Kosice Reasons To Write

Hey everyone, I'm writing this #3 blog from my glorious hotel room in Kosice Slovakia. The trip was so long...... Amsterdam, Budapest, and then a ride in a car/taxi/van with this guy named Tommy and his girlfriend Rula? Something like that. Anyway, they had water for us and a bottle of Champagne! Holy lord.... a couple of glasses of the bubbly and sleepy time it was for the drive that apparently takes close to three hours from Busapest to Kosice. Sleepy time meaning five minutes of sleep, twenty minutes of looking at the Hungarian country side and all the small villages along the way. It's really amazing the amount of farm land there is here, I mean, like smaller looking farms but many of them. Not the same kind of enormous farms we have in Canada. And then also the amount of gardens you see in everyones back yard, or whole yard for that matter, it seems that at least in the country everyone has a garden that occupies all of there yard, it was quite beautiful.

Ok, three hours of driving like a mad man and here we are, Kosice!! Finally! So last night, basically we get to the hotel about 6 or so, check in, and then head down to the restaurant to get a drink and then meet our friends and go out in the old city of Kosice and eat some Slovakian dinner. Our friends meet us about 8 but we dont get going until about 9 so we all have a couple more drinks... ( thank god I had a littel bite at the hotel 'cause I would have died of hunger) We finally head out to the town center and it's pretty great. I've never been to Europe and apparently this is what a European town looks like, really amazing but to be honest we are all so hungry and tired that it's all a bit of a blur. Seems that 9pm is late to eat in Kosice and everywhere we go is either closed or the kitchen is closed. Evenetually we find a place that is traditional Slovak food and we get our table and it's great, this is a crappy picture of it but there you go.

We all get different things like Schnitzel and dumplings, potato things, cabbage.... I got this roast pork with dumplings and red cabbage. Potato dumplings are apparently one of the main dishes in Slovakia and so I wanted to get those, and of course some Kozel beer. Apparently the local Beer isn't available till summer but this Kozel is lovely and we are happy to have it. The food was good, nothing special just traditional Slovak comfort food. In fact, it was very comforting, so comforting that after eating and having a few beers the boys and I were really fading. We get back to the Hotel and go the bar with our frineds for one more before bed. The bar at the hotel is really nice. Very modern, very elegent, it's a Boutique Hotel and very much so at that, very posh I guess you could say. We sit in the smoking area and have a drink. Now i must say that, I have been a non smoker for just over a year and half now and never before have I felt like smoking as much as I have here. Don't get me wrong I'm not going to, but damn it.... Everone smokes.... and they all look so cool doing it.... and I love it!! OK OK.... No smoking!!!!! That was last night....

This is today,

Slept amazing!!! Huge sleep, meet for breaky and then off to tour around the city. In the day time it's incredible. So old, so.... ? Umm? European? I guess that's what I'm gonna go with. We walk to the town square and decide to just zig zag our way around for fun. It becomes apparent that something is going on because of all the teenage kids in green/yellow shirts all over the pace. It's some kind of dance carnival or something, but it kinda feels like we are walking by the crowd outside the Canadian Idol auditions or something and good lord who wants to be around that???? Ugh.... anyway, off we go! As we are walking around we keep having these small groups of teenagers all dressed up to the nines coming up to us holding their hats out for money and they have whistles and are kind of singing songs and stuff.... we give them some cash and they seem to like us and then they take off to get more from others. It turns out that they are students who are graduating soon and are raising money for their party or something, it's pretty cool. This picture is Mikey walking down the main street, it's really nice. All along the street are these wonderful little alleyways that have teeny tiney little shops in them, and in one of the alleys I see Cafe and decide to get a coffee. Really great amazing espresso.... I don't really know whether it is a coffee place or a wine store but apparently it is both. Not to talk about the coffee for too long but it ws really good, the girl that poured it on the old timey espresso thing was lovely and I couldn't have been happier. Off we go to the church! Not to GO to church but to SEE the church.... it's incredible! We go inside but unfortunately no pictures... we were of course cool with that and didn't want to disrespect the people actually praying in there. BUT, there is the north tower of the church and you can go up it! And in there you can take picturese!! So up this crazy circular staircase we go.







The lady who is the guide tells us that it's 160 steps.... Gothic Baroque style... and 60 meters... cool.

This bell tower part is pretty cool, it's actually really high up. Never been up a bell tower.... cool. Just a few more twisty stairs up and we are at the top of the tower where you can see all over the old town. It's beautiful.






It's quite a nice town and it's been a joy being here.












Apparently i am supposed to be resting right now because we have sound check at 5, not sure that I'm gonna get any shut eye but I'm gonna sign off for now. I hope you all like these little thoughts and pictures from my trip to Slovakia, till the next time,
Ty