2nd week

You will have to excuse my typing - I see I made a number of typos in my first post.  I have my Netbook and the keyboard is so small.

I will fill you in on the rest of last week.  In addition to language and history class we are taking some side trips.  On Tuesday we went to the Presov Museum of Rusyn Culture.  I have been there before, but they change their displays.  The current display is on folk dress - got some nice pictures of folk dress.  I will try to post pictures - but not sure exactly how to yet.

Wednesday we had a Rusyn folk song workshop.  Someone came with their guitar and accordian and we sang along.  I was not familar with many of the songs.  We did get a handout.  The Workshop was by Marek Gaj.  He teaches folk songs to the students in the schools.

Thursday we went to the Rusyn Language class at the elementary school in Cabiny.  The children were 7,8 and 9.  They did a little program and then ran through some of the classroom exercises they do.  I video taped some of this so hope to show it to those interested.

At noon on Friday  I left with a couple others to attend the World Congress of Rusyns in a town outside of Budapest.  I will address this in a separate post.  The rest of the students went to Stara Lubovna Castle and Skanzen (open air museum) and on a raft trip on the Dunajec River.  This is the third time I have missed the raft trip.

Got back from Budapest (we drove) late on Saturday night - so just stayed one night.  I went to the Orthodox Church on Sunday  Those who went to the Greek Catholic Church were there for three hours - they ordained 6 priests!  They said the male choir was great - so sorry I missed that - but not the three hours!

The weather was great until Sunday when it began to rain off and on.  Sunday afternoon we visited three wooden churches that are on the UNESCO World Heritage list which meeans they are protected historical sites.  All three are currently being used as Greek Catholic Churches. The three churches were Nizny Komarnik, Mirola and Ladomirova.  I not sure which one it was - I think Mirola which had some very interesting icons which included depictions of Rusyns in their folk dress.  For example, the Nativity icon had three men in dress in their traditional folk dress venerating the Christ child instead of the Three kings.

Now for washing clothess - The washer and dryers take about an hour each! so I was lazy today and mixed a couple of white shirts with a pair of dark blue pants.  I now have a few more blue shirts and socks -- I should have known better.  It is ok cause it is kind of a pretty blue.

Karen