Paris, Bratislava & Croatia

Hi everyone! So I've been procrastinating & once again haven't updated the blog for the past 3 weeks again, but here's everything....

Paris
A few weeks ago I went to Paris for the weekend, I'd heard mixed reviews about the city but I was determined to go since I'd never been & am in Europe, so no excuses right? Anyway, this was my first RyanAir flight and I was a little nervous that there would be some airport drama since I'd heard they're super strict with boarding protocol, carry on size, etc. Anyway there was a little drama but not about my luggage! My friend ended up not being able to go on the trip last minute, so this turned into my first solo trip in Europe. I also made the mistake of telling my parents earlier in the day that I was staying in a mixed room hostel in the red light district of Paris so it would be a little sketchy. Needless to say, by the time I landed in Paris, Tom had booked me a hotel room in the business district so I stayed in a much nicer place than I planned on! Traveling alone has its ups and downs, everything's more expensive since it's just you paying, and dinner alone at restaurants gets a little awkward so I think I drank extra wine to compensate. But, I also got to see Paris on my own time, not stay at museums longer than I wanted to, etc. so I ended up having a great time. I spent all day Saturday on a hop on-hop off bus sightseeing, which was very time effective! I went to all the main sites I was hoping to see so it was a very successful day. The main thing I have to say about Paris is that the food is absolutely incredible. I like to go to small, off the beaten track places so I went to a few family owned restaurants where I was the only non-French person, ate & drank amazing food & wine (especially the coq au vin, incredible!)

At the Louvre

French military museum gardens

Eiffel Tower up close & personal

Bratislava
The next weekend Lu & I stayed in Bratislava for the first time since I got here, crazy huh?! It was getting a little sad that I kept getting lost constantly and had no idea where I was since I was never actually in the city except for work. Friday night we went out to dinner on the river with the other international FDP's then went to an Irish bar over by our apartment afterward for awhile. Saturday we took a walking tour of Bratislava & I finally saw all the sights around, learned a little about Bratislava history, and got a little exercise (added bonus)! Afterward I spent a few hours shopping & getting ready for the Michigan vs. Michigan State game little watch party I put together. Lu & Kevin came over to watch the game, I made way too much food, and we streamed the Michigan game live from the Big 10 Network website. This was the first Michigan football game I've been able to watch since I've been over here so it was really fun & made me miss all my friends who were in Ann Arbor for the game that weekend. Sunday, Lu & I went over to the Kempinski (really nice hotel in Bratislava) & got massages since they do half-off massages on the weekends. It was a really relaxed weekend & was nice to have a break from traveling for a few days.

City center

On the Bratislava walking tour

Croatia

This past weekend Lu & I traveled to both Split and Hvar, Croatia which was absolutely beautiful, probably one of my favorite places we've traveled. It took us a very long time to get there so in retrospect we really should have made this a 3 day weekend trip. We got into Split late on Friday night & were looking forward to going out to a few of the bars but unfortunately we didn't realize that the bars close at midnight there! So we ended up just walking around for a little while & checking out the city. Saturday we walked around Split some more, did some shopping (mostly buying fake Ray Bans) & got on a ferry to head to Hvar. The weather the whole weekend was pretty questionable, it kept storming on & off, so our ferry ride to Hvar was very rocky, but we were just glad the ferry didn't get cancelled since Hvar was the main place we wanted to go. We stayed at a really nice beach resort in Hvar, I wish it had been warmer so we could have actually gotten in the pool but it was still great to just be outside by the water. We walked around a lot and went to a great Italian restaurant for dinner. The waitstaff there was probably overly friendly since we were pretty much the only tourists in Hvar that time of year, so they brought us out free shots a couple times which I was fine with :) They also recommended a great bar around the corner from the restaurant that Lu & I loved. It was a locals bar that placed awesome 90s & 2000s American music so we had a great time. The waitstaff came out and met us there too so we had fun making new local friends! Sunday we just walked around Hvar some more, took lots of pictures & then spent pretty much the rest of the day traveling back to Bratislava. All in all, absolutely loved Croatia. Lu & I were talking about how we think its pretty underrated back in the U.S., seriously everyone should go, it's amazing. Lu & I are already planning a trip back, so let me know if you want to come with!!

View of the hotel pool

By the pier in Split

Down by the water in Hvar

Life Update!

So I realized that I haven't posted in a few weeks now which is really lazy of me so I'm going to give a quick rundown of where life has taken me! Last time I posted, Lu & I were headed to the High Tatras, a beautiful mountain range in Slovakia. That weekend ended up being really fun & pretty relaxed which I think we both needed! We stayed at a really nice spa hotel and I'm pretty sure we were the only non-couple there so we didn't realize we were booking a romantic getaway! I'm sure the other guests at the hotel had a different opinion of our relationship, but I won't get into that...We spent the weekend walking around the city, which was pretty small & reminded us both of northern Michigan & rode a chairlift that took us to the top of the mountains and that was really beautiful. The High Tatras are a really popular destination for people to go hiking & skiing when it starts getting colder. Lu & I weren't quite that active as we spent most of the weekend drinking hot wine, but we admired the energy of the other visitors around!

