Denmark's The Spot

Jenn and I have been a lot of places, but Scandinavia was uncharted territory for us before this weekend. There is so much we would have liked to see, but we didn't have too much time. You've got to start somewhere, and where we started, was Copenhagen.

We'd heard great things about the city and had really high expectations. After arriving on an early morning flight, buying our Copenhagen tourist cards, and dropping our bags off at the Kong Frederick Hotel, we hit the ground running. Our first impression was that the city was much dirtier than we expected. It's not that it was dirty per se, but we expected it to be spotless (like Singapore), and it's far from it. We walked up Stroget, which is the main shopping street, and onto the Rosenborg Castle, one of several residences for the royal family. The crown jewels are stored there and were both absurd and impressive at the same time.

We ate lunch at the Royal Cafe, known for their famous smushies, which is a modern take on smorrebrod, the open faced sandwiches that Denmark is known for. They were a little fancy, but pretty good. We shared three: meatloaf, smoked salmon, and scallop hash. Everything, including food, is incredibly expensive in Copenhagen. It's painful. This lunch of three smushies and water set us back roughly 30 bucks.
In order to maximize our time and get the most out of our recently purchased Copenhagen cards, we then walked over to and through the Jewish Museum. It was small, but better than most Jewish museums we'd been to in that the focus was actually on Jewish history in Denmark, as opposed to simply showing Jewish symbols like torahs, menorahs, etc.

The sky was still bright blue and the sun shining brightly, so we walked outside some more. We walked to the water and checked out the beautiful Royal Library building. One side is the old traditional library building, but the other is a modern all glass creation known as the Black Diamond. We hung out and enjoyed the nice weather for a while and then went back to the hotel to nap for a couple of hours before our late dinner reservation.

Danish cuisine is very hot right now. It's crown jewel is Noma, which was just named the top restaurant in the world by S. Pellegrino's Top 50 Restaurants in the World, whatever that means. We were not able to get a reservation there, but there are plenty of excellent options. A lot of the menus, however, didn't look that appetizing to us. Sometimes restaurants can just be too out there with their menus. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who enjoy shelling out two to three hundred a person for food that looks like it belongs in a modern art museum, but not us. Even the Top Chef judges constantly are reminding the contestants to keep it simple. If Padma says so, then I'll listen.

Dinner was at the excellent Fiskebar, at the entrance of the old meatpacking district. They still have the old meat hooks (gross) as coat hangers to prove it. Sitting in this place, one gets the sense that they think they are too cool for their own good, but it's a neat place. We shared scallops over puff pastry for the appetizer and pan fried witch, which is kind of like flounder, for the entree. Both were outstanding. This was the type of meal that makes one appreciate food. It was simple food, prepared well.
There was more great weather on our second day and we enjoyed the city as a local does and did so by bike. We took the tour with Bike with Mike, and it was great. We rode through the heart of the city and saw most of the highlights: Copenhagen Cathedral, Christianhavn area, Nyhavn neighborhood, the opera house, the Royal Palace, and of course the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid is a small statue that was inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen tale. When watching tourists fawn over it and desperately try to touch it, it comes across a lot like an idol being worshiped. It's a little strange. It was impossible to get a picture of it without capturing onlookers and "touchers" in the background. As I realize every time we do such things, I enjoy biking much more in theory than I do in reality, but it was a very enjoyable three and a half hours. One thing that struck us was how relaxed things are there as opposed to the United States. Mike didn't have biking helmets for us and very rarely looked back to make sure his participants were with the group and/or alive. It all worked out in the end though, so I guess he knows what he's doing.
We had a late lunch al fresco at Cafe Victor, which was awesome. Jenn had the lobster bisque and I had the brunch plate, which consisted of scrambled eggs, delicious smoked salmon, chopped liver, and some other things. Everything was excellent.

We only had about an hour before the Christiansborg Palace was to close, so we rushed through it. It was actually very nice. The highlights were the Great Hall, which is adorned with modern tapestries created and given to the Queen in honor of her 50th birthday (though they weren't actually given to her until her 60th because they took 10 years to make), and the ruins below the palace of previous castles that stood at the same site. We probably could have used more time there.

