2007 Summer Slovakian Adventure

S.W. and J.S. Aber

www.geospectra.net/slovakia/house.htm

Kite Aerial Photography
of Tatra Mountains 		Introduction to
Our Slovakian Adventure 		Living in
Štrba 		Slovakian Views
One 		Slovakian Views
Two
Slovakian Views
Three 		Slovakian Views
Four 		Views of
Southern Germany 		Views of
Southern Austria 		Views of
Southern Poland


Living in Štrba

Greetings from Štrba, Slovakia! This village is located at the base of the High Tatra Mountains or Vysoké Tatry. See the map of Slovakia below for orientation. Bratislava is the capital and just over the border and Danube River is Vienna, Austria. Štrba is shown by the black square, 18 km west of Poprad, which is a city of some 50,000.


We are happy to have an overseas adventure to document High Tatra Mountains via kite aerial photography. See www.geospectra.net/kite/tatra/tatra.htm. However, if you want to know more about our stay, read on for information about accomodations, village scenes, and other Slovakian experiences!

Susie is out front of house number 62. We visited this home in the past, when the grandmother of our Slovakian friends lived here. We remember that meeting fondly and while she passed away several years ago, the family invited us to use the house for our Slovakian stay.

Susie has a work station set up in the kitchen and Jim is also nearby. If you turn around you see the heart of the kitchen and Susie cleaning up after breakfast. In addition to the main kitchen, another room is available for storage and the refridgerator. Groceries usually sit on this chair instead of me, but I am demonstrating how to gain entrance to a perfectly sized fridge...via the foot pedal. Our kite equipment is pictured as well.

The yellow box above the sink is an on demand water heater. The household appliances run on natural gas.
The bathroom completes the ground floor accomodations. If you go past the front door, and up the stairs to the second floor, you see the beautiful carpet handwoven by grandmother. While there is a third floor, we do not use this extra space.
On the second floor is a large bedroom with several sets of beds and wardrobe furniture. We are ready for our company in August!
The other room on the second floor serves as a living room, but also has a set of beds and wardrobe. So there is room for company! This second room is located above the kitchen and faces the street, as does the kitchen. From the living room, we see the tops of the High Tatra Mountains.
There are three Slovakian channels for television viewing. Programs that do not originate in Slovakia, have Slovakian voice overs and no subtitle captioning. So we watch TV and practice listening for words we recognize! We have a short wave radio and receive Slovakian stations, as well as programs from other central European countries. One Hungarian station has news in English and German.
Across the street and four houses away, is a convenient grocery shop. There are three rooms with an amazingly good assortment of food and other necessities. These small neighborhood shops are common in villages of Slovakia and other Central European countries where we have lived, such as Estonia and Poland. There is at least one other Potraviny in Štrba, and a specialty bakery shop as well.
As in any town, there are older and newer homes. As we walk around in the city, we took pictures of two homes with new and remodeled construction.
As far as we can tell, there is no village newspaper. However, there may be an even more effective way of communicating to the residents. The speakers shown below are positioned all around the village and pleasant music is followed by a speech by the mayor.
We think two times the mayor spoke of a farmers market in the center of the village and special transportation opportunities to a nearby town for shopping!
There are two churches in Štrba. The country is over two-thirds Roman Catholic, with the next most common religions being Protestant and Greek Orthodox Catholic.
The cemetery is centrally located and burials markers are above ground and closely spaced. Many of the headstones are dark gabbro and labradorite, rock not common to this area. The village is in a valley and bounded on either side by agricultural fields.

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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved. For more information contact S. W. Aber, e-mail: saber@emporia.edu Thanks for visiting! Webpage created: July, 2007; last update: August 20, 2007.