Bratislava, Slovakia
A few months ago it was decided that a group of us were going to head into Bratislava the weekend before Hannah's birthday. To my satisfaction, it actually happened! On Saturday, 4 of us were going to take a boat from Vienna to Bratislava and enjoy the landscape of the Danube. The morning was beautiful, 22 degrees, and we were all looking forward to a boat ride to soak up some sun and feel the breeze in our hair... Our dreams were crushed when we were told that the boats gear box was broken and there would, in fact, be no boat going to Bratislava- we had to take a train. Once that fiasco was settled, we met up with one of our friends who was already in Bratislava, and had been anticipating our arrival via boat. We arrived at 3:30 and took a little walk around the town (city?). We walked up to the castle in Bratislava, which is actually featured on the Slovakian flag. Honestly, if this castle is the most exciting thing in Slovakia and is deemed important enough to be featured on their flag, than I have no hope for the rest of the country (Not that a maple leaf is riveting...). The castle was rather boring and ugly. Of course, there was scaffolding covering the ENTIRE thing, so that made it even less appealing. We spent most of our time at the castle looking at the view of the landscape surrounding Bratislava. It is cool to look out onto a never-ending field of those HUGE windmills that cover Europe. One of the guys I was with, Nigel, knows everything about Bratislava so we found out a lot about everything. Back in town, we decided to experience something incredibly Slovakian- the beer. We did have some time to kill before we met up with the rest of the group, so what better past time? The one thing we quickly realized about waiters in Bratislava was how miserable they all were - making them very un-likeable.
Nigel loves the Danube, so we all walked along the bridge to kill some time and were able to catch the remainder of the sunset over the hills, casting variations of pink across the sky and making Bratislava look a little bit nicer. We met up with Hannah and Jody when they arrived and headed to a restaurant for Hannah's birthday dinner. We caught the 11:50 train back to Vienna. There is not much to see or do in Bratislava, so an afternoon trip was plenty of time. It was a nice city, but I can't say that I feel compelled to return and see it all again.
Burgenland
A couple of nights ago I told Hannah my Sunday plans, which were to visit Burgenland, the last region in Austria I needed to visit in order to accomplish my dream of seeing all of them (without counting Vorarlberg). Coincidently, Peter's (Hannah's boyfriend) parents live just outside Eisenstadt, the capitol of Burgenland. Hannah rang them up and they invited us to lunch on Sunday with a whole itinerary for the afternoon. We caught the train this morning and arrived in a little town. The journey was breath taking, we passed through vineyard after vineyard. Peter's dad picked us up and brought us to their house, where we were fed really good Schnitzel and Burgenland wine. It was such a nice day that Hannah and I laid out on their back deck for a little bit, just looking out over fields and the occasional bike riders. I am pretty sure I drifted off for a little bit, you know, while laying out in 25 degree sunshine wearing shorts and a t-shirt at the beginning of April. C'est la vie.
Peter's parent acted as my tour guide and brought us into Eisenstadt (pretty much one street to look at) and then to Neusiedl am See, a town right on the edge of the Neusiedl am See (the lake). It is a huge sailing town and actually hosted the 2006 Sailing World Championships. The lake is not very deep and they were concerned that the water level might not even be deep enough for a sail boat to sail, let alone turtle. However, this year has provided the lake with the most water in 129 years. After a few drinks by the water we were taken to the bahnhof and headed back to Vienna.
It was an absolute perfect weekend, and I could not have asked for more. Work is ending in a very scary 4 weeks, which means Conor arrives in (now) less than 3 weeks, absolutely insane. I decided to make notes about news headlines in Austria since I have been here. The best one so far, "Vienna saw wettest March for 109 years". FANTASTIC! So glad I lived through that, makes this whole trip worthwhile.
Next weekend is the big ski weekend, I am heading to Zell am See for Easter. Apparently the mountains still have around 4 meters of snow, so I hope the snow will stay even with all this fantastic weather.
Completely off topic --
Of all the personal growth I have made while living in Vienna, the thing I am MOST proud of is.....
The fact I have kicked my nail biting habit! I have girl nails now. Finally. It is weird, but I am genuinely proud of myself... I think a proper manicure is needed now to reward myself :)
good thing you have that manicure set from your bday last year!
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