Bratislava

After spending a couple days in Wien, and at the suggestion of Darko, my first host here, I took a day trip to Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia. I'm really glad I made this trip. It rained the whole day, I got soaked to the bone, and it was awesome. The church pictured above is St. Martin's and it's beautiful. That gets hard to say since I've seen so many churches, but this was a really great church. Plus, you get to go down into the crypt, and that was really neat. Bratislava is actually quite a small city. I started out on one side, and was looking for the tourist info center, by the time I stopped to ask a stranger for directions, I had crossed the entire city! I had a little trouble finding my way around, I think mostly because I was hesitant to pull out my map in the rain, and then the rain made it hard to see stuff too. But I figured it out eventually and saw some really cool stuff. The lady at the info center pointed me to this authentic Slovakian restaurant, called Slovak Pub conveniently enough. When the waitress asked me what I wanted, I asked for an authentic Slovakian dish. The guys at the next table over are like, "Get the halusky. You can't say you've been to Slovakia unless you've had halusky." So I got the halusky. They say it's a potato dish, but I've never had potatoes like that. They were kind of mushy-chewy, like they'd been boiled in milk or something, then covered in melted goat cheese, and topped in bacon cubes. And by bacon cubes, I mean fried chunks of fat and gristle. Now, if that doesn't sound appetizing yet, just try to get through the whole plate. No seriously, it was pretty good, but I really should have stopped halfway. Other than seeing the sights, the great thing about visiting Bratislava is that it's cheap. That hearty meal, plus a Sprite and a 17% tip (large for Europe) ran me 140 Slovak crowns, which comes out to just under $5. Awesome. The round trip ticket out there, which includes a day pass on their public transit, came to 14 Euros. Really a steal of a deal. So this was kind of the typical American "checking another country off the list" kind of a stop, but it was really nice and a different experience from the others I've had here.