Bratislava, Slovakia

Last goodbye to Budapest; the view from my hotel room balcony.

Surprise!! Slovakia and Hungary look like... NORTH DAKOTA! They even really only had trees in shelterbelt lines. Very funny.

Driving into Bratislava.

Old town square. All the pics that follow I took while wandering around town. I drove from home on Friday to Budapest, via Vienna, and on Monday when I returned, I came back through Bratislava, Slovakia, Brno, Czech and hit a little traffic passing Prague. It sounds like I made it up, but no.

The nicest pink building I've ever seen.

People need glasses everywhere.

This is one of the city towers. Do you see the the cannon ball? Remnant from Napoleon invasion days.

Here's Napoleon, a sculpture from the 1990's.

Random.

Ditto.

Lastly, you can see McD's is still everywhere. When will we learn? Mystery meat is sketchy!

Take on Bratislava:

It was good for a few hours stop- it's small- I don't think you'd need much more than that. Unless you were crazy museum person (Shanta). Slovakia was the second European country to get to use the Euro (in 2009) behind Slovenia. Maybe it had something to do with the similar name? The average yearly salary here is around $8000 US. I'd like to come back to the countryside sometime.

Regeneration and movement

Two days of work in Katterbach and an overnight in Army lodging provided regeneration in many ways. Wednesday morning after navigating icy roads and Nuremberg traffic jams, I arrived to my little basement office with two male technicians, both medics, and a friendly Tricare neighbor, Arlet (a she), whose office I kept trying to enter rather than my own when I was trying to get back to my exam lane.

My staff invited me out to a "Hail and Farewell" for people coming and going from the Katterbach clinic. It was an Italian Buffet for 13 Euros, not exactly what I look for, but it was fun and good get out and meet new people, as well as observe a funny form of Army-ness--- I was even introduced as the helper interim optometrist. Katterbach's optometrist recently deployed and the new one won't be in place for about two months, so two of us are covering the location for now.

Snow reigned supreme the last two days, but it didn't really affect my drive, as it seemed to be in Katterbach town and then again when I got back to Weissenberg, but not so much in between. Spending time in my car allows relaxation and thought mingling. Two good things.

This weekend's a three day weekend, and I'm headed to Budapest, Hungary. My plan is to drive to Budapest, spend three nights in Bellevue B&B (run by two retired economists who worked four years in Canada aka perfect English), then Monday drive back through Bratislava, Slovakia. I'm following the advice of Rick Steves' Eastern Europe on this trip. I'm looking forward to a few quiet days in my room which has a balcony overlooking the Danube and Parliament. Public baths are also a big thing there, so I've packed my suit.

Love to all on Valentine's Day weekend.