Danube living

Ok so I haven’t exactly kept up with the blog. You see, I’ve had so much work and then I had Christmas break. I just haven’t had time to write. Well, as for my travels, I went to Bratislava and Vienna, then spent a weekend in Amsterdam and then spent two weeks home in Puerto Rico.

About a month ago I was on my way to the airport with my friends Anna and Patrick to board our early morning flight to Bratislava, capital and biggest city in Slovakia. Every person we told, even a girl that was actually from Bratislava, questioned our reasons for going. Why not?, right. I mean, it is a legitimate place, even if most people never think about it. Ok so there is a reason. Our friend Shaun, who studies in Vienna, invited us for his birthday. Well, Bratislava and Vienna are the two closest capitals on earth---about 50km from each other. There was no way I was going to miss this opportunity to be in my favorite part of Europe, the EAST. The entire trip cost 72 euro (Sky Europe airline was really good and cheap, our hostel was 13 euro a night and we stayed for free in Vienna).

Anyway, as we boarded the plane to Bratislava, something made us realize: wait!!! We don’t speak any Slovak, we don’t know anything about this country, and the horror film Hostel was filmed in Bratislava! However, it ended up being great. The city was refreshingly REAL. No accordions playing on the street-corners here. Yet, the old town was beautiful. There were a couple of Christmas markets and we just spent the whole time eating chicken-liver-filled crepe-like things, drinking hot wine and pretending we were Slovak (yeah right). One negative: it was ridiculously cold. Compared to Paris’ relatively “warm” weather, the -5 degrees Celsius temperature felt way too cold.

Well, after two days and a bad case of food poisoning (all that fatty food--dumplings, goulash, meat, etc. got to my friend), we got on a short train to Vienna. I have to say I love the EU. Even though Slovakia was not part of Schengen at the time (it is now), our train only stopped once to let Austrian passport controllers in. They literally looked at us, barely looked at our passports and went away. The whole process only took about 15 minutes for the entire train.

Ok so now about Vienna. It was nice. A bit more like Paris, except Austrian (duhh!). Well, if I would have to describe the city in a word it would be: grand. Ostentatious. Regal. Especially in the “palace-museum area/city center”, every building seemed to have been built during the glory of the Habsburgs. The buildings were even more elaborate than the ones in Paris (yeah, that’s right, I said it). We saw other parts too, which I preferred, although we didn’t make it to the banlieue. Vienna is a very relaxed city. Everyone speaks perfect English. I mean, even the people that sold water/sausages on the street spoke incredible English. As for me, I cannot say the same about German. The only phrase I constantly used was: “fanta, bitte” (meaning fanta, please) every time I wanted to drink fanta. Vienna is very cool and hip, without the attitude of another city that will remain unnamed. And everything was sooo cheap.

Conclusion about the trip: I liked it. I more than liked both cities. I would have to say I preferred Bratislava for its Slavic, post-USSR feel to it and Vienna for its cool vibe.

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