Bratislava!

We spent a couple of nights in Bratislava on the way back from Budapest, which was pretty fun. We were lucky enough to share a train car with a Slovakian girl who was able to give us some tips about where to go for food and drinks, as well as pointing us in the right direction once we left the train station. (There was also a really interesting guy from the US in our car, who had lived in China for a while, and who was travelling through Eastern Europe staying with semi-distant relatives. In all, it was an entertaining ride.)

We stayed at a cute little hotel while there, which had simple, yet practical rooms.
And, of course, we then headed out to explore the city. Here I am in front of a church, which happened to be right across the street from a really nice Lebanese restaurant, complete with a live belly dancer. We ended up going there that night, not because Bratislava is known for its Lebanese food, but rather because I really needed to go somewhere where I could have a good meal without meat on the table at all. It was just what I needed, and the belly dancing was an added bonus.
The next day we headed up to check out Bratislava Castle, which is featured on the new Slovakian 0.10, 0.20, and 0.50 euro coins. This was sort of a big deal while we were there, as Slovakia officially adopted the Euro as of January 1st, 2009. Because of this there were euro-related decorations all over the place, including in the lights of one of the big office towers downtown, in which the office lights were left on and off in such a way to make a giant euro symbol (which we somehow neglected to take a picture of). If you didn't know better, it would seem like the whole city just worshipped money...

Here's Jeremi taking in the view from the castle, overlooking the river. Apparently that UFO-looking pod on top of the bridge houses a really posh restaurant, but we opted to try the student pub suggestions of our train-based tour guide.
Here I am with a more typical view of the outside of the castle. Unfortunately the towers were closed for renovations, so we weren't able to go inside most of it.
It was still a nice place to visit, made all the more charming by the large numbers of cats (not pictured here) that made it their home, and who seemed to be fed and watered by the people who worked there.
On the way down we came across this graffiti, which I loved.
We also found the coolest little park while we were there, with really fun interactive equipment. Here I'm bouncing on the spring-powered one-man teeter totter.
There were a few other installations as well, including something that spun around, and a couple others I don't remember. The highlight, however, was this:
It doesn't look very impressive, but each of the nine blocks depresses slightly when you step on them. If you step very slowly, nothing much happens, but if you jump a bit, each of the blocks plays a bell at a different pitch, so you can play little tunes. It was enormously entertaining, though once I started playing with it, it attracted the attention of others, including children, and I felt that I shouldn't hog it as much as I wanted to. Still, you can see a short (sideways) demonstration here.



We somehow didn't get many pictures of Bratislava at night, when it was really pretty, with nicely-lit squares, and we also didn't manage to get any pictures of the truly awesome Slovak Bar, which was the student pub recommended by the girl from the train. This place brewed their own cheap and delicious beer, and also had some tasty, meat-free Slovakian dishes on the menu, including something like cheese-filled pyrohy (or perogies), and a dish that was something like German spaetzle served with soft sheep's cheese. Both of these starchy, cheesy dishes were great for me at the time (and would likely continue to be great for me now - they were really tasty). It was also a really cool place, but we somehow didn't get a picture of that either.

But then it was time to head back to Jena. The trip back was long, of course, but the worst part was the regional train from Chemnitz home, on which I threw up repeatedly and violently. This was just the beginning of my increased motion sickness during pregnancy, which then spread to not only bumpy regional trains, but also smooth highspeed trains (including the train to Frankfurt, and from there on to Paris, which I had to take often for work). Even after all other symptoms of morning sickness had passed as I entered the second trimester, my increased motion sickness lasted right to the bitter end.