Sleep walking in Bratislava!

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We arrived in Bratislava on an overnight train which arrived at 5am. Needless to say we were exhausted (European overnight trains don't offer the most comfortable sleeping conditions!), so we were slightly unimpressed that we couldn't check into our hostel until 1pm. However, we shook ourselves awake and headed into the City to see what we could find and actually managed to see most of the sites before lunchtime! The Old Town consists of smart, winding cobbled streets, lined with shops and cafes (none of which opened until 8am- grrr). There are some amazing buildings with decorated roofs and numerous squares with fountains. The castle is set up on a hill next to the river Danube. It is a fairly new looking building, having been renovated by the Communists, and the castle gardens offer quite memorable views across the river to a sea of Soviet style high-rise flats. We decided to avoid this sea and stuck to our side of the river, including St Martin's Cathedral, St Michael's Gate and the National Theatre which leads onto a huge long Park lined with statues and monuments. All of this we saw in the rain, having had about 20 minutes sleep!
Our hostel was quite an experience because we met a crazy American girl who insisted on repeatedly telling us how she had been deported from Canada and The Netherlands...she was slightly difficult to tolerate! We also had a few nights of disrupted sleep because our room led onto a second bed room so effectively it was a corridoor...a noisy corridoor full of drunks! (One of our roommates attempted small talk with Ciara at about 3am! His "So...where are you guys from" was met with justified hostility!!!) Bratislava offered us our first experience of 'meat-filled pancakes', IT LOOKED LIKE CHOCOLATE! We also had slight traumas shopping in Tesco, because the Slovakians are not quite so polite with their trolley manners, they tended to work with the philosophy that a faster trolley wins right of way. That will teach us to avoid Western supermarkets!
On our last night we went to 'Gazdovsky dvor' a traditional restaurant. After dinner we moved to the bar downstairs. We had heard music earlier in the night and although it had stopped we wandered down to investigate. It turned out that they were closing for the night, but stayed open for an extra hour just for us! We were personally serenaded by a violinist who kept asking for requests "you must know some Slovakian tunes...!". He suggested some Gypsy numbers and they were very entertaining!
We left Bratislava by train accompanied by a slightly strange man who wanted to practice his English on us. He showed us his CV, pictures of his cat and mountain bike, and then joined us in the carriage asking repeatedly about "Monts" and "Skying" in England (mountains and Skiing!).
We saw Bratislava whilst slightly worse for wear due to lack of sleep, which may have jaded our opinion of it. It was a very pretty city and we have a nice time and were glad we went, but we're not sure we will go back again.

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