Four Hours in Bratislava

For some reason, I was determined - excited even - to go to Bratislava. I'm not sure why - throughout my trip, everyone has suggested that Bratislava is a place to be missed. But it's just an hour's train ride from Vienna, and I figured - when else am I going to get the chance to spend an afternoon in Slovakia?

So I went.

First off, when I arrive at the train station, I look for the tourist information office. This is what I do at every destination - that way I can pick up ideas for what might be worth doing in the city, and, more importantly, a MAP. Well, I follow the arrows to the tourist information office, and I'm telling you, they point to nowhere. I circled that little train station about 10 times, trying to guess what the diagonal arrows are pointing to and following side arrows that point directly to walls. Finally I stumble upon a sign saying something like Cultural Office of Bratislava, the tourist office. And - it's permanently closed. Good work, Bratislava - not having an office at your main train station is sure to increase tourism (and revenue from tourism) in your city. There was a note scribbled on the window in a few different languages directing us to the tourist office in the city, which requires taking a tram into town and navigating a few blocks to the main office. Not thrilled about getting on a tram and finding my way through Bratislava without any semblance of a map, luckily I found a nice Canadian couple who were as confused as I was. In the end, we found our way and got our maps. But come on people!

So then. Bratislava was not so bad. I don't know what all the bad buzz is about. It has a nice old town area:


a little drab looking in this photo, maybe, but also a decent town square and lots of shops and sidewalk cafes filling the streets, sprinkled with statues here and there (like that first photo in this post). There's also a castle that overlooks the city (hasn't this been the case of every place I've visited?) - the castle itself wasn't that exciting, as it was largely reconstructed in the 1900s or something. But the views were quite nice. And the fall colors have been beautiful the past week or so. Somehow I got tangled in a tour group of about 40 Japanese men, and it sort of made my whole trip to Slovakia to see a few of them discretely kicking their feet through the piles of brown leaves that cluttered the sidewalks.

Here's that view from the castle:


Sure, there's not a ton to do in Bratislava, but I imagine it would be a decent place to spend a night or two, find a cheap pub with good Slovakian food and decent beer, and take a break from all the sightseeing. Maybe you could say I liked Slovakia like I like a good dive bar.

A final note, involving cake:
I had to rush home from Slovakia, in an attempt to make it to the opera in Vienna that night. I was greeted at the hostel by the girls I was going to go to the opera with, and sadly they informed me that there was no show that night. So we turned to what was actually my plan B in case I didn't make it back in time: cake for dinner. I finally tried the infamous sachertorte, and I have to say, not that special. Maybe it was just the cafe we went to, but it reminded me of a hostess cupcake. Still, though, a trip to Vienna is worth it for the whipped cream tortes.

One Month, and Photos (Finally)

At long last, here are some photos!

It's a little strange to post a whole bunch of photos 2/3rds of the way through my trip (yesterday was the one month mark, whew!), but I'm doing it anyway. I guess I should've been doing this all along. But anyway, I've selected my favorite photo from each place I've visited to share with you.

Thanks especially to Adam, who (patiently?) encouraged me to post pictures. It really wasn't as much of a hassle as I expected.



Here's me with my backpack. Yeah - I packed light. I just want to brag about that for a moment. People cannot believe how small my backpack is. But I have everything I need, and really, I don't think I could carry much more.



Lovely bike-lined canals in Amsterdam.



The blueberry cake and latte I enjoyed at the Apple Fest, in a little forest park in Tressow, Germany.



The old town square in Wismar, Germany - an excellent little town (at the nice sidewalk cafe where I enjoyed a pilsner in the sunshine).



At the National Flower Expo thing I visited in Schwerin, Germany.



Crazy graffiti outside a club in Berlin.



One of the more awkward photos I've ever seen of myself, overlooking Budapest.



Enjoying a hot beer on a cold day in Krakow, Poland (I enjoyed it a lot more than I'm letting on in this photo).



Beautiful Prague, the Old Town Square (somehow I managed a shot between all the tour groups).

Alright I think I'm going to stop there for now. Stay tuned for Cesky Krumlov, Vienna, Ljubljana and more. OH - I haven't even TOLD you about Ljubljana yet. I'm falling behind quickly here. Well, this place is stunning, and that's all I'll say for now. Good night!

Busy Vienna

Hello from Vienna!

