Battling Bratislava and Beautiful Vienna

I'm sure they were gaining retribution for me waking the room up at about 5AM with my shenanigans the previous night, but at about 7AM the Korean girls in my room went about doing their morning routine. I'm sure my lack of sleep contributed to the time dilation, but these chicks took at least an hour and a bit to get their shit together. I know girls have a reputation for taking a while to get organised, but this was simply ridiculous. How many times do you have to open and shut that locker door woman? Needless to say, I was pleased when they finally left. About an hour later, say, 9AM, they returned. I assume they went to have breakfast, had a chat and said "Let's go wake that guy up in our room again, he kept waking us up during the night". They proceeded to open and close lockers and generally fart about for another half hour before they finally left the room properly.

I peeled myself out of bed shortly before midday and ran into Jan, a Dutch guy who was quietly reading his book in the hostel bar area. I was still a bit grumpy, a well known trait that anyone whose seen me in the morning will attest to, but I persevered with the conversation and ended up going out to get some food with him. This turned out to be a great decision, as he invited me along with his Dutch buddies for the day/evening trip they were making to the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava. I went back to the hostel, napped for another hour and met the Dutch boys down in the bar playing pool. It was probably the longest game of pool I've ever witnessed, and anyone watching would have assumed that they don't have billiard tables in Holland. Eventually they gave up (didn't even finish), and we walked down to the train station to get our tickets.

The trip only took an hour and a bit, and during this time I bantered some messages back and forth with Paul, whom I knew had enjoyed the city not long previously. He updated me on his current status in South Africa, apparently in a fenced off compound which I found slightly disturbing. He also gave me the names of a place to eat and a bar to track down, as well as the contact details of some random girl who was a friend of a friend of his. When we had arrived in Bratislava, we grabbed a taxi to get into the center of town, as we'd arrived in one of the stations on the outskirts. The 5 of us crammed into the little taxi, and it is probably a good stage to point out that 3 of the 4 Dutch guys I was with were at least 6"5' each, and that it was a very cozy little trip. We spent a couple of hours wandering around and checking the place out, downing a couple of beers and then deciding it was time to eat. We found the restaurant recommended by the big P, however seeing as it was in a basement sort of area and wanting to have a good old view of the Slovakian scenery of which we'd heard so much praise, we opted for an outdoor restaurant instead. We all ordered various "Slovakian" dishes, all of which were fairly ordinary. I'm willing to put this down to being at an ordinary restaurant, I'm sure there is better cuisine to be found around the place.

After our meal was done we attempted to find the nightlife (it was a Saturday), ended up wandering around for a while poking our heads in different bars without really coming across anything that grabbed out interest. I'm not sure exactly what we were hoping for, but we didn't find it. We also couldn't find the bar that Paul had recommended, and decided that 5 guys calling a single random Slovakian chick recommended by a friend of a friend probably wouldn't go down terribly well. The first place we checked out was more of a restaurant bar, with most people sitting down to eat. We had a round there then ended up wandering around for a further twenty minutes, including one of the Dutch guys poking his head into what was surely a gay bar judging by the pink lighting and the rainbow flag hanging in the corner. The rest of us decided to let him scope out the place before venturing in ourselves; a wise decision as he came out shortly afterwards and confirmed that this was not a venue we'd probably want to patron.

Eventually we ended up in a dodgy little cocktail lounge, sunk a few more brews there before the big midnight bell sounded and we had to start thinking about getting back to the train station. Before we did we ran into a group of cool Irish girls travelling with one Irish guy, had a quick chat and snapped a photo. I worked out between the girls that we were all headed to Budapest within the next couple of days, and they asked their male companion to swap numbers with me. I could see that he was having none of it, and in an unspoken agreement we assured the girls that we had and the Dutch boys and myself all left the building. Eventually we found a couple waiting around, and after bartering a price finally made it to the main Bratislava station. One of the Dutch guys had some Slovakian currency left in his wallet which he wanted to get rid of, and attempted to get some of the homeless people around the station to dance for it. It was in rather bad taste really, and Jan and myself managed to convince him after a couple of his little attempts to go spend it on a burger or a drink instead.

We made it back to the hostel around 2'ish and promptly hit the bar downstairs. Just as I walked in, I had an Irish girl, Mary, come up to me and ask if I was looking for a fight. She informed me that I was holding my shoulders back in a way that made me look like I wanted to rumble, and not realising that she was also slightly taking the piss I floundered a bit and tried to convince her that this was not the case. She dissapeared and one of the Dutch guys bought a round of punch, which was apparently the only thing left on the offering. It was strong stuff, but shortly after the barmen decided that they could sell bottled beer as well, and a round of Becks was followed shortly after. Jan started working his Dutch magic on some of Mary's Irish friends around the bar, and I decided to hit the pool table.

