Hockey time in Bratislava

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So I arrived in Vienna last Saturday completely exhausted after getting only a couple of hours of sleep at the airport in Turkey. Unfortunately, so was Adam, as he had to get up pretty early to meet me downtown at 8am. Adam is finishing his MBA in Vienna, and was able to score me a free night’s accommodation by sneaking me onto the extra mattress on the floor of his dorm room.

He let me have an hour nap before he smacked me on the head and told me to get up. It was a beautiful sunny day in Vienna and we walked around the city centre, got some gelato, and went to the famous Opera House to find out what was playing. No opera that night, but we could get ballet tickets for about $12 Canadian. Show was fantastic and it was fun to dress up, even if my feet hurt by the end of the night from wearing heals.

The IIHF Hockey Worlds in Bratislava, Slovakia

Sunday morning we got up early to catch a train to Bratislava where we were to meet our host. So… this is going to sound sketchy, and my sister will probably kill me to find out I did this… but everyone is doing it.

Couch Surfing

I first heard about couch surfing about 4 years ago – apparently there was a website where people posted that you could crash in their house in different cities around the world. It sounded sketchy to me. Last year in South America, I learned that so many people were doing it. Not only do you save money on accommodation, you get to meet locals and do things that you might not learn about if you just stay in hostels.

I signed up in South America, but never did it. I tried to make Eng do it with me, but the opportunity never really came up. The American girls we met teaching in Georgia swore by it – they said it would change our life. Everyone has a profile, and people write comments about their experience (either as a surfer or as a host), and people can add friends and explain how they met.

I have a limited profile, but I did host a guy in Swaziland- a German guy that my friend Yao had hosted up in Mbabane. The guy was nice, washed the dishes after dinner, and was more than happy to sleep on the floor of our ghetto Swazi apartment. Other than that, I have friends I’ve met travelling who have put a few nice comments about me.

So when I looked at hostel prices in Bratislava – they seemed quite expensive; probably because of the IIHF Ice Hockey Worlds going on. So I looked up people hosting in Bratislava and found Petra, a 25 year old pharmacist who was willing to take in me and Adam. She was waiting at the train station for us when we arrived, showed us her cute new apartment, gave us a key, and went biking with her friend for the afternoon. Amazing!

So I didn’t have great expectations on Bratislava, mostly because Prague and the Czech Republic get far better reviews, but Bratislava is a very cute little capital. Beautiful buildings, cute streets, and the city had hockey statues scattered among the streets. All countries were represented, and there was a few extra random ones you could sign, or were based on famous Slovak hockey players.

When we went for lunch I realized just how hard eating gluten free in this area would be. No goulash, no dumplings, no nothing. I managed to get lunch and then it started pouring. Adam is museum crazy and forced me to run for it in the rain so that we could get to the clock museum. It stopped by the time we got out, and I refused to go in the natural history museum afterwards, spending my 2 euro on ice cream to make me feel better instead.

That afternoon the Czech Russia qualifying game was going on so we went to the free fan zone next to the stadium – seeing as tickets were going for 150 euro (damn the rich Russians). That evening we hung out with Petra, and she took us to a local hole-in-the-wall place where they had Slovak pancakes for next to nothing – savory and sweet.

Slovensko!

The next day we managed to get tickets to the Slovakia/Denmark game for 30 Euro – even though they were the home team, the noon game wasn’t that in demand since Slovakia wasn’t going to make the quarter-finals.

The game was amazing, everyone was excited, singing, jumping up and down. Slovak fans are great. I got to watch one of my old fave Oilers Miroslav Satan score, and at the end of the 4-1 over Denmark, we watched an emotional goodbye as it was the last game for Pavel Demitra who is retiring from the national team.

Off to the Czech Republic for an Oil Kings Reunion

Canada finished first in their pool that night across the country in Kosice, and weren’t going to play in Bratislava til Thursday, so on Tuesday morning I caught a 90 minute train to Brno Czech Republic – where none other than Tomas Vincour, Edmonton Oil Kings alumni, was waiting for me at the train station.

I haven’t seen him in 2 years, and the kid is huge now! From the instant I saw him he had me laughing. I remember when he was a 16 year old who showed up in Edmonton knowing basically no English. Well, he learned the language very well – every third word he uses involves an F-bomb. When I showed him a Czech translation of what I can’t eat anymore he was like.. Ok this will be fine. I said Tomas… I can’t eat snitzel. His response “Oh F$%!,(MISSING) that is terrible!”

Brno is a cute city with beautiful buildings, churches, and nice squares. We went to a pub for the Czech/USA quarter finals and everyone was happy when Jagr scored a hat trick. I enjoyed every time we went to eat because Tomas would have to take his teeth out (missing the front 4). So hilarious.

