Country #81 - Slovakia

The F*** is Bratislava?

It’s safe to say that by this point I was thoroughly exhausted. I slept a few hours on the plane, a few hours on the train, and now I had a whole day and two countries ahead of me. I’ve been to Bratislava, Slovakia before so I had some idea of what to expect and was looking forward to a relaxing day in the small capital city. I arrived around 6am, though, so nothing was open and I sat in the train station for two hours before heading to go eat breakfast.

I ate at a quaint cafe called Mondeiu. I had some really unique but tasty french toast that was topped with bacon and a fried egg. I also had liquid chocolate (like you get in Spain) that was fantastic and filled with berries. After breakfast, I walked by St. Martin’s Cathedral and then walked up to Michael’s Gate. I was basically hitting a few of the high points in one fell swoop!

From there I walked over to Old Town Hall. I didn’t go inside this time as I have been in before, but I highly recommend it as I learned a lot and it’s very well done! My next stop was across the street, the tourist information center. I got my Slovakia signatures here, and the two women working inside were so nice! They even offered me a free spot on the city tour but unfortunately, I would already be on the train out of town before then.

I had a little time to spare at this point so I headed into a cool spot called Urban House where I sat in a comfy chair and drank some tasty apple juice for an hour. My last stop of the day was a store called Kompot, which is known for their unique t-shirt designs. My (and my parents) favorite is the “Where the F*** is Bratislava” design. We literally have a magnet on our refrigerator at home with that on it from my last trip, and I have a button as well! You can’t help at laugh at their self-imposed humor of no one really knowing where their city is. I love it and made sure to stop back by the cool little store that thought of it!

After finishing my whirlwind tour of the city I took an Uber back to the train station where I then took my next train to Vienna (also known as Wien if you are ever travelling about in Europe). I would only be changing trains in Vienna, but I’m excited to be heading to Graz, Austria!

81 countries down, 115 to go.

Country #80 - Poland

The Business Class Flight

Last night was the first time I have slept more than four hours before leaving for a trip before, so I guess that’s a good sign? This will be a 30-day trip, my longest since the very first adventure, so I made sure to get as packed as possible as early as possible. It was still a scramble to get ready before heading to the airport for my first flight of the day, from Dallas (DFW) to Raleigh Durham (RDU). I'm flying on a family airline pass today, but the good news is that it looked like I would have no problems throughout the day with getting on flights.

My first flight was a breeze - the flight from Dallas to Raleigh was pretty quick and I made it on the flight with no problems which is all that really mattered. I landed in Raleigh with two hours to spare until my flight to London, United Kingdom. All day it looked like I would definitely get on the flight (which I still would), but now all of a sudden there was a small chance that I might get to sit in business. I thought there was no way, but everything seemed to be falling to give me a shot at it!

It was a painful two hours of waiting, that’s for sure. I would refresh the priority list on my phone every few minutes to see how it was going. It got worse, and then it got better. And then, with about an hour left, it looked like the last person was not going to show up. And they didn’t! So I got business!! I was so excited, especially for this trip, as I will be spending the night on a train tomorrow night so it would be two rough nights of sleep in a row. In my situation, the best part would actually be the arrivals lounge in London, where I would be able to take a shower and avoid feeling completely gross for the next two days.

The seat was, of course, amazing. I watched Girls Trip while eating dinner of lots of rolls, grapes, steak, and some really tasty caramel ice cream. After the movie finished I slept for about three hours, and as soon as I knew it we were landing in London. The other business perk is the fast track immigration lane! It was pretty slow this morning, so I can’t imagine how slow the regular line would have been. I headed straight to the arrivals lounge where I took a shower in the super nice facilities before having a pancake breakfast and then heading to the Heathrow Bus Terminal.

I took the National Express bus from Heathrow to Stansted instead of taking the Tube and then the Stansted Express. It was $10 more expensive but saved me a good two hours. I arrived at my least favorite airport in the world (Stansted) two hours early for my flight. I dealt with annoying security (it has never gone smoothly once for me) and then sat in the huge mosh of people waiting area for my gate to be announced. I finally had my gate, headed to my plane, and boarded. The flight itself was fine and I actually slept on and off for the entire two hours, which would be really helpful in helping me to make it through the day in Poland.

The Polish Dumplings

I arrived in Poland around 4:30pm. Immigration was a breeze and I took about a 45 minute Uber to the Krakow train station. When I arrived I bought my ticket for the overnight train tonight to Bratislava. Unfortunately, though, they couldn’t sell me a sleeper car ticket (apparently it was too close to departure) so I have to try and figure out how to buy it on the train. I then put my things in a locker which did not go as smoothly as it sounds. The first locker ate one of my coins, and the second one, once I put my things in, would not give me the key. Effectively, all of my belongings were now stuck in a locker.

