The Moment Of Truth

31 September - It is now the moment of truth - by which I mean that i've been lying for the past few months ...
Couldn't sleep last night at all and when I finally did pass out I woke up from one of the most horrific nightmares I can remember having - I was subjected to kidnapping and terrible mind games - absolutely awful - although when I woke up in the wee morning hours the whole thingseemed patently ridiculous and I was baffled that I could even have conceived that it was real even though it was a dream. When I got up near half eight Maria gave me a very large Slovak breakfast (too much meat but very delicious) with Jamesons whiskey as an apeterif (???) and I made the mistake of looking in the phone book for any Cucvaras - I found one and tried to ask Paul and Maria if it was a relation - I don't know what happened after that but they were making phone calls and talking to me at a hundred miles an hour in Slovak - I'm still not sure what they thought i'd asked but I managed to get them to stop in their quest to answer my unknown question. The rest of the family came over later on (everyone including Eva this time - who hasn’t aged at all in 8 years) and Maria performed one of her baffling food spells - feeding 11 people from the tiniest galley i've ever seen - very nice, but every time I finished any part of the meal she'd give me more - despite me telling her no, eventually I finished everything without having more food secreted on my plate and I gave my plate to her in triumph - IT'S OVER!! Then she gave me a complete replacement - I was feeling very quesy by the end of it all.
The rest of the family and I went for a tour of the old city and the local spa which was quite nice - Natasha bought me a very cheesy souvenir t-shirt and my younger cousins taught me a lesson in foosball that I wasn't going to forget (very embarassing, especially after i'd told them of my prowess back at home). We got back to Maria's and she asked me if was hungry - I said, Not at all, and she said okay, and brought out some food. I cannot understand how her family manages to all be so thin with the amount of food that they consume - it doesn't make sense to me.
I had the marathon Pasta Party to go to in Kosice so Stano and Natasha took me back to town (with Viktor in tow) - we were running a little late but it wasn't that urgent but that didn't stop Stano speeding back at 170km a hour at one point (it doesn't feel that fast until you take a slight corner and my overstuffed stomach lurched across the car). Irina was waiting for me, having not only done all my washing but had bought me a jacket and jumper while i'd been away and before I could protest had bundled me out of the house and escorted me to the party (the quality of the hospitality is getting ridiculous - I almost wish I had dad here to fend them off, they just don't listen to me) - the party was actually pretty crap - apparntly the prime minister was supposed to be there but I couldn’t find anyone who spoke a word of english and the pasta was pretty disgusting - I took my free beer and soon returned home. Upon arriving Irina interrogated me about tomorrow's plans - corrected me when I said somethingshe didn't agree with, gave me tomorrow's menu and ensured that my outfit was completely laid out. I always seemed to cope when I was on my own on this trip - but now that i've had people waiting on me hand and foot the past few days i'm not looking forward to resuming my personal duties.
Anyway - tomorrow is the marathon so i've got to try and get some sleep ... i've got a bit of an audience and I really hope they don’t have any huge expectations but it should be fun (at the beginning and at the end anyway) ... So, good luck to me. It should be okay as i've followed most of my motto thus far ... Get Your K's up, Keep Your Glukes Up and Don't Fall Over (two out of three isn't too bad).