Blog 4: School Life and The Little Things

I started school the day after my arrival, even though I could’ve had the whole first week off. I did this so I could through myself straight into the Slovak life, meet new people, not be stuck at home, also so that I could keep the agreement with Lochlan (we both agreed we would start school as soon as we could) and because why not. 

School is a little bit different in Slovakia. School in Slovakia can have up to seven classes with each class going for 45 minutes with 10 minute breaks in between every class and one 20 minute break between the fourth and fifth class. School starts at 7:40 and ends at 2 if you have seven classes. My school has an app that tells the user which class they have that day, in which classrooms, whether their classroom has changed or if they have a substitute teacher for the class. If you have a substitute in either your first or last class you get to “skip” that period, if you turn up no teacher will be there for you. 

My school is 4 stories high with a basement that holds the art classroom. It also has a gym area inside which is where you play sports. The building itself is only one building with about 7 metres on every side between the edge of the building and the fence. It is also owned by the Church and the only way to enter the school is with a special chip which unlocks the door. There’s also lockers inside, most people use their lockers to hold textbooks and sport clothes. 

The main square of the town is located about 100 metres behind the school and this is where most kids go for lunch as you can do to Ako Doma and get lunch for about €3 (about $5 AUD). This lunch isn’t just small portions, no, it’s normally a ⅓ of the plate filled with mash and another ⅓ filled with a piece of chicken. 

Some small thing I have realised so far are the fact that hot chocolates are just straight melted chocolate, Slovaks are massive about tea and alcohol, coffee is weird (I love it and i’ll have a photo cause you just can’t explain it), the open their windows every morning and night to circulate air, windows have a handle that allows them to open either normally or have the bottom stay and only the top comes back at you, all houses are at least 2 stories, most of the songs on the radio are English (like american) followed by Spanish songs, bottled water tastes like if sparkling water and soda water had a baby, their coins are gold and silver for 1 euro and 2 euro and gold for 50 cent, 20 cent, and 10 cent and but 1 cent 2 cent and 5 cent are like bronze as well as 20 euro notes are blue and 10 euro notes are red, Czechoslovakia split up over a game of chess and finally apparently Slovaks can understand Czechs but Czechs can’t understand Slovaks because if movies are translated into Czech not Slovak.

This is how school is and what the little things are and this ending of the end.

If you have any questions just comment and i’ll respond within the next week and if you have any suggestions on what I should write about leave those there too.