Tue 18.Aug.2015
Bratislava, Slovakia
On a little street, across the old city, and half-way up the steep
hill beneath the castle. I tell myself that logistics is why I've never yet
hauled myself up there at dinner time for wild boar. I keep putting it off!
Caput apri defero, so to speak.
This mirror-walled shopping passage doesn't fit in anywhere on the
page. Everything else fits pretty well though, so this image is just going to
remain here.
Bratislava's many upscale coffee houses seem to be getting competitive in
their cuteness. This one is just above the old city.
The art of coffee drinks
This one is just a coffee shop area in the Eurovea shopping mall, frevvinsake!
Spaghetti with bolognese sauce and grated cheese 3.30 Euro
A shout-out to George at The Walk Inn in Rhodes, who makes a
better bolognese than anybody I know! (Though I doubt that he would announce
it in Slovak.)
Did you know? Poland is in the top ten world producers of
strawberries! I [heart] Polish strawberries!
I couldn't make this stuff up, but some poor copywriter had to.
That said, they are good strawberries!
A book store has tiles in the floor for a dozen or so literary stars.
I understand just enough of this reference to know that its meaning
will be more Stark for some of my friends than for me.
Even foreign women get the slavic female ending on their surnames; the chancellor
of Germany is Angela Merklová.
Evening in Main Square.
Wolfgang Amadeus himself, in the Burggarten in Vienna.
Crossing a marshy patch, near the lower end of Horský Park.
Yes that is how park is spelled in Slovak. It is one of the easier words
in the language.
The approach to the upper end of the same park.
A trip to the laundromat.
Getting from my apartment to the laundromat takes about as long as getting
from the Bratislava bus station to the Vienna airport. I.e. 40-45 minutes, depending
on the tram and bus timings. I don't gripe; I'm in no hurry. I'm just grateful (still!)
that the laundromat is there - clean, modern, and dependable.
It sits in high-rise Karlova Ves, a borough that was once a separate
village. Like Petržalka across the Danube, Karlova Ves transformed its
bare concrete canyons into whimsical pastel colors a few years ago.
Now that I have gotten the hang of working the washers, the dryers, and the
machine that dispenses the tokens that operate the washers, I have begun to pay
attention to the little machine that vends instant coffee, chocolate, or espresso.
Macchiato even! Cappuccino! Not gourmet stuff, but not bad for a laundromat
vending machine.
The product selector buttons are labeled in Italian, the stick-on instuctions
for use are in Slovak, and the LED feedback display when you operate it is in
English.
The decorative lower half of the coffee machine. It could have been just a
flat blank panel.