I tried kicking the key, the locker, etc. I tried asking the man sitting across from the lockers in the luggage storage area for help, to which he so kindly responded “not my problem” and kept reading his book. I’ve had many encounters like this in Poland before so it wasn’t too shocking, but honestly just crazy annoying. I took off my coat, wrapped the key in my vest, and finally got it to turn! I don’t know what would have happened if that hadn’t worked, but thankfully I didn’t have to find out.

After struggling to store my things I got my signatures from the information desk where two very nice girls signed for me. I then took an Uber to the center of the Old Town to at least see a little of Krakow! I saw the Old Town Square, The Cloth Hall, and St. Mary’s Basilica. It was a very pretty area, as was all of Old Town that I saw. And, bonus, Krakow still has their Christmas decorations up!

After walking around (and freezing) I then headed to eat dinner at Klimaty Poludnia. It was a really cool spot right near Old Town. It was very popular and I was lucky enough to get the only non-reserved table! I had traditional Polish dumplings for dinner and they were so good! They were filled with chicken or cheese and had bacon on top. It was a hearty dinner and a much needed big meal. After dinner, I took an Uber back to the train station and luckily had no problems getting my things out of the locker.

I then had to wait, and wait, and wait. My train kept getting delayed until it would now be leaving an hour and a half late, sometime after midnight. Luckily the train station wasn’t too bad to wait in, as there was free wifi! The train finally arrived after midnight and the conductor would not sell me a sleeping ticket. He said they were sold out (the ticket people earlier said that it was not) so I think he just didn’t want to deal with me. I sat in my originally assigned seat in a compartment where there were two other people.

For the first three or so hours I slept uncomfortably on and off. One of the passengers left and another took her spot, and by this point, I was awake for good. It was at this point that I formally met Peter, who had been sleeping across from me. He’s a student from Australia travelling around Europe during his summer break (it took me a while to grasp the whole summer during winter thing). It was really great to make a new friend and talk with him for a few hours, especially because we were able to talk about each of our travels! Before I knew it the train was in Bratislava - how it arrived on time after being over an hour late is a mystery to me!

80 countries down, 116 to go.

Country #79 - Bahamas Day 3

The Conch and The Snake

It’s our last full day at Old Bahama Bay, and also New Year's Eve, so we had to make the best of it! We started the day on the beach again before going for a walk along the water and finding some giant conch shells. And I mean giant! They were very pretty and literally everywhere along our walk. Our walk also turned interesting pretty quick when I was recording the crane that had been perched on the beach for the past few days. After a few minutes of just standing he all of the sudden went in for a fish - or so we thought! Up came the crane with a giant snake hanging out of its mouth. It was shocking but so entertaining at the same time! He struggled for a really long time but finally swallowed the snake whole.

When we walked back he had finished eating but then, all of the sudden, he went in for another snake, and the drama started all over again! It was quite the unexpected ordeal, and I definitely made sure to stay away from the crane and his snake food. We then walked the other direction out to where the boats come into the marina. This part of the shore stretched out way into the ocean, and it was really cool to be surrounded by deep water on all sides.

As if we hadn’t had enough adventure already, we then decided to ride bikes around the property! You could just take the bikes as you please which was really nice. We rode all around the houses that sit opposite of the Old Bahama Bay rooms. They were beautiful to drive through and some of them were just massive. One of the houses was literally an entire compound and one of the coolest houses I’ve ever seen! The biking got pretty exhausting pretty quickly and afterwards, we headed back to the room to recuperate.

Next, we ate a late lunch/snack at the tiki shack set up by the pool. I had nachos and my mom had conch fritters. They were okay as long as I avoided big bites of fish. I also had a really yummy frozen strawberry drink that all of the little kids were drinking. Not kidding, it was fantastic. By this point, I was pretty sunburnt so after sitting on the beach for just a bit longer I sat on the balcony for the rest of the day. Our last outing was to try and play giant checkers! However, we were attacked by mosquito bugs so that didn’t last too long. We stopped by the gift shop to buy an Old Bahama Bay t-shirt before heading back to our room for the night.

I worked while watching New Years Eve coverage and we also watched the movie Passengers on and off too. Then, all of the sudden, we heard fireworks! We had seen some people carting around a wagon full of fireworks earlier, and were excited that they were setting them off at Old Bahama Bay. And they were some big ones! Like, they went on forever and were super impressive. It was so cool, and pretty perfect, to watch fireworks on the beach from our balcony.

We then rang in the new year with Ryan Seacrest before calling it an early New Years Eve. The sunburn was really taking its toll and I was pretty sleepy! It was a great last full day in the Bahamas, and the fireworks were just the cherry on top!

