My term has nearly finished here as a bachelor married-man-living-by-himself (otherwise known as a 'MMLBH') and I must say that there have been a couple of eye-opening situations. First, the experience of being a pseudo-singleton by myself for a lengthy period of time in a foreign land and secondly, my reaction to this.
As an introvert and considering the fact that even loners think that I should get out more, I'm continually surprised and touched by the amount of support, dinners, bbq's, fresh veg and cake that I have been given/invited to (delete as appropriate) since the beginning of the Christina Famine. Those that have contributed are well thought of and chocolate may be involved somewhere down the line. For myself, it felt like a bit of a re-adjustment, plus the knowledge that some of the jobs that I am doing around the flat at the moment may well be transferred back to Mrs C, or not, depending on our family life together in the future.
It has been a busy five weeks, mostly involving how to survive with basic Slovak language skills and harbouring a penchant for the Subway kiosk in Nitra. This last week has been especially fruitful in 'interestingness', as I badly hurt one of my fingers in a sports accident at a work's bbq celebration thing. After being hassled by Mrs. C over Skype to go to a hospital, I relented. With translation help from our friend Eva, I found out that the finger was actually broken and from then on in I've been wearing a bandage/cast combo that enables me at least to do the 'live long and prosper' Mr. Spock sign.
During the same week, the exceedingly-helpful-car (EHC) broke down on the way to work, halfway between Nitra and Sala in the middle of nowhere. I made it to the Slovenaft petrol station (just), where the guy at the counter came screaming out due to the amount of smoke coming from inside the front wheel's brake. After asking me to move the car around the corner since it was currently sitting next to a bunch of gas cylinders (good point), we waited for the Opel garage to open to see if they could fix it. Opel mechanic said yes, the Opel reception desk guy said no. So, it was eventually towed away to another garage, where they looked and fixed it the same day to the tune of €200, replacing all the brake pads and discs.
Well, they thought they fixed it.
I took it back the next day since it still did not feel right. The garage mechanic had another look at it and sure enough, there was a bigger problem. One part within the car was broken, letting water into the brake fluid, which meant that the front brakes were on all the time. The total cost for this extra fix would be around €500 (around $680 Canadian). Throwing well-earned money at a car is not what we are here for and I pray that after this rather large problem, the car will only have to go through the routine checks.
This week is looking more hopeful. I should be getting a new cast on Monday, Mrs. C is returning on Tuesday (hurrah!) and the car should be returned by Thursday. Whether we have any money left to actually eat something after that is another matter. Throughout all this, I feel pressured but I'm not letting it get me down. A positive outlook on life is an act of will... and I can rely on God's strength with that.
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