Meet Lenka Tomkova of Lenka’s Chronicles in Wash Park

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lenka Tomkova.

Lenka, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My name is Lenka, I am 29 and I am from Slovakia. I have always loved traveling. I finished Economy University in Bratislava and worked in a patent office.

After that, I met my American and crazy things happened. We met in Thailand almost three years ago. We had a horrible accident that put us into the hospital for a few days and we fell in love. After I recovered from the accident I was thinking again and again if I could do the craziest thing and quit my job and jump into the arms of my American. I decided yes, so I quit my job and started exploring the world. We traveled the world together for over a year and then decided to call Denver home so we moved here last January. We got married approximately three months ago. We love to travel and we love to climb.

When I look back at where I have visited so far I realize I have seen tons of beautiful places and have collected thousands of amazing memories. I think it would be sad to not share something like this with other people, so I started a blog. I hope there will always be someone who will find inspiration or good advice in my articles or who will have a happier day after looking at my pictures of beautiful beaches or mountains on the other side of the world.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Do you know that cliché phrase how one moment can change your life? One moment changed my life completely so I can say cliché phrases can be true.

There was “the” night. It started like a normal night when we decided to go to the pub somewhere in Thailand. Then I saw him, a nice boy sitting next to us. It was clear he was waiting for someone but I couldn’t stop watching him. I knew my English wasn’t good enough but I felt I needed to speak with him. I walked up to him and asked, “Why are you sitting here alone?” He answered, “Because I was waiting for you.” Isn’t this the perfect beginning to a romantic story?

A little bit of talking, a little bit of dancing and I felt like I knew him my whole life, typical girl. Then I made a poor choice to take his scooter and to leave the pub with a man that I didn’t know in the middle of the night. I was lucky I met the right one.

I drove and he was on the back of the scooter and then everything went dark. I woke up in a hospital and it really wasn’t a nice view of me. My whole body was covered in road rash, they chopped my hair because of stitches on the back of my head, stitches on my forehead, nose, three parts of my lips and my chin, broken teeth and two CT scans to check I had no brain damage. Nose surgery to fix my broken nose and wrist surgery was before me. There had been an accident. He said there was a pothole in the road and I lost control. I don’t remember but he told me the first question the doctor asked me was who is that guy with me. The doctor was trying to check my memory because I had had a concussion and could not remember anything from the night before. To everyone’s surprise, I answered David. The only memory I had was his name.

David told me after I fell off the scooter I was covered in blood, went unconscious, my eyes rolled back, I stopped breathing and he thought I was dead. He saved my life. He gave me first aid, carried me into a taxi that took me to the clinic and then transported me via two ambulances to the hospital four hours away. He was in slightly better shape but still had road rash, required stitches too and would not let the doctors touch him until it was sure I was going to be ok. He stayed with me in the hospital for five days and he was the best. My friend Bibka stayed in my hospital room with me the whole time so I destroyed five days of her vacation too. She helped me with everything: feeding me, changing my clothes and helping me get to the bathroom, I will be forever grateful.

After surgery doctors wanted me to stay two more weeks but I decided it’s time to go home. I was almost sure I would never see David again. He was really confident when he spoke about visiting me, but I really didn’t believe that something so crazy could be real. At that moment I could only think about the most painful procedure of fixing my teeth; ten of them are no longer mine. I still have scars, I hurt my family and friends, everybody at work because I wasn’t there for almost two months. But I think that’s enough of depressive things.

The whole terrible recovery process was a lot easier because I spent hours and hours on the phone with David. In the beginning, we just messaged and then when I was less scared of English, we called. He shocked me when he really visited me in May. I visited him in San Francisco in August. In September he quit his job and started traveling in Europe. Our next date was Oktoberfest. By the way, it is a great event that you should visit if you have an opportunity. When it was possible I spent a weekend with him or he spent a week with me.

Half of Christmas was spent together with my family and the second half with his family. My English is still not perfect so this was very stressful for me. Then he traveled to South America so we didn’t see each other for three months. That was the time to decide what I want to do with my life so I quit my job in April. Our next date was in Panama for six weeks on an island. I think I can say this is a little bit of a movie. Sometimes I cannot believe that we are still together; Slovak girl and American boy. This is just the beginning of my biggest adventure. I already have amazing memories for many lifetimes that I am happy to share with you.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I have a travel blog. I am not tech-savvy, so it was a huge challenge for me. I just felt that I have to share all those amazing memories and how blessed I am with the opportunity of seeing all those beautiful places around the world. I believe that all my readers can find inspiration and I hope I can even help them to enjoy their adventures more. I am always happy when somebody contacts me to get advice about flight tickets, accommodation or whatever-related to traveling.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Because of all my amazing experiences around the world, I have to say I would not change anything in my life. My accident was bad, but it was the beginning of my adventure, so I cannot really think negative even about that. I believe that everything happening in our life has a reason and we just need to take a chance and always go for it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lenkaschronicles.com
• Email: lenkaschronicles@gmail.com
• Instagram: lenkaschronicles
• Facebook: lenkaschronicles

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