My Video of Istanbul

Click The HQ Button then Full Screen

I have had this video for some time on youtube but I forgot to post it here, so sorry for the delay but enjoy.

So Now I Understand

That the things (people, places, events, vsetko (everything) ) that has happened to me over the last few months that I did not understand, have and will continue to be the creation of my brain. And that all I need to do is be patient as my universe aligns to my wishes. (Are you still waiting for wish to come true? Are you focused on the right part of the wish? - Only the good and nothing else.)

Don't believe me, to bad it is easy to do once you understand the secret. And now that I have seen in action for myself the power that I have within me to not only change but to create my universe I have no reason to ever to return to the past. I now know that what I have felt and known for all these years is in fact the end product of those thoughts and feelings and now that I have greater control over it I will focus even more on those few things I want in my life and not think about anything else. I control what I control and nothing more.

Remember - good things happen to me because I want good things to happen to me, bad things do not happen to me because I don't want bad things to happen to me. It is as simple as that. Start that way, it is how I started and it made all the difference.

HOPA, Name-day and Other Things

HOPA = Horsky park student housing and one of the best places to party in Bratislava.

Name-day = A European tradition, like a birthday for your name.

Other Things = Kremnica

So yesterday, June 24th was my name-day in Slovakia. It is not Sean but John and since Sean is Irish for John it is the same. I spent my evening with a few friends who have just graduated from University (congratulations Vlado, Hopik and Katarina) so it was time to party in HOPA. (Then again it is always time to party in HOPA.) I was there until about 3am and had a great time. I got to meet and speak with a ton of new people. And it is always fun to watch Vlado get drunk and grab girls asses all night.

I know this comes as a big shock to most of you but I will go to Kremnica this weekend. I am not sure if the weather is going to be good but that really doesn't matter in Kremnica, what matters is the people I get to hang out with. I think we will have a full cottage this weekend which I love because I get to make chicken fajitas for people who have not had them yet. For me I have no plans other than just chillin' and sleeping. I have had a cold for about 3 weeks now and would really like it to go away.

That's all I have for you now. Have a great weekend everyone and thanks for stopping by.

Photos from Myjava

My friend Ara took some photos this weekend as I was not in the mood for taking any. (The weather had a big effect on this.)

So here is the link to the photos.

It was a Folklore Dance Festival that was a lot of fun inspite of the rain. The tent I got from Tesco for 8 euros held up well in the heavy rain, as long as I did not touch the sides of the tent I stayed dry. It was also great to meet somemany new great people this weekend. I have to thank my friend Martina for everything and everyone she has introduced me to in Slovakia, without her and Joey in my life I am not sure if I would have stayed here long enough to find out this is where I want to spend my life. Dakujem Mata.

I will be in Kremnica again this weekend and every weekend I can this summer. I will keep everyone updated on the progress of the cottage.

Other things that are going on, I have a visit from my friend Turkish friends, Zeynep in July and Irem in August. I am looking forward to showing them not only Slovakia but Vienna, Budapest and Prague.

I will return to the USA in September with my friends Joey and Martina for a 2 week stay. I plan on taking them to Virgina, Washington DC, Camp, NY City and the Beach House in New Jersey. It should be a great visit.

Ok that is enough for now I have other things to take care of. :)

Later dudes....

Lessons Learned UPDATED

I had been struggling all day with an issue I just could not figure out. Why the Universe presented me Thursday with what seemed at the time, a view into a dream I have been wanting to turn into reality, only to show me on Saturday (very, very clearly, which is what make it suck so much) that it was in fact taking it away from me. This sucks, plain and simple, the question is why? But it is not for me to question, I must accept that this is all out of my control and the Universe will do what it wants with me, whether I want it to or not. The lesson learned is I only let this bother me for 16 hours (this is a big improvement for me) before understanding that I have no idea what will happen next because of it, but if the past is an indicator, it is going to be worth the cost I payed today.

Live and Learn my friends.

UPDATE: So a few of you have asked me for more infomation about what I am talking about. The simple answer is no, I will not tell you. I sometimes write things here that are for me and me only and I use them as reminders to myself. When I post anything there is so much I don't post because of many different reasons, somethings I have to change because I know who reads this stuff, sometimes I tone things down as not to apear completely crazy, sometimes I am afriad I will shock someone so you get what you get and nothing more. Sorry but my reality, my rules. (some of you have guessed correctly (my mom knew but she is my mom and knows me as well as I know myself) but it is not about the cottage, that will happen.)

