In my last post I mentioned a number of things that have come to pass. The snow that I bemoaned as not coming finally did get here. The bustle of Christmas has slowed way down, and the quickly arriving new year has finally come. I guess I'll have to kind of fill you in on what I've been doing since I last posted, so here goes...
The picture above probably doesn't seem like anything real great, but it is one of the pictures that I have that best describes what Christmas looked like. OK, so it's not really what Christmas looked like, but it is a picture that I took on my Christmas trip (while I was driving). I spent the Christmas weekend with the Baldis family (Short intro: They are Americans who are here as missionaries and have been here for fifteen years. I met them in the airport when I went home last time, and after getting back into contact, they invited me to spend Christmas with them). I had a good time there and enjoyed learning about their ministry here in Slovakia. It was definitely a different Christmas, but the differences are what made it good. I spent a number of days with them before I headed back to "my" part of Slovakia. 
On Thursday of last week I went with a group (comprised mostly of young people from the churches in Trencin and Previdza) to Vienna, Austria for a day of sight-seeing in the city. It wasn't, in my estimation, the greatest time to go sight-seeing, but there was the slight "charm" of being there while everything was still in it's Christmas dress. A little snow would have helped make the cold a little more bearable, but we didn't get that until we were on our way back. Yup, that's right, it started snowing! By the next morning there were a couple inches on the ground, not as much as I had hoped for, but still something.
That was the day that I packed up again and headed off, along with a number of other people, to the chata (cottage) where the youth from NM would spend the New Years weekend. I was told by the people that went before me that I wouldn't make it up the hill to the chata (the van had to be pulled up by an SUV), but I decided to try anyway. To the surprise of everyone in the chata, I made it up without any problems, and with two other people, the trunk and a seat full of stuff to boot! I was then, because of my car's feat, sent back to the city to act as the taxi for the rest of the people who were waiting there. I went back and filled the car up again, but it was much "fuller" than it had been the first time. The car was loaded down with five people, the trunk and all usable laps full of stuff, plus a guitar (in a hard case) and a sled on the roof-rack. Needless to say, I was pretty doubtful that we would make it up the hill, especially since it had gotten colder and the snow was only getting slicker. We made it up the first hard part with just a little slipping, but the second and hardest part we didn't get anywhere on. I then, in progressive stages, had passengers get out and walk but still I had trouble. Then, after trying unsuccessfully to get up, I was backing back down the hill when my car decided it wanted to change directions (which was interesting because it was a slightly sunken one lane road with a nice sharp turn at the bottom). Thank the Lord! it was just what I needed: I simply put the car in reverse and backed up (which was also rather interesting because it was dark and my car doesn't have backup lights). Needless to say (again), there was a little rejoicing once the car got to the top!
The rest of the weekend was a lot of fun and we all got to spend time doing different things with each other. The first night (and following nights) we went sledding on the part of the hill behind the house. It was a great place, especially because it had a little sloping drop-off that ran the width of the hill giving us a little jump for some extra...excitement! On one of the first couple of runs, though, I decided to try and be the third person on a two person sled, and because there wasn't a place to sit, I just stood on the runners. Uh...not a good thing to do! As soon as we hit the lip of the drop-off I fell of the back and whacked my right hand on something (couldn't see what it was because it was dark[!]). We continued sledding for a while, but once we went inside I could tell that I had messed up the little finger on my right hand. It was all swollen and the first knuckle had turned dark in color, looking very much as if it were broken. I used a piece of wood and some electrical tape to make a splint for it, and just hoped that the swelling would go down. It didn't, but now I've decided that I for sure didn't break (as in two pieces) the bone, most likely I just got a stress fracture somewhere in the joint. It's doing a whole lot better now, the swelling having gone down, but the knuckle is still quite stiff so I'm going to leave the splint on for a good while longer.
I'm kind of sorry that I didn't take my camera with me, but I don't really know how I would have taken any pictures of all the excitement if I'd had it. Maybe I just need to get some kind of a helmet with a video camera in it..... Anyway, that was my New Years weekend, plus a couple of things thrown in to make some memories.
That's it! We're now back to the brown and green colors of our unusual winter, and back to the kinds of things that make up most usual days. And yes, I'm going to make it a goal to get some more pictures!
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