One Hundred Percent

I started feeling a bit off the night before we left Vienna. Luckily the trip to Bratislava was a short one. When we arrived I didn’t have much energy and the only thing I managed to do was walk a short distance to eat dinner and grab a few groceries.

For dinner we found ourselves at a Greek restaurant called Bistro Suvlaki. We looked at the menu which had English translations under each item. We decided on a Greek salad, halloumi and prawn pitas. Reading the description we assumed “all pitas are filled with tzatziki, tomatoes, onion and fries” really meant the fries were on the side. When we asked for clarification we were told that it was indeed with fries inside. We were assured by the owner that, “This is the Greek way. One hundred percent. Always fries inside. One hundred percent.” Andre explained to him that in Canada we have a lot of Greek restaurants and that his friend even runs one, and we have never had a pita with fries in it. His response was perfect. “Your friend might have a restaurant, and he might be Greek, but he does not have a Greek restaurant. Fries inside. One hundred percent. Always fries. One hundred percent.”

I wanted to take a piece of Baklava home for a treat so before we left we asked if we could take one to go. He told us it was two pieces and you could mix desserts so we took a look at the fridge. Andre was interested in another dessert that I didn’t recognize and he explained that it was just another kind of Baklava. To which the owner quickly replied with a big smile, “No, only baklava is baklava. Maybe at your friend’s restaurant it’s baklava.”

I one hundred percent loved this guy. Even though I felt like crap he made our meal very enjoyable, and the food was great as well.

Three Day Stop

Bratislava was only a 3-night stop so when I woke up the next morning and felt worse I wasn’t happy. I didn’t feel like I’d be up for anything and had absolutely no appetite. Andre inspected my throat with his iPhone flashlight. In his professional medical opinion it was not good. I had white spots on my tonsils. I had no idea what was wrong with me so of course I Googled all my symptoms. I know better than to do this, but I am compelled to do it anyway, like most of us. Fatigue, sore glands, aches, fever… was it Strep? My throat wasn’t sore though. Mono? Thrush? But only babies get that, and though at times Andre would tell you that I am a giant baby, I am in fact an adult that hasn’t been taking any type of oral spray medications that would cause thrush.

I headed for the chemist across the street. I had my whole spiel typed into Google Translate. Long story short, I dealt with a couple of ladies at the pharmacy. One was really nice and tried to be helpful and the other was a complete bitch. I don’t deal well when people are dicks for no reason whatsoever. I was trying the best I could to communicate my needs and I felt like a pile of crap. I really could have done without this lady’s attitude. In the end I walked away with nothing and decided upon advice from the nice one that I take the Amoxicillin that I already had in my huge bag of meds and if that didn’t do the trick to come back.

By that afternoon I was feeling much better. In fact, I was game for a walking tour I had planned out the night before. At a slow pace.

What We Saw

My walking tour was much shorter than previous ones, but there were some things I was interested in seeing. Bratislava has a good transit system, although we had read that the ticket inspectors are ruthless/shady and tourists should be wary and never pay a fine on the spot if they actually have a validated ticket. As it turns out it’s a small place and very walkable so we didn’t bother with public transit. My points of interest on this tour included the Slovak Radio building (an inverted pyramid), a street with an umbrella art installation, Five Points Cafe (where you can get a selfieccino), and the UFO Observation deck.

All were worth seeing. I especially liked the selfieccino. You order your drink and then scan a QR code on your phone, take a pic or upload an existing pic and send it. They put your cappuccino under the printer and voila. I tried to get a video of the printer in action but the cup rises up into the machine so it’s difficult to watch it happen. It’s a gimmick but I don’t mind a gimmick now and then. Even Andre seemed entertained. I couldn’t help wondering if they’d ever refused to print a photo that was sent to the machine…

We Just Wanted to Buy Some Booze

On our last evening we decided to pop into our local shop to grab some beer and maybe a bottle of wine. Clearly I was feeling much better. Of course whenever we get somewhere new we have no idea what is what and end up looking things up on our phones. I have a wine app called Vivino which I like to use and Andre just looks stuff up on the internet. I guess we were taking too long because the woman working there all of a sudden came up to Andre and starting speaking to him very rudely. We both tried to speak to her but she simply ignored us and went to serve someone at the till. We were both quite surprised and offended that she had been such an A-hole so we put down our stuff and walked out. Andre smiled and waved as he said bye (pronounced by-ee) in a very lovely sing song voice he reserves for people he’d like to tell off but couldn’t be bothered.

Now it may just be our experience, but to be blunt we generally found the people in Bratislava to be quite rude. The only people we encountered who smiled and were genuinely pleasant were our Greek guy and our server at Five Points. After our run in with the shop lady I started singing “Don’t smile for me Bratislava” (to the tune of Don’t Cry for Me Argentina) because I like to make light of things rather than let them bother me.

42 days in…

Let’s get to Budapest!