My last day of freedom. Rats. Tomorrow, I'm a working man.

I met some people from work for lunch, which was comforting and sort of gave me an idea of what to wear. I'm going to do my best to fix up and look sharp (I actually hate that song, for the record).

A few notes from my adventures downtown today:

At first I was beginning to think that I fit in here, as this stunningly beautiful girl stopped me on the street and asked me a question that I didn't come close to understanding. My reply of "Ja som Kanadsy, you speak English?" ("I'm Canadian" - that's a soft "J" by the way, they are all the rage in this language) was not well received and she carried on her way, presumably with a conundrum still on her mind. I wasn't too upset though because as my luck would have it there was some sort of cheerleader convention happening in the downtown. The legions of ultra-fit girls wearing next to nothing was just shy of epic.

The number of hot girls here is really just not fair to all you other suckers around the world. And to me, who can't communicate with them, yet. Motivation to learn Slovak is literally everywhere.

Unfortunately for me, everyone else was able to spot the expat from miles away. The cashier at the grocery store talked to me in broken English before I even opened my mouth to to try a "Ako so mate?" ("how are you"). It must have been the way I lined up or something. The only other interaction occurred with this annoying Roma lady who tried to distract me by getting me to sign some petition so she could reach into my pockets. She ignored everyone else walking by and picked out the foreigner no problem. Luckily, she tried the same stunt on me yesterday, TWICE (It turns out this city isn't so big after all) . I was wearing shorts that didn't have pockets though so her trick failed.

I saw someone with a pair of iPod headphones today. It was a first. I was beginning to think they had not made it this far East yet. It seems like people here are way more into listening to music on their cell phones than anyone in Canada (save David Ally), iPhones exempt of course.

Coke has made a lot more inroads than Pepsi here. It's a lot harder to find pepsi, especially diet pepsi, which is the most delicious beverage on the planet (with or without Jack Daniels, I might add). They also use the word "light" instead of diet. I wonder why. Maybe it's too wimpy for the diabetic skinheads so they changed the name.

I found a new grocery that might alleviate me from having to rely on frozen vegetables. The plasticity of the tomatoes and peppers at the supermarket yesterday was unbelievable. It makes the A&P in Kingston look like a farmer's market. I spent too much time yesterday getting rotten banana all over my hand as I struggled to find ones that weren't brown or bright green.

Going to start taking pictures to try and throw up here to give you a better idea of what it's like. From the veritable visual cacophony that is the view from my apartment, to the beautiful architecture of the old city centre

Sarp and I are off to go swimming!!