After leaving Steph and Shana in Poland, I had 5 more days to explore on my own before I met up with Jenny and Courtney in Croatia. I was not sure where I would end up or how I would get to Croatia (which I think made Courtney a littler nervous), but I told her I would be there and we would meet up.
So first stop, was an overnight to Vienna. I arrived at 6am but did not get to my hostel until 7:30. I thought I was at the main train station (as there are 3) and soon realized I was walking no where and did not know where I was. Whoops! I found a nice couple that spoke a little English and found out I arrived at the south station and needed to take a tram to get to the city center. At the point, I was tired and it was really hot, but I knew I had a few hours to kill as Milena told me I could not check in until 2pm but they let me shower and I waited for Milena to wake up to meet me for the days adventure to explore Slovakia. After meeting up, figuring out train tickets we were off and 1 hour later, we were in Bratislava. Vienna and Bratislava are the closest two capitals anywhere in the world – which was fun. It is crazy how close places are in Europe as I was out walking around in 3 countries and 2 capitals withing 12 hours.
We decided to stop for lunch, and found a Chinese place – funny both both of us were wanting Chinese so badly and it was so great! Part of the fun was having an English menu, but the lunch specials were all in Slovak. So we were flipping back and forth trying to figure out what everything was. Of of the highlights of the Chinese restaurant was using the ladies room. I think the Slovakian people have figured out how to cut down the line for the ladies room…have one room with 2 side by side toilets. Seriously. I actually my camera in my pocket so I had to get a photo of it. Guess no one really wants any privacy.
Bratislava was a fun day trip and Milena and I stormed the castle after lunch. I hate to say this castle was a little disappointing as it all burned down in the 1811ś and was rebuilt in 1950. So the city tried to make it look old, but it did not have that old castle feel – but we did have a great view of the whole city from that high vantage point.
One of the sights of the city (and eye soars to locals) is the New Bridge. At the top of the bridge, is a UFO looking spaceships. We heard a local tour guide say all the locals protested as they did not want this bridge, but the city still built it. It was kinda funny looking, but I still had to get my photos of it.
Last big sight we were on the lookout for were a few quirky statues that are all around town. The most famous is “The Watcher”. He peeps out of an imaginary man hole and there was a street performer right next to him doing the same thing and hoping people would give him money to take a photo with him. I thought, why pay this copy cat when I can take a photo with the real watcher for free??? So I got down on the street to be next to the Watcher. There were others in town (Frenchman leaning on a park bench and the Photographer that is stalking his subjects). Milena and I were on the hunt in the old town to find them all and we did.
After all this excitement, we felt we say all we wanted to in the city and decided to go shopping as things were really inexpensive, so good time to stock up on toiletries and such. We also did a little shopping and had some good laughs as the items I tried on did not fit but we were entertained trying on local clothes.
At this point, we thought we deserved a drink as it was a long hot day. Bummer was when I went to pay when we were done, they only took Slovakia Koruna and I did not have anymore and neither did Milena. We exchanged just enough cash to get us by and used our credit cards, but this place did not take credit cards. So I had to run out to an ATM and withdraw $10. Good thing I got my new Schwab ATM card so I did not get hit with anz fees or that would have been an expensive drink.
Back at the train station, I wanted to have my local Slovakia beer and we found a very shady crowd at the train station and finally decided to go sit on the train platform to enjoy the beer as the locals there were not locals we wanted to talk to.
So back to Vienna as Milena had a 10:30 train to catch to Paris (or she thought that was the time). As she was heading out to the train, she looked at her ticket once more and realized she misread the time (military time) and missed her train. I felt bad for her as I did it in Latvia, but mine was in my favor. So off she went to figure it out and she got a different train to Munich and then connected to Paris so she was set.
Very long for me, but fun all the same.