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Published: July 13th 2013
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So cool
It was really this close. Sunday July 7 – Today did not start well. I got up at 6:30am after a night of terrible sleep. Bratislava is a party town for English bachelor parties and it was a Saturday night last night. I stayed in a girls dorm that had 6 beds, and there were four of us, which was fine. I had the room to myself until 11pm, when I went to bed, and the girls who came in were pretty quiet. The problem was that the window opened up to a main road, and it seemed that everyone out there was having a good ole loud time. All night. It was finally quiet when I woke up at 6:30am, of course. I got my stuff together and thought I left in plenty of time, but it was taking too long to get to the train station. At some point I realized I made a mistake and that I was never going to make the train at 7:53. It was sunny and hot and I was sweating already. A serious mistake to put on a fresh clean shirt, I’ll tell you what. I was looking around, trying to figure out where I went wrong, and
started walking towards an older couple who had passed me on the street. They were looking at me too, obviously noticing that I was lost and trying to help. I showed the man the word for the name of the train station and he pointed the way, though somewhat confusingly. I crossed the street and started to walk in the same direction, but they were watching and seemed to point in the other direction. Confusing. So I turned in to what was obviously the older creepy abandoned train station, which I had hoped would connect to the new one. It did not. But I thought I could get to the new one from there eventually, and I did. At the station, drenched in sweat, I asked about the next train to Trencin and found out they only go every two hours. So I had a lot of time to kill. Luckily they had a lounge and free wifi, so I started searching for a place to stay in several upcoming towns. I sent out some requests for couchsurfing, to see if I can get that going, though eastern Europe seems to have less possibilities than western Europe.
Once I
got to Trencin, I walked through the park towards town, and then realized I had already passed by my pension, so I had to turn around and go back towards the train station. It was much closer than I thought. It is an old Victorian building sitting by itself. I had to check in at the casino in the basement, which made me a little nervous. But check-in was not until 2pm and it was about noon. The guy did not speak much English, but he let me keep my bag behind the bar while I went out for the day, which was nice. I headed out to find some lunch with all the valuables still in my daypack and a bit heavy. I realized right away that most of the town was closed on Sundays, including restaurants. But I was able to find a nice local place and ordered some dumplings, like the ones I’d had just the day before. The plate was enormous and the price was tiny. I could not eat it all. I paid for lunch and then wandered through the town a bit, trying to get my bearings (I have none). I walked up towards
the castle, which was the only reason I went to this town. It was on a cliff overlooking the town, and I could already see it when the train pulled up. It was an uphill trek, but good, and when I got there and paid for a tour ticket (I chose the grand tour rather than the shorter one), I was pleased to find that they had some tours in English, and the next was only 15 minutes away. I was told there was one other person on the tour. The Slovak tour that started just before mine had many more people, so that was great. And then I saw him – the other English speaker. He was on my tour in Bratislava yesterday as well. He was easy to recognize as his hand was bandaged up and he had the same hat on. His name is Mauricio and he also lives in Switzerland. He’s Chilean by birth but grew up in French speaking Switzerland. He travels around with a figurine of Indiana Jones that he puts into pictures that he takes. The tour guide was a young college student from Trencin but studying in Brno. It was his first
English tour, and he did a good job. It was a fun time. After the tour ended, Mauricio and I explored one building on the grounds that was not included in the tour and then went to see the falconry show that was at 4:15pm. From there we headed back to town via a church on the way down. It was closed, so we continued down a small forest path. While we were still in the castle, we could hear music coming from the 4pm concert in the town square, which was quite cool. When we go to the forest path, Mauricio told me that Indiana Jones would protect us from anything there. Exactly after he said that, the band started to play the theme song from that movie. So weird. But fun.
Back in town we went to the church I had tried earlier and it was now open. Really pretty and ornate inside. I went out to watch the end of the concert and he stayed in the church a little longer. From there we walked towards the train station and had dinner at a place in the park that was open. I had a milk shake
and a pizza with peaches, banana, pineapple and red currants. A strange offering but good choice. That also took care of dessert. From there he had to run to the station for his next train and I went back to the casino to check in. Fortunately, my room was upstairs in the building, and was quite cute and purple. I really liked it. I am so pro my own room at this stage and another dorm so son would have been depressing. The room was great and I stayed in for the rest of the evening, skyping, watching True Blood, starting to write this blog. It was a nice evening.
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