SLOVAKIA, here we come!
natushkova- Jan 10, 2023
- 3 min read
(2 - 8 January)
Remember how I said that establishing new habits is hard? It especially is difficult when you can’t stay in one place! I got two days to prepare for my little trip and finish some things that I couldn’t do during Christmas.
Our duck Filipa was also naughty the day before I was leaving. She jumped on the cover of their fence and apparently was enjoying the sunshine and the view.
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Then, as the ducks were still scared of us, she flew over the stream. I knew that she wanted to come back to her home and be with Pedro again, but it took her thirty minutes of deciding. After that time, I lost my patience and let her be. Luckily, our dogs, John and Kuku, were sleeping and not interested in the duck.
It must have taken her two or three hours when she finally flew back. I opened the gate for her but instead of getting her inside, Pedro went outside to meet her. The dogs, on the other side of the barricade (the stream) started paying attention to them as well. John was particularly excited. The ducks didn’t wanna fly to the other side but at the same time, they didn’t let me get closer and almost fell in the river. But this story had a happy end and those little birds got inside eventually, although they needed some push.
The next day, I was travelling to Hungary and the next day I’ll head north to Slovakia to see my grandma. We used to meet every Christmas but this year, I decided to visit her a little bit later.
My grandma lives in the Eastern part of Slovakia so I usually fly to Budapest or Vienna and then go by train or bus. I didn’t travel immediately to her place after landing, as it was 2 o’clock after midnight, but rather slept in a hotel. It felt really nice to have breakfast comfortably. You don’t get such a luxury on the land.
Hungary is one of my favourite countries. It was the first place I went on a solo trip and although it is not particularly far away from Czechia, it taught me a lot, especially how to travel alone, meaning that you need to be with yourself and your thoughts all the time. Of course, you meet people along the way, but back then, I was still learning.
Although I’ve been there more times, most importantly I went there about six years ago, backpacking with my mum for our very last trip together. Everytime I see the pictures from the trip, a wave of nostalgia hits me hard.
Laon, on the other hand, stayed in Portugal. He started clearing one little missing part of the land that wasn’t not cleared by a tractor, as well as planting the remaining trees and shrubs. He also did some cleaning work, because our wonderful dogs were messing with our things in the first months so it will take us a bit more time to get the place pretty. But it might be hard to teach the dogs to leave things alone if they prefer playing with random plastics instead of toys.
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Right now, I'm staying with my grandma, enjoying the super warm weather (how come that it's so hot here?), although rainy and cloudy. It actually doesn't matter that much, because we stay inside... and I'm also enjoying the luxury of having electricty, a bed where I can stretch, kitchen... and so much more that we lack on the land.
How have your first days in 2023 been?
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