Just walking around the mountains

A little higher up

The next weekend, Lu, Kevin (another friend from Dell in Bratislava), and I went to Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. I didn't really know what to expect on this trip, I'd heard Cesky Krumlov was a small town, but a lot of fun with a lot of history in the city. Since it's such a small town, it's a little difficult to get to by train, so we ended up hiring a driver to take us there which was surprisingly inexpensive. It was a beautiful drive there and back though since we were going through all of the country in the Czech Republic and Austria. We stayed at a hostel in Cesky Krumlov that was an old monastery and supposedly haunted. Our room in particular was a 16 bed room (obviously I didn't get much sleep) and the story is a monk hanged himself in our room so we were in the especially haunted room! The best part of Cesky Krumlov was the raft bar crawl we went on with the other people in our hostel on Saturday. Basically it was us and a bunch of Australians that went and we had two rafts and paddled down the river, stopping at various pubs on the way. It was an all day adventure and so much fun! We were obviously much better friends by the end of it :) On Sunday we walked around the city and actually did some cultural things like visiting the castle. I loved the city though, it was so beautiful & we really enjoyed it. I highly recommend Cesky Krumlov if you're ever in the Czech Republic!

The raft crew

Post-pub crawl (notice face paint...we stopped at a carnival on the way!)

Looking much more presentable on Sunday 

So now we're caught up to this past weekend, which Lu & I spend in Munich, Germany for the last weekend of Oktoberfest. Needless to say, it was pretty rowdy. We took a half day off work on Thursday & all day Friday to make the weekend worth it, and got into Munich on Thursday night. Somehow Lu sweet talked a bouncer and got us into one of the biggest tents on Thursday. It's exactly how you would picture it with everyone dancing and singing on the benches with their big beer steins, very high energy. We were actually in Munich with a 25 man Irish bachelor party, basically Lu met a couple of the guys when she was backpacking Europe & they ended up having 2 guys drop out of their hotel reservation, so we took their place! The Irish bachelor party definitely made things more interesting over the weekend, we were a very loud & noticeable crowd at the festivities! But they were all so nice & made sure no creepy guys were talking to us so they were definitely good to have around. Friday & Saturday we spent all day at Oktoberfest, somehow not having too much of an issue getting into any of the tents even though we didn't have a reservation. It was such a great time though and something I'd definitely do again. By Sunday we were pretty wiped out and ready to be home so I've spent most of this week recovering! Lu's parents came in town this week so we all went out to dinner & drinks last night and had a great time out in Bratislava. This weekend Lu's going to Budapest with her parents & I'm headed to Paris with Kevin so I'll be sure to update about our adventures next week!

Inside the tent on Thursday

Saturday tent day

Settling In

Hi everyone! So the good news is that I finally moved into my apartment on Monday. I need to take some pictures and post them up here, but I want to wait until I've decorated a little bit! I've given a few lucky people walking tours through Skype, so let me know if you're interested! :)

This past weekend was really fun, my friend Lu & I went to a wine and cultural festival in Graz, Austria. Graz was kind of a random town for us to go to, it's a huge college town in Austria and we'd heard that it was beautiful so we decided to check it out for the weekend. Getting to Graz ended up being an almost disaster..Lu & I got on the train at the wrong train station in Bratislava and were lost in the transit system for a little while. Luckily, we met a really nice girl on our train who spoke English and helped us figure out the best way to get there. We only got to Graz about an hour after we were supposed to, so it wasn't too bad! Since Graz is a huge college town, Lu & I went out to the college bars after we finally got to our hotel & checked in, and met some really interesting people including a national hockey team and a DJ, so needless to say it was an entertaining night! 

We also were lucky that the cultural festival was going on the weekend we were there, since we didn't know anything about it beforehand! Everyone was dressed up in traditional attire (think lederhosen here), and there were a ton of vendors selling different kinds of food, drinks, and crafts. The specialty drink here was burciak which is a really young, and incredibly sweet wine it its early stages of fermentation. So Laura & I tried that, but had to water it down with soda water since it's so sweet. People there were drinking it by the liter though, I have no idea how they do it!

With my burciak at the festival!

That night Lu & I went to a local pub near the festival called "The Office", it was such a fun bar. The owners were all British which was great since they spoke English! They even put American college football on the big screen for us so we had a great time. 

