Monday July 26th: Bratislava
Opted to stop in Bratislava for a night on the way to Budapest. Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia. Lots of history and a giant castle. A less popular stop on the backpacker tour, but there are a few hostels none the less. This was one of the places where I was unprepared so didn’t have a map or the address of where I was going. I rememberd the street and used the giant guide book I had been lugging around and eventually found the street after walking 20 minutes. Walked up and down the street twice but didn’t see it, finally pulled out the itouch and found a wifi signal…but it was for the hostel itself so I figured it was close. I went into the bar and asked and they said it was next door and upstairs. No sign. Finally got in and the guy didn’t speak English…only French. I got checked in and figured things out easily enough. Clean hostel, but bascially I think this was someone’s apartment that they converted for the summer. 2 rooms, 1 has 10 beds, the other was a minifridge, couch, table. But basically a sort of cozy place rather than the normal party hostel…probably a good break for me honestly. I walked around the town to find a bus ticket for the next day but went to the wrong place . The buses drop you off on 1 side of town, but pick up and leave on the other side of town. So, walked all the way over to the other side and finally got the proper ticket. It was on the czech bus line that I liked (student agency). 6 euros for a 4 hour trip…again, the best way to travel in my mind. Oh, its also raining. So after walking across town twice, I said screw it and just went back to the hostel to see if anyone else was around. There wasn’t, so I took a nap. When I got up there was a guy from Brazil, Gustovo who just arrived. We got a quick orientation from Tom who runs things in the afternoon at the hostel. Much easier to figure things out because he speaks English. You don’t really leave the old town as a tourist but across the river there appeared to be a fairly modern city. You can still see the repetative buildings from the communist era. Went to this resturant he recommended and it was amazing. It used to be a theater so still had the stage in the back with a bar in front of it, then an upstairs balcony and all decorated fancy. The thing is the food was cheap…giant meal with beer was under $10. There local food is fried cheese so had some of that and some schnitzel. Their rectangle of fried cheese beats the shit out of cheese sticks back home. The other thing they have is Kofola which is this shitty licorice tasting soda. They said that only 2 countries in the world have something other than coca cola as their number one soda and this is it in Slovakia. The other country is Peru btw. After dinner we walked up to the castle and I fell down this little hill and cracked the screen on my camera…just the front screen, but still, that’s the whole reason I bought the camera so I could take pictures of myself without bugging other tourists. Oh well, now I have to talk to people more. Spent an hour at the castle walking around…probably the coolest one I’ve been to. It was dusk so got some good night pictures. We had another drink on the way back to the hostel. I hung out in the common room and finally met the other 8 people as they were all coming home about the same time. We had a chat and shortly thereafter everyone went to bed. Probably the most boring city and hostel I’ve been to on my travels. Ready to get the hell out though.