In the evening (and I use that word lightly in that it doesn't get dark there until around 10pm), we visited the famous Tivoli Gardens. These gardens, legend has it, are what inspired Walt Disney to create Disney World. It's a weird place. As for the actual grounds, it's very pretty. The flowers, mostly tulips, were in full bloom, and were beautiful. Otherwise, it's a nice amusement park with roller coasters, carnival games, etc. What is strange is that as opposed to Six Flags and the Disney parks, where there is vending stand after vending stand hawking hot dogs, burgers, and other greasy fare, Tivoli has many high end restaurants, a couple of which have Michelin stars. Since we were there at night, it was mostly adults there, probably there for dinner, and the way too overhyped fountain and laser show. Since it was Sunday, several restaurants were closed and the ones that were open didn't interest us much. We opted for organic hot dogs from the vending stand... in the Asian section of the park, since, of course, organic hot dogs from... Asia, are so good. We selected this over the hamburgers offered from the other stand in the Asian section.

It was finally dark and we took and evening stroll over to see the opera house lit up at night, which nice. We passed the Royal Danish Playhouse, which is another beautiful glass building along with every other glass building in the city. There were tons of people filing in for a post party after attending what we found out was some theater awards ceremony. They were in formal wear, and while most were walking, it was funny to see many of them riding their bikes, as the Danes like to do. We thought it would be fun to crash it as it didn't seem too hard to sneak in, but we didn't have anything any on closely resembling formal wear, and I'm not capable of such a thing.

On our third day in Copenhagen, we still had wonderful weather. It was Jenn's birthday. We walked outside a lot. We toured through the Danish Design Center in the morning, which was pretty much an advertisement for how great the Danish are at designing things. I thought perhaps they were taking credit for a few things that weren't necessarily their original ideas, but who was I to argue? Lunch was at Ida Davidsen, which seemed to be the oldest and most famous smorrebrod restaurant. It was overpriced, but the sandwiches were good. We shared three: smoked salmon, a kind of baked potato one, and roast beef with fried onions on top.

After walking through a few of the local department stores and in and out of the Royal Copenhagen china store, we went over to the Norrebro neighborhood to check it out. We sat in the front row of the metro and the front of the train is a clear window (like the monorail), so it felt like video game. It was awesome. There wasn't much to see once we arrive, but there was one street with some cute shops and restaurants. I got some ice cream, so was happy. On the way back, we walked through the Assistens Cemetary, which doubles as a park where people rest, relax, sunbathe, and whatever else people do in parks. It was a little strange to see people sunbathing right next to gravestones. We saw Hans Christian Andersen's grave. There are some other famous Danes buried there, including Soren Kierkegaard, and Cristen Jacobsen, the founder of the Carlsberg brewery, but we didn't know that until later.
After a beer sampler at the Brewpub next to our hotel, we were about out of time. We grabbed our bags from the hotel and had really nice birthday dinner for Jenn at the Nimb Hotel Bar 'n' Grill. We were the only ones in the restaurant for a 5:15 reservation, but we had to eat early so we could catch a train to the airport for our flight out at 8. Dinner was great, and the chocolate fondant with vanilla ice cream was a great way to top it off.
It was a perfect end to Jenn's birthday and to our trip. The flight back was uneventful. It was nice to get back to Bratislava. It'll be nice to spend a few weeks back at home without any work travel for a while.

For more pictures, click here.

Hockeytown USA

Slovakia is hosting the World Hockey Championships, which is like the World Cup for hockey. The final rounds as well as some of the higher profile earlier games will be in Bratislava, while Kosice (pronounced Ko-sheet-zeh), in Eastern Slovakia, has the remaining ones. The US was set to play Austria in a first round matchup. We made a roadtrip out of it along with our friends, Jory and Caitlin, and had a great weekend.

We took the train early Saturday for the five hour trip to Kosice. We passed the time sleeping, eating snacks, reading, chatting, looking out the window at some beautiful scenery, and playing scrabble. What started out as a five hour trip ended up taking about seven. There was a problem on the track ahead, so the train stopped eerily in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. The entire train was emptied and we waited with drunk Austrian hockey fans, several nuns, and a couple hundred other annoyed people to board buses to get to the next train station where we would board another train to complete the trip.

