Do's and Don'ts of Bratislava. Hint: One Involves Spanking

Meet our two new friends! They thought I was hilarious...I left them in stitches!....no? nobody? I'll see myself out.

DO go to Bratislava. Located a stones throw from Vienna (well assuming someone strong like me is chucking said stone) Bratislava is mostly viewed as a stopping ground between Austria and Budapest. Our tour guide took a poll of our group and over half were only there for one day on a layover between cities. Slovakia gets very little cred in the area and in fact two of the three times that George W Bush visited the country he proudly announced that he was "happy to be in Slovenia". Thanks a pantload, GW. You could maybe blame Hollywood for their interpretation of the city as the only two movies to feature the city has done so in a poor light. Any guesses? One of the movies is Eurotrip which depicts Bratislava as a rundown town where men bathe on the sidewalk, dogs run around with human hands, and you can live like a king for a week on only $1.83 (the last one isnt terribly off, I'll get to that later). The second and possibly the most damning is Hostel. the movie about backpacking teens that get kidnapped and tortured. Once Hostel came out, the number of backpackers visiting Bratislava DROPPED BY SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT. That is insane. So ignore the movies. Go check it out. You won't get chopped up. Probably.

Although with wanted posters like this, you're not helping anyone, Bratislava

Ladies, DO NOT visit over Easter because you will get spanked. On Easter Monday, all of the boys and men in Bratislava make small whips out of branches and chase women around, slapping them on the butt. They also hide in corners and douse ladies with buckets of water when they aren't looking. As our female tour guide, Lucy, said, "This might sound sexist...and it is. But it's tradition and we like it." The more harassed a girl is, the more the boys like her so its basically a compliment. Sometimes the men will even scoop a woman up and throw her in the Danube River. In return, the dripping and sore woman will give the boy some candy in thanks or occasionally a shot of alcohol. So imagine drunk men roving through the city with whips and buckets. Count. Me. In. Our guide told us one year her dad dumped a bucket on her to wake her up, another at breakfast, another after she got out of the shower and then another SEVEN TIMES throughout the day. Now she and her friends go on holiday over Easter. Good call.

This is where we stayed with AirBnB. Can't argue with the price and you got to belay out every morning.

DO drink way too much beer. The Eurotrip angle on living like a king for almost nothing is true as long as you stick to beer. At Oktoberfest a liter of beer was 10€, in Vienna you could get a beer for a more conservative 5€, in Bratislava a liter of beer will set you back 1.50€. A 20 oz bottle of Coke costs more than a 50 oz bottle of beer and in some places a bottle of water costs more than a pint, so it'd be crazy to *not* order a beer....right? But watch yourself while you're pounding those things back because unlike the traditional 5% alcohol in American beers, the average ABV is 10% here. That's a recipe for disaster especially when you factor in the streets. Which brings me to my next point...

Beer Arena! Finally a sport I can dominate.

DO NOT ever take your eyes off the ground. I read on a travel blog that the biggest danger of Bratislava was the ground. "Beware of the streets!", it cried! That sounds like something I would shout after nicknaming myself The Streets, but it was right. I would guess that at least 5 times every day, one of us would trip or stumble while walking on these sidewalks of death. My wife would insist that I mention that the cobblestones added romance to the city but I think they just made for a death trap. Rampant around the city were what we affectionately referred to as "street nipples". I'm sure the blacktop was poorly laid down and the heat caused it to swell but my god if they didn't look like nipples sprouting from the ground and they would snag our feet every time we walked over them. I don't know how this isn't a nation of people on crutches.

Dramatic reenactment. No wives were hurt in the taking of this photo.

DO seek out local festivals. We were in town while the Bratislava Art Festival was going on so there were about twenty art galleries that were offering free entry. There didn't seem to be any restriction as to what type of style could be included in the Festival so we saw oil paintings, sculpture, photography and, my favorite, an entire room full of 10 foot tall photos of naked women complete with a background musical track of heavy breathing. Or maybe that was just me.

Hello Ladies

DO NOT walk to Devin Castle without asking a local for directions. We went to the ruins of a 700BC castle but decided to skip the 30 min bus ride and instead walk the ten miles to work off all those beer calories. It was a gorgeous walk filled with parts of the city you normally wouldn't see, including a giant public park for children that featured three trampolines, a zip line, a volleyball court, ping pong table, two soccer fields, and a water feature most likely full of urine. Minneapolis needs to step their park game up. However, for directions we only relied on Google so the last 3 miles of the walk had us walking along the side of a highway, most of the time on the road side of the guard rail. But to Bratislava's credit, not once did anyone honk at us while they whipped past us at what I would assume was light-speed.

We were able to walk right in. No moat or anything. Explains why it's in ruins

DO check out all the ridiculous statues all over the city. Bratislava has this thing where they like to just put up random statues, some of which have absolutely no purpose. The most famous is a bronze construction worker who has his head popped out of a manhole cover and rests his smiling head on his folded arms. Legend has it that if you rub his nose you'll receive good luck so defin--HEY not so fast ladies, let me finish. MEN will receive good luck, but if a woman gives him a rub, she'll end up pregnant, possibly with some sort of statue mutant spawn. Another statue immortalizes a famous homeless person who always walked around with a top hat. It seems that if I put my time in over here, it should only be a matter of months til I get my own statue. And yes, touching me will definitely get you pregnant. 

This soldier is a giant middle finger to Napoleon after he destroyed their city

Finally DO NOT assume that everyone understands what you're saying. Bratislava was the first city we've hit where everyone didn't have some grasp on English. For the most part, we would could decipher what was being said or point to things on menus, but even simple transactions became complicated.
Me: "Hello, can I get two more beers please?"
Slovak Bartender says something I can't understand
Me: *point to the beer and hold up two fingers*
Slovak Bartender nods and says something I can't understand
Me: "Yes? More beer?"
Bartender (in perfect English): "I said is it okay if I keep speaking to you in Slovak?"
Me: "As long as I walk away with 2 beers you can say whatever you want"
They're a zany bunch.

CM