Bratislava. Where do I begin?
It feels so long ago now and I drank a lot of alcohol which of course we all know diminishes memories. Hmm.
Let’s start with my parting in Bavaria and move onto the partying in Bratislava, Slovakia.
I stayed in Bavaria for just under two months. I had planned to stay there for the winter, exploring the forests in the snow.
The forests were truly magical in places at first, but after a while, you start seeing the patterns. The rows and columns that the trees were planted in, and suddenly the forest loses some of its beauty.
Most of the Bavarian forests are owned by local farmers and so maintained the forests for hundreds of years.
I’d also seen Bavaria in the snow by this point and a deer in the forest.
So Marion cooked me up a bacon and egg breakfast on my last day at their farm.
I returned to Beatte’s farm and finished trimming the hedge surrounding the house.
And then I packed. Beatte took me to Passau the next day, driving along the river all the way there.
Passau is such a beautiful town, but can be a little expensive.
From Passau I took a flixbus to Vienna for a transfer.
Whilst I waited for my next flixbus; I had a beer in the nearest pub, wrote in my journal, and reminisced about the weekend I’d spent in Vienna with my good friends from Rotterdam. It was a great weekend, full of stories and humour.
I was incredibly excited to visit Bratislava. An opportunity to quote the movie “EuroTrip” over and over and over again.
Apparently “In Winter it can become very depressing.”
Lucky it was December then, eh.
I suspected it wouldn’t be anything like the stereotypical view of a communist city, portrayed in EuroTrip by people washing in a communal bathtub and stray dogs with human hands in their mouths.
Though I did expect some magical Christmas markets, some crazy looking buildings, some crazy stories and last but not least, some great fucking nights out.
Cheap booze, Eastern European (they prefer to be called central, but bleh) alcohol. Let’s get this party started.
Meeting Nick
Arriving at the hostel was an anticlimactic nightmare.
I checked in, threw my bags down in my room and headed directly to the bar.
It was empty, (if you pardon the pun) bar four people playing cards.
Two of those were the hostel’s volunteers, another dude (forgotten his name), and Nick.
They were cool guys, but damn, this wasn’t living up to my expected standards.
Meeting Shelly
The next morning, the hostel room woke up around the same time and we all started talking.
There was Shelly from Australia, Alba from Spain and Claudio from Chile.
We checked out a cute coffee shop, but unfortunately, that was all the time that I spent with Alba and Claudia as they were leaving Bratislava that morning.
Shelly and I grabbed breakfast and pfft that’s actually all I can remember until later that afternoon.
But wow, what an amazing story Shelly had getting to Bratislava. Shelly was on her way to Ukraine, but her Visa bounced. Not sure why. Maybe they hadn’t translated Australian and the text was still upside down. Who knows?
It resulted in Shelly waiting at the border and being put into a car going in the opposite direction to Ukraine. Brilliant.
And so… Bratislava, Slovakia.
Meeting Trey
That same day as breakfast with Alba & Claudio, we chilled in the common room, both working on our laptops.
Nick joined us with his tall boy beers, or so he called them.
Consequently we helped Nick finish the beer.
And Trey arrived. A lad from USA and after losing a fuck load of money on strippers recently was ready to do it all again in Bratislava.
Partyslava
Man, the nights are all merged in memory by this point. I mean this was before Christmas, I drank a lot and I didn’t write anything in my diary at the time.
All I know for sure is that we drank hard. I tried Slovakia’s “national” drink Tatras Tea – 72% Alcohol.
Yepp. Higher than Absinth’s 70%
Tatras Tea is incredibly touristic, but it is well worth trying. They have different flavours and strengths.
It became a favourite of mine, mixed with tonic water.
After several WhatsApp messages, I believe I’ve deciphered somewhat, the order of events.
Thursday 12th December 2019
That first afternoon of which we met Trey, we stayed in the hostel except for when Trey and I got hair cuts – Trey somehow finding the most expensive barber in town, paying a wopping €40. Once our supermarket booze had run dry and headed out to a bar.
A cave-like bar called Goblins. There were a fair few other hosteliers with us. Shelly left that bar with a lot of topless pictures of us on her phone. Not sure why we did that. Alcohol.
Something bizarre happened after that.
We left Goblins in search of another bar, but found a strip club… it was free for men but Shelly would have had to pay like 20 euros entry… then some guys standing outside paid us 20 euros not to go in… So we took it and went back to Goblins.
Hmmm, I don’t think anything else iconic occurred that evening, though I remember the next day waking up and going on a walking tour with Shelly.
Friday 13th December 2019
Not sure why the guys didn’t come. I’m confident that Nick had thrown up over himself in the night and was attempting to revive himself through excess sleep.
I thought I’d get breakfast at the Christmas markets, you know, try something authentically Slovakian.
Well I ended up eating a spicy sausage and a slice of bread for 5 euros.
It was so bloody cold that morning and my hangover was worst I’d had in months.
I ended up sleeping on a bench for the last stop of the walking tour. (The rest of the pictures are on Instagram).
We must have napped after that. Regardless, the evening is where all the action was.
We were meant to go on a spooky tour around Bratislava, and it would have been perfect being Friday 13th.