It was about then that I realised that the Aussie guy currently playing was one of the dudes I'd sunk a few beers with back in Salzburg. Eventually they finished that game and the coin I'd thrown on the table came into it's own. I spied Mary loitering around the table and told her that she was going to play as well. Apparently I hadn't been quite clear in my intent, and after breaking the setup, she was about start playing against me before I informed her that she was actually on my team. Apparently she was all ready to "beat my ass", probably because of the awkward encounter we'd had back at the bar, but once she understood that we actually had to win the table she decided to befriend me instead and we got to talking. It turned out it was her birthday this particular night and after some general conversation we got to chatting about what was going on previously at the bar.

She described my previous posture as someone that was "Lookin for a foight!". I couldn't help myself, and had a reasonable amount of Dutch courage by that point and replied with "Foightin? Oi'll be foightin round tha werld!", a random quote from a Southpark episode featuring Russel Crowe. She picked up what I threw down immediately and we began singing the theme song from Russel Crowe's show in the episode. We were both aghast that we actually knew what each other was talking about, and a bit later on in the game as we were struggling to pot the last few she queried what we were going to do about it. I replied "Well, by our powers combined..." to which she responded "We are Captain Planet!", and then we both started singing the theme song to that fairly obscure tv show as well. Her friends started shaking their heads out our extreme display of combined geek, but we were both to wrapped up in finding a kindred spirit to care.

We ended up winning the game but losing the next, at which point the bartender started to call last drinks, and threw on some "dancing music" for anyone that might care to get up on the bar, particularly singling out the Aussie I had run into in Salzburg. He wasn't the smallest of men, but got up on the bar anyway and started moving about. I made my way back over to the Dutch guys who had surrounded one of the Irish girls, and then Mary decided she'd throw her hat in the ring, jumped up on the bar and shortly after was trying to remove the guy's top, of which he was having none. Eventually it got all a bit to steamy for him and he came down and left Mary up there to enjoy the bar dance to Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" by herself. The whole thing was hilarious, and I'm pretty sure she got a few free drinks out of it. After she got down from the bar, the bartender decided to put on a slower blues track to get some more people involved, offering some free drinks to the best dancers. I caught Mary by the hand and showed her a few steps of my own.

The bar shut around 4, and we all called it a night. I went back to my room and tried not to wake the Koreans again, lest I incur their vengeful wrath again the next morning. Unfortunately apparently I did, and they again spent an hour or so stuffing about getting themselves sorted for their next day in Vienna. I couldn't sleep in either, as I had to check out by 10 to move to the other Wombats hostel down the road, both because I wanted to see if it was any good, and the current one had no openings for that night. I left my bags in the new place and headed out to actually see the sights of Vienna.

In a nutshell, everything in Vienna is huge. I got the metro out to the start of the main part of the city, and as I emerged from the underground tram I was confronted with the parliament building which is absolutely huge. I checked it out from a few different angles then headed up the street to pass one of the theater houses which was also huge, and then to Hofburg Palace, which is absolutely gargantuan. I checked out the Rathuas, which is basically the town hall of the city. It was surrounded with stalls and booths selling all sorts of food, and had a mammoth projection screen set up in front of it. All of this was for the film festival that was currently being held there, however I didn't actually see any of the flicks on offer. I picked up some Japanes food and continued to wander around the city and quickly realised that pretty much every building is massive. I think the Austrians must have had a lot of money at some point in their history and just went crazy building stuff in the city. Whether it's a theater, a government building or just something residential, in the city center everything is opulent and huge.

I made my way down to the river and purchased my boat ticket for the next days journey to Budapest, and then finished the sightseeing tour with a visit to the House of Music. It was an interesting place with a lot of interactive exhibits that would make strange noises and music when you played with them. There were a few areas dedicated to different classical composers that were important in musical history and had some significant attachment to Vienna. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and others all seemed to do a lot of their work in Vienna, and this has led to Vienna being known as the city of music. I think this should be altered to the city of classical music, as those looking for something a bit more modern may be left wanting. The best part of the museum I found was a cool interactive game they had where you wave a stick around like a conductor would, and a video in front of you shows an orchestra playing whichever track you may have selected in time with your movement. I saw one guy who managed to wave the magical little wand around in a manner that actually resulted in the orchestra finishing the song. Everyone else, myself included, ended up having the orchestra stop halfway through, say something in German and all start laughing. I'm sure it was less than praise.

After my sightseeing trip I got myself back to the new hostel, checked in my things and made my way down to the bar. I chatted to an American couple for a while before realising that the bar in this hostel was quite ordinary compared to the one back at the original hostel, and come about midnight I decided to make my way back there. I found Mary and her Irish friends there and hung out until the bar closed with them. It was not quite as raucous an event as the previous night, but it was great to hang out one more time before I moved cities.

I had one of the best stays of my trip in Vienna. The city itself is incredible in and of itself, but I'm fully aware that my positive experience was largely contributed to by the people I hung out with and the shenanigans that followed. I've found that I get along supremely with Irish folk. This has given me thoughts of applying for the Irish working visa once my UK one runs out, which would extend my possible stay in this European region by a year. At the very least, I intend to make sure I visit the land of paddy's and guiness sometime while I'm living in this area of the world.