Bratislava and Budapest: Part 1

November 1-4

Last weekend I took my first big trip, to Bratislava and Budapest. I'm really glad I went, although I'm still tired from all the walking I did. I'll try to keep this post relatively short, but I'm not sure that's possible.

OK, I'll start from the beginning. I took the night train heading from Munich to Budapest. Unfortunately there were no beds available on this leg, so I could only reserve a seat. Even more unfortunately, the seats were in 6-person compartments with 3 seats facing 3 either seats. That=not very much leg room. Luckily there were only two other people in my compartment, so we each got two seats to ourselves. The three of us ended up having two languages in common--English and German. One was a woman who lived in Vienna and was heading home, and the other happened to be a Slovak guy who was going to Bratislava! I feel like my trip was characterized by good luck, and here was my first lucky break. I had been planning on traveling all the way to Budapest then getting a train from there to Bratislava, but this guy told me that this train stopped in Austria right outside Bratislava, and that I could ride along with him and he'd point me to the right bus once we got into the city.

My next adventure: trying to buy a bus ticket in the Bratislava Petrzalka train station. The woman who ran the kiosk was...not very nice. I asked if you spoke English, and she shook her head and immediately turned away. I asked if she spoke German, and she rolled her eyes, turned back to me, and gave me a look that said, "Ugh...now I have to deal with you." Then she refused to sell me a day-long public transportation pass, for no reason. I'd read that people at kiosks do not like to cut tourists a break, so I decided not to push it and just bought a regular ticket.

I took the bus into the city, got off at the stop my Slovak bud told me to--and had no idea where I was. He'd told me that I'd be right in the city center near everything, but to me it looked like there was nothing around. I wandered around a little bit and eventually found a city map posted. From there I was able to figure out the direction of the historical center, but I was a good 3 or 4 blocks north of it. I somehow found my way to what I can only assume is Bratislava's main shopping drag. It featured such high-quality stores as Hello Kitty and Converse. It was kind of creepy, because it was completely dead. I didn't realize until later in the day that the Slovaks take their holidays very seriously--meaning no one works. I wandered a little bit more, accidentally walked into a church that was having a mass (it was All Saints' Day, hence everything being closed), and decided to walk up to Bratislava Castle. Big mistake. I still had my backpack on and that hill was steep. The view was pretty good, but I was pretty tired from having gotten approximately no sleep on the night train combined with my thousand-pound backpack weighing me down. I looked around a little bit, broke down and paid 10 SKK to use the bathroom, then walked back down and caught the tram to my hostel.

Now this was an adventure. My hostel wasn't really a hostel. I had reserved a room in a dorm of the Slovak Technical University. I found the building pretty easily, and the receptionist, but here's where the fun started. The receptionist didn't speak a word of English or German, and I don't speak a word of Slovak. Somehow I paid the rest of my balance, filled out the appropriate paperwork, and got my key. We then walked through what looked like a prison. I'm not kidding. Concrete hallways, gates blocking off different wings. The room was actually really good for what I paid. For $20, I had my own room (bigger than my dorm room at USC) and bathroom. Granted, it was pretty rundown, but it was clean. And how many of you can say that you've spent the night in a dorm in Bratislava? So if you're ever in Bratislava, I recommend the Summer Youth Hostel Mlada Garda (as it's called on hostelworld.com).

After finally dumping my bookbag, I headed back into the city center. This time I finally found all the historical stuff. First goal: eat lunch. There was not much open, and most of it was sit-down. I finally broke down and ate in a cafe because I was really hungry and that was all that was around. On this trip I sure missed the all the bakeries and take-away food Germany has.

After lunch I wandered around the old town a bit. There wasn't much to see because almost everything was closed, and honestly, I found the old town a little bit bland. It was nice and all, but it looked pretty generic. There were a few palaces, but they mostly just looked like large buildings. I found St. Martin's Cathedral, where Maria Theresa was crowned empress of Austria-Hungary. That was really nice inside, although it looked pretty ugly from the outside. One thing I noticed about Bratislava is that most of the churches looked rather unimpressive from the outside, but amazing inside. After finishing up wandering, I was cold and tired and decided to get some food to take back with me to my dorm. I found a Chinese restaurant that let me get something to go, so I got it.

I went to bed early that night (like, 8:30) because I was exhausted from no sleep the night before and a long day of walking around. The next morning I got up early to head out to Devin Castle before I got the train to Budapest. About 5 minutes after I got up, I heard a knock on my door. There stood yet another Slovak woman who didn't speak German or English (how do none of these people speak German? It's 15 minutes away from Austria!) who, after much gesticulating, I finally figured out wanted my receipt (still not sure why). For some reason she wanted me out of the room really fast, even though check-out wasn't until 9 AM. Anyway, I left a little after 8, got an extremely cheap breakfast at the grocery store across the street, and started my journey to Devin Castle.

Here's yet another adventure. I had to take the tram into town, take another tram from there, get off that tram, walk to the bus station, then take the bus from there to Devin. Now, all of the buses and trams in Bratislava stop at every stop--you don't have to request a stop unless indicated, which it wasn't on this bus line. The bus stopped at every stop, until about 2 stop before mine. There were a bunch of people waiting to get off, and they all started yelling at the driver when he blew past a few stops. Eventually he stopped at one a few past mine, letting every out. I was pretty confused and not sure where I was, so I asked a girl near me if she knew where the castle was. Coincidentally, there happened to be an American walking right behind us who overheard me, and was also walking to the castle. He said he'd walk with me, thank goodness. He said that he lived in Slovakia and was here with his wife for the long weekend, having a vacation while she was stuck in seminars. He was the first person I'd met who spoke native English probably since I was in Munich. It was so nice to speak English with someone who also spoke it fluently!

The castle was pretty neat. When we got there, it was closed, but apparently the gate was only closed by a latch that was easy to lift up, so we went in. The castle is on the Morava River, which separates Austria and Slovakia, so it was pretty cool to see Austria only a few meters away. The castle also sits close to the point where the Morava joins the Danube, which is also where Slovakia borders Hungary, so from the castle it's possible to see Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. I'm sure I saw Hungary, but I'm not really sure exactly where it was.

I left the castle around 10:30, thinking that would be plenty of time for me to make it to the train station to catch my 11:45 train. Turns out I was wrong. First I had to find the correct bus stop, since the driver had let us off at the wrong one. Once I did that, the bus didn't come until 10:50, which meant I got back into the city around 11:10. After that I had to take a tram to a place where I could connect with another tram that would take me to the train station. When I finally got to a tram stop that I knew would take me to the train station, I looked at the schedule--and saw that if I waited, I would get to the station one minute after my train was supposed to leave. I decided to walk to another tram stop that I knew ran on a different line, in hopes that I could catch one that would get there earlier. Well, I couldn't find another that went directly to the train station, so I got on one that I knew went in the right direction. It didn't make the stops I thought it would, so I got off a little bit too late. Somehow, with incredible luck, it turned out that the stop I got off at also had a tram line running through it that went directly to the train station, and was scheduled to come at 11:43, taking 5 minutes to get there. With even more incredible luck, the tram came 4 minutes early! The whole way to the train station I just kept hoping and hoping that my train would be just 5 minutes late--that would be enough for me to make it. As soon as the tram pulled into the train station, I jumped off, ran up the steps, looked at the sign--it was running five minutes late! I ran my track and got on the train with about 1 minute to spare. Even luckier than that, the day before I had decided to ride to the train station just to see where it was, and I had bought my ticket then. If I had decided to wait until the next day, I would have missed the train.

OK, this is getting waaay too long. To be continued. Up next: Budapest