Life is Good

So another weekend in Kremnica. I can’t even begin to tell you how good I feel when I am here. While I will miss Camp this summer, Kremnica is the best analog I can find and will enjoy spending my summer rebuilding my cabin. (No, I have not bought it yet but I am in the process. I need to make sure I can get my papers before pulling the trigger but it will happen. And yes it will happen because I want it to. Have you not figured that out yet?) I have been here almost as much as I have been in Bratislava this month. This week I came back on Tuesday with Joey and we had a great night hanging out and talking. I am amazed at the improvement of his English over the last 6 months. We were able to talk about much more complex issues then in the past. They are slow conversations but still good. I need to keep reminding him to slow do because his brain gets so far ahead of his mouth sometimes. His English will progress at a much faster rate then my Slovak but I am learning. My vocabulary has not improved but my pronunciation and a reading are becoming much better. I tell my students the best way for them to speak a new language is to master the pronunciation first. If the other person knows exactly the words you are trying to say, they are then able to put them into the correct order and tense for you. But if you mess up the pronunciation it changes the meaning and you never what might happen. Like if you went to a restaurant and asked the waiter for a fork and mispronounce “fork”. (Fun for the waiter.) So I am now working more on my pronunciation then new vocabulary. I did get a great dictionary a few weeks ago that has been my main lesson book lately. It is a Slovak dictionary with big pictures, it’s for little kids and it is the best book I have found. It has both English and Slovak sentences about each picture which is helping me learn a little about sentence structure in Slovak. Unlike English word placement is not nearly as important in Slovak, which is another lesson I keep drilling into my students heads. If you misplace a word in english it can change the whole meaning of a sentence and can cause confusion.

SIDEBAR

I am currently in a cabin with no electricity and no internet but still able to write this. Thanks to the nice people at Asus and Apple computers for making great laptops. The Asus 1000HE was the best purchase I made in the last year. I get over 9 hours of battery life out of it. (even more if I only use it for music) And my Apple is good for at least 4.5 hours. Having the ability to run into town for a meal at the Modrý Cúckor (the Blue Cat) and get an hour of power and internet and BOOM I am back in business for at least a 50% battery charge is a nice luxury and a chance to have a good pizza or the best Minestrone soup I have ever had. (Currently enjoying a slice of leftover pizza from lunch today.) (Now I am in the Modrý Kocúr ordering dinner, the slice was good and I wanted soup only to find out they don’t have Minestrone soup tonight, which sucks, so I am going with a salad, I will let you know how it is.)

So my plans so far for the summer will be to get everything settled with the purchase of the cottage and start to do the renovations needed. As I said before it has running water but no electricity. I will add the second floor and raise and change the roof line. I will have drawings in the next few weeks, if my friend John has the time to draw them up for me. The question is where I put a balcony but right the south facing wall makes the most sense. I am also toying with the idea of rigging some kind of swing that will allow me to hang about 30 feet in the air hanging out like a bird in a tree with a great view to look at. (Mom, I will make safe, remember safety is no accident.) (By the way, my salad came and it is very good.) The cabin has a toilet already but I might change it. There is a space for a shower but I am not sure about my septic system size so I might go with an outside shower. And if any of you have had the wonderful experience of the outside shower you know what I am talking about. But this presents issues in the winter for me as I plan on being able to use the cottage year round. The other thing I will need is a small kitchen but that should be easy to put together (think Ikea) with a small fridge and oven and small area for a sink and work area. I will have a better idea of what I want to do once I get inside and see what exactly is already there and what I need to change.

So what are my other plans? My Turkish friend Zeynep will come to Bratislava sometime in late July for a visit. I would like to meet with my friends in Amsterdam at some point but I think I will wait until late September for that trip. I am going back to America in early September and will stay for a few weeks. My friends Joey and Martina are looking into coming with me, which would be super as I want to show them NYC, DC and the Beach House. I am starting to plan the Half Way to St. Patrick’s Day party we like to have every few years with my S.P.D. gang. Other plans include a 3 day music festival “Pohoda” in Slovakia, I will go with a bunch of people and am really looking forward to it. Next year we want to get a vendors license and sell chicken fajitas from a trailer. There is no Mexican food here and it is cheap and easy to make, I smell a big opportunity :) .

