We had the best day yesterday! We met early and caught the train to Bratislava (just 14 Euro with return. This also allows you to use the public transport in Bratislava while you're there). On the train we met three girls from Germany - Vanessa, Veronica, and Kathanha. Vanessa is living in Vienna and interning with IBM for 6 weeks and her friends came out to visit her here for the weekend. We ended up hanging out with them all day and having the best time! When we got to Bratislava we found our way out to the castle and walked around the grounds. The museum is alleged not to be the greatest, so we skipped going in. The ramparts offer an amazing view of the new city area (See PICTURES). I couldn't help but think about the Communist rule of the area - the cookie cutter, project-like buildings in the new city really spoke of that era. For me, it was the strangest feeling to stand in a country that was once under the rule of a type of government that my own country has fought long and hard to eradicate. It made me think about the lives of the people that live there and what they have been like.
After the castle we walked down into the old town a bit further and looked around. We saw the Parliament house, the main square with all the fountains and statues, and the State Theatre. There were tons of weddings going on so there were brides everywhere! We decided to walk across the UFO bridge to the new city. There we found the strangest thing - a full sized American-style shopping mall. Literally, were it not for all the signs being in Slovak - I would have thought I was in any state in America. It's such a dramatic contrast to the rest of the area where the mall is and the history of the country. Vanessa was fairly knowledgeable about the history of the country and was saying that the mall and people in it would not be representative of the population as a whole. The average Slovakian makes half what a person in Austria does (average income of a person in Austria is 25,500 Euro). The vast majority of the people would not be able to afford to shop in the mall. To us, things seemed cheap. They are on the Slovakian Crown and, for example, I saw a sweater that was nice in an upscale shop for 1,100 Crowns. The exchange rate to the Euro is 33 - so the sweater was about 34 Euro. For a wool sweater of that quality, that is VERY reasonable. But to think that most people can't even go buy a cup of coffee there (my coffee there cost me 69 Crowns or about 2.10 Euro for a medium double chocolate mocha) is a hard thing to think about.
We took the train back to Vienna and decided that we would meet up later in the Nussdorf area and go to a wee little Austrian pub (these are quite renowned in Austria) for wine and dessert. Victoria and I actually met up with them on the D-Tram to Nussdorf (ironic) and we walked through these little cobblestone streets to what looked to be a wide alley between the houses. All the streetlights were on and it was just lovely. You walked back between the houses where candles in big glass jars lit the alley to a small restaurant with wooden benches and baskets over the hanging lights for shades. It was full of people over the age of 60 - we were by far the youngest people there. A cute old man - part of what appeared to be a party -was yodeling in the back. We sat and drank sweet new wine (Strom I think?) and ate Topfenstrudel (an Austrian strudel with raisins and sweet cheese - really good). It was a really great day, I enjoyed every minute of it. When I finally staggered home exhausted at 11:30, I really felt like I had enjoyed my day. Vanessa is going to join Victoria and I for dinner some night. It was great to make some new friends. I had a really good Saturday! I enjoyed Bratislava as well - an interesting way to spend a day.
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