Weekend of May 14th
The scenic €20 train ride from Kosice to Bratislava, flew by for a 6 hour trip, maybe a rest was need or maybe staring the at the beautiful landscape made the time fly by. There was a memorable mountain range, High Tatras, which during the trip which seems to spring out from no where. This area is a very flat paries landscape then out of know where there is a 30km mountain range (think Rockies size) without any rolling hills, it is unlike any other mountain range in the world. Nick, from Montreal whom we meet randomly at the train station, had just spent over a week hiking solo with only his backpack through the area, initially drew our attention to the area.
Arriving in Bratislava, the first thing you notice is the city’s castle up on the hill over looking the river. The castle can been seem from many parts of the town and is elegantly light at night. During our second day, Jamie and I took at long stroll back to the hotel, across the Danube(S) river while the sunset, it was picturesque. The stroll was nice but it was of necessity, our first hotel was so far out of town. Taxi’s were an option but the drivers rip off the tourists, when asked in English how much a 5min trip cost it would be €15, when asked in Slovak it was only €3. Good thing we hand our new Slovakian friend Zuzana as our translator / tour guide. The following day we checked out the far hotel and after some drama with the barley English speaking receptionist over missing towel we were happy to get out of there.
Our second hotel was perfect, only 300m of the rink and 200m from the Fan Zone, everything was within a 5min walk, including our breakfast beer and Kebab. (Yes mom I’m eating healthy, there is lettuce and tomatoes in there). The Fan Zone was a pretty good setup with a big screen TV and lots of fun games to be played. The highlight being a 3-a-side street hockey in our socks inside of a air inflated rink. We played Canada vs. Slovakia, we didn’t keep score but it was an onslaught. When the cops told us to leave, I asked if we could played first to five, after a dirty look we decided that next goal wins. Chalk another one up for Canada.
Buying tickets was a lot harder and more expensive than in Kosice, there were too many people trying to scape tickets for a profit and we lucky to get row 3 CAN vs. RUS for €120 (only €30 above face). In the game we played a good first two period, and I got a great picture of the breakaway goal by Spezza. After the game our Europe friends told us we got on TV. You can see Jamie and I and around the 23 sec mark and you can see me doing my happy dance. Going into the third with a 1 goal lead wasn’t enough we lost 2-1, but I really though we were going to score when there was a dying second one-timer that just missed the open net. Losing to Russia always sucks, since I’m not a big fan of the Russians, they normally aways rub me the wrong way.
Getting knocked out of the tournament did save us a lot of money since tickets for the next two games would have run us between €150-200, but I would have loved to see Canada win it. I thought we had a great young well rounded team this year. The rest of the time we spent in the Fan Zone or walking around town, unfortunately wasn’t had to retire my jersey for the season after the loss.
As with Kosice we have the people in Bratislava and be really friendly as well. One night we ran into a group of student volunteers on the street drinking Molson Canadian, after doing a double take we got to talking. I guess Team Canada brings over a cases of the beer for the guys after the games, but since got knocked out early they gave the beer away to the volunteers. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the beer was shitty, but I think he kinda knew it. We hung out with them that night and they introduced us to the local Slovakian shot, I forget the name but they keep saying it was made out of beer, so I guessing it is made from barely or something.
Overall I loved Slovakia, the people are friendly, the beer is good, everything is cheap and the girls are the hottest in the world (sorry Sweden you had me fooled).
