Tatranská Lomnica, Slovakia

After getting back from our USA trip we spent three days with Kája's oldest sister and their father in the Tatras.  We took a couple of trains and met up with them in Tatranská Lomnica.  

Tatranská Lomnica is a small tourist town in northern Slovakia.  The town was founded in 1892 and is home to less than 1000 people.  It's about 345 km (215 miles) from Bratislava.

People come to Tatranská Lomnica to go hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter.  

We took a cable car up to Skalnaté pleso, which is a glacial lake located at an altitude of 1751 metres (5,744 feet).

The lake lies at the lowest point of the Rocky Valley that sits under the southern cliffs of Lomnické štít.  The lake has a depth of 4,2 metres (138 feet).

The Skalnaté pleso Observatory was founded in 1943.  It has two telescopes and caries out research about comets and asteroids.

From here, it's another cable car up to Lomnické sedlo which is 2190 metres (7,185 feet) above sea level. 

Here you can visit Lomnický štít which is the second-highest peak in the High Tatras.  

It's 2634 metres (8,642 feet) tall and it is the only peak int he Tatras that's accessible by cable car which were first put in between 1937-1940.

There are some really nice views of the mountains from up here.

In town there's a ski museum that opened in 2013.  It focuses on the history of winter sports in the Tatras up until 1945.

TANAP Museum, the Tatra National Park Museum, opened in 1957 in Poprad before moving to Tatranská Lomnica in 1959.  The museum moved to its current building in 1969.  Most of the exhibitions are about the local animals, flora and fauna found in the Tatras.  

We really enjoyed our visit to Tatranská Lomnica.  The Tatras were worth the wait.  I'm looking forward to our next visit.  

We also checked out nearby Štrbské Pleso.

The Tatra Mountains

Tomorrow we're headed to Tatranská Lomnica, in the High Tatras, in northern Slovakia.  Visiting the Tatras has been on my list for a while so I'm looking forward to doing a bit of hiking.  We're going to meet his dad and sister who are already there.  I'm still not 100% over the jet lag from our USA trip but I'll manage.

The Tatras are the highest mountains in the Carpathians and form a natural border between Slovakia and Poland.  Many of the Rocky Mountains exceed 2000 metres (+6,500 feet) tall.  There are three main parts: the High Tatras, Belianské Tatras, and the Western Tatras.  

The Tatras take up 785 sq km (303 sq miles) with about 78% in Slovakia and about 22% in Poland.  The Tatras are basically the "Slovakian Alps" and a favourite place for hiking and skiing.  

The mountains were a problem for hikers back in the day because it was illegal to cross the border without going through an official border checkpoint and there weren't any checkpoints on the border ridge.  At least until 2007, when both Slovakia and Poland joined Schengen and internal border checks became a thing of the past.

There's a Tatra National Park in Slovakia and a Tatra National Park in Poland.  And both are part of the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

I hope that we survive.  Slovaks love to joke about Czechs getting lost, or needing to be rescued, in the Tatras.  Usually because Czechs took the wrong equipment, wrong clothes or wrong shoes.  One joke is that the world's biggest Czech cemetery, outside of Czechland, is called the High Tatras.

Time to Head Back Home

I can't believe that it's already been three weeks and now it's time to head back to Euroland.  It's been great to spend time with Steven & Michael in Atlanta, and with my family in Arizona and California.  A special shout out to my brother-in-law, Manuel, for driving us all over Southern California!!  I even got to spend my birthday with my family for the first time in forever.  

I'm really glad that everyone got to meet Kája.  It's been fun seeing his reactions to some of the differences between Czechland and the USA.  

I've had a bit of reverse culture shock as well but I suppose that's a normal thing that most long-term expats experience.  I may have to put together a list later of some of the things that I noticed.  

Of course my last meal in the motherland had to be an animal-style double-double from In-N-Out.  If you're from California...then you know.

At LAX

For now, we're waiting on our flight from LAX to Madrid, then to Vienna before our train back to Brno.  We'll lose a day travelling back and I'm not looking forward to the jet lag.  Jet lag always hits me worse going back to Europe way more than it does flying west.  I hope to get over it soon because at the end of the week we're off to the Tatras.

52nd Birthday

Yesterday was a pretty cool day.  I celebrated my 52nd birthday with my family.  The last time I was with my family on my actual birthday is when I turned 18.

My nephew Kai plays the drums and he has been participating in a jazz camp at one of the local community colleges this week.   

As the final wrap-up he performed in a jazz concert that we all went to.  I look at it as getting a jazz concert for my birthday.  