This past week was mainly me settling in at work and in my apartment. I'm really enjoying my role right now and am hoping that continues throughout my rotation. Every week there's a group of us who aren't from Slovakia that go out for an "International Dinner", the goal is to try a new restaurant around Bratislava every week so that's a fun thing to look forward to during the work week! This weekend Lu & I are headed to the High Tatras which is a really beautiful mountainous region in Slovakia, I'll update next week!

Cultural Performances at the Festival

City View of Graz, Austria

Around Town

It's hard to believe my first week is almost over! I really have loved being in Bratislava so far, everyone at the Dell offices over here have been very welcoming & friendly so it's been easy to make friends and have evening plans so far. Everyone at the office calls me "Betka" which I was told is the Slovak version of Elizabeth, I made them show me proof this was true & not a terrible word in Slovak! I have to admit that Lu & I haven't been very adventurous in trying Slovak food so far...Monday night we went to a restaurant and got their special half-priced steaks which were amazing, we're definitely going back as many Mondays as we can! On Tuesday, the FDPs here organized a happy hour for me to welcome me to the Bratislava office. We went to this great restaurant and bar right by my apartment, ate ribs (so American..), drank wine, and taught the Bratislava FDP's how to play one of our favorite drinking games called "Up Chicken" (maybe I'll describe this in a later blog post). We all had a great time and it was really fun getting to know everyone outside of the office!

On Wednesday, the weather turned super cold and rainy which was a bit of a shock since it's been in the 80's since I got here. After work, I was trying to get my cab driver to drop me off at a nail salon (don't judge me!) and he ended up misunderstanding my English of course & took me to the mall instead! I did walk around for a little bit, but ended up getting lost on my way back to the restaurant I was meeting Lu at for dinner. I ended up finding it eventually, but did walk there through a torrential downpour which was pretty miserable...and cold...and wet. I guess I'll just have to get used to this weather again, I thought when I graduated from Michigan I was done with that, but apparently not!

So Lu & I did find one Slovak cuisine that we both love and have had 2 days in a row now called goulash. It's basically beef, sauce & dumplings, I of course cannot enjoy the dumplings, but it's still awesome, for those of you having trouble visualizing I've included a picture:

Looks good right?! Anyway, Thursday was definitely my most fun night of the week. The whole Slovakia pricing team went out for drinks & dinner last night, and was definitely a lot rowdier than my American work happy hours! We were out until 2 a.m. together & hence are all working from home today :) It was a really fun night & it was great meeting the whole team. Today, Lu & I are heading to Graz, Austria for the weekend which is the second largest city in Austria, a huge college town, and a great wine region. I'm really looking forward to the trip & will post pictures when I get back!

Lu & me with Marcel & Cyril (pricing team members)

More Dell Pricing team members

William & Martin passionately singing Slovak folk songs

Greetings from Bratislava!

For the next 6 months I'll be working for Dell out of their Bratislava office & will hopefully be traveling as much as possible on the weekends. Since I want to fill you all in about what's going on over here, I figured a blog would be my best bet. I got into Bratislava yesterday (Sunday, 9/9) around 4 p.m. after 19 hours of travel time and missing one suitcase that is still stuck in London (hopefully I'll be getting that today!) Needless to say, I was pretty exhausted but my friend Lu, who's been living here & working for Dell the past 6 months, wouldn't let me go to sleep until night time to adjust to the time zone change. We walked around Bratislava a little bit, and went down to check out a festival that was happening in the town square. English is pretty sparse around the city so we mainly pointed at food and wine that we wanted then sat in the square to eat, drink, and listen to live music from the festival. I did learn how to say "thank you" in Slovak (ďakujem) so that was an accomplishment! Everyone at the festival shared tables, so we ended up sitting next to two older gentlemen who were upset by our lack of Slovak language skills, but we did drink wine with them & shared our chocolate we got at the festival so we became fast friends. I'm considering this Lu's & my first double date in Bratislava!

After the festival, we headed to the Sky Lounge restaurant & bar where we ate awesome Thai food and enjoyed the view of the city. I have to say that Bratislava is a much prettier city than I imagined it, the only idea I had of Bratislava came from the movie Eurotrip which makes it look pretty ghetto & rundown. I promise it's really cute though so you should all come visit me!!!

I stayed last night at my friend Lu's apartment, I was supposed to move into an apartment a floor down from her today. However, I got an unexpected call this morning from my relocation agent saying that my lease doesn't start until October 1st but they would try to negotiate an earlier date. I don't know how anyone didn't know this until this morning, but anyway I may be staying in a hotel now for the next few weeks. Just further proof that you have to be very flexible with your plans when you move to a foreign country! I've really enjoyed the past day though and everyone at the office has been incredibly welcoming. There are a couple welcome lunches & happy hours for me that are going on this week so I'm excited to meet everyone & start traveling around this weekend. 

Lu & I at the festival

Our first double date in Slovakia :)

View of Bratislava from the sky bar