Bratislava, Budapest & Vienna

We just had a week off for 'Spring Break' and decided to spend this holiday in Europe. It was the first time that we have traveled in a 1st world country since living abroad and it was GLORIOUS. Our first stop was Bratislava, Slovakia, where we visited our good friends Brian and Elsa who we worked with in Honduras. They did a great job introducing us to the local beer and food which included goulash, perogies and bratwurst. Lots of comfort food and comfort drinks.


We spent a couple of days wandering around Bratislava, exploring the city center and a couple of local castles. Me usually leading the way, and Mike bringing up the rear with his camera. He just couldn't resist the beautiful architecture and dated buildings.



Bratislava had some cool statues scattered throughout the downtown - we definitely did the tourist thing and posed with pretty much all of them.

Next stop.....Budapest! And what an amazing city this is. One of our favorites that we have ever visited. It has it all, gorgeous city views, old buildings, character, cheap beer, good food, funky bars found in old buildings, Turkish baths and is a little off the tourist track so you don't find the crowds that you would in most European cities. We loved wandering around this place for a few days - one of our highlights was visiting one of their traditional bath houses. We didn't get any pictures of this though because we thought it would look creepy bringing our camera in.







Our last stop.....Vienna! A pretty cool city with some impressively restored churches and palaces, but by this point we had probably racked up over 50km of walking over the week, so after a few hours of wandering around we were pretty happy to spend our last afternoon enjoying some sunshine and beer in Vienna's cafes and central park. The perfect way to cap off a pretty awesome holiday.




As we departed from Europe a few questions we asked each other really highlighted the reasons why we enjoyed ourselves so much:
"Did you notice that all the toilets had seats and flushed?"
"Who knew that countries had public transport that ran on a schedule and didn't smell of farm animals?"
"Where are all the people who should be selling me things I don't want and who don't take no for an answer?"
"Where are all of the bug bites I am so used to?"
"Do you mean we get to pay the price that is listed, and it is not based on how much money you think we have?"
"Did you feel like you could have been robbed at any moment? I didn't."
"Do you think it is easier to find things in cities that have maps and street signs?"
"Do you remember when that car stopped to let us cross the street? That was nice."
"None of our hotels had any roosters. Didn't you miss that?"