The Travel

It was, of course, an ordeal getting back to the US as well! We left for the airport at 11am, and on the ride there realized we would not make it on the flight. If only we had known just a bit earlier then we could have waited for five hours at Old Bahama Bay instead of the airport, but the airport ended up not being half bad to sit outside of - it was 75 degrees, sunny, and there were palm trees! Our same driver from the first day drove us back to the airport and it was a bit sad to tell him farewell as he had been such a fun guy to get to know during our drives!

We spent hours figuring out how best to get back after we got to Miami because all flights were looking bad at this point. We ended up finding a solution that would take us through San Antonio. Not quite Dallas, but as close as we could feasibly get. Our flight from Freeport, Bahamas to Miami was literally about twenty minutes if not less - it was crazy! And much more enjoyable than the seasickness inducing ferry ride.

We made it to our gate in Miami without issue and even lucked out on the flight as well. The man in the aisle seat was upgraded once he was on the plane, giving us a row of three to ourselves! I was watching the Oklahoma vs. Georgia football game, followed by the Alabama vs. Clemson game, and my mom slept most of the flight to get ready for our drive.

When we landed in San Antonio I had to immediately change out of shorts as it went from 70s to below freezing. We took a bus to the rental car place where, sigh, we did not get a yellow mustang this time. The car would get the job done, though! We made a quick stop at In and Out Burger before making the four-hour drive. Actually, I slept most of the way and my mom drove - she was quite the rental car trooper once again!

We made it to Dallas around 4am, and my mom left the following afternoon to head back to Alabama. The Bahamas was a great way to cap off our month of travelling together. Even though we had to endure some crazy travel adventures I had such a great time and am so glad she was able to come along!

79 countries down, 117 to go.

Read about my second day in the Bahamas here.

To learn more about Old Bahama Bay click here.

Country #79 - Bahamas Day 2

The Beach

The long day of travel was made completely worth it today because we spent the entire day at the beach! I slept in (thank goodness) before heading outside around mid-morning. My mom had been up since 6am she was so excited for the beach! I joined her in the chairs right outside of our room for a bit, and then we decided to participate in some of the free activities at Old Bahama Bay!

Our first adventure was to try out the kayak. We successfully rode in the kayak together without falling out or generally making a huge embarrassment of ourselves. The coolest part was finding a giant starfish! It was huge and just as clear as can be in the blue water under our boat. After we got sick of attempting to pretend we knew what we were doing we headed back to shore and I decided to try out the paddle board next. It was probably quite entertaining to watch because the board was in such a shallow area of the water to start that it took me forever to paddle enough to where I could finally stand up. It’s pretty challenging on even the smallest of waves but it was fun to try.

After our water adventures, we went inside for lunch (consisting of lots of snacks that we brought) before enjoying outside even more. The sunset relatively early so we sat on the porch for a bit before heading to eat dinner at the restaurant at Old Bahama Bay. I was excited for some real food! I had a yummy burger with some mashed potatoes and was very satisfied. We headed back to the room where I worked on planning for a bit while my mom went to sleep early yet again. I followed soon after as I was stuffed and starting to get sunburnt so the beach exhaustion was setting in!

79 countries down, 117 to go.

Read about my first day in the Bahamas here.

Read about my third day in the Bahamas here.

To learn more about Old Bahama Bay click here.

Country #79 - Bahamas Day 1

The Mustang

Today started quite early and ended up being an endless day of travel. Unfortunately, I had a hard time deciding exactly where I wanted to travel over the holidays, so I ended up deciding by default to go ahead and burn my saved country of the Bahamas. I was saving it for if I needed to be home for any unexpected reason for a long period of time, but oh well! It’s going to be a great place to visit in December for sure, and my mom is tagging along again so it will be a great little trip. The bad news, though, is that since I decided too late, we have to fly on standby family passes during the busiest travel period of the year. It was looking rough on anyway for us to possibly get to Miami today, so we ended up going with the best possible option at the time. And it was definitely quite the roundabout adventure!

We woke up at 4am, headed to the airport, and flew from DFW into Savannah, Georgia. I wish I would have been able to see some of Savannah, but we had no time when we landed. The original plan was to rent a car and drive to Jacksonville to then fly to Miami, but by the time we landed in Savannah that flight had filled up. Our only option then was a flight from Gainesville to Miami. So we had to rent a car and head that way! We rented a car from Alamo, and at the counter, we were told that we would be upgraded to a sports car for free. Yay! We had no idea what to expect, but when we walked to our car and found a yellow Mustang we almost died laughing. And my mom suddenly got really excited about our three-hour drive! It was extra funny because my brother, Edward, wants a Mustang, so it was great to send him that picture.