Ive got about 20 minutes to type up a quick blog post here, and the apostrophe key isnt working, so bear with me.

Just want to give you all quick little update here. Got to Vienna yesterday and had a fantastic day walking around in the sunshine. I forgot what it felt like to be warm. Vienna is quite nice - I spent the whole day walking around marveling at the massive architecture and clutter of shops along the streets.

Best parts of the day:
1. Stumbling into the beautiful city park (Im almost positive that this is where a bunch of scenes from Before Sunset were filmed - it was such a pretty park and full of people enjoying the sunshine).
2. Cake for lunch.

Vienna is famous for their cream cakes, which are these delicious little treats with alternating layers of cake and whipped cream. Today I had a piece of hazelnut, amazing, and sachertorte is on the agenda for tomorrow.

Which isnt to say that Ive ruled out cake for dinner tonight. Given the (cake) circumstances, I think its best for everyone that I keep moving and dont idle too long in Vienna. So heres the busy agenda for the next few days:
- Tomorrow: Morning in Vienna, afternoon day trip to Bratislava, return to Vienna in the evening (and try to hit up the opera :) )
- Tuesday: Train to Slovenia! SO excited to squeeze this one in. I bought my train ticket today. Am heading toward Ljublijana, the capital, and hope to fit in a day at Bled.
- Friday(ish): Salzburg?
- Monday: Bregenz (to visit Esther!)
- Sometime after that: Munich until Nov. 10

Looks like a LOT, but I think its actually breaking down perfectly. I have two last chances for goulash (Bratislava and Ljublijana) - and then I think Ill have had enough to last me a lifetime. Then Ill probably OD on schnitzels and bratwursts in Austria and Germany. Man, Im going to need to go right past vegetarian and straight to vegan for a few months after I get home.

And one final note - I am finally doing LAUNDRY as we speak. Thank god for that.

Will write from Ljublijana. Bye for now!

Cesky Krumlov and the Weird Train Ride

Note: this post is not in chronological order.

It's a lovely day here in Cesky Krumlov, a quaint old city in the south of the Czech Republic. A little bit of hazy sunshine has offered the best weather I've seen in days - weeks even. I know I've described just about every city I've visited as beautiful, but this one - man, it's cute. It's a UNESCO world heritage site, which means something to the effect that it's really old, really well preserved, and really charming (I'm sure wikipedia has a better definition, if you're interested). The old part of town is just a small village of orange-roofed houses and cobblestone streets, surrounded by green hills dotted with fall-colored trees. One skinny river hugs the village in the curves of it's S shape, and a big old castle overlooks it all. I wish you could all see this.

I got here two days ago and have been doing little more than resting and reading, and squeezing in a glass of mulled wine here and there. Somewhere between Prague and here, I caught the nasty cold that's been lurking in the shadows along the way, hitting fellow hostellers in every place I've been. But I'm telling you - this is the place to be sick. The only thing important to do in Cesky Krumlov is to just be here, so I'm taking my time (and getting good rest).

OH - I almost forgot the train story!

Back up to when I left Prague.

I had all my directions set to travel from Prague to Cesky Krumlov. I knew I had to switch trains in a town called Cesky Budejovice. I find my first train, no problem. It's one of those compartment-style trains, and I end up sharing my compartment with an older Czech gentleman, who smiled at me nicely and reminded me of Mr. Rogers. Anyway, as I'm riding the first train, I seriously was thinking to myself - Gosh, this whole train travel thing - piece of cake. I've got it allll figured out. Look at me, on my own, traveling through the Czech countryside. No problemo.

So I know I need to transfer trains at about noon. Around 11, I'm just watching out the window when the conductor comes by, opens our compartment door, shouts something in Czech, closes the door and moves along. I think - hm, maybe the next stop is a major transfer point or something, and he's just coming by to announce it? Anyway, the train stops at the next station, which looks like a very small station, and the man in my compartment puts his coat on, smiles and says something to me in Czech, and gets off the train. It's not my stop, so I just sit back and wait for the train to start moving again. Maybe a minute or so goes by, and the man I was sitting with comes around and knocks on the window and motions for me to come outside. I notice a lot of people are getting off the train, so I figure something must be up. So I grab all my stuff, get off the train, and the nice Czech man starts talking to me in, well, Czech. Of course I can't remember the name of the stop I'm going to (in my mind, it kept changing to Cesky Bonnaducci), so I start digging in my purse for my itinerary. Finally in his tangle of words, I hear him say Cesky Budejovice, so I smile and nod and look all excited, like an idiot. He motions for me to come with, leads me out of the train station to three buses, and points to those. Just to be sure, I pull out my itinerary and show him, and he nods. Then he sent me on my way the bus and waved me off like a grandpa sending his beloved granddaughter off to school (picture me marching off to the bus, backpack and all).