Playoff Time

Thursday I kicked it back to Bratislava, still had the key for Petra’s place, and to the arena to watch the Finland/Norway quarter final at the fan zone. After the first period I found scalpers willing to take about 12 Euro for a ticket, so enjoyed watching all the Finnish fans in their crazy costumes go crazy for their team. I love meeting Finns because they all know where Edmonton is (thank you Kurri). Everyone was so excited to talk to me, take a photo with me, and even talk about our new Teemu Hartaikanen… a name which I am told can be nick-named down to Harsky.

Later that evening I wasn’t so lucky with tickets. The Canada-Russia game was the highlight of the tournament, and people were asking 250 euro a seat. I met a father/son combo from Ottawa that had gone to the Canada games in Kosice, and after we gave up on getting a cheap ticket we watched the game in the fan zone. The Finnish fans were cheering for Canada, but unfortunately it seemed like all the rest were Russians.

I was one of maybe 10 people cheering after the first Canada goal, but rain came down and forced us all in the tent, where I had to watch Russians celebrate with each of the next two goals. I was heartbroken for the young guys on team Canada. Thankfully I had met lots of Finnish fans who were sympathetic to me – all the Finnish fans I met were hoping for a Canada/Finland semi- final.

Friday I was torn on what to do and where to go next. I didn’t feel like staying for the rest of the tournament now that Canada was out, so I bought a bus ticket to Krakow Poland for 7:30 am the next morning. That night Petra and I decided to go watch the Russia/Finland final in the fan zone, but we found that there were lots of tickets left (Canada was clearly a bigger draw), and so we bought tickets for 50 Euro.

The game was great. Russian fans were pretty loud, but after the lacrosse-style goal from the 19-year old Granlund from Finland… they were silenced. After a 3-0 lead even Petra and I was singing Suomi with the rest of the Fins. A highlight of the game was during the second intermission when I was chatting with some Fins I met the first day in the fan zone. Anyways, Kevin Lowe walked by. I said hello, got a hug, got a photo for the blog, and made the day of one of the Fins when I introduced them.

After the game we joined a group of Finns and headed to the Hockey go-go bar. Petra said it was an old communist thread factory that had been opened for the tournament. I learned that go-go bar in Slovakia is sort of like a strip bar. We would be dancing and then every half an hour someone would come out and strip… one girl even had a snake. I took a photo and found out later that was a no-no. By the end of the night I was decked out in a Finnish jersey, glasses and a hat. The Finns are very generous – how can you not love them.

At about 2 am… and after more than few vodka shots, I didn’t want to leave Bratislava. Petra said I could stay for the weekend but I would lose the money on my bus ticket to Krakow. The funny part was 6 of the Finns we were hanging with had flights out on Saturday- I don’t think any of them thought their team would make the finals.

Saturday we woke up early –tired and hung-over, and took the train to her family’s home in Trnava which is about 50 km away. I got to meet some more of her friends and we came back to Bratislava to take part in what I call museum day. Lots of cities in Europe have their museums open til midnight, and all we had to pay was 2 dollars for a passport to go to as many as we wanted.

I enjoyed the transport museum which had some sweet old Skoda cars, and they had the old steam engine up and running. Later we went to a beautiful/disturbing national geographic photo exhibit which included lots of photos of the tribes that put the plates in their lips. While we were walking along the riverside – we found public work-out equipment that is more like a playground. Eng and I saw the same sort of thing in Turkey, freaking hilarious!

The gold-medal game

Sunday was raining and gross so I stayed inside, scrap booked my journal and watched the Czech Republic beat Russia 7-4 (which is hard to get excited about when they announce in another language). At 8:30 Petra and I and a couple of her guy friends tried to get cheap tickets, but so did a lot of other people. We weren’t willing to pay too much, we should have paid 100 Euro for 2 together, but we were trying to bargain and it hurt us. The second period was going to start so I managed to get a single seat for 40 Euro.

So off I went to the game alone – making friends with some Swedish men beside me that had paid over 200 Euro for their seats. I was happy to see the Edmonton Oilers Magnus Paajarvi score the first goal, but I was cheering for Finland… and they started to pour it on, especially in the 3rd period. Three quick goals and the Swedish fans were devastated. The 6-1 final didn’t really reflect the game, but I was happy to see the team that Jari Kurri put together win the gold.

This morning I was up early for the bus to Krakow – I couldn’t miss it twice. By 8 am I was getting nervous, but thankfully there was a Polish guy there that was also waiting for the same bus. He made a call and found out it would be 3 hours late! But… thanks to his translation help, and my sympathetic looks, the driver accepted my late ticket and I didn’t have to buy a new one. Yah!!!

Goodbye Slovakia… Hello Polland

Arrived in Krakow at about 5:30 pm… excited for a Polish adventure that will hopefully include lots of meat and cabbage

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