One broken camera, one missed train and two colds/chest infections later, we arrived in Bratislava, Slovakia at around midnight both in cracking moods. We spent our first day wisely watching Collingwood v Sydney in a seedy sports bar and followed by a free walking tour, plus a lot of laying in bed feeling sorry for ourselves. The second day was spent watching Hawthorn v Adelaide, buying a new camera, and booking just an awesome side trip to Egypt, Jordan and Israel, woo!! Heading off to the Middle East for the entire month of November.
Then came the moment we had been waiting for for weeks - catching up with cousin Scotty and Kate in Prague! Deciding that red wine was the only cure for my cold, we made the most of 'free pasta night' at the hostel then went to the local reggae bar - interesting to say the least. We checked out Charles Bridge and the impressive changing of the guard at Prague Castle. We dug into plenty of Czech food, the highlight being Kate's ridiculously huge pork knuckle that was probably large enough to feed a small country.
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| Changing of the guard at Prague Castle |
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| We were pretty impressed by Kate's pork knuckle dinner! |
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| Picnic lunch time in Prague Old Town Square. Note Tom and Scott's matching backpacks - cool kids! |
We went on a great day trip to Kutna Hora to the visit the Church of Bones. This church is 'decorated' with the bones of 40,000 people, including a coat of arms and a 'chandelier' made of all the bones found in the human body. We followed this up with a visit to a beer hall to try the beer degustation - the Czechs know how to make a slammin' beer!
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| Beer degustation - tasting the best! |
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| Church of Bones in Kutna Hora |
We moved on to Vienna and decided to begin celebrations for Scott's birthday a night early. The raucous evening began innocently enough, starting with giant Weiner schnitzels (when in Vienna...). Scott successfully completed the XL schnitty, which was actually 3 full sized pork schnitzels with chips. We then moved on to the local backpackers' bar, the Travel Shack. We had a go at a traditional Austrian drinking game, which involves hitting a nail into a huge chunk of wood with the reverse side of a hammer. What could possible go wrong?
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| Smashing a giant schnitzel in Vienna |
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| Traditional Austrian drinking game - just add wood, hammer, nails and alcohol |
So as the evening came to an end, Tom decided that, being the wonderful cousin-in-law that he is, it would only be appropriate to buy Scott a shot for his birthday. He asked the bartender for the 'most f**ked up shot you have' and needless to say, the Rusty Nail shot the bartender delivered lived up to all expectations...
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| From this.... |
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| To this. The Rusty Nail: 1/3 tequila, 1/3 Bacardi 151 and 1/3 Tabasco sauce. |
We crawled out of bed the next morning to enjoy Scott's actual birthday and wandered around the streets and gardens of Vienna. The highlight of the day was definitely our visit to the Central Cafe, where we had traditional Vienna coffees and some ah-mazing cake. Thank you Kate for shouting! We were severely under-dressed but the waiters didn't seem to mind (unlike the customers, who gave us some pretty interesting looks). Loved the waiter singing Scott happy birthday!
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| Schonbrunn Palace gardens |
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| Tourist pose! Schonbrunn Palace |
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| Happy birthday Scott! 24 - it's all downhill from here... |
A massive thanks to Scott and Kate for being awesome travel buddies and tolerating my man-flu whinging. It was so great to see some familiar faces. It is fantastic to meet so many new people while travelling, but nothing beats a taste of home and being with family. The only down side is having to say goodbye, but it was definitely worth the few tears for the awesome few days we had together. Miss you guys already! Now here's some photos of an elephant...
