Our trip to Bratislava went like this:

1: arrive at the train station
2: look around and wonder, “why the heck did we decide to come here?”
3: check into our hostel and meet some other travelers who seemed nice
4: begin exploring the city and continue to think “why? why bratislava?”
5: find parliament and its beautiful gardens
6: receive help from a few friendly slovaks
7: begin to like bratislava
8: find the castle and an artisans festival
9: begin to really like bratislava
10: explore old town and decide bratislava is beautiful and quaint
11: eat dinner at a highly-recommended restaurant but have to wait 1.5 hours for food, which makes bratislava go down a few notches. however, the food is good.
12: back to the hostel and go out with a huge group of brits and aussies (and one italian)
13: go to a shopping mall the next day and find some cute things
14: receive misinformation about train times, but finally end up in vienna where i took my train to frankfurt and traveled the next day to arrive safely with my bags in mulhouse, where i am until friday, at which point i go to rome to start school!

overall it was a blast traveling with jess, we had a few hours here and there where it was rocky but it could have been much, much worse. i should be getting skype as soon as i get to rome, as well as a new phone number. right now i do have access to aim, so ill be on that a bit for the next few nights.

love to all.