To Bratislava and Back

Guess what? Since we haven't been on bikes in the past 48 hours, we haven't gotten lost once!

After 8 days of getting to know the Czech Republic, Wednesday morning we said good-bye to the beautiful country and headed for Austria. We were only in Vienna for about an hour when we decided to fly by the seat of our pants and add another country to the list.... Our hostel didn't have availability, so we took it as a sign to adventure some place else. We hopped on a bus to Slovakia, and arrived in the capital, Bratislava within an hour and a half. Lugging our bags through the streets of Vienna, on the subway, on the bus and then through the streets of Bratislava was by far the hardest part. Our bags are only 30 lbs each but now we are wishing we had packed even lighter.

We stayed in Hostel Possonium, which to put it nicely was a bazaar place (Jesus was the hostel desk manager was at least very entertaining). On our first venture into Bratislava the skies opened up and we got soaked. We wandered the streets, ducking into stores frequently to avoid the rain. While stopping for a hot drink I discovered that Hot Chocolate in Slovakia is actually just a melted chocolate bar, it was so so rich. Our overpowering craving for a burger lead us to what we thought was a sports bar... After having a burger each for 7 Euros we concluded that we were eating in the Slovakian version of Hooters, instead of orange they were wearing stripes.... Oh well the food was cheap.

Today we explored Bratislava more but we were bored of the city rather quickly... The most exciting thing that happened was we were asked to be in a movie... So Jorie and I acted out a tourist seen in front of the castle... So I guess now we are going to be movie stars in a Slovak movie. Over all Bratislava was rather weird and felt like a ghost town.

We caught the afternoon bus back to Vienna... Vienna is such a happy and lively city in comparison. We were so excited to get back to a lively fun place. This evening we went to the Opera!!! We were both dressed up and in a little bit of a rush to get to the Opera house, so we grabbed our favorite, meal deal for dinner, and ate our sandwiches as we walked down the streets of Vienna... It was hysterical. The Opera was an amazing experience... The architecture of the famous Vienna Opera was spectacular and well worth seeing. Both Jorie and I had never been to an Opera, so we didn't really know what to expect but it was very enjoyable and quite an impressive art. We wandered Naschmarket, which is such a popping and fun place... We both found ourselves staring at all the delicious food... We are now back at our hostel, Wombat, planning out tomorrow's adventure and so excited for all there is to see. Wombat is the nicest hostel we have stayed in yet.


Other random things we have noticed...
- On the boarder of Czech and Austria there is a shopping center called Freeport! Yet another Maine reference....
- Austrian women are very good at riding bikes in skirts.
- We have seen lots of Austrian men wearing headbands... Apparently that is in...