Nice driving eh?! in Bratislava!

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Hi everyone,
Nosdrove is what you should say as Cheers in Slovakia but my friend Kathy always says "Nice driving eh?!" because she can't pronounce it... This is some of the fun we are having after being together on the tour for the past week and a half. We arrived here in Bratislava today in southern Slovakia after taking 3 trains, one of which was a very local train that was standing room only. We fortunately had reserved seats. We had had such a great time in the High Tatras in the mountains where the views were spectacular, the local food divine and the weather nice and cool especially for sleeping. This afternoon in Bratislava, we just got a chance to tour around this afternoon and went to the town square which is quite beautiful with many little souvenir stands and very diverse architecture around. We also went by the Danube and took some photos of the communist bridge that spans the river and then hiked up the hill to the Bratislava Castle which gave some interesting views of all the communist apartments on the other side of the river... the result of years of communist rule here in Slovakia. Bratislava as a capital is not like the other cities, not as grand and more local feeling-perhaps it is where we are staying. Nonetheless, worthy of a short visit.

Tomorrow we will be heading to Budapest. I am looking forward to being in Hungary, the 5th country on this tour, yet another currency and another language and another cuisine but we are ready for it. Our tour group will split up on Sunday and some of us will be staying another day. I will be flying to Berlin on Monday morning for 3 days and will be back in Canada on Thursday.

I hear you are all getting some great summer weather. I hope for the teachers reading this that you are not too overwhelmed with marking and that the last day of students in class today went well.

Any way, time to get going. Thanks to all of your for your emails and messages. Nice to hear from home.

love from Bratislava.

Katy

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