Lonely Planet? No. Lonely Slovakia? Yes.

Day: 43

I was up early enough to catch the early train (9:34am) to Stary Smokovec, The supposed outdoor hot spot of Slovakia. I could have waited until the 10:20am train but since they both arrived about 5 minutes apart and the first one is half the price I packed my bag and made my way to the train station to spend 5 hours riding the rails across Slovakia.

An uneventful train ride later I arrived in what seemed to be an abandoned tourist town, that a tornado had recently hit (all the pine trees were blown over for about 15 kilometers). It was cold, so cold that I had to dig out my big jacket from the bottom of my bag (sure am glad I didn’t ditch it last week when I had a inkling to). I walked the ¼ mile to a pension that my Lonely Planet had suggested, and guess what? In a town full of hotels I’m not the only one with a Lonely Plant guide, they told me that they only had room for one night, but something might change in the next couple of hours. I just wanted a shower and to change the dirty clothes I was wearing for some other dirty clothes, so I took it and hoped they might have space tomorrow. I cleaned up, asked the owner at the front where a good restaurant is (he gave me a map), and took a walk through the little town.

I found a supermarket where I bought a bottle of wine (I can hope, I mean I do have my own room I should be prepared for company), and found a bar with free Wireless Internet. I had a beer and uploaded yesterdays blog. I chatted online with my brother-in-law (Josh), and my friends Ed and Joanna. I was getting a little hungry so I headed to the “Best Restaurant” in town (according to the guy at the front desk). It’s funny because I’m on a budget and I can still have a great meal in the towns best restaurant and only spend $12. For my $12 I had Garlic Cheese Soup, and The Tatra Special (Tatra is this mountain region). The Tatra Special was a plate of 4 types of meat (Sirloin, Chicken breast, Pork Cutlets, and Bratwurst) and fried potatoes. Quite sinful and I feel like I am going to gain all that weight back that I lost a couple of years ago. But it sure tastes good.

I headed back to my room as the sun was going down, when I got to the hotel they told me they had room for all three nights but on the third night I was going to have to change rooms, no problem, I just hope my new room has even better 70’s décor (it came complete with fake orange animal shag rugs). I spent a couple of hours listening to music on my computer, I had a glass of wine (alone, I didn’t see any ladies around) and read Hemingway for a while then called it an early night because I was planning on a bit of hiking tomorrow. Supposedly the town is going to fill up in the next couple of nights for Easter weekend, I sure hope so.