I know it’s better to just post the fun stuff, but I feel the need to confess (it must be all those Catholic churches I’ve visited this past week).
I am not an intrepid traveler when abroad.
When I get to a new city, I can make my way to the hotel. Then I just want to curl up in my room and not go out into the non-English world beyond the hotel’s sliding glass doors. The first morning it takes about 3 hours to talk myself into getting dressed and out the door, and that’s usually because I need coffee.
For some reason, Bratislava today seemed much more foreign than Budapest did. The Slovak language on signs looks the same to me as Hungarian, everyone here also speaks English, everyone is perfectly nice (notable exception: see next paragraph), and yet it just seems off.
When I arrived at the train station, I was expecting new and high tech from what I’d read about Slovakia. Instead, it was seedy. The “taxis” lined up outside were nothing more than old beater cars with TAXI signs on top, probably duct-taped on, no taxi company affiliation. All of the tour books said not to take a taxi just off the street, and certainly don’t take one that doesn’t have a logo on the door. The drivers were hanging around their cars smoking, had dirt on their clothing and faces and looked like they were calculating how much ransom they could get for me. While my head told me to stop judging people by their appearance, my gut told me to WALK AWAY. So I did – walked the 1.6 miles to the hotel dragging my suitcase (wheeled, thank goodness).
I managed to lock myself out of my hotel room this morning. You’d think it was because I forgot my key, but you’d be wrong. It was because the Slovakian safety latch fell closed after the door shut because I didn’t realize I needed to turn it 90 degrees to make it stay unlatched. They were very nice about it, had to call two guys who came and unscrewed the latch off the door frame. I noticed that no one said “this happens a lot.” I was outsmarted by a door latch. Isn’t that about half a step up from being dumber than a rock?
Only happy posts from now on…