From Slovakia to Austria

Meghan:



So yes, we admit Bratislava, Slovakia is a slightly random place...but we must say, we really loved it.



We spent our time there at "Juraj's Hostel" which we found on the internet. After reading some reviews about it, people kept commenting that Juraj, the man who lives and owns the hostel, is very eccentric...and let us tell you, he lived up to everything people said. Juraj took quite a liking to Laura and I, probably because we were the only ones who would sit and listen to his mumblings, so he provided constant commentary on the sanitary conditions of the two other hostels in Bratislava. He was always mumbling about "infectuous diseases" at the other hostels and how if people spent the night at another hostel and then tried to come "infect" his hostel, he wouldn't let them stay...he was on to their game (the other owners of these infected hostels are polish and juraj is not very fond of polish people). Little did he know that by the end of our stay Laura would have some mysterious bumps on her arm from the beds at his hostel. He made our stay interesting to say the least.



Bratislava itself was interesting to see especially when you would look out across the city to a bunch of level, high rise buildings that just screamed communism. Everything through the city has communist remnants and its kind of a strange feel. It is just weird to imagine that ten years ago these people were allotted 2 hours of television a week and now they are trying to embrace capitalism.



We only spent 2 days in the city but our time was very well spent. One day, we woke up early to go hunt down a coffee shop. With our caffeine buzz, we were really gung-ho to "see the city". We had our map, our walking shoes and decided to begin our tour of the city at the castle. The castle was a little bit of a hike as it sits on top of a hill, overlooking old town bratislava and the Danube. As we climbed up to it, we got passed 4 times by little red, disneylandish trams full of old german tourists who enjoyed waving at the two panting american girls. At the top, we took in the castle and rather than touring the indside like all the other people, we tried to figure things out ourselves and managed to only find the castle well. Don't get me wrong, the giant hole in the ground with a bucket and string dangling down it was pretty hard to discover and for some reason, no one else seemed interested in it, but Laura and I just werent feeling the castle and decided to leave.



Perhaps it was something in the air, or perhaps it was just thirst...but we gave up our grandiose plans of sightseeing when we passed a pub on our way down from the castle and saw that beer was cheaper than water. Despite being only noon, we sat down to a nice cold, half liter of pilsner and some weird looks from the waiter (not too sure if women here order big mugs of beer here...). It was so good and refreshing that our one beer led to us having our own pub crawl through bratislava culminating at the "slovak pub" where we proceeded to buy shirts that the bartenders had on which say something we aren't too sure of in slovakian. It was a much more culturally enlightening experience in the slovak pubs than a day of sightseeing could ever have been.



So about 5 beers later...and us being slightly intoxicated...we stumbled upon a sushi bar. Bad idea to eat sushi in slovakia, right? wrong. We thought that it sounded like an amazing idea since we hadn't eaten all day (beer=food in slovakia) and there was bound to be fish in the Danube river, right? From what we remember, it was a pretty good meal and our waiter probably thought we were crazy as we kept trying random things and then ordering more.



Between pub crawls, good ol' Juraj, wells, slovakians, sushi and everything else we managed to pack in...we had a great time. We continue to be fascinated by the things we are seeing and the differences from country to country. Its crazy to see the difference between Austria and Slovakia...nieghboring countries where after WWII, one embraced capitalism while the other embraced communism. To see how people live in Slovakia compared to here in Vienna, just an hour up the Danube, is pretty astounding.

Laura:

Vienna

We arrived in Vienna about an hour and a half after leaving Bratislava by way of the hydrofoil down the Danube River; the highlight was sitting on the boat in the Vienna Canal, waiting for the water to fill up so we could continue on our way. We had a really good time exclaiming to each other in excitment at how much higher the water level had gotten from the last time we looked (this happened about every five minutes...I think the people around us were starting to get annoyed). We had decided to take the hydrofoil because it sounded way sweeter than the train, but once we got off we realized a little research may have been a good call...the boat dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we lugged our bags around for a good half hour before amayingly spotting a lone cab that rescued us and took us to our hostel.

We have spent the past two days exploring Vienna and for the most part we are fairly impressed (though that may be due to the frequent Starbucks that dot the city). Yesterday we went to the Palace and walked through the gardens that included miles of tree covered paths, Roman statues, floral designs, a labrynth, and the imperial zoo. It was beautiful, and while we had intended on touring the actual inside, the immense lines of tourists abruptly put an end to that plan. Travelling in a more Western, touristy city is definitely a different experience in comparison to our travels in Eastern Europe, where we tended to be the only foreigners, and he fact that its late July is not helping matters. We kind of miss the weird looks we would get for being the onlz tourists...it was a thrill to feel as though we were in a completelz different world, where as here we are two of a zillion backpackers.

So moving on, we skipped the palace interior and started trekking across the citz toward St. Stephan´s Cathedral and the historical heart of Vienna (for some reason the metro never dawns on us as an option). But thank god for our walking, becuase otherwise we would have completelz missed the activitz that took up the rest of our daz! We ran across a huge flea market and decided to "check it out"- long storz short, we discovered an amaying open food market and spent the next three hours feasting on grilled salmon and fresh fruit before buying four different kinds of hummus and vegetables for dinner (for some reason the market was predominantlz Middle Eastern, and I thought Meghan was going to faint with excitment when she spotted a vendor selling Turkish Delight....we of course got some, but we were good this time and maintained some self control when it came to portion).

So zea, we didnt make it to the Cathedral that afternoon. But after dinner we went on our nightlz stroll and ended up walking to the historical section, anzwaz. We got to see the gorgeous gothic stzle cathedral of St. Stephan then, as well as discover an entire section of cobble stoned streets closed off for pedestrians. It was then that we felt as though we got the essence of Vienna, and it reallz is a wonderful citz, full of its old buildings and historz. Todaz after our venti coffees at Starbucks we went to the Leopold Museum, an art museum primarilz dedicated to the works of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Kolo Moser. We also attempted to go to mass, but on our waz to the church got completelz lost and didnt quite make it. We arent doing so well in terms of sticking to a plan in this citz, but we decided we wouldnt understand anzthing that was going on anzwaz, so we are postponing that activitz until we get to an English speaking countrz. And speaking of Sundazs, everzthing here is closed, including the grocerz stores, so I leave zou now in pursuit of dinner.