Day 54

On Saturday morning I woke up around 8:15. I decided to take a shower and then got dressed. We had made plans to travel to Bratislava so we were going to try and leave on the 10:30 train. I packed up my things including my wallet, ticket, and map of Bratislava and then went downstairs to the lobby. Janaya and Andy were there and ready to go. I told them to go ahead while I waited for Anneke. She came down shortly and then we went to the Westbahnhof ÖBB office to buy her ticket. We took the U-bahn to the Hauptbahnhof. We got there a little after 10:30, but that was okay, because Andy and Janaya had missed it too. Erica and Paithan were on the 10:30 train so we took the 11:00 train so as not to be too far behind. On the way there I read a little for my theater class and then ended up playing around on my phone. Once we got into Bratislava we took a bus towards the castle. We got off and started walking towards what looked like downtown. We stopped at a Billa and bought supplies for lunch. I bought cheese, a yogurt drink, a small loaf of french bread, and two different Radlers. It seemed appropriate since it was a warm day. We found a park right outside of the store and ate there. After lunch we decided to walk towards the castle and hope that Erica and Paithan were there too. We stopped at the Crowne Plaza across from the presidential palace in order to use the restroom. While there we used the free wifi to update Erica of our location and plans via Facebook. Once everyone was ready to go again, we walked up to the castle. We took our time at the castle looking over the wall at Bratislava below. We documented it all with a few pictures and then walked over to another side of the castle grounds where we found an empty chunk of the wall. We all layer on the wall and soaked up the sun for around 30 minutes or so. We also made pinky promises that we would stay in touch with each other after our time abroad. :-) Janaya got a message on her phone telling us where she and Paithan were so we meandered to Cafe Hemingway. Just as we were walking towards the cafe we saw Erica and Paithan leaving! We walked with them to the old city center and started exploring. Janaya, Anneke, and I spotted a gellateria and bought some as an appetizer for dinner. We found a place that had offered genuine Slovakian food and were seated outside. We all ordered drinks and then placed our orders. I ordered the garlic soup and a plate of gnocchi. The soup was served in a bread bowl, which I ate, and was very filling. I couldn’t finish the gnocchi so I recruited Andy for some help. After dinner we made our way to the train station. We had thought that there would be a 7:45 train, but for some reason there wasn’t one so we had to wait for the 8:45 train back to Vienna. In the meantime Anneke orchestrated a few rounds of MASH for myself and Andy. By the time that it was her turn we had boarded the train and were heading back to Vienna. We were all so tired that it was almost impossible to be serious so we ended up laughing almost the entire way back. Janaya, Andy, Anneke, and I got off at Simmering which connects to the U3. We took the U3 back towards the Westbahnhof. Andy and I got off a stop before to get gellato. We walked back to the dorm and chatted until we got to our rooms. Since it was the weekend Chistoph was gone so I didn’t feel guilty about being loud and Skyping. I chatted with Kels again and told her all about my day in Bratislava. After we hung up I decided to update my journal before I headed to bed.