BRATISLAVA…Road Trip Part II...

It was target 1 of 3 completed. The minutes of the underground plan/actual agenda is as follows :

‘Party in a different country every single night for 3 days’

Vienna was crazy, but Bratislava was next. For us it was about doing justice to the new country which was going to receive us, with open arms and war

ning highway signs. Hence a previous night of nocturnal activities could not stand for excuse enough to leave late and miss out on time to explore our new territory. Note: even with 2 Brazilians and 2 Indians we managed that. Now that is what I call sheer Achievement!!!

Second Halte :BRATISLAVA | SLOVAKIA

The only picture of Bratislava I had was that of creepy, gory and gothic images from the movie ‘Hostel’. That is not a good reference point to start with, trust me. The drive from Vienna to Bratislava even though was only 1.5 hrs, was anything but boring. The distinct change in landscape and the GPS reminding us of Eastern Europe, kept us well occupied and on the lookout. We had no clue and expectation set for the time and journey from here on. This being the exact reason, for my interest in travelling to the ‘less preferred’ eastern side of this developed continent.

Throughout the time in Bratislava, we did manage one consistency, one storyline. The title being, how and where would our body parts land up at the end of our time there? As funny it may sound, it was not, quite obviously. The city was real small, that being another topic of laughs [there never was any dearth of that]. The city seemed quite deserted throughout the day, a bit owing to the grim weather conditions, but still unusually sparse and silent in a spooky nature. But somehow we were happy consciously as this is what we expected, and of course a bit anxious too, as that is also what we expected. After the lovely expectation setting with the city, we thought of exploring the same, after checking into our ‘Hostel’. There was a nicely situated castle which overlooks the city as most of them do. The view was fantastic from there with the river and the trademark skyline available for appreciation. We also made an excellent decision of satisfying our stomachs at the Castle Restaurant. And what a meal it was!!! Fantastic food and even better ambience. Natan, the quintessential Brazilian could not decide where his focus should be directed at, the 2nd main dish which he had ordered or the lovely dame who got him the 2nd dish. I don’t really blame him though, it’s tough.

Let me dedicate one para to Natan and his penchant for eating. He deserves this honour in my blog space. The guy consistently ate a lot, and even more surprisingly felt hungry quicker than most of us, who managed to eat only half of what he did. Well that doesn’t really add up correctly. Hence jokes of the nature:

1. Natan ate all the people of Bratislava as we hurried him for breakfast at Vienna.
2. Hungary our next destination had been named in his honour for his favourite pastime; so and so forth

After visiting a gothic looking church and its surroundings, we headed for an even more brilliant meal [if it could get any better, it very much did so]. This was a Brazilian restaurant called ‘RIO’, which they stopped claiming once they found out they had amidst them 2 hard core Brazilians. Nonetheless we did many firsts at that place. I tried Cachacha, the local Brazilian sugar cane liquer. Augustine tried the Absenthe ‘Green Fairy’ and well Natan stuck to his heavier 2nd main dish again. Overall time and money very very well spent, in amazing amounts of quality liquor and heavenly food. By this time there were more people out on the streets than we had seen in the entire day in the city. This was unbelievable. It’s like a huge movement of people had taken place post sunset from some unknown corner.

We then headed back to our hostel to quickly gear up for the much anticipated nightlife of Bratislava. But there had to be some amount of drama. So all of us came to the conclusion that in order to fully and solely enjoy and absorb the nightlife we must at least catch up on 30 mins of sleep. Bad Decision!!! The funniest part being, everyone knew that. We did our best to avoid our desire and penchant to sleep, by taking cold showers, etc, but to no avail. A 15 minute power nap turned into 1.5 hrs of deep slumber. I woke up just for a moment and realized that we were missing out on the moment of the nightlife in Bratislava as tomorrow we had to head to Budapest. Tonight was the night. Somehow managed to wake up and made others realize the same.

Once we were out in the streets, everything was back to normal after a few jumps and swigs of beers. All senses restored. Bring it on.

We headed straight to this recommended club called Nu Spirit which was a 5 minute walk. It was in an underground tunnel with a long bar. With a good mix of club and house music blasting from perfectly placed speakers, with a screen showing a live feed of some other party also. It was turning out to be a great night. But we had no clue how crazy it was about to get. After a couple of beers I made my way to the restrooms. And what do I find an adjoining tunnel on the turn of the restrooms. This was a second dance floor with a complete different set playing. A more psychedelic EDM based set. And this was the video feed playing in the first floor. Crazy. This was more of a dark sound and the previous one more morning. The setting very much similar.

