After the great night at the Slovak pub the night before, and the long hot miserable nights “sleep” I awoke to a room that was already bright hot and stuffy at 9 am. Getting up off of the plank floor where I slept with only a pillow and my under-roo’s I headed out into the hallway to the men’s room. To my unsuspecting surprise the cool tile floor of the hallway was covered with many, many naked British guys, and I don’t mean that they were laying around in there underwear, no, it was a sea of stinky sweaty Brit’s. Out of the doorways of one of the rooms, which belonged to the group of Brits, blasted the sound of loud rap music that while trying its best to be loud was being drowned out by the snores of the only Brit in his bed. I guess between the heat and their buddy’s loud snoring about 15 guys abandoned their clothes and their beds and spent the night on the cold tile floor in the hall. Two girls wondered out of their room and headed into the girls showers and one of the Brits jumped up of the floor grabbed his towel and howled “I’ll join ya ladies.” I guess he did because he didn’t come out of there for a few minutes and when he did he shouted back into the showers “thanks!” thankfully to everyone’s relief the Brits all got up and put on some sport team matching uniforms and left for the day.
Being insanely broke, tired, and hot, I grabbed a cheapy lunch (in Bratislava, a cheapy lunch is truly cheap and gut-rot fare). After taking a few of the anti-acids I had been lugging around in my medicine bag for 6 months I went down to the basement of the hostel where there are 2 crappy couches, 3 slow computers with internet connection, and a TV with cable. Thankfully it was the coolest spot to be found and a few other travelers, some Australians, also had no aspirations to be brave travelers and we all spent the day in the basement watching crappy TV, drinking really cheap warm beer, and telling lewd jokes. I told the Australians about the Slovak pub, and we made plans to go there for dinner then maybe hit up some clubs around town.
Having effectively wasted more than 10 hours in the basement (I have yet to have even taken a photo in this country!) we put on our least foul smelling clothes and walked down to the Slovak Pub. More full than the night before, we got a table just inside the beer garden and ordered some drinks. Looking through the menu I ordered the amazing dish I had had the night before, as well as something else that caught my eye, traditional Slovakian “Fat Bread.” After a round of drinks our food came. The menu made the fat bread sound like it was a nice fresh homemade roll glistening in real butter with fresh sliced onions baked into the top, and so that was what I was expecting. When the waitress brought me my goat cheese and dumplings topped with thick diced crispy bacon I was shocked to see a side of something that if I had not even ordered it I would have declared “well all-be, I think I should name that mess of stuff fat bread!” There on the side dish plate was a slice of burnt toast with a whole onion thick sliced and piled high, and sandwiched between the bread and onion was about a quarter inch layer of pure creamy-white artery-hardening lard! I bravely tried a bite, UUGH, I couldn’t tell what was worse, the obviously gross slimy pig fat, or the crunchy bread, or the ungodly amount of rancid onion! Of all the foodstuffs I have tried in the last 6 months, this was by far the worst! (Even worse than the crusty Pig-in-a-blanket that I think had been in the food warmer for several months that I ate on the Greek ferry). After daring the Australians to try it, one of them ate the whole thing with a half-liter of Slovakia’s finest.
After an otherwise good dinner and good conversation we all went back the hostel and sprayed ourselves down with a fresh dose of cologne before heading out to the clubs. Across the street from the Patio Hostel was a club and as we walked towards it we saw a big group of gorgeous girls go in, apparently girls under 14 get in free or something because they didn’t pay but the tried to charge us like 10 bucks apiece, and we decided that we would hit up some other places that might be free first. One of the guys proclaimed him-self our fearless leader and said he had a map with some clubs on it, and that we should try some of them. A block away from the club we had just left we were standing on a street corner, when the weirdest thing happened. Two loud and drunk groups of British guys crossed the street from two different directions and converged on the corner where we were standing. Instantly we were surrounded by the loud raucous guys and while humping everything that moved they were yelling “where are the ladies at?” or “where’s the Coke?” those were the only two phrases I could understand of the queens English, everything else was buried under too much rapid slang and drunk stammer. And after making sure they humped the leg of and sniffed out every guy from our group and the other group it was like a secret signal sounded and suddenly both groups walked off in the opposite directions. We all stared at each other dumbfounded, “what just happened” I said, no one knew, we chalked it up to the great mysteries of life (man did we feel sorry for the girls of whatever club those guys ended up at!).
We walked down to the river (Danube?) where we heard there was a club on a boat, but when we found it, it was completely dead and only a few drunk old men were sitting around, there were no girls, and never would be, so we headed back towards the city center.
We walked around the small, but clean and beautiful, old city center, I actually hadn’t even got further than a block from the hostel since I had arrived so I hadn’t seen it yet. Like I said, it was nice, very charming; after getting thoroughly lost by following fearless leader we finally found the club/restaurant district. Along a long narrow cobble-stoned street were many nice chic restaurants, and there were many tables that were all full up with nicely dressed people having late night meals and drinks. After having wondered around a nearly dead city, it was a pleasing contrast to find a place that was really alive and vibrant. I really wish I had had the money and clean clothes to have actually sat down and enjoyed a meal and drinks under the cool dark moon with everyone else (I will have to go back here some day and do it proper). Fearless leader had heard about a club somewhere around the corner that was supposed to be a great place so we walked through the crowd passing many, many beautiful tall thin Slovakian girls (my first thought: with all the grease, dumplings, goat cheese, and fat bread… how in the hell were these girls so skinny and beautiful?). After wondering around staring at a crude map we finally asked for some directions, the guy informed us that the club we were looking for had closed a year ago! Fearless leader declared it was all for good as that that club obviously had sucked anyways, so we went to one next to where it had been. I cant remember the name, but it wasn’t very great, we were nearly the only ones there, but at least they had free water and a fan so we could all cool down (and no cover charge, sweet!) after an hour, and still no people, we left to go look for another “great” club. Now, most Aussies are fun to party with, but this group was probably the most boring and lost group I had hung out with, they couldn’t make up their mind at all, finally they decided the were going to go back to the other club by the hostel, and I told them good night, I was tired and didn’t feel like (nor was a able to afford) to spend more money.
Back at the hostel I was relived to find the naked Brits weren’t back from partying yet, and that I was able to get a premium spot on the floor by the window for my nights sleep.
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