Vienna - Day 3: Bratislava trip

Visiting Bratislava was an adventure! ;) The night before, the four Americans - Reid, Sam, Johnny and Dave - together with Eduard and myself had decided to meet at the Vienna south station (Sudbahnhof) to take the train to Bratislava. That was what we did, but we missed a direct train by seconds and had to wait about an hour for the next one. So we took another train that went to another station where we could then take yet another train to Bratislava. (we bought a ticket for 14€ comprising the return train ticket and public transport in Bratislava)

So we reached Bratislava pretty easily. But to go to town, first we had to check which bus to take. And that was hard, because we couldn't understand a word on the bus route map. We managed to figure it out (I've forgotten how) and off we went...

We went to the Bratislava castle, but it was "under construction" (it's a plague in European touristic spots), so we had to settle for the view from the hill:

which was pretty nice, actually :)

and yep, to prove that I was there ;)

after we came down from the hill; the castle is in the background

I didn't mention it before, but Johnny and Dave were in Vienna to film a documentary about Minesweeper (seeing as there was a Minesweeper tournament going on). The wanted to interview all the players (or as many as they could), and they thought that Bratislava would be a good place to conduct a few interviews.

Here you will see the pros at work:

setting up Reid's interview

Eduard's turn

yours truly being interviewed against a lovely backdrop :P
(I think they were setting up the equipment...I wouldn't have been looking away otherwise)

After sightseeing (we spent most of our time on the hill where the castle was situated, so we didn't walk around much in town) we went to the train station to catch the 3:50pm train. Upon arriving at the station, we had about 5 minutes before the train left, so Sam and Eduard went to use the bathroom. The rest of us waited and waited...but they did not come back...so we missed the 3:50 train. Then came the piece of information that made this such a great adventure: Sam and Eduard were already on the train! It seems that they expected us to be already there. We did contemplate going on first, but Reid insisted that we wait because "Sam wouldn't go on the train without us." :P

So we went into a nearby cafe while waiting for the next train, which was at 5pm. And those two who left us behind felt so guilty that they didn't go home, but waited for us to arrive at the Vienna train station :P

That night we met up again with the other sweepers, including those who had just arrived that day. But I still have a couple of things to mention:

First, the train ticket we bought. Curiously, on the train to Bratislava, no one checked our tickets, but on the way back, they were checked twice! Proof's on the ticket:

see the two different stamps?

Besides, I had the occasion to visit toilets at the train station (Sudbahnhof) once. It was certainly an experience in itself. First we had to pay the unsmiling lady there 50 cents. Then when a toilet was free (when I went there all were occupied, but I was the only one waiting) she would open it and - get this - LOCK YOU IN. (okay, maybe it was automatic locking, I don't know) And the doors weren't lightweight either. It was like a safe door closing or something. As Sam said, we couldn't help wondering whether we'd be able to get out later! (and that lady in charge was really unfriendly...makes me think of a prison warden!) In fact the door had some kind of mechanism that somehow allowed it to be opened from the inside, but not from the outside unless you had the key. So the lady there had to stay around waiting for "customers" to lock in...

Hmph. Lovely job, huh.

Other Vienna posts:
Vienna - Day 1: Panic attack
Vienna - Day 2: City sights
Vienna - Day 4: Minesweeper Championship
Vienna - Day 5: Schonbrunn Castle