I came to Bratislava knowing virtually nothing about it, except that in the movie Eurotrip there was nothing there and the exchange rate made you a millionaire. I was very, very pleasantly surprised.
Yes there is virtually nothing to do. It is nice and refreshing to spend sometime in a tourist-free zone for a change, where people speak no English and there is no obligation to see or do anything. That's not to say we did nothing either. We took a day trip to one of Bratislava's many lakes - beautiful, peaceful and abandoned. We took with a picnic purchased at the local supermarket, which I was a bit reluctant to eat after finding a caterpillar wrigling through my capsicum. The picnic caused us more trouble than we could have guessed, attracting a flock of swans. At first we thought they were cute. Then they waddled out of the water and began hissing at us menacingly. I didn't even know swans could hiss! We were scared off and the swans laid waste to our leftovers, claiming our lakeside base as their own.
Just then a brave young sausage-dog, man's best friend arrived and came to our rescue, barking at the swans. The papa-swan made its wings look big and hissed loudly and eventually the dog stood down. The battle was lost. That's when we regrouped and decided to beat the swans at their own game. We advanced in a V formation, hissing loudly and banging our shoes together. We expected the swans to try bite us like they attempted to do to the dog, but our plot worked a charm and they retreated, not without a hiss over the shoulder, back into the water. Humans 1. Swans 0. Nothing like some inter-species pitched warfare to brighten up a day at the lake.
We hit up Bratislava's nightlife too, catching a bus out of town to the university campus and joining a student party. Noone spoke English or knew why we were there, but we had a good time nonetheless.
Back to my expectations for Bratislava. We expected some funky currency which renders us millionaires. Unfortunately we missed it by a year - the Euro spread like the economy crushing plague that it is - but things were cheap nonetheless. Examples...
Bus ticket for the day: 35 cents
Box of namebrand Panadol: 60 cents
Kilogram bag of organic carrots: 50 cents
Gym entry: 1.64
1.5L beer: 2.10.. At a bar.
So needless to say we lived like monarchs.
Other funny things in Bratislava included a side salad served submerged in water for some reason and the many posters around town advertising the big appearance of someone named DJ Robbie. Performing at the local sushi restaurant. In April 2010.
Ah Bratislava.. thanks for making the rest of Europe feel good about themselves. Now we head to Hungary where that funky currency we wanted awaits - 1 Euro buys 300 HUF. Long may it last :)
The weathe deserves a mention too. For weeks now we've been traveling south, narrowly avoiding the onset of cold weather. In Bratislava it hit. The forecast said sunny and 26 on Wednesday, Thursday onwards showers and a maximum of 12. Winter has begun.

By the way the photo for this blog I saw at the local gym. That's what they think of Australia. Seems we've made a pretty good reputation for ourselves.