After camp dance we ate breakfast of what they call 'Christmas Bread.' I equated it to a rolled bread with some kinda seed rolled into it. My explanation doesn't do it justice cause it was gooooood! With my breakfast I had some instant coffee, we were out of the regular stuff. It was Slovak instant coffee and it was wonderful! I wouldn't have guessed it to be instant had I not made it myself. Of course I added two marshmallows to the mix!
After breakfast we had to pack [insert tears here] and take all our luggage down to the main hall before saying our good byes. We sat in a circle and said our thank you's to the everyone. It was amazing to hear other people making the same comments that I had been thinking. We all seemed to love our roommates, had a blast playing games, loved making the videos, and were going to miss everyone at camp because everyone now feels like family!
Then... we had to pack up the camp. For the next hour or so we cleaned, packed, and made sure we got everything. Next came lunch... soup, veggies, and potatoes. It was great getting to have a meal with everyone again. And we laughed about how it was so different at this lunch than on the first one on Sunday! Everyone was so talkative!!
After lunch we did the final, final, final camp dance before taking a ton of pictures with all the students. Everyone was giving out email addresses and letting people know who was on Facebook and how we could stay in contact in between taking massive amounts of pictures. There were some tears in here as we were having to say good-bye.
Then the van pulled up. And the students were all whisked away. A little while later the van was brought back up and all the band equipment and other electronic equipment was packed up, along with a few guys, and taken into town to be put away. The rest of us waited outside for them to return. It was a long wait (more than an hour) however it was a beautiful, sunny day so we didn't mind waiting all so much.
And then new families started showing up. It looked like a family reunion was the next big event at the cabin. It was fun and interesting to watch them arrive, hug, and chat in a language I couldn't understand. This occasion, as well as many other times in the past week, I was thankful for a God so big that no language stops him from changing lives.
Eventually our van arrived back, we packed up our stuff and ourselves this time, and we headed into the town of Zelena. Because of the large number of leaders we couldn't all fit in one van so Garrett, Ashley, Kristen and I rode in Jay's car. We started our time in Zelena at Carrafoure, the local mall (for those of you keeping track its the same place we went to on Sunday). We acted like 12 year olds... we used all our spending money on junk food and gelato and after about an hour we had to wait outside to be picked up! Hehe! But we had the greatest time hanging out!!!
After the mall, we headed down to the city center to be tourists. Jay thought it was hilarious that we were so excited to tour this small city. I would equate it to someone being super excited to tour Bay City, Michigan... except it's way cooler (in my humble opinion). There are two parts to the city center of Zelena... the upper and lower. Of course we walked around and took tons of pictures (as I recall, were were called 'Japanese tourists' by our friend Jay). In the center of the city there is a huge square. If you stand in the middle of the square and clap it would echo. We giggled and had a ton of fun there before making our way to our dinner.
The American and Slovak leaders met at a wonderful Slovak pub and we ate authentic Slovak food... yummy!! Ashley, Kristen and I each got a different dinner and we split it between each other. Since I was off my vegan diet I decided to really have fun and made sure to order a dish with bacon in it! Amazing!! It was dumplings with cabbage and bacon. It was mixed together in a spicy red sauce... no clue what it was but I really enjoyed it!! While there the leaders then said their thank you's to each other and once again it was how much we loved each other.
The thank you's were followed by good-byes. Once again, they were not easy but had to be done. The American's then went to Andrej & Beckah's apartment to get boxes from them to take back to the States. While there Beckah showed us a huge box of clothes and books that she was trying to get rid of so I got a few new clothing items!! And I love them!! Once we were all packed up we headed out to Vienna and after a few stops at gas stations for more junk food we made it to our hotel at 1am and made it to bed around 2am.
Once again another long but super eventful day that I am so glad I was blessed to be a part of!!
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