We arrived at the Kosice train station with about 25 minutes until the start of the game. We had a taxi drop us off at the hostel at which we would be staying for the evening. It was at this point that it started pouring down rain. Because of the hockey, it was very hard to find a hotel room, which is why we ended up sharing a room with 4 beds at the hostel. This was to be my first hostel experience. I'd always been curious about it and even though I've become softer and more sheltered over the years, I figured because of my time at summer camp, I could handle it. We dropped off our stuff and ran the last couple of blocks over to the arena.
We finally made it in, bought some beers, and some food, only to find out from the usher that we could not leave the concourse and go to our seats as long as we had food and beverage in hand. None of us had ever heard of such a thing at any sporting event, but since there was no way to smuggle in 500 ml beers, we consumed our refreshments while watching on the video screen from the concourse. I'm not sure what the logic is to this rule. I guess it's to keep the arena clean, but what it seems to promote is shotgunning beers which leads to lots of drunk fans. We made it to our seats finally, after we, of course, shotgunned our beers. Our section was crowded, but the rest of the arena was half full. I can understand the US not being a big draw, but I thought Austria would have plenty of support.

The rest of the game was anti-climactic as the US easily cruised to a 5-1 victory. It was fun to be there to support our country, and made me much more proud of my country than for the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Not that I think negatively of his death, but it makes me extremely uncomfortable to see and read about throngs of people storming the streets and celebrating. It makes me worry, that's all, for lots of reasons.
We spent the rest of the evening walking around the very nice city center which has been re-developed in recent years. There was lots of excitement for the hockey, but not so much activity out at the bars. We ate street food for dinner and continued the drinking we started at the hockey game. The problem for me was that I'd just returned from Asia on Wednesday night after two and a half weeks, so every half liter beer I drank, I probably became 10 times more tired. After a couple of hours, I was struggling to keep my eyes open. As much as I wanted to stay out, I couldn't, and while I tried to tell Caitlin, Jory, and Jenn, they could stay out without me, they all came back to the hostel.

In the early morning, I passed a man walking down the hall wearing leopard print underwear on my way to the bathroom. The rest of the morning was much less eventful. We walked around the main street, had some breakfast, some ice cream, and headed back to Bratislava.

The train back was thankfully much less eventful than the ride to get there.

It was a short, but fun trip. It was great to be there to support our country.

For more pictures, click here.

Back to Bratislava - Airplane Reviews

The day began with a 5am wakeup call in a hotel room in Penang and ended with an 11pm arrival at our flat in Bratislava. In between, the trip included stopovers in Kuala Lumpur and Dubai. It was a long day. As much I travel, there is no getting used to it. The days just seem longer every time I do it.

I read through Time's 100 Most Influential people, which wasn't bad. Maybe one day I'll be influential.

I also read some more of the book I'm reading, Traffic, which is un-ironically, about traffic and why we drive the way we do. It's about as boring as it sounds, but I'm forcing myself to get through it.

I ate lunch and dinner on two different Emirates flights. Both were chicken dishes with vegetables, and neither was bad. I still say Emirates has the best food of any airline on which I've been. The dessert on the first one was chocolate cake that they, for some unknown reason, ruined by slapping an apricot on top of it. The chocolate dessert on the second one wasn't bad. It was the same chocolate cake as the first flight (sans the apricot) but was surrounded with kind of a mousse cream. I read something recently that said the best way to fight jet lag is to fast when traveling. I've thought about this, but I have to eat when I'm hungry. However, I've stopped letting the airlines dictate when I should eat since they are serving trays of food constantly. I only eat the meal if I'm hungry. Otherwise, I take a pass.

As for entertainment, I finished two movies that I previously had fell asleep during on previous flights and watched one in full.

TRUE GRIT
I only had a little bit left to watch on this one. I fell asleep watching it on my trip from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur. I've been wanting to see it as I generally enjoy the movies the Coen Brothers put out. I sense it was nominated for an Oscar purely because it was tagged as "Directed by the Joel and Ethan Coen." The movie was fine, but there wasn't anything particularly memorable. It was a well made Western film. The actress who played the girl was pretty good.

FAIR GAME
I cannot remember when I started this one, but I had seen a good chunk of it on some other flight at some point. What's funny (and not the best endorsement for the film) is that I fell asleep again watching it today on my 2nd flight and had to pick it up again on the third. This is less about the movie and more about that I'm rarely on a plane now when I'm not totally exhausted and badly in need of sleep. This film stars Sean Penn and Naomi Watts and tells the "true" story of CIA operative Valerie Plame, who was outed and made a scapegoat by President Bush's administration in an effort to distract the general population and the media from the fact that they weren't finding WMD's in Iraq, and her husband, Joe Wilson. The story was extremely one sided and extremely slanted to the left, which makes sense because it was based on the books by Wilson and Plame, and because Sean Penn was in it. Overall, I enjoyed it, but I prefer movies that are accounts of true stories to be a little less biased and attempt to paint the whole picture so that the audience can decide what they think. I don't like being told what to think.

