Current Mood: Flirtatious & Playful

Well I guess I might as well add some pictures again. Just finished my first school assigment which is due on Tuesday. It was about starting a company, giving it a name, an idea, a product and describing its customers. Quick task and I just hope it’s enough.

Well well, recognize the brand on the wall? Yea, I thought it looked familiar too And if you look closely to the billboard in the background (with red background color), you might recognize a quite famous figure from the past. And yea, I read that there’s a pub here that is all up for his ideas.
And the 3rd picture, a view from the old city. Can’t really tell where exactly it is from, but as you can see, it’s pretty nice.

On the left you can see propably the most famous monument in Bratislava, “Man at work”. He looks so busy that I almost feel sorry for him =/
In the middle is I think a view from the main street of Bratislava, Obchodna. It’s filled with stores, small shops and home for basically everything you could imagine to get. Although I haven’t seen a shop for footy team shirts yet.
And the last one, that badass dude’s weapon. No more, no less… than a cannon. Might be a bit rusty, but I’m sure some equipment from DM (a store for cleaning stuff) will do the trick. Still need to find someone to clean it

I assume the one on left is the “Michael’s Gate”. It’s basically a street, but that’s pretty much all I remember about it
I can’t really say for sure, but the picture in the middle is either from the Main Square or somewhere from the walking street… I think it’s called Hviezdoslavovo Namestie. If you ever go to Bratislava, walk down this street. It’s really nice.
The one on right is from the old city as well. The old city as a whole, is basically just for walking. It may look rough now, but I can imagine it looking really nice once summer kicks in.

A bit blurry map of the Bratislava public transportation. Basically the bus transportation is actually quite complex for me, but the trams are a bit more simplified. In the middle and on right, are pictures of this shopping hall close to Tesco (a big shop brand (?) in Slovakia).

These pictures are from the walking street. The first one is located at the western end of it. In the middle, you can see the street quite well. Again, I can imagine it looking a lot better when it’s summer. And on right a picture of Carlton hotel.

Another picture from the walking street and in the middle the other end of the street. The street itself is pretty long. I’d say close to a kilometre.
On the right I think is a building next to Danube river and this is where we left off for the tour.

On the left you can see the main building of Comenius University. An in my opinion, it’s really nice. It has this scent of history and yet, it’s pretty modern once you go inside. But to avoid misunderstandings, this is not the building I study in.
In the middle a picture from the hills. This is some sort of a monument, but I can’t remember what it was about as I didn’t go there. Too many steps.
On the right, a view from the castle in Bratislava centre. Despite the weather and fog, you can clearly see the Ufo tower at the other end of the bridge.

Here are a couple of pictures from the castle in the centre. Well it’s not in the centre per se, but quite close and you can see it from pretty much everywhere in the city if you’ve a good view to that direction. In the middle, there’s the central yard of the castle. I think this side that you can see was reconstructed or something a while back.
In the last picture, you have a nightly view from Novy Most and the bridge takes to Petrzalka (pardon for my spelling, could be wrong). On the other side you have this huge shopping mall called Aupark.

And as we progress over the bridge, here’s a view taken from it. There’s a walking path taking below the bridge where the cars go. And here’s a picture taken from the other end. And in the middle you can see a picture of the shopping mall. Now, don’t get confused as the shopping mall goes far back over there and you can’t see the other end. And in the last picture, you can see the inside of the mall.

And the last set again… On left a view from the other side of the bridge. Over there you can see the castle close to Bratislava centre. In the middle a boat floating on the Danube river. I remember it being a hotel of some sort as well. Notice the snow on the ground. It was the only day I’ve seen snow here.
And the last picture, a beautiful view of the Main Square at night.

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Current Mood: Cool

So as I promised, here are the images. Took a while to add them, but eventually I made it happen:

