A Day in Slovakia

Personal Excursion (10)

Majka and I 

When I was a junior in high school we had two foreign exchange students.  One was from the Czech Republic and the other from Slovakia.  I have been able to stay in touch over the years and with this trip I have been lucky enough to get to see them both!  Zuzana, the one from the Czech Republic actually studies here in Olomouc at Palacky University.  The one from Slovakia, Majka, studies in Bratislava.  This weekend I was able to head to Bratislava to visit her for a day and it was amazing!
     This was my first time traveling by myself and although it was a fairly easy journey I was still a little nervous.  Luckily it went very smoothly on the way there, I found all the connections I needed and made it there no problem.  Majka was waiting for me at the train station and after a long greeting with lots of squealing and hugging we headed into town.  We first walked along Obchodna Street, which is their main street that leads to the square.  It's filled with shops and eating places.  However, it was May 1st, which is a workers holiday, so a lot of the shops were closed.  We walked through the main square while Majka did her best to tell all about the city.  

     After grabbing some coffee we headed to check out her dorm and eat at the cafeteria.  On the way the one thing that really stood out to me was how green and full of plants the city was.  For being such a big city there were large areas of trees and plants all over.  Walking up to her dorm I felt like we were going through a forest! She lives up on a hill that they call student village because it has a ton of dorms and so basically all students live there.  For lunch we went to the cafeteria, which had lots of delicious looking choices, for very cheap.  We decided that since I needed to try fried cheese, which I had seen a lot of places but hadn't eaten yet.  It's basically a large square mozzarella stick, but it was delicious.  

Trying fried cheese

     After eating we went to see her dorm.  When we first arrived in Olomouc we thought the dorms here were, well, kind of crappy compared to back home.  Majka's dorm in Bratislava makes these look luxurious.  Their dorms are really cheap to live in so I guess it's understandable but back home we would think they looked like abandoned buildings.  It was a little bit of a wake up call though.  I know a lot of people complain about dorms back in the U.S. but they live in dorms like this and get by just fine.  

    After we left her dorm we headed to the Slavín War Memorial.  It is a huge memorial and cemetery for the soldier of World War II, up on a hill over looking the city.  It was very beautiful and peaceful up there and it had an amazing view of the whole city.  It was a very surreal moment for me.  When Majka and Zuzi left 3 years ago I didn't know if I would ever see them again, and now I've got to see them in their own country!  Back in high school we lovingly called them the foreigners and so when we met up I joked that it was just like old times, but now I'm the foreigner.  

Slavín War Memorial

     After the memorial we walked around for a bit longer and saw a few more things until it started to rain.  We met up with her boyfriend for supper where I had a traditional Slovak dish, halušky.  It's potato dumplings and sheep cheese and it's delicious.  Sadly after that we had to rush to the station to catch my train.  However, when we got there and I looked on the board to find my platform the train number was just blinking in red.  Luckily Majka was there to translate because apparently my train was cancelled at this station and I had to take a different one to a new station to get on the one that would take me home. 

      We sprinted to the train and a quick goodbye and I made it on just in time.  I made it to the new station found my correct train, got on and thought everything was good.  It was a little creepy because the train was practically empty.  I did not see a single other person or worker until about an hour in.  At that point I realized I was going to be way too late to make my connection that I needed to get back to Olomouc.  Luckily a worker (that spoke English) came around and told be about the delay and that I there was a later train I would be able to take back to Olomouc.  I got to the station where my connection was and had to wait about 30 minutes until we actually left.  Then, instead of just making stops at the main stations like the trains usually do, this one stopped at every little station, which was practically every 5 minutes.  What was supposed to be a 2 hour and 40 minute trip took me about 5 hours, but I finally made it back.  

Overall it was a wonderful trip.  I am so thankful I got to see my friend and experience yet another country!