RED
This one I watched from beginning to end. It came out last year and stars Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and some other old people. They are retired CIA agents who have become targets to be killed. It was fun, entertaining, and relatively well written. All the characters are likeable and the pace of the story was great. The 2 hours flew by, which is exactly what you want when watching a movie on a long flight. It was a perfect movie for airplane viewing.

That's all for now from the airplane seat. There will be more to come in June, which looks like it'll be my next trip to the US.     

Malaysia

Before I worked for Dell, all I knew about Malaysia was based on the prominent role it played in the movies. It's where Demi Moore is seen touring the manufacturing line on a recorded news story when Michael Douglas exposes her (unlike earlier in the movie when she exposes herself) during a press conference at the end of Disclosure. In Entrapment, it's where Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones perform the heist at the twin towers. In reality, it's a huge manufacturing center for almost every technology company, including Dell.

I am in Penang. There is a mix of Malays, Chinese, and Indians, so touches of all three cultures as well as food are prevalent. The nice thing for me is that English is the primary language spoken because it's common between the three groups of people. Tourism seems to be big, but I'm not sure why. There really isn't much to do and while there are beaches, they aren't great. The climate is much like New Orleans or Houston, hot and humid.

I made an attempt to explore the city on Saturday, but the woman working at the front desk of the hotel really didn't have much to recommend. Neither did the people I knew who worked in the Penang office.  I had the taxi drop me off in Georgetown, the old town area. I walked past the Town Hall, Upper Penang Drive (which was dead during the day), Fort Cornwallis (where Captain Francis Light, the founder of Penang first landed), and the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. The mansion was built by an incredibly successful businessman, Cheong Fatt Tze. I didn't go inside. I'm fortunate to not have been taken out by a car or motorbike as there are no sidewalks or crosswalks. It's not a pedestrian friendly city. In the evening we went out to Strait's Quay, a big restaurant and shopping development, with some other members of the audit team that were also there working. We ate at a fish and chips place that was decent.
On Sunday, Jason and I went out to the Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort to indulge in their decadent Easter Sunday brunch. It was magnificent. There were different buffets serving Chinese, Malay, and Indian food, but also a fresh seafood station and a large dessert bar. I'm not a big buffet guy, but not only was the selection good, but the food quality was outstanding. My buffet routine normally consists of one plate of food and then one plate of dessert and I'm done, but on this day, I went crazy with a second food plate which consisted of boiled shrimp and crawfish. The dessert area had some things you don't normally see for dessert at a buffet. There was cotton candy, shaved ice, and made to order crepes. I didn't feel disgustingly full at the end, so rather than go back for more (since getting disgustingly full and getting your money's worth is the goal of eating at a buffet, right?), I cashed in my chips right there and walked away a winner.

It rained in the afternoon, so I walked to the mall next to the hotel and saw the movie Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal. It was pretty much a long Quantam Leap episode. It was entertaining, but the whole thing went to shit at the end of the movie. Whomever wrote it or decided on that ending ruined all the goodwill that was built up with the audience for the previous hour or so. If you are a huge Jake Gyllenhaal fan and are super psyched to see this movie and don't want the ending spoiled, you may want to skip the next couple of sentences and move to the next paragraph. This exemplifies one of my big problems with fiction. When a story and plot is created, especially when it's science fiction-y, rules are laid out to make it believable. The premise and "rules" for the source code are far fetched, but nonetheless, there are strict guidelines laid out. When the ending, which seemed very Hollywood-ish, totally discounts everything that was previously laid out and goes against all the rules outlined, it shows very little confidence in the story to begin with and no faith in the audience. Hollywood must think we're all idiots. Maybe we are.

The highlight was the Indian food I ate at Sri Ananda Bahwa and the other at Kapitan. I liked Kapitan so much that I went back a second time. It's been a long and busy two and a half weeks in Asia. I am beyond ready to board the plan tomorrow to head home.

Scenes From a Chinese Restaurant

I haven't slept much since I arrived in China. Between work, early morning and late night calls, and jet lag, I'm exhausted. Today was a throwaway day as I did next to nothing. I slept in to catch up on sleep, worked out, and sat next to the hotel pool for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I didn't actually hang out in the pool and that is for two reasons. One, it's a lap pool and I didn't want to disturb the two Chinese men swimming laps, and two, like at most Asian hotels, they require guests to wear a swim cap, and I don't really want to wear one. I know that's ridiculous, but I can't help it, I'm ridiculous.

