Cernikovsky - home

www.cernikovsky.com
JARDINES DE LA ALAMEDA
 
Give The Gift of a Garden along the Alameda Santa Lucia ...

Miembros
PROYECTO DE JARDINIZACIÓN DE LA ALAMEDA SANTA LUCIA

LA ANTIGUA

 

Easter 2004
Semana Santa
Carpets
Processions

Cernikovsky Family Christmas 2003  mail
2004 mail
2002 mail

November 2004 - Giant kites - "Barrilettes gigantes" in Sumpango Sacatepeques ....

... and November 2003 - the kites in Santiago Sacatepeques.

Fuego explosion
8th January 2003

January 2003
Antigua family photos


House Nov 2004
Photos Apr 2003
Baths July 2002
Kitchens July 2002
Fireplaces July 2002
Fountain Oct 2002
Guest Apt Nov 2004
NYC to Antigua trip 2002

Contact us

Jenny
Graduation 2003

Paris
April 2003


Germany, Luxembourg
June 2003

London
April 2002

New Antigua website
www.antiguate.com
Coming soon in 2004







 



Tomas, Barbara, Jennifer & David Cernikovsky

We wish you a Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad 2002
and a Happy New Year 2003 !     
¡Feliz Año Nuevo 2003! 

How are you? 
Here is our 2002 news. 

We are just about to finish  our three-year project and in 2003 move to the beautiful Spanish colonial town of Antigua, high in the mountains of Guatemala.

Barbara & Tomas
After a holiday in Antigua, we bought property in 2000.  In April 2001 we started building and the "house-portion" was completed in February 2002.   During that time, it took us 15 months to sell our apartment in New York, which stood just 2 1/2 blocks from the World Trade Center; and after 25 years in New York City, we moved in January 2002.
 
Tomas bought a tractor and 48' trailer, loaded our possessions and spent 12 days on the 3,800 mile trip to Antigua with a Guatemalan friend driving.  They  spent three days on the Mexican border negotiating permits, then another three on the Guatemalan border completing paperwork and paying taxes.  Within a month in Antigua, Tomas sold the tractor/trailer and paid the cost of insurance, taxes, fees, hotels, food, fuel - making the move free.

At the same time, Barbara and Jennifer moved to our house in  the Catskill Mountains.  Jenny  started school locally.  Because of the small class size and a technical school nearby, she gets ½ day at each location.  David spent his last six months in a Manhattan sublet to finish his high school and graduate. 

Antigua  is called the "City of Eternal Spring”. All streets are cobblestone, and it has many churches and monasteries.  It is fully wired for the internet.  Our house is on a main street between the ruins of a  monastery and the main market.   We have cut the property in half. In the back, we built a beautiful, Spanish-Antigueño-style house with a courtyard, a fountain and a garden.  In the front, we will complete, by Spring 2003, a commercial half, with shops (possibly a bank), a video/DVD rental shop for Jennifer, offices, apartments and a courtyard, four fountains and a garden. 
             (go to part 2)

The guest apartment is finished.    Tom’s mother from Germany, our first guest, will be using it later this month when the whole family visits.  You can plan a visit here sometime in the future!!!!   

Antigua is a cosmopolitan town with good food and many cultural events: festivals,  ballet, classical and jazz concerts - some in the main square, some in the many colonial churches or in the ruins of old monasteries, several of which have been made into concert halls and amphitheaters.  It’s close to the airport and Guatemala City, where there are all the "name" shops and a major cultural center.  It’s within easy reach of two major Maya sites (Tikal and Copan).  We are  making many new  friends and slowly learning Spanish.    

Barbara has been extremely busy after joining the Board of the Pratt Museum.  We have always helped them with fundraising, but this year Barbara is working on many aspects of their organization and finances.  She is doing substitute teaching in several local schools and this winter will, again, do income tax preparation.  Tomas has been busy managing the house project. After arriving here,  relations with the architect deteriorated.  In the end he fired him and spent several months with a new architect, negotiating with the town over the redesign of the commercial half, fixing plumbing and other items the old architect did not finish.  His   Antigua web supersite project has suffered, but is now getting started again. You can see the progress of our house at www.cernikovsky.com.

Jennifer & David

Jennifer (19), started in January at the local school.  A school bus picks her up in front of our house.  We planned to move to Antigua in January 2003, but she loves the school and the school loves her … she is studying well.  They will





           
(go to part 3)

allow her to graduate at the end of the current school year.  Clearly, a high school graduation will be a very important achievement for her.  She is already planning her graduation party in June 2003.  David (18) graduated from  Stuyvesant High School and we all attended a big graduation (900 students) at Lincoln Center where Bill Clinton was the guest speaker.  David worked as a lifeguard in the summer and in August left for the University of Rochester, 4 hours by car from Prattsville on Lake Ontario in northwest New York. It’s an excellent national university and  David is trying out various subjects to figure out what he would like to study (undeclared).  He is enjoying psychology, or may try brain cognitive science, a UR specialty.

Travel

No more weekend trips between New York City and Prattsville – over 17 years, we must have traveled that road 750 times and driven a quarter of a million miles. However, we had many trips between Antigua and New York.  A week in London and the English countryside with Sona, our exchange daughter, who met us there again from Armenia.  Two trips to Jamaica.  Another trip to London in the Fall to see a few plays.  Tomas visited his mom in Germany.  Trips to grandparents in Delaware. Jenny had  four weeks in camp in the Adirondacks, two as a student, two as staff.  David spent a week in Florida, playing baseball. We are planning 3 Christmases: Delaware before Christmas, Prattsville for Christmas and Antigua for New Year. 

Barbara and Jenny will move to Antigua in July 2003, after Jenny’s high school graduation.

We are excited about our new life.  Please tell us yours.

OUR BEST WISHES FOR 2003 !!!

cernikovsky@hotmail.com
barbcern@hotmail.com
jennystar2@hotmail.com

harrycareyrules@hotmail.com

Feliz Navidad ... Tomas, Barbara, Jennifer & David

 

Merry Christmas 2002 - Feliz Navidad 2002

Go to the top Go to the top
This page was last updated on 02/21/19
  This page was last updated on 02/21/19