Brno, Skalica, and Kuty

Alright time for some big updates.

On Saturday this past week Kevin, Steve and I packed up our bags for four days and did a little traveling. We had arranged to stay with a couchsurfer in Brno. This was all done under the pretense of a Matlab conference in Brno on Tuesday. This was my first time couch surfing and our hosts first time as well. It was a really great experience one that I admit if it weren't for Steve and Kevin coming being there I probably would not have tried. Couch Surfing (CS) is a hospitality community and is orginized through this website. Basically willing hosts post information about their place and them selfs and you can contact them and see if they are willing to host you for a period of time.

Anyway our trip started leaving from Bratislava. We went to the train station via the tram and bought our tickets there. It was a little unclear if we were going to be able to get to Skalica the way we wanted to but we went for it anyway. The train from Bratislava goes through Kuty there is a transfer to continue to Brno but there is also a transfer to go to Skalica as well, however the ticket lady didn't speak very much English and it was hard to tell if she understood exactly what we wanted.

We got on the train only a few minutes before it departed found some seats and sat for a while. Steve pulled out his GPS and was telling us a little bit about some of the places we were passing as he had ridden through them on his bike before. It was cool, but it is amazing just how different it gets just right out side of the city; there are so many abandoned buildings and decrepit structures.

When we arrived in Kuty we found out we had an hour until our next train departed. Despite the actual town being a mile out from train station we decided to try and walk in and get some food. It was interesting to say the least. So many of the houses were just cement blocks with siding on them to try and disguise this fact. But there were some very nice looking ones. We stopped and asked a few people where we might get some food. Being so far from the city no one spoke English but some German was understood. We got directions into the town. But turned the wrong way. We were out side of a pup and this old semi toothless man beckoned for us to come join him and made drinking motions. We played charades and used a little German to say we were actually looking for food. He pointed us in the right direction but we decided to leave due to the time constraint. On the way back we managed to hitch hike the last 5-10 minutes of the walk which is good because we just caught our single car train. The guy offered to drive us to Skalica for 5 euro just for the petrol, but we turned him down because we already had tickets. (I'm glad too because he lit up in the car).

Our train car to Skalica was awesome. It was a single car, and the toilet just dumped right on to the track. It was a longer ride that I expected in the train but it was worth it. The town was quite beautiful. According to one our school mates this town was a capital of Slovakia after one of the world wars. However I did a quick search online and couldn't find anything about this and every one we have asked here looks a little confused. Either way the town had a number of really nice churches and a beautiful graveyard way up high on a hill that over looks the town. After wandering around for a little bit we grabbed some food and warmed up in a pup. We didn't spend too much time there was we still had to catch the train to Brno.

We took the train back from Skalica to Kuty and waited in the freezing cold for the train to Brno which was late. Once on board we were in a nice cabin with a heater and we relaxed for a bit. There was a bit of delay after we crossed the border. Once we got into Brno we headed to a pup/club that was recommended to us by some one who is Studying in Brno. It was alright we were there quite some time waiting for our CS host. When our host picked us up he took us to this awesome medieval pup. You would never know the pup is there if it were not for the a guy sometimes standing in the alley way wearing medieval attire. To get in you go down a set of stairs into a brick wine cellar that looks ancient. There are skins hanging on the wall and all the light is provided by candles or very well disguised lamps. The seating was wooden benches with sheep skins draped over them. And occasionally there are men in armor that really go at it through the walk ways in the pup and out in the street outside the pup. We missed this unfortunately. All of the drinks were served in pottery type mugs and cups, the plates and bowls were similar. They also had things like Grog and Mead on the drink list. All in all it was just a really cool place. After the pup for the first time we went back to Ondrej's place and dropped off our stuff. And went out to a near by pup from a beer and some foosball. After a couple of hours we headed back to find Ondrej's roomate and girlfriend in the Kitchen not doing PG things. Because of this Ondrej slept in the same room as us. The next day Ondrej took us to see the Castle and some of old town Brno. There is a great church where a disgruntled Mason carved a little statue of a man bearing his butt to the world (thanks lonely planet).We also climbed up this tall cathedral and got some nice views of the city. After freezing our rear ends off we went back to the medieval pup around 3pm and ordered some hot mead. Let me just say it is a bad idea in a jug. It is sweet and warming and you have no idea how strong it is until you try and get up after 3/4 of liter. After the pup we went for wonderful ribs unlike any others I have ever had before and another pup. I wasn't feeling to great after all the foreign food and drinks and was dropped off at the apartment (this time we made plenty of noise before coming into the kitchen). While Steve Kevin and Ondrej went for more drinks.

On Monday Ondrej took us to see his School. He is a second year med student. The university was huge and attached to the hospital. It was quite nice if not a little dead inside. Brno his a huge college town. I think the student population is on the order of 100,000 students, so it was surprising there seemed to be so few students there. We got to see the schools private collection of medical anomalies and specimens. It was a bit like the bodies exhibit, but also quite different. There were a lot of pieced preserved in alcohol and whatever else is used for that. But it was very very interesting and later we found out we weren't actually supposed to be there it is only for students and researchers. I'm glad we got to go anyway. We grabbed lunch at the what could be compared to the student union at the U of A which was good, and we headed back into town.

We had a home cooked meal that night that consisted of stuffed mushrooms and corn. It was quite tasty.

Later we met up with some of his former roommates / friends at a wine bar. It was fun. There was a huge dog in there which was kind of odd to see in a food establishment. My only complaint was it was quite smoky in there. I felt like a chain smoker after we left. But despite that we had a good time. Apparently here engineers have the very think glasses and high sock stereotype and his friends were quite surprised to learn that we were engineering students. It was a little weird I'm much more used to wow it is cool you're putting your self through that rather than oh your an engineer... Being out with them reminded me a lot of hanging out with friends back home and despite there wasn't a lot of English spoken between them it was pretty easy to follow various conversations. After they left we headed back to the apartment.

On Tuesday we had the conference and Ondrej had class. We went to the conference it was kind of long and not to pertainable to what we were doing. A lot of it was about autonomous code generation into C/C++ and HDL. It was interesting and really important things for down the line but not enough of the lecture was dedicated to how to do it but just that it was available. We got some good documentation that I still need to look through. For example there is a package that lets you take your matlab / simulink code and package it into sand alone software. After the conference we traumatized Laura Ann by taking her to the Medieval pup. Afterwards she instisted in going to some store so we parted ways and did a little geo cashing. And then we caught the bus back to Bratislava.

All in all it was a great experience and it was really great to be able to stay with some one who is so knowledgeable about the town and was willing to show us around and give us a place to stay. Ondrej is originally from Bratislava and Usually comes home on the weekend so we hope to hang out with him more next time he is in town.

The rest of the are pictures here.