For dinner, I needed to get out and get some fresh air. I asked the concierge to direct me toward some restaurants and nightlife. He told me where the best nightclubs were. I explained by nightlife, I just meant where some people would be, but whatever, I went with it.

The taxi dropped me off and I strolled on the pedestrian path along the water. There were a couple of Chinese restaurants, but mostly, the restaurants were more geared towards Westerners. My personal favorite was the Texas restaurant, which had a mechanical bull in the middle of it. I chose one of the two huge Chinese seafood restaurants and went inside. I figured since it said "Seafood Restaurant" under the Chinese lettering, they would at least have English menus and a staff that spoke some English. I was looking for something Chinese, but not too Chinese that I'd have trouble communicating and knowing what I was ordering.

The Honor Seafood Restaurant looked like so many others in China, resembling an enormous banquet room, all the way down to the chair covers, clinking glasses, and the chandeliers and light fixtures trying desperately to appear more luxurious and expensive than they really are. The clamour of Chinese discussion between friends and family was overwhelming and filled the air that smelled overwhelmingly of seafood and Chinese flavors.

Primarily through hand gestures, I was able to get a table for one. I normally refuse to eat at restaurants with pictures on the menu, but In China, I try not to eat anywhere that doesn't. I fear getting food poisoning in China. This one also had English translations for the menu items.

Eating alone is a strange experience, but one I know all too well from the jobs I've had which require me to travel. At least in the US, the wait staff tries to talk to you (even though I don't really want them to), but here, it's literally 45 minutes of pure silence. It can be therapeautic. Sometimes it is nice to simply have some time to think. Sometimes, it isn't. I like having time to think, but currently, all I think about is work, so I really don't like having dead time.

I ask the waitress for a Tsigntao beer. She asks with her fingers if I want one or two. I thought it was an odd question, but I figured, why not, maybe she's onto something, as I raised the index and middle finger on my right hand.

The waitress hovered over me as I opened and skimmed through what seemed like a 40 page menu. I finally decided on baked shrimp, a crabmeat dish, and beef stir fry. It seemed like 30 minutes or so went by as I waited for my food, but it was probably exagerrated due to the fact that I was alone. The crabmeat dish was pretty good, but when I started getting shell in my bites, I decided I was done with it. The shrimp came and wasn't what I expected when I ordered it. It was more like breaded and pan fried shrimp. This normally would be fine, but they were breaded and pan fried in the shell with the head and tail still on. I had no clue how I was supposed to eat this. It's one of the most uncomfortable things about eating in China, figuring out how and what you are supposed to eat. It's one place I really prefer to eat with locals. I tried peeling one completely and that didn't seem right. I then ate a few in the shell, but took off the tails and heads. I gave up after that and spent my time on the stir fried beef.

As a side note here, most restaurants don't have napkins, so people don't eat with their hands. I later asked Jason, who is from Shanghai and is traveling with me (but had flown home for the weekend), how Chinese people eat shrimp in a shell. He explained (and later showed me) that they put the entire thing in their mouth, de-shell it with their teeth and spit it out on the plate. I'm still not clear if this how everyone does it or only how Jason does it. I'm also not sure if that is more civilized or the way we do it in America with our hands. 

It felt like the entire restaurant was staring at me as the meal went on, when in reality, it was just the few tables around me and most of the wait staff. I wanted dessert, but nothing on the menu looked that great and I dreaded trying to communicate with the waitress again. In the end, one of the waitresses walked me over to the register to pay. After paying, besides the receipt, I was handed what looked like Chinese scratchoff lottery tickets. I may be very wealthy right now, but I have no idea what they say.

I like to travel and I like to try new things when I do travel, but being risk averse, I need a little guidance and prefer to have recommendations whether from someone I know or from a guide book. I like to know what I'm getting myself into and in this case, what I am putting in my mouth. I'll most likely stick to eating at the hotel tomorrow and wait to explore again when Jason returns from Shanghai.

Airplane Reviews - Flying to China

I enjoy flying Emirates Air. It's much more comfortable, even in coach, than other airlines. The food isn't terrible, and there are tons of choices on the personal televisions at every seat. The one drawback is that they cater to customers of several different nationalities so when they make announcements, they make them 4 times in 4 different languages. It's annoying.

