Curls of haze, the half falling shelf of the bar holding up a few bottles of selections of what looks like home made vodka, bar maid (fat, black singlet, black eye liner, black bob) shouting at a customer across the bar, a vicious looking women's ice hockey game playing on the big screen. What resembles really really hard metal in an unfathomable language blasting out from the 80s-sized speakers covered in dust, dodgy looking bucket of brown fluid sitting next to a keg outside the women's bathroom that had no toilet seat...
Random travellers sitting on a tall table not sticking out like a sore thumb for some strange reason cos the locals chose not to acknowledge us(myself and two dudes from the hostel - Tom: Preppy boy from Sydney Uni that had just been in Vienna for an 'international law competition', and Chris: HBOS Risk Analyst (didn't dare ask him why he's on holiday) from Cardiff that had just regaled us with how he survived having one of his balls cut off at age 24 after suffering from testicular cancer. They are not the most randomist people I've met so far. One woman from my dorm is a Macedonian grandma in her 50s who travels around Eastern Europe following figure skating championships and reports it for an online forum... bit like the Balmy Army, just way classier --) Tom helpfully suggested the reason why we blend in so well is because we were all wearing black.
Matiu and Lansaren (I'm sure that's not how you spell their names but...) two young metal heads in typical long-hair-black t-shirt attire approached us with very good English and began a warm and introductory conversation about life in Bratislava, the shit hole they call home and make good music in a 13th century basement around the corner. Matiu longed to make it big on the UK scene so he could get out of his insurance job. 'I hate wearing a fucking buttoned shirt!' he lamented. Lasaren is a bit more relaxed. 'I go to Prague, have fun, then come back, no problem if I am never rich.' Subsequently they found a hole at the back of Chris' jumper and began tattooing the exposed skin with ball point pens. At this moment on the screen the game was drawing to a close, but one of the girls was sitting on ice in agony and appeared to have lost some teeth and began to spit blood.
The dodgy pub lighting began to flick on a off, and the bar maid bangs on the bar table yelling something, which is probably last drinks calls. We were still enjoying the story of Matiu and Lasaren's further adventures in the Czech Republic and my accounts of blackwater rafting in nuclear free New Zealand (it really is my favourite subject at the moment), when the bar maid came around banging on the tables, screaming some more. I asked Matiu what she said. He said that she said 'FUCK OFF ALL OF YOU!! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FUCKING BAR I HAVE TO GO HOME AND BREAST FEED MY CHILDREN, SO IF YOU DON'T ALL FUCK OFF RIGHT NOW I'M GONNA FUCK YOU SO HARD THAT YOUR EYES FALL OUT ONTO THE FLOOR, SO FUCK OFF!!!'. So we did (probably the smart thing) but quite reluctantly, and I went home with a huge piece of pizza that costs 0.88 Euros, which is a very lucky figure in my culture too.
And Bratislava by Day:
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