Bratislava, Slovakia to Vienna to Ljubljana, Slovenia

So it's been a little bit of a whirl wind tour the last week or so.

Leaving Budapest was a little bit annoying... I got to the train station 50 minutes before the express train was going to leave and stood on the line to get tickets for that train for 1.5 hours! I was really frustrated when I finally got to the front of the line, but realized why it took so long... everything is manual. The person selling the tickets is doing everything in triplicate... filling out the tickets and other forms by hand... writing the small numbers in boxes people should not have to write in. So each person took about 10-15 minutes... for a simple ticket. If they got one computer and trained one person to use it, one window could possibly service 1 person a minute... 15 times faster. (they had 3 manual windows open) I AM spoiled by technology. So I had to take a train more than 2 hours later from a different train station, that was running local... such is travel. 3-4 hours after I left Budapest, I was in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Bratislava is cute little town... clean... with the usual castle, old town, and some churches. (Although I didn't have great weather there) I met some Hungarians from Budapest there and spent a couple of days hanging out with them in their neighboring country's capital. Even did some day hikes in the mountains just outside the city, although it was a little too cold. It was nice to spend time with them, since I didn't really get to spend too much time with the locals in Budapest (just the waiter [and aspiring dancer] from the Korean restaurant). I also got to dance a little in Bratislava, although most people there (and also in Budapest) dance Cuban style salsa, which I don't enjoy as much.

I took the boat up the Danube to Vienna a couple of days later... really nice scenery along the way... but again... the weather hasn't been in my favour... always cloudy with either rain or a drizzle every day. But I got to see some great museums, and walk around some pretty empty parks for a couple of days. I also finally got to go shopping and get myself a new pair of jeans. The ones I have been wearing for the past couple of months were starting to be problematic. Mostly because of a couple of very sharp seat corners on a very sketchy train in Romania. Although my new jeans are fine... I really got used to... (read "broke in")... my old pair and have not had the heart to throw them out yet. My pack (and back) can't take much more... soon I'll have to find a worthy recipient.

I really enjoyed the museums in Vienna... many of them had great art history lessons on the walls by the paintings, and others (like the MAK) had notes about the layout of the exhibits on the walls. BTW... the MAK has some amazing pieces of wooden furniture from many different centuries... simply amazing wood working... even better than my dad's... and he's hard to beat. Even with the bad weather, I still really enjoyed Vienna... and even got to dance a little on2 with some of the locals including Yvonne which runs one of the local salsa websites: dancingsalsa.at.

Today, I took the train down to Ljubljana, Slovenia. It's probably the most scenic train ride I've taken on this trip... the Autumn colors on the mountain... the river snaking below the mountain... and the houses that fit cleanly into the landscape... both on and below the mountain. Quite a contrast from some of the soviet architecture I've been seeing so much of recently. (Although they had a few soviet style building and factories along the way... it wouldn't be right if they didn't). The weather also cleared up today, and now that I'm close to the Mediterranean, its a little bit warmer too. I was also lucky that I booked a hostel here, since tomorrow is the big Slovenia marathon. As before... the town is booked... but I'm one of the bookies... a nice change! The nice thing that they do here is that they have a children's "Marathon" the day before the real one... obviously not the full length... but a really nice idea nevertheless.

I think I'm going to relax here for a couple of days and head into the country side for a couple of days... then down to Croatia. Let's hope the weather holds up a little bit longer for my trip down the coast.