Ma vie en rose…: Slovakian Silvester (New Years' Eve) I

Well I'm back on the track and I promise to keep this blog up-to-date. As you all know by now we decided to spend 2007/2008 New Years' Eve in Slovakia in a wll-known ski-resort...so they say. Only when we got there we realized they may be right. Jasna was the name of the resort which streched through the entire Demanova Dolina (valley) dividing the Low Tatras in two. Jasna is a sort of Valea Prahovei from Romania, many tourists, very famous and en vogue. The big difference is that even if crowded you really don't feel that others pinch you or ambush you. Everybody knows to respect your private space of 30 cm round and to say sorry if stepping on your....foot.

Anyway I made the reservation for four people (We - The Balla's and the Mishes) at a privat house, Zdenka's private. We looked for a cheap but nice reservation, not crowded. Also we looked for an apartment with a kitchen so we can cook The New Years' Dinner and breakfast at least. It proved very inspired our idee as we saved some good money and could spend them all on skiing.

The apartment was situated at aprox 8-10 km from the slopes, but it was worth it as we travelled by car and the gas was more cheap than staying at a fancy hotel with 300 Euros/person for 5 nights as some Peter's friends did. We spend 150 Euros/couple/7 nights. I think it's a bargain, ain't it? If you're intrested just check this out: pension@europe.com

Here's our kitchen

First day was with accomodation. Anyway we travelled almost a day from Baia Mare to Demanova so we arranged things in the HOUSE :) and had a trip to a supermarket in the near-by town: Liptovsky Mikulas. Well we had the unpleasant surprise to see that the ATM from some local bank didn't accept our credit card and we tried a little desperation. All our money was on the credit card. We had some euros - cash money but in Slovakia you cannot pay in Euros. Nor you can find slovak crowns in Romania :)

Well, we "visited" the city to the next 2-3 ATMs in town at a -8 C, hoping to find a dear one which could give us the some damn money!!!!!!!!!!!

We looked for banks we knew from Romania, OTP, Unicredit and nothing. We were quite desperate. If we couldn't pay by credit card we were f...ked! IF YOUKNOW WHAT I MEAN. And in the middle of nowhere, appears an ATM from a promiscuous local bank. I said we must give another try. And BINGO it worked. God bless the unknown banks!

The next stop for the first thrilling night was in...BED!

Second day was our first in the ski resort and on the slovakian slopes.Unfortunatelly it hadn't been snowing for a long time, so the snow was almost entirely artificial. Interesting feeling until the first fall. Ouch! The earth was really frozen! And the ice on the top of it too! The slopes from the top of the mountain (2000 m) were not open because they were not safe enough! We were dissapointed! We payed a fortune for a small slope and another one with ice. And it was so crowded that we had to stay for 1 hour to wait for out turn to the ski-lifts. Horrifing!

This was the first image with the slopes we had. At this point we were amazed and satisfied!

The second view of the beginners' slope from the ski-lift. It was great for beginners but the others we had to give our best to have a little speed. Here started the dissapointment.

Peter decided to climb the slopes carring his skiies on his back. And I as a faitful wife followed him! He crossed from one slope to another so we discovered the gondola slope. Beautiful and abrupt...but full of ice. I reached the slope taking into consideration the indicatives from the slopes and the near-by forest. we decided to come tomorrow, maybe for a better ski session.