day 122

going to Bratislava on saturday for a central excursion. central is only paying for us to go out go on a tour and for lunch. however since we are going on saterday we have an option to stay over night. i researched it and found a real castle by the city (not a glorified mansion). i asked andrea if she would like to spend the night and check out the castle the next day. she said yes. so i booked a hostel and now we are set to spend the night in Bratislava.

Slovakia is technically part of the EU (European union) which should be some comfort to me but the closer i get to the middle east the more wary i become. its only a few hundred miles east of vienna but its in a country that was on the othere side of the iron curtain and i'm not sure how they like Americans over there. i'm sure i have nothing to worry about but i'm bringing my knife any way.

i really hope to avoid almost every one from the central group on the second day, they are annoying especially the "followers". if one of them in in our hostel room and tries to tag along with us either on saterday evening or Sunday morning. I'm not sure how to handle it. i guess we may end up playing strassen bahn tag, (a game that i have played out in my head quite a lot.) i may end up just abandoning politeness and just tell them to get lost.

the castle we are going to see is called castle devin on the austrian slovakian boarder. it was an important strategic point because it guarded the connection of the donau and some other river. so it controlled boat traffic. it has been there since the romans first started defending the empire from the germanians and was finally destroyed when nepolean captured it. for some reason nepolean didn't like castles he would always capture them then blow them up. (i.e. the castle that once stood in graz is now a ring of big rocks around a hill with a clock tower on it)

after the city tour on saturday and the castle on sunday we will come back to vienna. and get back to classes