Ana and I were both able to get the day off 'work' on Friday so we could get an early start on our last big adventure together. We left Vienna early and headed over to Bratislava, which is where our plane was flying out from. Bratislava is only about an hour away from here and our plane to Rome didn't leave until evening, so we had most of the morning and early afternoon to explore the capital city of Slovakia. We thought it would work out perfectly since we've talked about going to Bratislava for months. Our first item of business after we arrived at the train station was to find out how to get into the station from the platform. As we exited the train we started to walk towards the building, but this wasn't the main station and the building was quite odd so we had some difficulties finding the main entrance, or any entrance for that matter. We started walking in a direction that looked promising and just kept walking until we'd reached a point where there was definitely no entrance. As we turned around to walk back and try again, we were startled to see a very large group directly behind us. Looking at the group of people, I recognized them all from the train and realized that they all looked quite lost themselves. An awkward moment passed by and then all of the sudden it hit us all at the same time... everyone had been following us, the clueless foreigners, simply because we were in the front. A little embarrassed that we were leading a bunch of people to no where, and seeing that they were all embarrassed that they had been following us like bunch of dumb sheep, we just all busted up laughing together. After a few minutes of laughter with our new Austrian/Slovakian friends we finally found a way into the slight pathetic station. Our next item of business was to acquire a map of the city so we could find our a way around and try and figure out the public transportation system. Normally, finding a city map is no problem because there are always information spots at ever train station. However, like I said, this station was slightly pathetic and the only thing inside was a dysfunctional vending machine and a very cranky station attendant who didn't speak german or english. Outside of the train station, there was absolutely nothing... we were definitely on the outskirts of town. And, of course, neither of us speak Slovak so trying to read signs was out of the question. Finally we were able to find some one spoke german to direct us to a small store to buy a map. I'm pretty decent with maps, so now that we had one I figured getting around would be a piece of cake. But much to my dismay, looking at the map was like reading a foreign language... oh wait, it was exactly like reading a foreign language. Nothing made any sense whatsoever, and all the bus lines were connecting and intersecting and all printed in the same color, making it incredibly hard to figure out how to get anywhere. But after a while, we were able to get some sort of clue and just started jumping on buses and hoping we ended up where we wanted.
Once we made it into the main part of town we discovered that its just as boring, lame, and confusing as the outskirts we started in. In less than two hours we had seen all the main sites of the town which consisted of a total of... about... one. The Bratislava Castle is really the only thing worth seeing there, and even that is pretty sad. It looks pretty cool, but it also looks brand new, which lowers the cool factor... A LOT. After that we decided that we didn't want to deal with the crumby city anymore mixed with rain and really cold wind so we just decided to attempt to find our way to the airport and wait for our take-off to Rome Italy! It took us quite a while to get to the airport, but once we were finally there, it felt great. Its a very liberating feeling to conquer the public transportation system of a confusing/boring city. We had to wait a long time at the airport, but once we had checked-in, gone through security, and boarded the plane I was overwhelmed with a realization that I was ACTUALLY on my way to ROME... a city that I knew wouldn't be boring or confusing, but a city that would in fact fulfill a dream of mine to see!!!
a cool view of the city from the castle... but don't be deceived... once you're down there its pretty depressing
I dare you to try and decipher this
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