So that brings you somewhat up to date, there are other things and people I want to write about but I have yet to get the muse to get those together into cohesive thoughts worth writing yet. You will get them as soon as I do. It is not up to me.

Think Positive, Be Positive.

I Am Dropping Off the Grid For a Few Days

I will be back in Kremnica for the weekend. I will be speaking with the cottage owner and the head of the local cotage association this weekend. But I will also be studying my Slovak, as I am starting to make some progress I want to continue it. I hope everyone has a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.

The Cabin

So here are some photos of the cottage I am looking to buy.

It is about 15.5 ft by 15.5 ft with a basement and I will add a "A" frame roof with a 3 foot knee wall for a second floor sleeping area thus giving me about 500 sq ft of living space, plus another 180 sq ft basement for storage.

This is looking directly East at the cabin

The front door is on the North wall but I might move it.

The back East wall

South side wall

The front terrace

Front Window

Looking West to my neighbors.

The side yard patio

The View

This is taken from the bottom of the property look back up towards the cottage which is hidden behind the trees.

Another Super Weekend in Kremnica

Wow, all I can say is wow. I had such a great time with everyone this weekend. Topics to be covered in this post are, Food, Friends, a Cottage, seeing Stars on a night full of clouds and rain and anything else I can come up with.

Friends:
While the weather was not perfect, we got lucky and Saturday turned out to be a great day. When we arrived on Friday night we spent most of the time putting things back into the cottage Joey had to remove to put down the new tile floor, which looks great and really makes a difference in the feeling of the place. I wanted to cook pasta for everyone but we were all to tired and it was about 10pm by the time we got everything put away so we could relax in comfort. On Saturday Martina, Joey and Zuzka (Joey's sister Susan) spent most of the day cleaning just about every inch of the cottage and putting everything into it proper place. It looks great now, they did so much work it was amazing.

SIDEBAR - I have not talked much about Zuzka before but the easy way to describe her is she is the female version of Joey (which is super), always has a smile on her face and is always willing to do whatever work is needed. I have started to call Joey "The OX" (vôl or býk) because the guy just keeps working non stop. You put the two of them together and they make an amazing team.

I did a little work but, I had other things to take care of. :) Sometimes it is better to stay out of the way then trying to help and only causing more confusion. (That's my story and I am sticking to it.) I did help Joey build a new table for the kitchen. The guy created a great table in about 40 minutes using some 2x2's and some plywood. All with only a hachet and chain saw and some big ass nails. The table came out great and Martina liked it so much she doesn't want it to be temporary like they had planned. At about 4pm we went into town to get a late lunch (or early dinner, your choice.) I had the best Minestrone soup I have ever had. The bowl was huge and I was not able to finish it all. After that we went to do what I had come to Kremnica for, to find myself a cottage to buy. The quick answer is, I found one. Now to tell you about it.

