Welcome to Slovak Republic

We arrived in Vienna (Wien) on Tuesday morning, an hour ahead of schedule.  Apparently Chicago had no run-way wait and the winds were strong from the west. Wien was a easy airport to deal with, and we were walked straight through customs/passport check. While I am no means good at speaking German, I am so pleased that I have been studying it, as I have been able to understand passing words from the German speakers enough to communicate. Plus, as Bratislava is on the boarder, many signs and postings are in German.  This makes it much easier for me. One other major point is that Euro to dollar is only 77 cents.  This makes things quite expensive.

The bus to Bratislava is directly outside the arrivals gate in Wien, so we were able to jump right on the bus.  It was less than an hour, and the journey took us through farm land and a couple of small Austrian towns. One of the towns, Himberg was really cute.  As I brought my 10 year old son with me, I had to work to make this trip interesting.  Luckily it was easy, as we spied our first castle on a nearby hill. I believe it was Schloss Walch. It was a very foggy day, so our pictures from the bus are not good.  We will go there again soon, and I will report if I am correct with the castle name.

We arrived via Taxi to our hotel (Ibis Centrum) and found it to be clean and modern- if not a bit sparse.  However, it sat at the base of the Bratislava Castle, and only about 200 feet from the old city.  I had heard about the graffiti in Bratislava, but it was not as bad as I had been lead to believe.  I was able to snap a couple of pictures:

Shameless Plug for the Capitol of Slovak Republic

In the Old Town of Bratislava.

Old City Gate.

The next day, we headed to the bus station to travel to Nitra, the city I will be living and teaching in. We determined that we would take a cab the entirety of the way for 100 Euros, and after bargaining in German with the driver! It was a nice drive and took only an hour. Our hotel, Comfort Hotel is quite nice.  Located in the old city, and near one of the major malls, I am able to walk everywhere, which is appreciated (as I spent all my extra money this week on the cab). The city of Nitra is about 75,000 people.