It was an early start for my day today. Yesterday I decided to do a day trip to Bratislava after seeing the weather forecast for Budapest. It was supposed to be raining in Budapest today however in Bratislava it was only cloudy in the afternoon and no rain. So I decided to go to Bratislava. I needed to catch the 7:25 a.m. train from Budapest to Bratislava. I got there about an hour early and bought my ticket. Then I got breakfast at McDonalds next to the train station. It was the same train station which just weeks ago had hundreds of refugees stranded while trying to get to Germany. This time I saw no refugees.

One thing that is always uncertain for me when I ride the trains is whether or not I get on the right train. Trains can be really confusing. And it even makes it more confusing when you’re speaking a different language. As I boarded the train I heard some Americans in conversation and I moved toward them if only to be surrounded by English speakers. However when the conductor came to punch our tickets he told me that I was in the first class car but I had a second class ticket therefore I’d have to move. When I found the second class car it seemed to me that was nicer than the first class car. The only real luxury in the first class car was adding charging outlets in the seat rows.

After about two and a half hour train ride I got off at Bratislava’s main train station. Had I been by myself I may not have gotten off at the right stop but I was able to ask fellow passengers if that was the correct stop. I’ve been walked about 20 minutes down to the old town. The old town was a lot like Gatlinburg except with less cars and more pedestrian walkways. Some of the winding streets reminded me of when I got lost in Lisbon looking for the castle at the top of the hill. I looked at souvenir shops but somehow a lot of the souvenir shops have the same exact souvenirs but they are very overpriced. I’d like to find their supplier and cut out the middleman and get stuff for cheap. I got to them main square where City Hall is in everything was set up with a stage and a lot of balloons. The MC of the event made an announcement in English and said that there would be a lot of women running through the streets Bratislava. Yes it was some sort of Marathon for only women.

I saw a sign for a supermarket and decided to check it out as sometimes there are some unusual food there which Americans may not always be aware of. After looking around I decided to get a sandwich on a footlong bread, a Fanta and a banana for lunch. As I ate my sandwich I realize they have put some kind of orange dressing on it which made it almost unbearable. I surprised myself and ate the whole sandwich with that dressing on their.

It’s at this point that I should probably point out and atrocity that Europe has never been able to explain away. I’m speaking of the atrocity of pay toilets. In America pay toilets are unheard of. Anyone in America can enter into any gas station or restaurant and use the restroom without buying anything. But somehow in Europe pay toilets are the norm. Using the restroom is a bodily function that should not be taxed. Those who implement pay toll its state it’s a user fee to keep the bathrooms clean. But what happens when you find yourself in a bind with no extra change? Do you find a tree and risk getting fined for public exposure? So I saw that the public restroom in the Bratislava Square and I jumped the turnstile without paying. I will always do this given the chance.

I walked around Bratislava’s old town and found the city walls and eventually made my way up to the castle at the top of the hill. I think I took the long way around the castle as there was a shorter way whenever I came down.  Of the city of Bratislava. You could really see the communist influence on the city with the large drab apartment complexes. Also met a new friend  – a stray cat. Always like to joke around with my friends and say that I never am able to communicate with cats I see in other countries because I’m not able to speak the local language. This time it was that I didn’t know the Slovak word for meow.

I headed down from the castle and browse around the city some more. While on the city wall I noticed something unusual. In a room off to the side was a book case of books written in Slovak. I found this to be very unusual and that no one was there trying to sell books.

I then set off to try to find a baby blue painted church. With the help of google maps I was able to find it. But the inside was decorated up as for a wedding so I was unable to go inside. Today must of been a time when many couples were getting married has a soul at least two couples getting their wedding pictures made in the old town of Bratislava.

It was at this point that I had to decide if I was going to go back at the 3 o’clock hour or the 5:30 hour. I was running out of things to do and to be quite honest with you Bratislava wasn’t too interesting after you have booked it a few times. Within Rick Steves book he highly recommended going to the top of the UFO Skyview. This is very similar to the Space Needle in Seattle. After finally finding the entrance I paid my 6.50 euros and caught the elevator to the top. The observation deck outside was very bitterly cold with the wind blowing constantly. I stayed out there long enough to get a few pictures of almost all the sides. I then headed down.

In my own mind I thought I had about an hour left to catch the train which didn’t include the 20 minute walk from where I was. I knew that catching the train was going to be somewhat confusing so I wanted to give myself a little extra time. I made my way to the train station and tried to look for my train back to Budapest. However it wasn’t assigned a platform yet. I asked a fellow traveler who happened to the American what did it mean if a train had not been assigned a platform. He made mention that he didn’t think that it was cancelled it’s just that it was so far off that they had to find a platform to it yet. Later on he found that his train to Vienna has been canceled. I tried asking the ticket booth representatives about this anomaly but they just said that they did not know train platforms and would direct me to other non existent information centers. Eventually my train got assigned to platform one which I got on. However the train to not leave the station on time and instead ran 80 minutes late. This put me back to Budapest at around 10 p.m. During the train ride I met some Slovaks and Hungarians. The Slovak lady spoke good English and she was able to give me updates about when the train would leave. The Hungarian man and his wife mostly spoke Hungarian the entire way although the man tried to speak a mix of German and English and we were able to communicate a little. I finally made it back to Budapest at around 10 and grabbed some chicken McNuggets at the local McDonald’s.