Every day here is like some long stretchy thing that slides over me in an... incoherent simile kind of way.

I will start with the Castle Devine and Bratislava, since those were lovely.

In Bratislava, Slovakia, we looked at a museum and walked along the Danube river and then settled for lunch on Old Town. We found a restaurant right off of the square, prime for people watching. (As happens with any group, we are building a panoply of euphemisms, the most evocative of which is 'These pretzels are makin' me thirsty'. There are an awful lot of pretzels in Bratislava, it is a town of hotties.) After our dinner in a Slovakian Irish pub (even better, there's a Czech Mexican place I'm going to have dinner) I ran around the city with Amy, and we found
at least three different paths and alleys away from and back to the main square. There were t-shirts that said "Habsburger King" with the Burger King symbol. Jokes for nerds.

Castle Devine is a fortress built at the top of a hill, it is in a sort of expected ruin, no roof, but lots of stone walls and good solid staircases leading up to breathtaking views. From the main keep I could see where the Danube and Morava rivers meet, the Danube swift and the Morava sluggish. I could see Bratislava in one direction, and Vienna in the other. It was a perfectly clear day, hot as hell with a wind that kicked up off the river. We wore t-shirts on our heads like turbans and climbed on rockwalls where the curator couldn't see us.

(The day before Devine and Slovakia were devoted to the Mountain Radagast, but I'm not telling that story until I get home.)