So the theory was that Tanya would work-from-home from Globoka for two weeks, with one of those days being a (South African) public holiday which we could then use to go out, enjoy the place a bit.
Guess which day is the public holiday. Just guess.
And yes, it _is_ pissing down.
We had a cat when we bought the house. Gimmy, a rescue, he was never quite right in the head.
And then we got two more.
Phoebe and Misty. Misty was taken away from his mother too early, drove Phoebe crazy sucking and licking.
Couple of years later, after Gimmy died, we got two more — Toothless and Smudge.
Toothless (the black one) died young, but not before giving Phoebe such a hard time that she basically moved out and only came in to eat. When Toothless was gone, Phoebe came back and lived with Jessica for a while. But the outdoor life had been hard on her. She passed away in 2021.
Which brings us to today — Misty’s been eating less and vomiting more and in the last couple of weeks he’s lost what little weight he had left, so :-/
RIP Misty 2010-2025.
Which leaves Smudge, who seems to be in the prime of his life.
The RegioJet leaves a bit earlier than the České dráhy train I had originally planned to take, so we got up at 0530, packed, and took the Metro to the station. Very nice modern carriages, last leg by bus (they’re working on the rails). Got to Bratislava, immediately bought tickets for Budapest.
We were way early for check-in, it was barely 12. But the keys were in the lockbox, so we sneaked in, left our suitcases, put the keys back in the lockbox for the cleaners, let the landlady know, and went looking for beer.
Fabrika is kind-of high-end (it’s attached to the Loft Hotel) but the beer is good and they’re not ridiculously expensive by Euro standards. I had the Bryndzové Halušky / Traditional Slovak Dumplings, Tanya had tomato soup and Pečený Ananás / Caribbean rum-baked pineapple with salted caramel ice cream.
We were feeling kind of tired so we popped into a small supermarket we’d passed earlier, bought expensive wine, went home, and passed out.
Monday we walked down into the Old Town via Michalský most and the St Michael gate. Lots and lots of souvenir shops.
This fellow “Napoleon’s Soldier” by Juraj Meliš lives on the Hlavné Námestie (which sounds exotic but translates to “Main Square”), while the hard working “Man At Work” Čumil by Viktor Hulík is just down the road.
Mondieu is a chain — there are seven branches in Bratislava alone, five of them in a 500m stretch in Old Town) — but they serve good coffee (with water on the side As One Should) and good “Homemade” lemonade.
And the Avo Toast looks just like the picture in the menu and was damn good too.
I struggled to figure out the Bratislava public transport system. No joy. I mean, I have a map to the bus/tram/rail system, with all the stops clearly indicated. And I have Google Earth /Maps / Mapy. And I can even find some of the stops on both the transport map and the “real” map. But I cannot map the one to the other. Not even now, sitting at a PC with multiple screens open. On a smartphone? Not a chance.
So we walked to the Church of St. Elisabeth / “Blue Church”.
In front of the church there’s a monument to the unborn “Pomník nenarodeným” but it sure looks like a turd on a stone.
Figured maybe it’s time for a drink, so we walked (again) to 100 pív. They were not open yet, so we waited.
Had a beer… had another beer… went to a stationery shop Tanya had googled across, bought some food and wine at the Lidl, and bloody walked home again because I still can’t figure out the public transport.
Bratislava… yea… not a whole lot to recommend. One day is enough.