When I introduced the other 3 to this new universe, they too went ballistic. The tunnels being so thick, there was no interference of music. The best addition to the night was yet to be made. They had a guest DJ for the night, from Prague, by the name of DJ Trava, which in Czech translates to grass or weed. This ‘old man’ or veteran really belted out some psychedelic tunes, tunes and beats which really teased and played with your mind. The alcohol obviously helping his cause.

The party people too were really the happy kinds and really mingling and ready to enter into a conversation. An unexpected situation did take place though. One of the girls I was talking to was a member of AIESEC in Slovakia who was trained by a guy called Vijay, whom I had trained in AIESEC in Kolkata. This same guy was there in Bratislava 2 weeks back. I mean this really flipped me. We partied till 5 and decided it was time to look ahead to Budapest and hence must call it a night. But Bravo Bratislava!!! We came with no expectations (and a bit scared) and left with real fond memories and an eagerness to visit again.

VIENNA…Road Trip Part I...

Well all my journeys of my last time in Europe had been penned down or rather typed, at least the ones taken on land. All, except one, that being Norway. Many a time I thought about completing the log, but just couldn’t . As the cliché goes, at times you just can’t put experiences and feelings into words. You might put them up as photos. Kodak would still exist if they would have used this Copy.

So I shall today not attempt once more on beloved, gothic Norway. I shall start on my second leg in Europe, that of March 2012 and so on…this time the first substitution is that of Deutschland for France and the second one being that of Munich for Marseille.

After watching ZNMD, almost every boy in India wanted to do an All Boys Road Trip in Spain or anywhere like Spain and call it Spain. The girls included, but with girls of course. But we had to better it and HOW:

1. We add an extra person
2. We make it 2 Indians and 2 Brazilians
3. We make it unknown and mysterious Eastern or Central Europe instead of predictable Spain
4. 4 days, 3 cities, 4 countries
5. Mission statement: Every night party like no tomorrow in a different country for 3 nights…
6. Attend office absolutely sane after this rendezvous

First Halte: VIENNA |AUSTRIA

We reached Vienna amidst a bit late as per schedule as we left Munich late [courtesy: 2 Indians and 2 Brazilians]. We checked in straight into our hostel guided to us perfectly thanks to Emily our best friend in the journey. Post dumping bags and freshening up, we headed out to the Vienna city centre.

First things first – Food. Three of us sat in an outdoor cafe while Augustine set out taking pictures in the rain, excited about visiting his second country in Europe, understandably so. An incident occured where in all the forces of the Universe, or similar, came together. Natan was talking about food, Chinese and jeans. Just then a Chinese waiter with a glass of beer spilled it on Natan’s jeans. His first reaction being – I hope you’re not charging me for that one and second a grave look at me. Flashback : a conversation between us before leaving on whether he should carry one pair of jeans or two. On my persuasion he just carried one. Now he sorely missed his other pair. Post the ‘lovely’ lunch, Natan went to buy a new pair of fresh and dry underwear and jeans. Myself, I went straight to Zara for satisfying my fetish for Kravatte.

We then headed to the infamous Sacher Cafe to try the famous Sacher Torte. Right outside was the Opera theatre and a few salesman dressed as Mozarts and Orchestra players. We got in an interesting conversation with the head salesman and he succeeded in selling us the idea of attending the opera in the Golden Theatre which would start in exactly 15 mins. This was definitely not in our crazy party plans. We bought the tickets and gladly chatted for a few more minutes and then hurried to the Opera theatre.

As expected we were late to enter and had to wait for the first song to finish. The best of it all – we had seats on the stage, right behind the orchestra and next to the choir singers, overlooking the packed house, obviously dressed inappropriately. From the moment we entered to the time we left the theatre we were just enamoured and gripped by the beauty of the venue, the heavenly notes and compositions of Mozart which were beautifully executed and the 3 main people:

1. The constructor;
2. The main male opera singer ;
3. The gorgeous and elegant main female opera singer

They were just simply master of their art and were unbelievable in their own ways. The singers at times were producing vocals of pitches and ranges unimaginable of the human vocal chords, holding the audience to ransom in the mesmerizing magnificence. After all we were in the seat of Western Classical music and Opera in the World, on the stage right next to them. It couldn’t dare be anything else. In the end it became one of the highlight of our trip and a decision we didn’t regret making at all as a deviation.

We then headed out to survey a few nightclubs and grab a bite. We then returned to the hostel, freshened up and headed out to this one street with all different clubs and pubs in a line. Partied till 5 and then looked forward to Bratislava and trying to wonder how it could get any better.