The Cherry Tree

I've been waiting for this day for weeks now, the day that that the trees turned pink. The white cherry blossoms started weeks ago, and from a distance they remind me of snow covered bushes and the winter that is gone. The pink blossoms, though, have held out until now. They started as brown buds. A wind came last week and blew hundreds of them down to the ground and you could tell for the first time that were indeed starting to bloom, but from afar they still looked brown. Today they are pink. They cover the sidewalks like a festive umbrella. They float to the ground and cover the newly tarred sidewalks. They make Trencin beautiful.

The Horse and Buggy Show

It's easy to forget you're living in a foreign country, until you try to talk that is. Besides that, though, Trencin is a very up and coming hip town. There are two movie theaters that show films from all over the world,(including US), which are subtitles in Slovak or Czech. There are trendy little coffee shops everywhere, with retro furniture and cool jazz. There are even two universities, live theater, weekly concerts and art galleries.

Today, though, I rode my bicycle to the next village, which only took about 20 minutes on side streets. Once there, a horse and buggy, (okay, it was a cart), clomped down main street and all the buses had to swerve around them, as they didn't even slow down. Old men rode their bicycles, as did the women, with their children on the handle bars. The only cars I saw were those passing through. What was left of the pavement had been patched over a hundred times, never successfully, and a dirt road would have been smoother. But this was a big village. After all, there was a train station and two bus stops.

So it's easy to forget, but not hard to get a reminder, either.

Spring!

Spring is here! After going to Budapest and Croatia for two weeks over spring break, I came home to warm sunny skies and a town free of snow. It was all gone, even in the hills surrounding the castle. Left in its wake, though, is two months of garbage that was carelessly thrown aside. Now it lives under the bushes and besides the road.

With the warm weather also comes the outdoor tables. Some of the cafes and kava shops have already started serving outdoors in the town’s two squares and in the small pubs in the residential districts. People are flowing in the streets. Hibernation is over.

Riding my bike along the Vah River was like a slalom course, as you have to dodge in-line skaters, families with baby carriages, people walking dogs, more bikers and walkers. I didn't know so many people lived in Trencin. They have not been out in these numbers since I've been here.

The trees have buds that are just breaking. The birds start singing in the early morning and continue until eight at night. Students have returned and classes are in full swing. It’s hard to believe that in nine weeks it will all be over.