starts with "SL"

---

Greetings blog readers.......

This is getting very confusing.......I am sitting on a bench in front of the city hall in Bratislava.....a country that begins with "SL"and ends in "ia". Problem is, is it Slovakia, Slovenia or Slavonia? OK. it is Slovakia. I have just watched a long ceremony in front of thye Presidential Palace where I either expected Peter Sellers or Julie Andrews as Queen of Devonia to be standing outside, not the president ofthis country. Would you believe that they had majorettes doing a routine to the Colonel Bogey March in addition to the band, military drill team and an exercise by the commandos!!!!

They say that Bratislava is the small cousin of Prague and they are right. Actually, this city of about half a million people has a squeekily clean and restored old town that truly outdoes Prague. It has been almost totally restored and most of what haswn't been is in the process. In some cases, it simply looks too restored.....if there is such a thing. Last night, when all the lights came on it was quite magical. There are many embassies in the old town which are totally unprotected, in comparison to that ofr the USA which is smack dab inthe middle of a pedestrian walk....with 12ft high green fencing, dug up roads and poloice security all over the place. It makes me feel sad that we have to go thru this rightly or wrongly.

I arrived here yesterday on a bus from Budapest. Out of our group of 164 that were on the ship, about 75 continued on to Prague and Bratislava was a lunch stop along the way. After a chat with our tour director and a little baacksheesh to the driver, jspace was made for me and my suitcase on one of those buses for thge 2.5 drive. Of course I'll always stay on a boat whenI can, so my hotel is actually a "boatel" right on the Danube!!!!!

Our last day in Budapest was nice and relaxing. Michael and I had finally f8igured out the public transport so we left the hotel and headed for the gigantic public market so Michael could buy some whole paprika. Guess they don't have any of thqt in LA !!!! Then we worked our way to the SecretPolice Museum which is located on one of the main streets of Budapest. It was very well done and covered the periods from the 1930s thru 1989....right down the cells, interregation rooms and offices. Afterluch, we went back uip to CastleHill so Michael could gothru the Telephone Museum whhich even I found interesting. Our last night featured a farewell dinner which crowded 164 people into a room that should onlyhold 50 for a mediochre dinner. Everyone was pretty bummed out with the dinner, but the tour director managed to save the evening by taking us to a looki out area of castle hill where we could see the lights of Budapest come on. Bythe time the Basilica and the Chain Bridge were all lit, it was another Disneyish type sight!!!!!!

(I digress.....there is a guy feeling up his girl frriend on a bench about 30ft away).

Tomorrow, I am on a train from Bratislava to Gorlitz in Germany.....a trip of about 8hours, even on an ICE fast train. Oh well.....I"ll charge up the iPod and have my book handy. The glare on this screen is bad, so, once again, forgive me if I don't include any pictures. It is also time for lunch, tho I don't think I'llhave another bowl of garlic soup like I had last night.

Get back to you soon.

Bob

---

Comments

[Rudi]

Oi
Well sound like a interesting trip so far --- love to see the pixs when you get back.