New City, New Outlook

Day: 40

I woke up a little hung over from another rough night in Budapest, it was around 7:30am and even though I had only slept a few hours I wanted to get a train north as soon as possible. I gathered my stuff, returned my keys, paid my bill and headed off to the train station. After a few subway stops I arrived at the train station and realized that it was the wrong station. I checked a map and found that there were 3 train stations in Budapest and I was standing at the one that sent trains south, the one I want was on the other side of town two metro lines away. Bummer.

I finally arrived at the right train station around 9:45am and found the ticket counter and bought my ticket for a train that was leaving in one hour. I wondered around the train station spending the last of my Hungarian money on a couple of sandwiches for the train and a bottle of water.

The train ride was uneventful, I just slept and listened to my Ipod. When I got into Bratislava it was a beautiful day so I decided to walk the 2 kilometers to a hostel, instead of taking yet more public transportation. A few wrong turns later I got to the hostel, who told me they wouldn’t know if they’d have room until six pm, I asked if I could leave my big bag and headed out for three hours of wondering before I could find out if I had a place to sleep.

Bratislava is more my type of city. It has around a ½ million people, its clean, everyone seems to be a lot more relaxed and beers in a bar only cost $0.75. It was Sunday afternoon (I only know this because yesterday on the phone mom told me it was Saturday, which I didn’t realize) and all the Slovakians were out for an afternoon stroll and it made the city seem to have a real quiet peace to it. I just enjoyed my walk and around 5:30pm I headed back in the direction of the hostel to see if I had a bed for the night.

All full, I had nowhere to sleep. They did give me directions to another hostel about a kilometer away, so I decided to navigate for myself and two Canadian girls who also found out that they had nowhere to sleep. We talked about our trips and tried not to trip over all the construction here in Bratislava, until we finally arrived at the Patio Hostel, who had plenty of room and is actually closer to the city center. Score.

I was exhausted from the late night last night, the travel today, and the afternoon walking around in the sun, so I decided a shower was in order followed quickly by dinner and an early night in bed. For dinner I had a mutton goulash, tomato salad, and a chicken breast covered in potatoes, mushrooms and a cream sauce. It was tasty. I strait lined it back to the hostel and was in bed by 9:30. It was an early night, but I am feeling a little restored about my trip. I had spent to many days in a row in big cities (Istanbul and Budapest).