Alas, there was a quiz, and Trey wanted to make spaghetti for everyone, which turned out pretty damn good.
Once Shelly, Nick, Trey and I were back in sync, so were the beers. We prepped our minds for the quiz that evening.
Now you wouldn’t believe me if I said we breezed that quiz like the wind blows.
“Quiz on my face” were the dominant team in the room, each and every round.
Our prize = Alcohol
Probably didn’t need anymore, but we took it anyway, rounded up the hostel troops, and headed out to a bar called Bukowski Bar.
Amazing bar with quality atmosphere.
We ended up hanging out with a table of locals. I swear I bought like twenty shots for like ten euros that night.
Somehow we all spoke fluent Slovakian and English that night. I showed off my coaster flipping tricks and I don’t know who threw the first one, but we seemed to go on a rampage, launching coasters in all directions.
Hahaha, fuck me. So many coasters. Not a clue how we didn’t get kicked out.
Shelly had left a bit before us to go back to the hostel and we found her sleeping outside of the wrong room, due to her “key card not working”.
Crazy night. Fortunately no-one’s sister was around.
Saturday 14th December
Maybe this was actually the morning that Nick threw up. Hmm. I’m not sure. I’m sure he’ll correct me once he reads this. Saturday is a little hazy. Though Nick must have been around as we set up Eurotrip on common room big screen.
Our group was magnetic in Bratislava. Wherever we went, we seemed to attract good people.
I remember sitting watching the movie in anticipation for them to arrive in Bratislava and cheer. By the way that movie has the longest ever intro scene/credits.
Anyway so yeah, I thought I’d just check behind me, see what’s happening in the room and our group had grown from four people to about twelve.
We were advised that Saturday was the night to go out, but we’d already had two pretty heavy evenings…
Ah yeah, I’m back on track. Nick left that afternoon, I think to go to Greece.
We decided to go on that spooky tour around Bratislava.
We couldn’t find the meeting point at first though, so we split up to find the tour leader.
But we all met up a few minutes later, with no luck. Only a hilarious story of Trey accidentally scaring Slovak locals with his “spooky” animation.
So we started our walk back to find a bar… but through some stroke of luck we came across the spooky tour group!
It was actually really interesting, hearing about their Vampires, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, river people/monsters, black plague, or the story of two girls, one guy, of which resulted in betrayal, murder, and insanity as opposed to a porno.
Also, turns out, I’d left my phone in Bukowski Bar the night before so I had to go back there and get that.
Daniel had also joined our group by this point and after all this partying and time spent in Bratislava, we hadn’t really tried the Slovakian cuisine.
So we went down to flagship, as recommended by many blogs.
Don’t do it.
It’s incredibly touristic and the food is not good quality. I ate much better Slovakian cuisine when I travelled to the Slovakian mountains.
I’m sure we had a chilled evening that night. It’s hard to remember, but Shelly was leaving for Vienna in the morning, so I’m sure we did have a quiet one.
Sunday 15th December
Just Trey and I were left or available come Sunday morning.
We took the opportunity to have a quiet day around town and check out the UFO.
I also packed my bag, so that I was ready to leave the next day for High Tatras.
Little did I know at that point, that wouldn’t be the case.
Some idiot came up with the idea of a leaving party…
Which became terribly messy.
What was meant to be a quiet night became a party night very quickly.
It started in the hostel common room and actually I was getting a little mad, because my beer kept getting knocked over.
After cleaning up my third spilled drink someone drained the cloth back into my glass.
Why I did the following, is truly ridiculous.
“These guys will remember this for the rest of their lives.”
And so I knocked back that bleach, dirt, and – whatever else I don’t want to know – contaminated beer.
Not my proudest moment.
Nor was ushering everyone to the bar where I spent – I don’t want to know – on shots for everyone.
Monday 16th December
Well I should have been leaving early that morning to start the five hour journey to the ski-resort.
Unfortunately my wallet my was missing and I was still trying to forget about the bleach cocktail.
First my phone, now my wallet.
Though I had faith. I’d found my phone again. I would find my wallet.
And I did. Much later in the day.
In my drunk state I had packed it in my bag the night before.
Too late to go to the High Tatras mountain range.
Shelly was also bored of Vienna and was returning to Bratislava.
She’d be travelling with Trey to Krakow the next day.
So we decided to have a dinner for our last night.
Not impressed with the Slovakian cuisine we went to an American rock burger restaurant.
I’m not sure why I attract misfortune. Well I do know why, it’s because I express bravado… or stupidity.
A young Korean girl, YungJo also joined us. She as all Koreans I’ve met believe they can handle spicy food better than Europeans.
So I watched as she died a death from a spicy traumatic experience and inevitably I tried to assist her in finishing the burger.
Resulting in my death too.
Tuesday 17th December
Man. The stomach pains were ridiculous. I spent so much time on the toilet that morning. The ring sting was insane.
Did you know that the tissue in your mouth is the same as your arsehole?
Learnt that from Gordon Ramsey.
I didn’t leave until late morning in the end…
And actually, I’m going to leave this story here as it’s already mega long and I’m now starting to trespass on the next story…
Hope you’ve enjoyed my experience in Bratislava and thanks for reading!
