Slovensko a Můj Drahý Den

(Translation: Slovakia and My Expensive Day)



Just ignore the expensive part of the title. That's just me whining because I got my haircut today, had to pay the internet fee for the dorm, and had to buy more minutes for my phone. (By the way, thanks for the phone minutes, Mom and Dad). I'm just mad that the internet costs more than the other two combined. Blah.

Enough complaining. I'm in Prague. How can a person complain when they live in Prague? Seriously. I can say things like "Yesterday I went to Bratislava for the day." I can't go visit another country for a day when I'm at home, so I'm not really complaining; I promise.

Bratislava. Another place where I didn't have any expectation, yet I was still surprised, if that's even possible. I'm lucky I even made it there since we were meeting at 05:30 in the lobby to catch our bus and at 5:38 my friend called to ask me where I was and WOKE ME. It's not my fault-my cell phone just isn't loud enough here! Anyway, we arrived in Bratislava around 11. Bratislava was much smaller than I had been expecting. The outskirts of the city with the Soviet housing projects and general squalor were quite expansive, but the touristy part of the city was actually quite small. We were able to easily walk everywhere that we wanted to see. Unfortunately we learned our lesson that most museums are closed on Mondays, but we still got to see a lot, and maybe it was a blessing in disguise seeing as how I spent so much today!

When I finally put up my pictures, you'll be able to see everything that I saw, but I'll just tell you about a few of the highlights here.

(1) We did the coronation walk that many of the kings of the Austro-Hungarian Empire walked, which involved following little brass crowns in the cobblestones. A particularly interesting part of the walk was when we realized there was construction going on and attempted to ask the police officers which way it continued. I'm pretty sure that they laughed at us and talked about us in Slovakian before sending us back the way we came.

(2) The church that the walk started at, St. Martin's Cathedral, was pretty neat. We had debated whether or not to pay the entrance fee because from the peeks we were taking inside it seemed like any other Gothic turned Baroque church, but I'm glad that we did go inside. Upon entering the church we discovered that we got to view an underground crypt, as well as see 11th century remains through a plexiglass window in the floor.

(3) We visited an Art-Nouveau church, the Church of St. Elizabeth, but more commonly known as the Blue Church. It was one of the most interesting churches I have seen in Europe, especially because it was so unique amongst the Baroque and Gothic ones on every corner. To me what was most striking about this church was that we were there around 1800h, and as we were admiring the church's facade this little old woman ushered us through the front door and we found ourself in the middle of a prayer service. People were coming and going as they wanted but the church was pretty full. Having been in Prague for 6 weeks now, I've grown accustomed to a lack of organized religion, but the amount of people of all ages and their devotion to a Monday evening prayer service was quite the sight.

Overall what I found the most interesting about Bratislava was that the eastern influences were so apparent. The Soviet style buildings were everywhere, but so was art and architecture with a more Hungarian and Ukrainian feel. A lot of things reminded me of things in Prague, just with that twist, so that was really neat to see.

Today was a busy day as I had one class in the morning, got my haircut (a whole experience in which the woman didn't understand English), and then went on a class trip with my other class. For the trip we took public transportation for forever just to end up in this little village (population 700) that wasn't too far outside of Prague. Our professor pointed to a road and told us to walk for fifteen minutes and then turn around and come back so that we could experience village life. He then took us to a campground restaurant that I think had opened tonight just for us. It was a pretty funny experience, but we all love our professor so it was great to listen to his Prague stories. It was pretty ridiculous that that counted as a class for us, but I loved it!

Here's the picture of our class at the restaurant so you can see me with my new haircut too! (That's our adorable teacher in the back left of the photo.)
Anyway, to leave you with some parting thoughts:

• I think it turned into winter overnight. I have never been so cold in my life.
  
• In an entire day in Bratislava I spent about 1/8th of what I spent in Prague today. (Yes, I am still hung up on that.)
  
• The people in Bratislava have much better fashion than the people in Prague, yet the city seems to be less economically successful.
• The hairdresser did not understand the concept of layers, so I have my first straight across haircut since elementary school.
• I am currently mad at the French, because the French girls drank all the free Sangria before we got there tonight. Seriously? You come to PRAGUE for wine?
  
• In the period from Friday to Monday I spent 14 hours on buses. That is more time than I spend in class in a week here, and is 14 times what I spend on homework.