Day 10 Bratislava, Slovakia

 

 Today we decided to venture over to the country of Slovakia. 

Bratislava to be exact. A place I never in a million years thought I would ever spend a day. But here we are.. in Bratislava. Basically our day started out like this photo. Confused as we'll all get out. This photo was taken right before we went way too far past the Danube river and before we got kicked off a bus, by a man that clearly knew NO English. This was just the beginning of what this day had in store for us. 

We felt pretty proud of ourselves for even making it here smoothly, but the real confusing part was getting into the center of town to where we wanted to be.

 First stop after getting into the Centrum of the city was the famous Bratislava castle up on a hill.. you can see this bad boy everywhere, especially because its almost right on the Danube River.

 As you can see from the view from it. 

 Mapa be STANKY.. 

Today there happened to be some kind of food festival going on around the castle grounds, so there was all sorts of different stations set up, including one with a pin full of lambs.

 Gosh! we've been blessed with some perfect weather this past week.

 

 Just a little preview of what they eat here in Slovakia apparently. Could I please get a Gypsy Pork Chop with a side of wild rabbitt..

 After roaming around to find Bratislava's "old-towne" we found the free tour we had planned to go on. This was our tour guide Jimmy, from Australia. Enthusiastic and totally into talking. 

 He told us about many random fun facts about Bratislava.. like how this is a statue of Napoleon..

 .. and that black dot is a cannon ball he shot at this building and its been kept there ever since.

 In 1850 there was a huge flood caused by icebergs that formed in the Danube that basically blockaded the river like a dam, in return pushing water onto the land, and the line under the date is there the water was. It reached about my hip. And our location was quite higher than where the water usually sits, so it was a pretty gnarly flood.

 This building was where the Slovakian's declared that they were becoming independent from the Czechoslovakia (the first time), when Hitler offered the ultimatum to either do that and have his army back them up, or he would tell Hungary to invade them.

 

 This marks where the first witch was burned in Bratislava which was 410 years ago, yesterday, weird huh?

 Not for Sissies..

 Then the last stop we stayed with the tour was for the Blue Church. Also know as the cake church, smurf church, marshmallow church, etc. 

 Across the street one way there was a High School.. Doesn't it look like a building from Disneyland or something?

 Then across the street the other way was the old abandoned Communist hospital.

 Like the Napoleon statue there were others around of the same style in other places around Bratislava. This one was apparently pretty famous.

Its funny when you get used to a city, then leave and feel so uncomfortable, because you're no longer familiar with anything. That's how we felt leaving Vienna today, 

its turned into our home. 

BUT, It was a great adventure, despite all the detours and confusion it took to get there and back. And I came back learning so much more about Slovakia that I never would have known if I didn't go. Another great day has come to an end. Can time slow down please?