#2- Podunajske Biskupice?

So it’s about 1:30 in the morning. I’ve always been a night person so this is the best time for me to sit down and focus so I can try to inform everyone what’s been happening. There’s so much. So let’s see, where should I start?

Well like I said last time, me and Deni are living in a place called Podunajske Biskupice. That’s pronounced Po doon eye skay Bees koo peet say. We’re currently renting a small flat (what they call an apartment), in a Panelak (apartment building), from a woman who actually used to be Deni’s German teacher years ago. She recently refurbished the flat with new paint, floors, etc., before we moved in, so it’s pretty nice. We live in what they call a 2 room flat, which really means 1 bedroom. When you walk in the door, there is a small room for jackets and shoes. To the left is the bathroom and to the right is a small walk in closet. If you continue forward you walk into our bedroom. It’s kind of weird because if you want to go to the kitchen you have to walk into our bedroom first. Once in our bedroom, the kitchen/living room, is on the left. It is typical in Slovak flats to have a door for every room in the house. For example, to go into the kitchen/living room, you actually have to go through the door. I was surprised to find out that most Slovak people don’t use dryers to dry their clothes. It’s not that people can’t afford them, but it’s just not in their culture for some reason. In the electronic stores they sell a million different washing machines but only about 2 or 3 different dryers. Also, the dryers that I saw were combination washer/dryers. You can see what a typical panelak looks like over on our side of town above.

There are a lot of different options for the internet and TV. For the first couple of weeks we were just trying to find out the prices and options and which company we wanted to go with. We ended up getting high speed from T-com which is the same company as T-Mobile. Since we could get all the English channels on cable tv, we decided not to get digital cable or fibernet. The rest of the channels come in German, Hungarian, and Czech, which I don’t watch. All the Slovak channels come free for everybody. We get CNN, BBC, MTV, and VH1 in English, although these channels are the European versions. I enjoy MTV much more because they actually show music videos. What do you know! There is also another music video channel that I watch often. It’s an all request channel where people text in the music videos they want to see. The music is much more diverse on that channel I would say. Just the other day I saw an electronic dance song from Cyndi Lauper! You will find Deni in front of the TV every week night watching her favorite Slovak TV show, "Panelak".

So what I am driving these days? Me and Deni decided back in April to purchase a Mercedes Smart. They’ve only recently started selling in America but they’ve been in Europe for quite some time now. The two of us came across one with automatic transmission and we just couldn’t pass it up. We appropriately named her Smartie. Although we are mostly driving Smartie around from place to place, Deni still has her Seat Ibiza. We use that car when we need to carry bigger things. Smartie is only good for holding a few bags. I love cruising around in it. Plus, we save gas and we’re able to find parking spaces a lot easier. Speaking of parking spaces, cars here are allowed to park their wheels on the sidewalk. It’s actually completely necessary. If the cars aren’t halfway on the sidewalk, there isn’t enough room on the streets for cars to drive. Where Deni’s work office is, there is a small place between a street sign and a tree. That’s where you will see us parking. We put the entire Smartie on the sidewalk right in between. We’ve managed to find other parking spaces similar to that when there was nowhere else to park. It’s great!

Well it's late and I have to hit the sack. I'm still not caught up to the present time. To be continued............