the train. I didnt bring that many warm clothes with me basically because I dont have any from working in Africa so the ones I was wearing were getting well used all the time.

... ceiling fan above a really noisy street. It's not like the heavens came down and touched me or anything but a light besides the one shining right in my eyes from the street came on in my head and I realized finally what it was about Madrid that had let me down along with those American college girls and my new German friends. It's my own tale of two cities--Paris vs. Madrid. You see, walking around Paris is a cultural feast for the eyes. The beautiful ...

... bus to Kralovy. Some classic street urchins... They boiserously ran through the crowd at the bus station where one of them (maybe 12 years old) managed to bot a cigarette and a light from someone waiting for a bus. The audacity of it all no doubt gets him as many cigarettes as he wants. They then swarmed all over an old locomotive at the nearby railway station. Back at the Esperanto school it ...

... Ak by ste vsak chceli viacej vzruchu pridite sem v case konania sa filmoveho festivalu a uvidite davy ako sa patri. Takze horsa do prace! Zajtra budeme spoznavat krasy polnohospodarstva. Po 2600 km okolo Slovenska to bude ina forma relaxu. Bol to super vylet!

... as well, but the music made it pretty well impossible to talk to anyone so I didn't hang around for long. In general everyone probably found their own niche at the congress centre. Besides Lorenzo's group on the steps outside and my group by the bar, there was usually this group gathered around the games' table... but they'd often have the guitar players amongst them too. Finally a pic of a pretty young Slovak girl. Very bubbly, very ...

... is only one Chinese language and all regional variations are only dialects, they probably believe that this helps to unify the country. The trouble is that they always argue so strongly but don't really know what they're talking about. I bet they have no trouble calling Swedish and Norwegian two different languages... Yet they are almost mutually comprehensible but Cantonese and Mandarin are far from being so. On the basis of that their argument is ...

... you get to hear someone that plays with such swing and isn't some sort of professional or semi-professional. I dragged the French woman in from outside so that she could join in a rendition of La Mer with Micha supplying some great accompaniment. While I'm normally up at the restaurant at night, Lorenzo, an Italian Esperantist seems to have made his Lorenzejo a permanent feature of the congress. He dubbed it the Lorenzejo, a reference ...

... I like. It's great to be able to ask questions and get authoratitive answers... though my first question failed to get an authoratitive answer... wonder whether I can get a partial refund? The teacher is a rather well-known expert on Esperanto grammar, Bertilo Wennergren (member of the academy) and has written a book which is accepted as being among the books to refer to in case of any ...

... table service. It looks like being my new home away from home. Now my only problem is that the hotel near the convention centre is full till Monday and my hotel in town only has room for me for two days. I'l have to search around tomorrow for some more suitable digs. Everyone else is probably staying in the convention centre or in student accommodation nearby, but as is my usual custom, I like to find a nearby hotel - and at these prices, why not?!

... over Trencin. Walked back down to the train station and caught the 2.50pm train back to Bratislava. Arrived back at the main train station in Bratislava at about 4pm and caught the tram back down to Obchodna then walked back to the hotel. Went out for dinner at 6pm and ate at Slang Pub on the main square before walking to Tesco for more supplies then back to the hotel for the night.