Vienna

On my first weekend I did a day trip to Vienna, and fell in love with the city! I took a boat there on the river Danube, and then a train back. The boat takes about 1,5 hours and costs 20 euros. It is more expensive than the train or bus but it is worth taking once! The weather was nice so I decided to walk to city, it was about 3,5 km.

This is the terminal in Bratislava, that ufo looking thing is a restaurant.

I took a hop on hop off tour, it is a bit pricy with 30 euros, but you can take the bus all day and both blue and red routes. I also did them both and stopped a couple of times. Vienna is just amazing, so many palaces and museums, it is like the whole city is a museum! Lots of culture and history, I will surely visit often.

St Stephen's Cathedral, it is so huge I couldn't get a better photo!

The most visited tourist attraction in Austria, Schönbrunn Palace, dating back to 16th century and it is on UNESCO World Heritage List. That place is HUGE!!! It was the main summer residence of the Habsburgs, and it has 1441 rooms (!!!). I didn't go in because I didn't have enough time, but you could spend a full day there, walking in the enormous garden and see the rooms as well. The garden has a maze too! Maybe someone with any sense of directions could go there :D.

Their winter residence was The Hofburg, today it is the office of the President of Austria and it is located in the city centre. I didn't have time to go there at all, that is for my next visit... I was told that no one actually knows how many rooms that palace has, and it was built in the 13th century.

More pics of around Vienna

How credible is Literaturmuseum, if they have 4 mistakes in their name?

I took the train back to Bratislava, there are trains all the time, every hour, and it costs 10 euros and takes an hour. Very easy and comfortable.

I know this is not about Vienna, but at work the meeting rooms in the same floor are named after cities of one country. On the 7th floor the country is Ireland. So far I've been in Kilkenny, but today I was in Limerick :D. Just had to take a pic...

Otherwise, I have started working, second week going now and everything is fine. The order entry system is definitely more complicated than in Cook, but I will be doing only order management and no customer support. I love how quiet it is there when the phones are not ringing! I have settled in nicely, but of course after just a couple of weeks I still feel like a tourist. I am starting to find my way in downtown, sometimes even without Google Maps, and finding new places every day. Naturally I am planning weekend trips and day trips, so many places to see just a few hours away! I promise, next I will finish the post about white privilege!

Bratislava

Here I am, living in Bratislava! I arrived here on Monday night at the 9th, or actually it was already Tuesday since it was after midnight. For the first night I had booked a hotel with airport transfer because of the time. I got my bags super fast, like I just walked to baggage claim and here it was already! Amazing. The driver was waiting for me right outside the airport, so that was perfect. I was in my room by 1 and got ok sleep. The next day I got to the Airbnb I had booked for 5 nights, it was in Karlova Ves, which is a bit outside of the city but the price was good and the apartment was very nice. On Sunday I got to my own apartment :). I rented a small studio in excellent location, but it is still very peaceful here. I have settled in quite nicely now.

I started exploring the city by doing a bus tour and of course walking around and around and around... Here's pics of the city.

Bratislava castle, the tower was built in the 13th century, and the other buildings mostly 200 to 400 years later. I didn't go inside the castle yet, but planning on doing that. As you can see, the sun was shining... the weather for the first week was just amazing, over 25 degrees most days. It felt like the summer has finally arrived :D.

Slavin, the burial ground of the Soviet Army soldiers who fell in April 1945 while taking over the city from the Germans. It was opened in 1960, and the next year it was declared a National Cultural Monument. The cemetery has the graves of 6845 Soviet soldiers, with 6 mass graves and 278 individual graves, and 42 m obelisk with a statue of a Soviet soldier on top of it.

And here is my apartment! I have already started working, or training for work actually and everything is fine here. I have local sim card, and health insurance (mandatory in Slovakia), working on the bank account, and later will register to foreign police.

One of the first things I always do in my new home; fridge magnets

So here my first post about Bratislava! I did a day trip to Vienna, and will post next about that... I have also been writing about that white privilege I have mentioned earlier but I will do these travel posts first and then continue working on that.