Updates...

I'm afraid this will be a very short post! This chica is exhausted and slightly ill. Tomorrow is an early morning trekk to Vienna again, visiting with friends, and catching a flight far far away. A very long flight!! And this has been a long day of goodbyes and walking on aching, broken feet. But I would say it was a beautiful last day nonetheless.

Yesterday was a day of seemingly lost moments--nearly everything we attempted, we could not finish. We wanted to go out to our lake, a lake of crystalline waters some 7km from the house we once lived in, at the far edge of the city. But it was nearly 40 degrees C and so blistering we gave up so as to avoid heat stroke. I had so wanted to lay beside those waters again and swim from side to side. Then we were weary and exhausted by the heat, and had to travel all the way back into the centre of the city before catching a tram out to a different edge, to a lake where I went swimming on Wed before going to Vienna. Finally, that night it poured on us when we were dressed up and going out into the city, and the destination we had in mind (a beautiful portico on top of a building with a stunning view of the Old City) was closed due to the lightening and thunder.

Yet despite those disappointments, we still had a lovely time. The other lake, Zlaty Piesky, was great and not too busy. We had capovanie kofola (from the tap, which is only how it should be), and slept and swam. Though we couldn't go up on the portico, we hung out in the main floor restaurant--a beautiful jazzy lounge-like area. With a lovely piano!

And we had the funniest story when, exhausted, we chose to take a taxi downtown. (If we hadn't, we would have been drenched by the sudden downpour!) A man tried to take our taxi, and was like "please, please, you will let me go to airport? my helicopter is out of gas there!" We didn't...  And when, being dropped off by the taxi into the deluge, we ran for cover to an italian restaurant, the host greeted us "beautiful, beautiful women!" and he and a man at the restaurant offered us many cloth napkins with which to towell off. And we did have such fun!

Ironically, today we found some of those moments. Another had been the loss of my favourite cafe from one of the shopping centres. We found the cafe downtown today and I was able to have a slightly different version of my old favourite smoked salmon bagel (now on baguette!) And we went tonight to that portico again; open this time; and were able to enjoy watching the sunset from its heights.

And then we walked around our final goodbyes.

I will probably not be back online again until Sunday, as I will be in hours and hours and hours of flights and layovers. But I will have plenty more to say then!