Bratislava, Slovakia (1/4)

I sloughed my colossal backpack from my moist back and stretched my arms. I dug into the nylon and pulled out my camera, deftly flipping the LCD to face me. The camera zoomed in on the fountain and I paused for a moment as my exhaustion was replaced by confusion. Why was it zooming? Video mode? The dial showed “P.” What P actually stood for, I had never known, but it certainly wasn’t video mode. None of the buttons had any effect on the camera. The realization that my camera was broken sunk into me like teeth into flesh.

I placed my stocky camera back into the bag and pulled the miniature SD400 out of my pocket. I was due at the hostel in 15 minutes and I was not going to leave the burnished fountain without a photo. It dawned on me as I walked away that, as a child, I would have cried about the camera. Being lost in a foreign city using the sun to guide me would not have helped matters. But that was then and this was now. For the first time in my life I felt fully mature, that all flecks of childhood had rubbed off. A broken camera was unfortunate, but I would make do. The trip would go on, G3 or not.

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The Downtown Backpacker’s Hostel had a tasteful common room. My eyes danced from the revealed brick wall to the gold Lenin bust and then came to rest on the piano sitting in the corner of the room. My shoulders relaxed at the sight of the piano and I felt at home. A strenuous, lonesome trip, a broken camera, a rather unsightly city, and the unfamiliarity of staying in a hostel had left me wondering what, exactly, I was doing. But the piano in the corner was a salve for my angst.

The first night of my trip was celebrated with fellow hostellers: three Aussies, a Frenchman, and a fellow American. All of them were pleasant guys. We marched into old town and downed a pint or two in small pubs. I slowly drew facts about each of their lives and formed a disturbing picture of my company. All five of them were unemployed. Three of them did not have a home. Two of the Aussies and the American recounted evenings leading to nights in a jail cell. The third Aussie said something to the effect of “…but I was on Acid at the time.” So although some of them were homeless, drug-using convicts, it was an amusing and oddly welcoming night.

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Friday I saw two museums and discovered just how much an mp3 player loaded with classical music can enhance the experience of gawking at seventeenth century tapestries. I spent the remainder of the day wandering around Bratislava’s old town. Bratislava has a sense of humor manifested through its various statues:

I wandered aimlessly with crowds of people when my stomach noticed some locals carrying Tesco bags. I followed the stream of bags to the source—Tesco: the monolithic grocery store teeming with hordes of shoppers. Inside the engine of chaos, I pushed towards the breads and reached for a sweet roll but my hand swerved for a baguette as a worker dumped a fresh batch into the bin. Fresh bread is one of only two things that Tesco does right, but often times it is the only grocery store around.*

I returned to the Hostel with my groceries to find that my room had been inhabited by five napping French girls. My first thought was, ‘Somebody up there loves me.’ My second thought was, ‘The bathroom will be occupied until the end of time.’

That night I walked to the National Theater for a ballet performance. Clothed in jeans and a sweater, I was horribly underdressed. But after a 70 year old woman sat down in front of me with a translucent shirt I did not feel so awkward. At least my outfit was not a crime against humanity. The ballet was enjoyable; it was reminiscent of the operas I had seen in Prague in that grandiose music accompanied a diminutive plot.

I spent the following morning in Bratislava's castle, which contained an extensive museum of furniture, clocks, and armor.

The highlight, however, was the view of communism that its tower offered. On the other side of the Danube were innumerable concrete apartment buildings:

I continued to explore Bratislava and took more photos:

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I felt that two days in Bratislava had done it justice, and Saturday morning I walked to the train station intending to leave for Hungary in thirty minutes. All did not go as planned…

*The other thing Tesco does right is the brilliant, ambidextrous man in the fruit and vegetable section who can simultaneously slap prices on two customers’ vegetables while talking to a third.