Okay, first 3 pics. On left, is the “entrance” to Devin Castle. Can’t really see the text as the image size has been decreased by Photobucket. But basically it tells about the history of the castle. In the middle is some badass dude from Finland that threatened to conquer the castle and start his own empire *whistles*
The third one is simply the entrance where the first picture can be found from. Again, that badass dude! Next bunch of pics:
Again, the badass dude. Reports from all over Slovakia indicate the the vehicle seen behind him, was used for transportation.
Second picture is the overall view of the other main tower of the castle. As we get on, it looks pretty neat. And the last picture is from the way to top. The statue represents some kind of a saint whose name I can’t remember.
On the way to the top again… The first picture is take from the town centre. I think the town is called Devin. I doubt it’s really part of the Bratislava city as it’s like 10-15 kilometres away from the city central. And I think the mountains behind are between this town and Bratislava.
The second picture is taken from the castle (see next picture) and from it you can see the Danube river flowing between Slovakia and Austria. The shore on the other side of the river is actually Austria. Down from the castle, there’s a small “cabin”. The guide told us that it’s used by the homeless at times. Rumours tell that the badass dude went over there and confirmed it being empty.
And the last picture is of the 2nd main tower of the castle. And yes, it’s the baby carriage over there. Can’t see it very well, but it’s next to the stairs over there. We didn’t go to this tower.
And the last bunch from Devin Castle:
The first one is assumably the partner in crime (meaning the other Finn of the tour), Jan. Nice guy, but as I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, an Everton bastard
In the middle one, you can see the baby carriages and apparently the baby is inside with parents pushing the carriages. Behind them is the exit. You can’t see it too well, but it’s there and there’s a statue and a some sort of an table explaining about the “inventor” of the Slovak language.
And the last picture is a view of the Devin Castle “central”. I’m sure it was used for marketing et cetera back in the day and I can imagine myself wandering there drunk as hell preaching about some bitch before throwing out in the well in the centre and passing out next to it!

So here I end this lovely tour around the Devin Castle. I hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for an update from 2nd location which I haven’t decided yet.

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Current Mood: Confused & Cool & Flirtatious & Grinning

Ahojte! (oh and that means “hey ya” or something and as for the “ba” in post title, it means Bratislava, shortened)

Well, it’s been awhile again. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say. It’s just that I’ve been too lazy to write anything. And I got the pictures last week from Jan (the another Finnish guy here) and due to the fact that the Internet connection can be really slow at times here, it took some time to upload the pictures too. But here we go:

So, first things first. Pictures will be in the next post as there are plenty of them and I didn’t want the post to become a novel or anything.

I got to say this… The weather! It’s friggin’ great! Coming from Finland with snow storming all over with like -10 degrees… And here it’s usually around +10 degrees. The past few days around +16. Just the way I like it to be in February

I finally got the public transportation card which is a huge deal here. I don’t really like getting like 14 SKK (about 50 cents) in coins everytime I want to go somewhere so instead I got this card for about 1700 SKK (about 60 euros). I was supposed to get the card for students, which would have been cheaper, but since I’m over 26, I can’t get it. So practically, I’m too old to be a student here

Second, the beer… Yummy! 27 SKK (about 90 cents [yea, 1 euro is about 30 SKK if you didn’t figure it out just yet]) in the pub “downstairs”. I say downstairs since these two buildings are like together (Druzba 1 and Druzba 2) and I live in D2 and the pub is in D1. So to get there, here are the directions for your amusement:
- get out of the room and walk ~15 meters to the elevators
- go down 5 floors, get out of the elevator and walk 20 meters to door taking outside
- walk 100m and you’re in front of the pub

Sooooo… Pretty simple, ehh?

Then… Well I was sick the past few days so I didn’t go to school yesterday, but I did today as I had “Marketing”. The teacher didn’t show up so went to talk to the coordinator and asked if she knew where he was. She made a quick phone call and told us to go back in front of the classroom. And so it began, 30mins late but so what. He just gave us the briefing of our course and that’s it. As for the school in overall… We’re not really well informed about the changes in timetables/schedules nor are we told about class cancellations. So at least I’ve been a bit lost lately, but I’m sure it’ll be ok.

As for other matters, I attended to this guided Bratislava tour like 2 weeks ago (so you see how late I’m?) and it was just superb. We had this brief meeting at the main Comenius Uni building and some big shot told us about the school, classes, student life and how to behave. Then we got these backpacks that had some bread and drinks inside + quite a few books about Slovakia and Bratislava (really useful!). Then we headed off and hopped in to a bus that took us to around the city to Devin Castle. I really don’t know much about the place, but it’s cool from a Finnish point of view. I mean you don’t see that at least in the Northern-Finland

Then we had a brief look around the city a bit. Walking around the old city and checking out some of the really cool places. I don’t know about others, but somehow seeing a historical surrounding such as the old city in Ba… Wow! I mean sure there are buildings that are like made of windows practically and are very modern. But to walk down the old streets and seeing these old buildings around you, it’s remarkable to notice that unlike where I come from, the history down here goes so far that you actually start to feel like “erm, am I in Bratislava or are some medieval knights coming to beat me up soon?”. It feels so real and the feeling is so unreal that you just need to experience it yourself (at least the ones that have lived behind daddy’s wallet their whole youth).

