I’ve always dreamt of visiting the place where my grandparents grew up. The place which has been the setting of every bedtime story as a young child; the place where they experienced so much.

Just before the Slovakian winter arrived, my family and I set off on a trip to unravel our roots and delve deep into the history of those who came before me.

A snake of yellow headlights in the dark slowly bent and twisted around the narrow streets in Kosice. Neon signs flickered above darkened shop fronts, their reflections cast on slick wet streets, illuminated in saturated pink fluorescent lights the history of this old European town. Everywhere you looked, advertisements plastered the perimeter of wartime buildings masking the sorry stories of World War Two atrocities. Bars lined every alleyway of the lively city – surely not how it was when my grandparents lived here. Standing in the chilly evening breeze, I realised that I was standing in the same shadows that existed seventy years ago. The shadows that saw my family’s loss and devastation. It felt somewhat eerie to know that the buildings along every street have seen what life once was in this now pumping town.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The cobblestone streets echo the memories of years ago; I can almost imagine pre-war Kosice. The overflow of people walking down the main street dotted with colourful houses and shops, looking into each shop window. But today, all that’s on the main street is unnecessary shops – an excessive amount of underwear shops and way too many hardware shops. One would wonder how many people are building wearing nothing but their underwear? Though, the locals seem unfazed by the bizarre amounts of odd shops, and luckily, they are wearing more than just their underwear, which means there must be other garment stores here as well!

I found myself standing in the painting of my grandparents’ past. The stories upon stories told to me of my grandparents’ life before moving to Australia came rushing back to my mind. Heartbreak. Devastation. Love. Family. The epitome of their lives here in Kosice. The Slovak and Hungarian chatter in the streets awoke memories from stories I had once been told. Standing in the middle of the Old City Square I wondered. I wondered how long it will take to work through them all.

The streets were clearly not made for modern day cars. Both the pedestrians and cars fight each other to make their way through the narrowest streets I’ve ever seen.  My grandparents have told me about the horses that once passed through these narrow streets. I can almost imagine the clicking of the hooves and the waves of merchants wandering the streets trying to sell their goods.

Driving through the Slovakian and Hungarian countryside made me feel as I was in a scene from Borat. Views that I never thought could be seen in person pass by the car window every second of the long trip. Being from Australia, an island so far away some struggle to believe in its existence, I found it crazy that it’s actually possible to drive between countries. The vast green landscape of never ending rolling hills looked like it came straight out of The Sound of Music. The car cruised down the twisting road, grassy forest green hills loomed over the mountainous drive.  A snapchat filter could never beautify the endless expanse of green wonder and shimmering turquoise lakes any more than the bare eye.

It’s fascinating how much history can be cramped into one small village. The skeletons of houses that once stood is faded out by the chatter and shrieks of the young towns children playing in the streets, echoing how my grandmother described her pre-war childhood to be. Towns people travel through their town by bike, wearing clothes we would never dare to wear – matching florescent trackies with socks and sandals. Their lack of fashion is perhaps a reflection of the poverty existing within these small villages. Just a thirty-minute drive away is one of the biggest towns in Slovakia, Kosice. Surely their government could spare a couple of hundred dollars to provide the residents here with necessities. I was shocked to see that townspeople were carrying firewood on their backs. It’s like the centuries are competing for attention.

It was truely something so special to awaken the stories from so long ago at the culmination of my families history.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.