Day 11: Laundry

This morning’s wake up was quite challenging, as most of us had stayed out late the night before. This caused us to be a little late to Parliament, but considering the size of the place, this turned out to be a non-issue.

Parliament was a cool building. It is relatively new, as it was built in the 90s in order to accommodate the new Slovak Republic. The Parliament features 150 deputies and six major parties. Interestingly, elections are a month away, but a member of Parliament was still willing to brief us on Slovakia’s business climate from a political perspective. He was so humble he didn’t even introduce himself, or his accomplishments. We found out later he was a leading member of the 2^nd strongest party. The presentation was great…both informative and concise.

We then got a great view of the city when we walked outside, as the Parliament building is in the city’s center, on a hill with the castle. The castle is filled with MP’s office, and not unlike the Washington DC counterpart, it is connected to the capital building through an underground tunnel system. Pretty cool.

We left to grab lunch back at the University’s café. The salad was incredible and schnitzel we had was delicious. Of course, I love schnitzel, but this was particularly great. I then ran up stairs to check email before going to class. Unfortunately/fortunately, there is no wifi access in the lecture hall we use, and with internet at the hotel limited to the lobby for 1 Euro an hour, internet is a precious commodity. Class was more of the same from the day before, although less about privatization and more about development procedures in Eastern countries.

We returned to the hotel from class around 4 where we headed to the local super market before heading out to the city. We intended to eat a classy joint, but realized it was quite expensive and consequently, we roamed the old town area in search of lower prices. We found an outdoor café/restaurant located right in the middle of a street. The place was reasonably priced and each of us found a great meal to share with others. We had local beer and wine, and, naturally, Robbie and I took the opportunity to Slovakian cheers each other as often as possible.

Following dinner, most of us headed around the corner to an Irish pub. The place couldn’t compare to the one we frequented in Koblenz, be we had a good time never the less. Several photos of our antics indicate the good time we were having.

We left the pub and searched for cabs to return us home for another early morning. On the journey, we found an interesting sculpture which stole Robbie’s hat and Christine’s heart…

While the first and even second cabbie we found demanded 15€ for our trip back, after walking towards the hotel for a few minutes (it was a nice night and a pleasant part of town), we found a taxi that would take us home for just 10€. Christine and Erica jumped in the back while I enjoyed an uncomfortable conversation with the diver in English about football and England. I eventually asked him if he spoke German, at which point he got very excited. The two of us then enjoyed a merry conversation about sports, Austria, and everything else our mutual secondary language vocabulary could dream up. We spoke so long that I began to realize I had used more German in Slovakia than in Germany! Regardless, it was a great time and the three of us really enjoyed his hospitality and warm discussion on the way home.