Thu 29.Jul.2010
Bratislava, Slovakia
It has been mostly overcast in the central Danube basin for a week and more now.
This morning's sun fooled just enough people into dressing in
light outfits that soaked to the point of transparency in this
afternoon's cloudburst.
![default title defalt alt text](pix/2010/p7236004.jpg)
Here is modern Bratislava in one of the sun breaks. Would that
all of the modern buildings were painted this colorfully; a lot of the
town is pretty drab, outside of the lovely old city center.
Emergency Exit on the window of one of the busses that ply between Bratislava and Vienna.
![default title defalt alt text](pix/2010/p7236010.jpg)
The street outside the good cafe Laguna on a rainy night.
Day Runs to Vienna
![default title defalt alt text](pix/2010/p7155968.jpg)
For who knows what reason, test strips for my blood glucose meter are back-ordered!
It makes a good opportunity to run to Vienna every week to the diabetic
supplies shop there to check whether strips have arrived. I expect to
run out about two weeks before returning to Calif. It won't kill me to
be without, but I'd rather be with.
Anyway, these signs in Wien amused me, both in the neighborhood north of Mariahilferstraße near Neubaugaße, near the Togs store I posted a photo of in 2007.
Trafiking Tabak - shame on them.
![default title defalt alt text](pix/2010/p7155972.jpg)
Inside the Ring
I.e. the imperial heart of old Vienna
![default title defalt alt text](pix/2010/p7276027.jpg)
A colorful wall, seen over the spiked fence of the Volksgarten - People's Garden.
A well-illustrated tow-away area near the Hofburg, the old Imperial Palace. I like how "tow-away" comes out in German - Abschleppen.
To schlepp away.
![default title defalt alt text](pix/2010/p7276034.jpg)
Across the street from the Hofburgstheater, some kind of outdoor fair
is going on. Here is the theater itself in a moment of half-hearted sun.
A most curious beer stand - it offers
cherry beer, fruit beer, pineapple beer, banana white beer, and peach beer!
Europeans - especially german-speakers
- do not generally appreciate cutesy flavored beers. How about beer flavored beer?!
Sailing home
![default title defalt alt text](pix/2010/p7276045.jpg)
I treated myself to a river ride back to Bratislava on the fast
catamaran - 50kph, about 30mph. These last photos are all from
the boat, leaving central Vienna.
![default title defalt alt text](pix/2010/p7276056.jpg)
Auf Wiedersehn, Wien.
Bratislava here we come, just as the overcast shuts off our last light,
and the poplar-lined river banks wall off the view of the wheatfields
waving on the flat plain.
Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Bulf