Thursday 5 August 2010

....Under Construction

Well today has been a brilliant day! It has been so relaxed and chilled and the sun has been out! We all now have slight tans! Even me ( Sorry Ma, its only a little!)! We started with a lie-in which is exactly ‘what the doctor ordered’. We planned to leave the hostel by 10am so we thought we would get up at 8.30am as it takes us that long to get ready in the morning. In the end I think we were all awake by 7.30/8ish because Amy always sets her alarm early so she can snooze it! Also we were all so psyched (Yes, I did just say psyched) about the free breakfast that we’ve been waiting for since Salzberg. The breakfast turned out to be a little disappointing, as it was just fake cornflakes that tasted like Cheerios. As there were two random people asleep on the common room sofas we ended up eating standing up (plus Jennifer the American from the night before who had kept some of us awake all night was spread out across the dining room) but it was good fun. I can remember laughing at something with Amy, but I have no inkling of what it was now.

After brekkie we wandered down to the old town starting at St Michael’s tower which was the gate house I think?!? It had brilliant views of the city from the top. The old town square was also beautiful and in total contrast to the industrial Bratislava that we had seen on the bus and on our walk from the station to the hostel. After quite a while browsing the stalls we all sat down to have an ice cream, and they were AMAZING! Jen had an apple one that she absolutely adored and Gem had a mojito one. They were good. That is an understatement and a half, they were BRILLIANT.

After the brilliance of the ice creams though, things started to go down hill, through no fault of our lovely tour guide Harriet. Bratislava may be an up-and-coming city but has definitely not arrived yet. It seemed that every place we tried to visit – the castle, the cathedral, the primate palace (I have a feeling that’s not what its called but that’s what it sounded like when Harriet told me what it was), and a monastry – was under construction or closed for one reason or another. That didn’t ruin the day though so it was all alright. Bratislava is full of lots of statues poking out of the ground or round the corner of buildings, perfect timing as we needed to get about 30 more photos of Peggy for one of the 100 Challenges due to be submitted tomorrow. We had a lovely laze in the park, got brilliant views from the castle hill and had Mexican for lunch! I had paella and there was so much that I brought the rest of it home for dinner. At the Mexican we met some Italians and had a nice chat (again I love how having our guide scarves on makes people talk to us  ). We rounded the afternoon off with another ice cream stop (reached 92 scoops so far this trip, need to hit the big 100 you see!

Today there also happens to be a football match between Slovakia and Serbia (Slovakia is currently winning 1-0) so there have been lots of policemen who are wearing power ranger style robot uniform standing about. We have also encountered quite a few – I can only assume slight tipsy – Serbian men who have shouted ‘Skouty’ at us and made the promise sign at us but they’ve got it slightly wrong and it looks more like a three fingered peace-cum-star-trek sign. But it’s all in good humour so its funny!

Anyway, hope you are all alright back home and not missing us too much!
Lots of love, we’ll see you in 5 days
Lizz xxxxx

P.S. Just made my dress for the finale party, it’s going to be epic but I reckon it’s going to firmly cement us as the rebel group of stampede.

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