It was pretty cool to see him do this thing.  Here's a video of his group performing.  

Afterwards, we came back to my sister's house and had dinner and cake.  

This has been a really nice holiday but it's hard to believe that it's already been three weeks.  Just one more day and then it's back to Euroland.

Some Major California Sightseeing

We did quite a bit of sightseeing yesterday.  With mom, my sister Angela, and brother-in-law manual we showed Kája more of the LA/Hollywood touristy experience.  

The first stop was Union Station which is in the northeastern corner of downtown Los Angeles.  Union Station opened in 1939 was known as the "Last of the Great Railway Stations."  

The station is beautiful, combining Art Deco, Mission Revival, and modern styles.  In 1980, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Union Station is the largest and busiest passenger rail terminal in the Western United States.  It is the 13th busiest train station in North America.  This also shows that train travel isn't really a thing in the USA.  Just the city of Los Angeles has about 4 million people but the station only serves about 110,000 passengers a day.  Brno has about 400,000 people and more than 65,000 passengers use hlavní nádraží every day.

Me & my sister

Across the street is Olvera Street.  It's a historic pedestrian street in the historic centre of the city.  There are plenty of street vendors and restaurants to check out.

Olvera Street is home to Ávila Adobe, built in 1818, which is the oldest standing residence in Los Angeles.

Olvera Street gets about two million visitors per year.  Some people don't care for it because it can seem touristy.  I like it because of the history; it was the historical city centre in both the Spanish and Mexican times prior to California being taken by the U.S.

Then it was on to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour.  Warner Brothers (WB) was founded in 1923.  It is one of the major American film, animation and television studios.

It's fun but expensive.  An adult ticket is $76 and the tour lasts about three hours.  You get to visit a soundstage and the backlot, which is where we got to sit on the Friends couch.

Some of the most popular sets we got to visit were from Friends and The Big Bang Theory, plus big exhibits for Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and The Justice League.  

Barbie gets released this week so there was lots of promotion for the film.  I had to get a photo of the Kája Barbie doll, plus some video of him dancing around like Dobby the house elf.  

San Clemente Pier

Yesterday we went to San Clemente Pier to meet my aunt and uncle for lunch.  San Clemente is a city of about 65,000 people about a half hour drive, 42 km (26 miles) southeast of Irvine roughly half way between Los Angeles and San Diego.  

San Clemente is known as the "Spanish Village by the Sea" due to its Spanish Colonial style architecture.  

It's a popular California beach town that gets about 300 days of sunshine and an annual average temperature of 23℃ (73℉).

The most famous landmark is the San Clemente Pier.  

Me and mom

It was first built in 1928.  It was rebuilt in 1939 and again in 1983.  The pier is a popular fishing site and home to a nice seafood restaurant.  

It was nice seeing ma aunt and uncle and lunch was nice.  But for dinner, I finally got my In-N-Out fix.!!  

My niece decided that we needed to wear the hats during dinner.  Though not everyone was on board with that one. 

Griffith Observatory, California

Yesterday we got in a bit of sightseeing.  My brother-in-law, Manuel, drove us out to LA so that Kája could see a few of the city's iconic sights.

The first stop was a visit to the Griffith Observatory.  

When it opened in 1935, it was only the third planetarium in the country.

The land was donated to the city in 1896 along with funds to be an observatory and planetarium that would be free to the public.  Since the day it opened, the observatory has been free.

From 2002 to 2006, it underwent a major $93 million renovation.  

So many movies have been filmed here.  Here's a short video I found on YouTube.

©Fandor

Of course being so close the the Griffith Observatory, we had to go check out the Hollywood Sign.  First built in 1923 has part of a temporary real estate advertisement, it is not a California landmark.  The sign was replaced in 1978 and the steel letters are 13,7 metres (45-feet) tall. 

Us and Manuel

There were some German tourists taking selfies next to us and I took a photo for them.  They were quite surprised when I spoke to them in German.  

While in Hollywood, we hit a few of the typical touristy sites such as the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Seeing as we went to the Griffith Observatory, we decided to watch La La Land on Netflix with the entire family.

Some Beach Time

I've lived in Czechland, a landlocked country, for 14 years now.  Before that, I lived in Atlanta for 13 years and from Atlanta it's a good 5 to 7 hour drive to the beach in Georgia, South Carolina, or Florida.  

So yesterday was some long overdue beach time!  

We headed over to Dana Point and went to Strand Beach.  It's a popular spot for surfing but we just wanted to lay out and catch some rays.

The sun was strong and we did get a little red but, to me, it was so worth it.  I guess that, deep down, I will always be a bit of a California boy.