We made it safely to Vienna and are now just outside Bratislava in a district called Svaty Jur. Although we didn´t realize how helpful it would be, the small amount of Slovak that we learned this summer has definitely come in handy so far.
This first week is orientation, which means a few hours in the morning of instruction on how to approach the teaching aspect of our time here, an hour and a half of Slovak language instruction, excursions into Bratislava, and a few other activities. Everyone here has been very welcoming, and we definitely feel the strong network of support that we will have this year. The woman who did the methods instruction this morning was really good. She is definitely ´old school´, which is really cool. The Slovak education system is very much that way, too. It will be interesting to see how Communism has influenced the way education is approached here.
The internet cafe where we are now is a couple of blocks from the retreat center, so we will be back from time to time this week. Once we can connect with our computer, we will be able to post pictures.