part I: vienna
before leaving austria i had a few more things left to do that i knew i would regret if i didnt do them. first i visited the obres belvedere where i got to see a great exhibition on elgon schiele and his roundtable of artists including gustave klimt. i actually cant remember ever really hearing about elgon shiele which made it all the sweeter to see many great paintings i had never even seen photos of before. but despite how awesome the schiles were, i was most impressed by klimts the kiss which is one of the few true masterpieces in art and another must see before you die kind of thing. in the rest of the first floor of the museum i found some other really good paintings but the second floor totally sucked and while i was looking at one of the paintings i somehow set off an alarm that reminded me of the ringwraiths from lord of the rings, man it was loud and the room attendent got really upset. well your art sucked anyway lady, to hell with your crappy alarm and even crappier art. my ears still ringing i went to an exhibet on the ground floor of some 1950's artisit who used only the colors red, yellow and blue and i have to say, this guy fully explored every aspect of the boringness of his subject, seriously, it was two giant wings of blech. if i was an art gallery owner doing a show of his work i would burn my own art gallery down (and insurance wouldnt pay crap for his work i bet!). to finish off the belvedere complex i walked through the park down the hill to the lower belvedere where they have a completly worthless collection of baroque art, thankfully there were a great number of messersmidt scupltures other wise it would have been a complete waste of energy (ok, i know i sound negative but i was in a great mood and i loved the first floor of the upper bevedere, but for the most part the collections are tastless over produced unoriginal crap that the rolyalty, the hapsburgs, bought and collected for so long so they could be cool like all the other monarchies).
after a nice little walk through the nearby stadtpark with its ponds, creeks, and hundreds of ducks i entered the M.A.K. or museum of applied arts. it houses a nice collection of furniture, ceramics, rugs, and furnishings from the last few hundred years. but the best part was an art noveau design wing, and a collection of large architectural models by some of the leading architects of the day! a must see for any architecture student.
part II: bratislava
at the trainstation i got hassled several different times by a 20 something guy dressed in goth with runny blue make eye make-up. he sounded like and the look in his eyes belied the many drugs he was one, after he asked me for money like the 3rd time i responded, "why, so you can just go blow it on eye make-up?" boarding my train i sat back and enjoyed the refreashing breeze from the open window (have i mentioned enough lately how hot it is?)
halfway there i had to change trains in marchegge which meant a 30 minute layover wait for the next train. while waiting i saw several border guards hanging around their guard shack with their m-16s. when the train showed up i got a good laugh at the single train car that was so run down and broke that the train engineer not only drove the train but at each stop he also left his cab and checked tickets as the ticket taker! as the train pulled out of the station i got a look into the open door of the guard shack, sitting on a chair with his uniform shirt unbuttoned and his gun laying on a desk was a guard taking a massive swig out of a big bottle of whiskey. wish i had a picture of that scene!
even though bratislava is the capital city of slovakia the town only has a population of 450,000 people and the main train station is the smallest and crappiest i have seen. i took a tram to my hostel, on the way passing by a burger joint called McErnies! my hostel, the patio hostel, sits in a courtyard off the main road, spitalska, and is sorrounded by old brick buildings that look bombed out and haunted, surprisingly people still live in them (who really needs glass in their windows anyways?). at the hostel i checked in and went to the basement which is the coolest (temp wise) place in the whole building.
around dinner time and ready to try slovakian beer i walked a few blocks to a place called the slovak pub. the slovak pub was absolutly fantastic, it occupies the second floor of several buildings, and the floor is old heavy timber planks that look like rail road ties that are scarred and splintered, and no two planks side by side are level and even. ( a real treacherous place to walk) In one of the rooms near the back it looks like a fire ravaged the roof so they turned it into an outdoor beer garden, i got a seat at a rail road tie that stuck out from the wall and had two chairs jammed underneath it. after packing some pieces of paper under my stool so i could level it out on the uneven floor i got out my journal to write and i ordered a beer. like prague, you can get a half liter of ice cold deliciouse quality beer for 25-30 crowns, but unlike prague the exchange rate is 30-1 rather than 20-1 so that means your beer in slovakia is one third cheaper (it also seems to make it taste one third better!). after looking through the menu that was in 3 languages i ordered a plate of perogi filled with saurkraut and smoked meat, then took a look around me. like the 7 or 8 odd massive rooms in the pub the outdoor garden was absolutly full of locals most of them students in the 15-25 range, all sitting in groups of 2-30 people at small and long tables having drinks and chatting away in slovakian. the atmosphere was great, one of the best i can think of in all of europe. halfway through my really good beer one of the guys at the table next to me slapped my back and asked me something in slovakian. "english?" i said, and his eyes lit up, "a little english i speak, come my friend, join us!" and before i could answer he grabbed my bag and placed it at his table, slid over to make room for me on the bench, and gave the bartender 3 fingers asking for another round for him, his friend, and i. "you dont have to buy me a beer" i said, he looked at me funny, "you are my guest, i buy you beer!" josef and josef (best friends with the same name) introduced them selves to me and they started asking me questions and we got to know eachother in general as best we could. josef the taller didnt speak as good of english as josef the shorter and many times only one of them understood me so he had to translate to the other what i said. it was a wierd but entertaining conversation that covered many topics; when another round and my perogis came i munched on one of my new favorite foods with my two new friends. though the josefs both love america, they have one thing in common (besides their dislike of bush) they are both deeply offended and angered about the big wall the united states built around its embassy in bratislava a few years ago. josef the taller really despised the wall and asked me if i could do any thing about it, i promised him i would email bush and tell him to take it down! (they feel that the big wall means we dont trust the slovakians and that we think they are terrorists). even though i was on my third beer, the josefs were on their sevenths, and they were in jovial and hearty moods. "my friend" they said "do you like slovak women?" "Sure" i replied "some of the best!"(which is both true and false at the same time). "oh great" josef the taller said "look at her shes pretty, go ahead and stare, they like it" after some more conversation i discovered josef the taller was actually a police officer and so here i was in a slovakian pub checking out girls with a drunk police officer who is buying me beer after beer. after tabbing out and paying i got a cool 20 crown bill that i added to my collection of monies, when josef and josef saw my collection and i told them what it was for they each whipped out their wallets and with a slovakian police pen (that i still have) they wrote random drunk messages in slovakian and english on slovakian money and gave it to me as gifts. remembering two american dollars i had stashed away i returned the favor. soon after three slovakian girls and a guy walked into the garden and sat next to us. "they are pretty" josef the taller said "and he yelled over something in slovakian that i am sure translated as "hes an american lets drink together!" so we joined the girls, (two sisters and a friend) and josef the taller who was quite drunk and very hyper active (he always gets like this josef the shorter told me later) kept introducing me to the three girls he didnt know and he kept telling me, this one likes you, this one likes you. i felt like a rockstar, and everyone wanted to talk to me and buy me drinks and tell me about why they hate the u.s. embassy wall and give me their email. after trying all the food that the girls ordered (they insisted i should try everything because slovakian food is good. and i agree, i love slovakian food which is perfect for drinking, but i will talk more about that in the next journal) and as the bar began to close we all made plans to meet up the next night at 8 o'clock for dinner and drinks and to eventually go out to a club. "nastravia" i said, proposing a toast one last time, and we all finished our drinks and left.
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