Me helping this guy creep on some unsuspecting chump.
Who knew the Red Army had a choir?
Seth "accidentally" walking into my picture of some cool building.
An old statue in the middle of a park.
An Irish kebab stand.
This past weekend, Seth, Matt, and I traveled across the border into Slovakia. After a short train ride (about an hour and a half from Wiener Neustadt) we arrived in Bratislava (formerly Pressberg). Once we arrived, we set out looking for the #93 bus. There were several bus stops in the vicinity of the train station, but it appeared that the #93 bus was only a myth. Thus, we did what any lost person would do, we pointed in the direction that looked to be the most populated and started walking. Thirty or forty minutes later, we returned to the train station and found a bus map. It turned out that the bus we were looking for leaves from the backside of the train station, not the front (or the populated area).
We took the bus five stops to the inner city and promptly realized that I had missed a portion of the directions when I took a picture of them with my iPhone. We had a street name, but no number. I did remember for sure that it was a pink building. After a while we found the street and eventually we found the hostel, which was not at all pink. Upon entering the hostel, we were immediately told that they were full and given directions to another hostel. We arrived at the other hostel a few minutes later, and while it was a little pricey (about 20 Euros a person); it was really nice and had a much better location than the original hostel. After getting settled, we headed out to get some grub. We wanted to try Slovakian foods, so we went into a shady looking pub/restaurant, finding out after we were inside that it was a KGB restaurant. Since our waitress spoke no German and only caveman-English, we ordered awkwardly through a system of pointing gestures, grunts, and questioning looks. Whatever we did, we did right, because the food was absolutely delicious. Additionally, it was really cheap, about 6 Euros for a great portion of food and a beer.
After eating, we walked around the city a bit and sight-saw. Bratislava is a really cool town. While the streets aren't as clean as they are in Vienna, there are many parks and the people seemed nice.
We looked around for a cool place to have a beer and happened upon a bar simply called "Slovak Pub". It was interesting because we were expecting to hear a bunch of people speaking Slovakian and were preparing our cavemen gestures when we noticed that everyone was speaking English... very loudly. After ordering a virtually undrinkable beer (seriously, it tasted like it had been brewed with a bunch of pennies in the barrel) and a glass of wine, we bounced. We walked around a bit more a came upon a cocktail bar called "Drink". They had fantastic cocktails, cheap and delicious. We got a couple of drinks and a round of cool-looking B52's made with Absinth, which is green. We then found a McDonald's, which is kind of classier restaurant there and you don't feel guilty or ashamed when eating there. We destroyed a couple burgers and some fries and then were heading back to drink when we met a couple locals. They took us to a disco, but it was probably the worst club I have ever been to. There were approximately 8 people there and my ears are still ringing. We looked for another place, but found out that everywhere in Bratislava is closed by 1 am on a Saturday night.
We left the next morning and learned a valuable lesson on the way back: just because a train says it's going somewhere (for example, "Wiener Neustadt Hauptbahnhof") it may not be going there directly. We noticed this an hour into what is normally a 30 minute trip from Vienna to Wiener Neustadt. We arrived another hour or so later. On the bright side, we did get to see the Burgenland! -Note- Those aware of Austrian geography may realize here that Wiener Neustadt is in Niederösttereich and is southwest of Vienna, the Burgenland is east/southeast of Vienna.
All in all, it was a great time and was really interesting to see such a stark difference in culture such a small distance away.
We took the bus five stops to the inner city and promptly realized that I had missed a portion of the directions when I took a picture of them with my iPhone. We had a street name, but no number. I did remember for sure that it was a pink building. After a while we found the street and eventually we found the hostel, which was not at all pink. Upon entering the hostel, we were immediately told that they were full and given directions to another hostel. We arrived at the other hostel a few minutes later, and while it was a little pricey (about 20 Euros a person); it was really nice and had a much better location than the original hostel. After getting settled, we headed out to get some grub. We wanted to try Slovakian foods, so we went into a shady looking pub/restaurant, finding out after we were inside that it was a KGB restaurant. Since our waitress spoke no German and only caveman-English, we ordered awkwardly through a system of pointing gestures, grunts, and questioning looks. Whatever we did, we did right, because the food was absolutely delicious. Additionally, it was really cheap, about 6 Euros for a great portion of food and a beer.
After eating, we walked around the city a bit and sight-saw. Bratislava is a really cool town. While the streets aren't as clean as they are in Vienna, there are many parks and the people seemed nice.
We looked around for a cool place to have a beer and happened upon a bar simply called "Slovak Pub". It was interesting because we were expecting to hear a bunch of people speaking Slovakian and were preparing our cavemen gestures when we noticed that everyone was speaking English... very loudly. After ordering a virtually undrinkable beer (seriously, it tasted like it had been brewed with a bunch of pennies in the barrel) and a glass of wine, we bounced. We walked around a bit more a came upon a cocktail bar called "Drink". They had fantastic cocktails, cheap and delicious. We got a couple of drinks and a round of cool-looking B52's made with Absinth, which is green. We then found a McDonald's, which is kind of classier restaurant there and you don't feel guilty or ashamed when eating there. We destroyed a couple burgers and some fries and then were heading back to drink when we met a couple locals. They took us to a disco, but it was probably the worst club I have ever been to. There were approximately 8 people there and my ears are still ringing. We looked for another place, but found out that everywhere in Bratislava is closed by 1 am on a Saturday night.
We left the next morning and learned a valuable lesson on the way back: just because a train says it's going somewhere (for example, "Wiener Neustadt Hauptbahnhof") it may not be going there directly. We noticed this an hour into what is normally a 30 minute trip from Vienna to Wiener Neustadt. We arrived another hour or so later. On the bright side, we did get to see the Burgenland! -Note- Those aware of Austrian geography may realize here that Wiener Neustadt is in Niederösttereich and is southwest of Vienna, the Burgenland is east/southeast of Vienna.
All in all, it was a great time and was really interesting to see such a stark difference in culture such a small distance away.
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