What else… Just did my first big cleaning around the room while Cristian (my Brazilian roommate) was in school. Just wiped off some dust and organized the shelfs a bit. As since I came here, we’ve just been here and not really done too much to clean it up. So now the room actually looks like a place where someone could live in. Not that the room wasn’t acceptable before!

Am still pissed off about my leg. There are people every day playing football, basketball or something similar just next to us. My knee has swollen a bit since I came here, due to a lot of walking. Which reminds me… I did this long walk last Monday when I left school. I just walked from my school over to Aupark. So in total about 5km (rough guess). It was a good chance to look around the city and just navigate yourself through it. Since as you might imagine, the city is quite big for me, a guy coming from a 25000 inhabitant city. But the knee… I’ll survive.

Erm… Lets go back to drinking and beer. Beer in the gas station across the road. A can of half a liter with 10% alcohol (someone said that it’s not the alcohol percentage, but apparently it is) beer called Corgon, 22 SKK. So about 80 cents… As a Finn, this is friggin’ awesome! And in a pub, you don’t have to pay more than 30-40 SKK for a beer. That’s like 3 times cheaper what we pay for it in Rovaniemi on a regular night. So this is like a constant 1 euro beer night for me and Jan. Not that we’re drunks or anything! *whistles*
Also I will propably never forget, but 2 weeks ago I went to this club nearby, Casey. I was pretty drunk, but didn’t mind as I only had Jagermeister and Red Bull… One Jagermeister was about 100 SKK (4cl) and a 2dl Red Bull. So I mixed them always (not 1:1) and at the end, I had like 10+ Jagermeisters
And another good tip is to get a vodka (4cl) and mix it with something. One vodka costs 25 SKK which is really low and gets right to your head!
The most popular days for drinking and partying here are… Everyday! But basically the days when people go out to club or a pub are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Sometimes Thursday as well, but the party is in Mlynska Dolina which is about 3km away from here. But basically if you feel like partying, just ask around and someone knows one

As for the food… There’s a diner attached to this whole complex, but to be honest, I don’t really like the food there. Though I’ve only been there once, but it was more like military food and then some. So I use this buffet next door every now and then to get some fried cheese with fries. Healthy? No, but does the trick for 100 SKK (with a Coca-Cola). In the city centre there’s this Europa Pub, which is really nice and you can get pasta, pizza etc from there for a reasonable price. Plus it has a pub called Slovak Pub attached to it which is a popular student pub.

As for the people here in Bratislava… I hate that I can’t speak Slovak and quite a few people here speak decent English. So communication problems occure every now and then, but nearly all exchange students I’ve met here, speak good English and are good giving advices. Plus I’ve made friends with some students who’ve been here since September and speak a bit Slovak.

In overall… I like it here so far. Sure there are some problem, but they are so small that don’t bother for too long. Such as standing in a crowded tram, bus transportation systems, problems with the school classes and some miscellaneous practical everyday issues. My school schedule for the week is really simple: 9,5 hours on Monday and an hour on Tuesday morning + Slovak course every Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm for like 5-6 weeks. The rest I’ve free

Now, I’m off to my 3rd Slovak class so I will post the pictures in my next post a bit later. Might “have to” take a few drinks today

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Oh man… It’s been a week since my last update and it feels like ages. Not saying that my time here hasn’t been entertaining, but a week seems so wrong with all what’s been going on.

I got my prepaid last week, but I will only use it with the local people. So if you want to contact me from outside Slovakia, use the e-mail address or MSN found on “Contact” page.

Now first off… Went to school today as we had a meeting over there. The coordinator just wrote down the available courses which were not even close to what me and my teacher tutor had in mind. So I just raised my hand whenever she asked for who wanted to sign-up for the course. Eventually I got my courses together and now my schedule is rather… weird:
- Monday from 7:30 until 16:50
- Tuesday & Thursday: one hour

Soooooo. And that’s for 29 credits! That’s just wacko!

Anyway, I’m off to drink more, birthday tomorrow and school on Thursday, so this is the time. As it happens… Tuesdays are the student party days here

PS: The another Finnish student here is an Everton supporter

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So unlike my previous films that I’ve posted about, this isn’t comedy It has action, thriller and drama in it though the drama part is very limited. Kevin Bacon plays a father and when something suddenly happens out of nowhere, he “surprisinly” goes on a personal crusade to get back at them. Now this sounds more like Stallone or Schwarzenegger stuff, but isn’t really. This was a positive surprise actually and kept me interested the whole 1,5+ hours.

Anyway, here’s a trailer to give you a climpse of the movie:

Oh and I really don’t recommend this to people who don’t like violence, blood and… Well, that’s about it But I do recommend this to someone who likes action movies.

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