So, the bus is packed, and I'm assuming the bus is going to take us to the Budejovice place. After about 20 minutes, we stop in one town near the train station, a few people get off, and we continue. We get to another train station, and everyone starts getting off. It is not Budejovice. So finally I ask this guy next to me if he speaks English, and he just says - train! train! - while pointing at the station. So, I got on the train. And somehow I got to Budejovice.

Apparently there was construction on the train tracks or something.

Anyway, I found the next train from Cesky Budejovice to Cesky Krumlov easily enough. I wish I had taken a picture, though - it was the tiniest, oldest, two-car train. Seriously, it was two little cars, and that was it. I felt like I was in a toy. To make matters even weirder, I ended up talking with a few people on the train - one from St. Louis and three from Chicago. So in this little train car carrying probably 20 people to a little city in the countryide of the Czech Republic, at least five were from midwest USA. What are the chances.

So then. I leave tomorrow for Vienna - and to get there I have to take three trains.The first connection is in Cesky Budejovice.

If you don't hear from me for a while, come looking.

A Lot of Catching Up to Do

Hello folks,
Thanks for hanging in there during my little leave of absence from blogging. A lot has happened since that last post - namely, three cities, two weird train rides, one celebrity sighting, at least three cups of mulled wine and heaps more goulash.

Lets rewind to Krakow.

Even though it SNOWED my first two days there, Krakow has been the highlight of my trip so far. It's really beautiful - the old town square is mostly a pedestrian area, and is lively day and night with locals (not just tourists). In addition to that, the food has been the best of the trip (pierogies, sourkraut, beets - ok maybe it's not everyone's style, but I looooved it), and it's CHEAP! Super cheap. One new thing I tried, as suggested by our tour guide who was a sweet 21 year old from Krakow, was hot beer. It sounds terrible, I know, but was actually quite nice (especially while watching the snow fall outside). It's, well, hot beer, with spices and orange slices. It ends up tasting kind of citrusy. I imagine it's a similar method as making mulled wine. Although, I might advise against trying to make hot beer at home, unless you can find a recipe. I had a great time at the hostel I stayed at, met loads of people from all over, and even made a travel buddy to accompany me to Prague. Like I said, highlight of the trip so far.

An hour and a half away from Krakow is Auschwitz, one of the Nazi concentration camps. I had the opportunity to tour that on my first day in Poland. I was expecting to have this horrified feeling the whole time I was there, but it all just felt surreal. Auschwitz itself has essentially been turned into a museum. In each open building, you see displays of artifacts from the camp - like clothing the prisoners wore, massive piles of shoes and eyeglasses and other things the Nazis stole from the prisoners when they arrived, a huge pile of human hair ... yeah. Next to Auschwitz is a second camp, Birkenau, which was a death camp rather than a work camp, and not at all museum-ized like Auschwitz. This place was 1,000 times more disturbing. Picture an open field, surrounded with barbed wire, with row after row of long barn-like buildings where people were stuffed three or more to a bed, with little or no heat. All I can say is it was a pretty weird experience. It was freezing cold and snowing when I was there, too, which added another depressing layer to the whole experience.

Anyway. I left Krakow on another night train (this time with a travel buddy, as I mentioned ((hey Casey!))). The awesome news was that we got a sleeper compartment to ourselves! The weird news was that, when I woke up in the morning, our compartment was unlocked. WEIRD. I have no idea how it happened - locking from the inside involves moving a metal bar into place and twisting a lock thing into it. So, nothing was stolen or anything (my passport and credit cards were once again in my bra and pants just to be safe), and I was awake almost all night anyway (seriously, the train bounced and jerked around so much, every 10 minutes I thought we were derailing), so I know nothing happened. But that might be the last night train I take.

So then we were in Prague!