The Cottage:
I have been talking with Martina and Joey about wanting to find a cottage near them so we could be neighbours (susedia). While we had talked about it before we had never gone looking for a place. I have been thinking about it so much the last month, it has been my main focus of my energy to make it happen. (Those of you who don't understand that part about focusing my energy, here is the easy answer, think about what you want to happen in your life and it will happen, if you know how to focus that energy correctly. It has taken me 9 years learning how to do this and it is not something I can just write about and explain easily, sorry, but just try it yourself, you will figure it out, it works if you let it and you believe in it. No faith in it then it will not happen, faith in your energy is the one key to making things happen in your life. (Remember my mantra, Good things happen to me because I want good things to happen to me. Bad things don't happen to me because I don't want bad things to happen to me.) Back to the cottage.) So for the last month I have been thinking about not only what I would want in a cottage and also where I want it located. To me I needed small place, maybe 250 sq ft. (23 sq m) or so, something just a little bigger than my cabin at camp. I wanted something that was a in need of some repairs so I could make some changes I would want to and also to keep the cost down. I also wanted a place that had running water and electricity if possible but the water was the more important of the two for me. Electricity has not been run to any of the cottages near Joey so I knew that going in. They are trying to get electricity run to the area in September this year or April of next. I don't mind not having electricity but it does make life a little easier. The other things I wanted from a cottage are a good view and close to Joey and Martina. I have been behind Joey's cabin to pee and have seen the path up the hill from his place but never went up it and looked at was up there. I never felt like climbing up the steep hill the 20 feet to see. But when I would picture in my head what I was looking for, the location was the main thing I focused on. I keep thinking it would be great if I could get cottage further up the hill behind Joey's place. The best option was directly behind him so I would also have the forest to the right of my cottage without the chance of others building there in the future and a short 200 feet or so walk to his place. As it turns out the one and only place in Joey's area for sale now is exactly where and what I wanted and pictured in my head. (And yes I believe my energy made that happen. If you don't believe it, that is your issue, enjoy a life you let others control for you puppet.) It will need a new roof (my taxi driver John (yes I have a personal taxi driver, he is nice, his english is very good and he is always there when I need him.) has offered to also be my architect, as he is an engineer and likes to do this kind of work.) and some other minor repairs but the roof is not a problem as I plan on changing the roof line to add a sleeping loft to the cottage. It has running water, a nice bonus as it will allow me to provide water to Joey's cottage. I did not get a chance to look inside as it was locked but it is a 4m x 4m building with a basement of an unknown size. It is on about an acre of land and has about 6 terraces for planting gardens (I plan on planting Strawberries and Blueberries) on the hillside going towards Joey's place. The elevation change from the top of the property to the bottom is steep. Joey has spoken to the son of the woman selling the cottage and he wanted to make some improvements and wait for electricity to be run before really selling the place. So we have worked out a fair price for the place as is now. It is now just a matter of going back and meeting with him to have him show me everything that I was not able to see when we looked at it on Saturday. If I find no major problems I will begin the process of buying the place. I hope to be able to say by July First I will own a cottage in Kremnica. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Shit: (hovno) - I need to run out for a while so I can finish right now. (Sorry Mata, but I had to visit HOPA (HOPA=Horsky Park student housing aka Dorms.), you understand :) Vlado says hi and wants to put in a beer tap if I get the cottage. How was the movie?) I promised Martina I would have this done by the time she got home from the movie but as you see I had to unexpectedly (thanks Google for the correct spelling. Boze! (God)(And I teach English)) visit some friends tonight. Which turned out to be a great night. (Dakujem (Thank you) KK) I will deal with my love of parentheses at a later date. (But I do love them so. (Almost as much as HOPA, what can I say, I like hanging out with University Students, they have the most fun)) YBN (Why be Normal)

Food:
It was a good weekend for me and food. I cooked a late dinner on Saturday for Joey Martina and Zuzka. They had never had Chicken Fajitas before and Martina said it was the best chicken she had ever had. (Dakujem Mata :)) Joey and Zuzka also loved them as well. (Bratislava's first mobile Fajitas Kiosk is in the works as I type.) Joey liked them so much he and Mata had one each for breakfast the next morning. Then on Sunday we went to visit Martina's family (plus Joey got to play football (soccer) with his friends. Like I said he is "The OX") so I could make my version of Penne Parmesan Carbonara (Italian version of Halusky) for everyone. Again everyone enjoyed it. (I give it a 7 out of 10 but I am my own worst critic. But I know I can make it better next time.) I plan on returning to visit Martina's family on Thursday night (I am going to speak to Martina's little sister Dominika's High School English Class on Friday) and will introduce them (Martina's family, not the students, in case that was confusing.) to the Fajitas. (Sammy, I will try and not make them to spicy. And I want a hockey game rematch! :) )

Stars:
So how can you see stars in Kremnica when it is raining? Easy go upstairs in Joey's and Martinas cottage turn off the lights, lie down, turn on Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and enjoy the galaxy Joey created with glow in the dark stars. I was really very cool and will get better as soon as we find glow in the dark paint.

So that shuld bring you up to date and after 6 hours of writing I am done. (yes it takes me that long to write but I want to make sure I cover everything I want and say it in the way I want. unfortunatly it is not always an easy conversion from my brain to written word. Thus my love of parentheses. :)

Big Post in Less than 18 Hours

I have been writing it for 3.5 hours so far, from 5:30 pm until 7:30 pm (missing time = HOPA) then from 12:30 am until 1:40am and I am tired (that may show in the writing :) ) so i will finish it tomorrow when I get up. I got some good coffee (kava) and will enjoy some in the morning to get me motivated to write.

I promise it will be worth the wait, I am going old school (think New Zealand Style Posts I did) on this one, or at least trying to make it worth reading.

Dobru Noc, Sladke Sny (Good Night, Sweet Dreams)