I have fond memories of Bratislava from five years ago, and it seems that today is the 5-year anniversary of that visit. I was hopeful that I would find it equally pleasurable this time. My hopes were exceeded in every way.
We arrived an hour earlier than the announced time, and I was fortunate to be on the top deck, alone, as we executed the obligatory U-turn and pulled into our berth (river boats park with the bow facing upstream). I got to take some fun pictures of the castle and the communist-built bridge with a tower and rotating restaurant on it.
David got the crazy idea to leave the boat to explore Bratislava and see the blue church lit up at night. I got the crazy idea to accompany him. So the two of us wandered through the streets of Bratislava on a Saturday night, clearly not members of the same generation that was celebrating the weekend. We took some fun pictures of old town in the dark, and eventually arrived at our destination, namely “the blue church.” We also made sure David got to find the two caches I most remember, a traditional and a virtual at the same location, but unfortunately the fantastic sorbet shop that I remember wasn’t open. We returned to the ship about 11pm and David was excited to share with friends on the ship that he’d already cached in Slovakia.
This morning we were both scheduled to take a tour on the history of communism in Slovakia. After yesterday’s 16km bike ride I decided that my butt would prefer not to bike again, a wise choice since they traveled closer to 25km today, and the communism tour was the most reasonable alternative. The benefit was that we got a ride up a certain hill to the castle in the Tschu-Tschu (“choo choo”) which was wonderful as it saved us several staircases. Unfortunately, there were significant technology issues, so David and I aborted and spent a most delightful morning exploring the outside of the castle then walking through the town, finding a few caches, getting a refrigerator magnet to bring home, and spending time together. The only downside was that the sorbet shop was still closed. I was reminded of two Slovakian words I’d forgotten I knew: most (bridge) and hrad (castle).
The architecture is varied with each building having its own set of decorations, statues and memorials abound, lots of nice colors, impressive old churches, also utilitarian buildings from the Soviet era. The day started out bright and sunny, we had a few minor rain showers, lots of clouds….in other words, much like a fall day in Portland. The leaves have started to turn.
After lunch we went with a group of 15+ people to find a couple of specific caches. At one point we passed the sorbet shop and Zmrzlina (yes, a word that starts with five consonants) was open. The sorbet options were various fruit flavors and chocolate, so I decided to replicate my 2017 order and get a cone with chocolate and strawberry (jahoda, the one Slovakian word I remembered from five years ago). The strawberry is delicious, very creamy and tastes like it was made with high quality strawberries. But the chocolate was divine, it tasted like fudge but with a frozen custard texture, even more delicious than I remember — high praise indeed considering that David had heard about this place more than once. David was very pleased with his double strawberry until he tasted my chocolate and then regretted he hadn’t exactly followed my example. I mentioned to the shopkeeper that I’d been there exactly five years ago and he asked if I remembered him. I shared that I remembered a nice man serving me then and he was a nice man so it could be him, he either really thought it could have been him or played along; in any case, David took a nice picture of me, my sorbet, and the server that I’m sure will make me smile when I look at it in the future.
We found the caches with friends, then meandered our way toward the boat. We decided to try to buy an iPhone to headphone adapter since that had been part of the technology issue. After a few thwarted attempts, we decided to ask at a hotel where the concierge advised we try the shopping mall. David wisely decided he had walked enough today, but I figured tomorrow would be much better if we had more adapters (David brought one that June was using, leaving us two short). I got to the mall, asked the nice woman at information where to go, and she recommended a store one floor down all the way at the other end on the left. Ok, I can do that. It was a much longer mall than I expected, so when I saw a kiosk selling phones I asked the nice man working there where to go and he said I was close, that I should go to the end and look left. Eventually I made it to the correct store, asked for assistance, got two adapters, and was escorted to the cash register where the man who was helping me lamented that his English wasn’t better. I assured him that it was far better than my Slovakian. After we completed the transaction I asked how to say “thank you” in Slovakian. He asked if I meant the formal or informal way, and I said the way I should say thank you to him. The answer turns out to be Ďakujem, with the diacritical mark above the D indicating that it’s a soft D (what we would pronounce as “t”).
I made it back to the ship in plenty of time, with two adapters, have a bit of leisure time before dinner, and was able to see our U-turn as we head downriver to Hungary.
I’m now attempting to be proactive for tomorrow’s stop in Budapest (Hungarians pronounce it Budapesht since they pronounce “s” as “sh” and “sh” as “s”). The way to say thank you in Hungarian is köszönöm (ko-sun-um), and please is kérlek (keer-let). Here’s hoping I retain these words for the next few days.
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