I have to say, Prague was not my favorite city. It might be the most beautiful city I've ever seen, but what they say about the tourists ("they're everywhere") is true - they are everywhere. The streets are so incredibly crowded with tour groups, it's hard to get around. For me, that detracted from the city's beauty (and I'm telling you, this city is gorgeous - massive baroque style buildings, cobblestone pedestrian streets, castles, the river - it's amazing to look at). Aside from the tourists, I didn't think the food was that great. Granted, I was totally spoiled in Budapest and Krakow, where the food comes by the heap and costs practically nothing - and tastes like an old Polish/Hungarian grandmother roasted it over an open fire all day. The food in Prague - for me, was like a slightly lesser version. The typical meal was thin slices of meat (pork or beef), "dumplings" (these were like really dense and moist pieces of bread - they looked sliced, rather than like lumpy dumplings that I'm used to), and gravy (unfortunately, not super flavorful). Maybe I ate at the wrong places three nights in a row, but the people I'm with weren't too wild about it either.

Is it weird how much importance I put on food?

However, there were two AWESOME things about my time in Prague:
1. Hot mulled wine. Oh my. Somehow I've never had this before (where have you been all my life?!). Luckily I tried it on my first full day in Prague, so I had three more days to drink the stuff. Stir in a little sugar and add a slice of lemon - yeah, I'll be experimenting with this stuff all winter. For sure.
2. I saw Anthony Bourdain!!!!! Walking down the street! They must have been filming for No Reservations, because two cameramen were following him. Nobody else seemed to take notice (not that he's a huge star, but people usually seem to be interested in movie cameras, no?). We followed him for awhile, I took a picture, and then decided to stop stalking. I don't consider myself a big celebrity person, but Anthony Bourdain is probably one of the five people I would be star struck for. I just love that guy. So, as he is a travel writer and a chef, I figure that bumping into him in Prague (do you like how I pretend I actually talked to him or something?) is simply an omen that I must do the same with my life. Except for all the drugs. I think he did a lot of drugs in his earlier years.

So that was Prague! Now you're pretty caught up on my life, except for one weird train ride and the little town of Cesky Krumlov, where I currently reside. But you'll have to wait until next time. :)

(Safely) In Krakow!

I made it to Poland!

Now that I've made it here safely, I can tell you all why I was so nervous about my night train from Budapest to Krakow. Apparently, night trains in eastern Europe can be a little sketchy. There are all sorts of stories about people getting robbed on these trains - the most common story is that someone gasses your sleeper car somehow, then, when you're knocked out, comes in and robs you. Some girls I met at the hostel in Budapest said they met someone in Prague who this happened to - the thieves even stole her money belt off her waist, the ring off her finger, and the purse from under her head.

So, I was a little nervous.

This is kind of embarrassing, but here's what I did: put my money belt with all my leftover cash and my credit card around my leg (they wouldn't look there, right?) - under my tight thermal pants, nonetheless - my passport down my pants on my other leg, and my debit card in my bra.

Well, when I got to the sleeper car on the train, I was relieved to find that I was sharing the cabin with three other single travelers - all were male, all spoke English. Whew.

So then, I made it here with no problem, was neither gassed nor robbed, and even managed to sleep a bit. After the 10 hour ride, I was greeted at the Krakow train station at 6:30 a.m. with SNOW! It's been freezing, snowing, raining here since I arrived. Might be time to buy some warmer clothes and boots. In October - who would've thought?

Off to explore - I'll have a few pierogies for you all :)

7 Reasons I Like Budapest

1. The baths. Oh, heavenly bodies of hot thermal waters. I could sit there all day.
2. Goulash. I have officially been converted to a meat eater. For now, anyway. This stuff is amazing.
3. The House of Terror museum. By far the absolute coolest museum I've ever been to. It covers the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Hungary - and is located at the former headquarters of the secret police of both governments. In the basement, you walk through the torture chambers used in the 1950s.
4. The views from the Citadel - a big hill on the Buda side, overlooks the entire city. It's beautiful.
5. It's cheap! $2 for a beer at a bar. Saw a $1 bottle of wine at the market.
6. The crazy language. Seeeya!! means hello and goodbye. I think.
7. The food. In general. Oh man. If you like meat and potatoes, come to this place.

So then I'm off to Krakow tonight on a night train. Keep your fingers crossed for me - I've heard some stories about these night trains. But someone just arrived at my hostel this morning via the night train from Krakow, and he made it here alive. So my chances are good, right?