The drive was definitely made more fun by the surprise Mustang, and I had fun playing with the Apple car play. It was a bit rainy but we were in Gainesville pretty easily. We stopped for some Wendy’s, refilled our gas, and then returned the car. By the time we arrived the flight had gone from looking like a good possibility to not so good. Two people had bought tickets at the counter, which I didn’t know was a thing anyone really did anymore. It didn’t look good but we decided to wait because it would be close if at least one person missed the flight.

Closer to take off we were suddenly told we would be on the flight! I had no idea how because from what I could tell online the numbers were not working in our favor, but I wasn’t going to argue. We were in line to board when I saw that there might be a problem. The paying passenger in front of us had somehow been removed from her seat, leading me to think that this probably had happened to put us on. The gate agent did not think so, though, as he still allowed us to board. So we did it, we were on the flight! Until we weren’t – it was a very bad sign when the gate agent walked on board, and even worse when he walked to our seats and asked us to follow him.

Apparently, three paying passengers had had their seats removed so the system then showed those seats as available. So we were out of luck. One of us could have gone on, but that made little sense, so we headed back to Alamo. And rented our Mustang again. Not even purposefully – we were just given the Mustang again, so at least we were able to laugh at our unfortunate situation. We decided at this point to just drive to Miami – my mom was quite the trooper on the five-hour drive, dealing with lots of back roads and darkness. We stopped at Shake Shack outside of Miami which was quite appreciated and stopped at Target too to buy some snacks for our trip.

We finally arrived at the Miami airport where we returned the car without issue and then took an Uber to a hotel near the airport. It had an unfortunate smoky smell, but it did the trick for a few hours. We decided to take the ferry from Miami to Freeport, Bahamas tomorrow instead of messing with flights anymore. After almost an entire day of travel we finally made it to Miami (too late for our intended flight), but at least we had a plan to arrive at the Bahamas in the morning!

The Rocking Ferry

It was nice to get some much-needed sleep before continuing our travel adventure. We took an Uber to the port of Miami where we checked in for our ferry to the Bahamas, the FRS Ferry. The ferry seemed similar in size to the one I took way back when from Argentina to Uruguay. We sat upstairs and were soon off headed towards Bimini where we would stop before heading to Grand Bahama Island (where Freeport is located). It was really cool to go past all of the giant Miami buildings on the ferry. It was my favorite (and only) good moment of the ferry. From that point forward, the waves dominated the situation.

It was so wavy! There was a reason that there were sea sickness tablets available and barf bags in the seats – it was so intense. I tried to sleep through it as best as I could to avoid thinking about it. The ride to Bimini really wasn’t too bad, but Bimini to Grand Bahama was insane. There were points where the entire ferry would collectively hold its breath! It was cool, sure, but not worth the seasickness. The poor guy sitting near us had to use his barf bag, and I just tried my best not to think about it. Our stop in Bimini was beautiful – I would love to go back someday as we didn’t leave the boat. I was very glad to finally arrive on Grand Bahama Island, though!

We were met by our driver right outside of the ferry terminal which was really nice! He stopped by Solomon’s grocery store for us to run in and get a few last things we didn’t get before we left the U.S. We would be staying far from the city so we tried to stock up! After Solomon’s we drove about thirty-five minutes (and had a fun time talking with our driver during the drive) to the far northwest end of the Island to the settlement of West End, where Old Bahama Bay is located. I cannot thank Old Bahama Bay enough for sponsoring this segment of my trip! It was so nice to have a place to stay for a few days in the warmth of the Bahamas, and Old Bahama Bay was the perfect spot. Our room was incredible – literally right on the water! We had a huge room with tons of space, the best view, and easy access to everything at the resort. I’m very excited for the next few days at Old Bahama Bay After all of our travel difficulties, it was all worth it once we arrived at such a beautiful spot.

We spent some time walking around to see everything at Old Bahama Bay, including the marina, giant checkers board, activity hut where we could get kayaks or paddle boards, bikes, the infinity pool, the restaurants, shuffleboard, corn hole, and more! It was nice to walk around and have an overview of everything. We then headed back to our room where we sat on the balcony for a bit before eating dinner – it was an inexpensive night filled with microwave pizza and other snacks! My mom went to sleep really early (understandably after the lack of sleep and plethora of driving), and I stayed up and worked a little bit on planning my next trip before going to sleep as well. It was quite the ordeal getting to the Bahamas, but after arriving I can safely say that it was totally worth it and I can’t wait for the next few days!

79 countries down, 117 to go.

Read about my second day in the Bahamas here.

To learn more about Old Bahama Bay click here.