I was flying to Beijing for work. The last time I flew Emirates, I was able to fly business class, which was incredible. There was no such luck this time. I flew in the afternoon, so I didn't sleep on the first leg of the flight from Vienna to Dubai. I skipped the meal because I wasn't hungry and I wanted to eat in Dubai to kill time during the 5 hour layover.

After spending about 20 minutes looking through all the movies and TV shows available for viewing, I watched The Company Men. I had heard about it when it was released recently and wanted to see it. I don't think it was out in theaters very long. The movie stars Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, and Tommy Lee Jones. The plot centers around the high level employees at a large ship building corporation, who one after another are let go by the company due to large scale layoffs as an attempt to try and stay afloat during the economic meltdown. The story has a ton of holes in it and things escalate from bad to catastrophic in a very short time, but the acting is good. It's an entertaining movie, but a little too manufactured and Hollywood-ized for me. I am not that cold-hearted that I can't appreciate a happy ending, but when it feels forced and fake, it rubs me the wrong way. The movie really tried to force the viewer to understand how layofss and budget cuts affect higher-paid executives, but the problems they have are difficult to relate to or sympathize with when there are those much less fortunate than them with much bigger problems than having to sell their Porsche and move into their parents' house. I really like Rosemarie DeWitt, Don Draper's mistress in the first season of Mad Men, who plays Ben Affleck's wife in this film, though she seemed a little too easy going and relatively unaffected by what was happening to her husband and family.

For the remainder of the flight, I watched old episodes of Parks and Recreation. Many people have told me good things about the show, so I've been giving it a chance. It's pretty funny.

The five hour layover in the Dubai airport was uneventful. I had chocolate, pralines, and caramel ice cream at Haagen Dazs, so it could have been worse.

A Day In The Life

(This post has been delayed because I've been traveling and blogging is blocked in China)

It's Spring. The sun is out. The temperature is consistently in the 60's and 70's. The cafes are setting up their outside tables and patios. Bratislava is a completely different city in the Spring and Summer, like a caterpillar breaking out of its cocoon and spreading its new butterfly wings. Sitting at a cafe, dining al fresco amongst buildings that are hundreds of years old, it feels like Europe. It feels good.

Last weekend, we took advantage of the great weather and explored some parts of Bratislava we hadn't yet visited. We walked a couple of miles north along the Danube to the Bratislava Botanical Garden. Along the way, we stopped for a burger at the new Kempinski Hotel at the River Park development. Jenn proclaimed it the best burger in Bratislava, which is funny for two reasons: one, because the burgers are across the board pretty iffy in Bratislava, and two, (we split one) and it cost 15 EUR ($19 USD). At that price, it has no business not being good.

We arrived at the unassuming garden, paid 3 EUR each and strolled through it. It's more of a park than it is a garden, but it was nice. It's quaint, but serene, even if nothing was in bloom so early in the season.

After a couple of hours resting back at the flat, we took a taxi out to the Danubiana Modern Art Museum. It's 15km south of the city, sitting on a peninsula along the Danube next to a small village called Cunovo. Even though we asked at the tourist information office, we called to verify our transportation options with the actual museum. We had learned from Rachel's visit when she and Jenn tried to go to the museum and got lost in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. They never made it. After we did make it and visited, it bothered both of us that the city doesn't make more of an effort to promote this museum for visitors and also make it easier for people to get there. It's nice and very pretty on a nice day like this, but it sits totally unnoticed and unvisited. It's a shame.
We walked through the sculpture garden on the grounds surrounding the museum and then quickly moved through the small collection inside.

From there, we met the Yeagers for dinner and our new friend, Caitlin. Caitlin works for Dell and just moved to Bratislava for a year assignment. She also coincidentally is Jenn's distant cousin. We ate at Antica Toscana, which is a very good Italian restaurant in a small house in another village, Rusovce, outside of Bratislava city center.

Days like this, enjoying the offerings of your city, are nice regardless of where you live. It's all about turning off the TV and the computers, getting outdoors, and seeing that there is a great wide world out there.

I haven't made mention of it yet, but in regards to exploring that great wide world, we've decided to extend our time in Bratislava for one more year. From a work perspective, it is the right opportunity for me, but on the personal front, we like our life here and there is still so much more we want to experience. Being away from friends, family, and Tex-Mex food is hard, no question, but it feels right for us.