Greetings from Győr

Photo from the internet; not my feet :-)

Sensing eager appetites, I slowly dipped my feet into the water, and instantly felt the tingling sensation became greater, soon occurring all around both of my feet.  Between toes, and on the soles of my feet, I fought the urge exit quickly from the fish doctor’s office.  Believed to have originated from Turkey, fish massages have become quite popular in Asian cultures (and is actually banned in 15 US States), and claim to be good for your health because fish nibbling dead cells stimulates nerves and assists blood circulation.  Although I am unsure if this experience was effective, if was definitely odd, and did make me cringe at times.  However I do not feel I am ready for the full body fish massage that is offered at other locations.

Located 1 hour outside of Bratislava, the city of Győr, Hungary lies halfway between Vienna and Budapest.  During the Ottoman occupation of in the late 17^th century, Győr's commander thought it would be futile to try to defend the town from the Turkish army, so he decided to burn the whole town instead.  The Turks found nothing but blackened ruins, and give the city the nickname Yanık kale or "burnt city".  Eventually, the town was rebuilt and surrounded with a castle and a city wall, with lots of new buildings built in Renaissance style.  Today, the population of Győr is about 130,000, supported by a large Audi manufacturing plant, and small university.  While the city is tiny, it definitely has a charming atmosphere, with the square packed with numerous outdoor restaurants and ice cream stations.  Also located in the town is a large water park which was perfect to cool off on a warm summer day.  While I was consistently slow racing down the water slides, I did manage to swim 5 whole laps (100 meters each), although not consecutively but rather over an hour period as I still need long rests between, but improving.  The weekend trip was definitely a nice and relaxing, and I am looking forward to visiting again in the winter time to enjoy the hot springs, but I will probably pass on becoming fish food. 

On your mark, Get set, Go!

  The wheels screeched against the pavement with every tight turn around the arena.  As I pressed further down on the gas pedal, I felt a slight nudge from behind.  While I thought I was in a competitive battle with my colleague, apparently others behind felt I was holding back the pack.  As I have witnessed, Europeans, especially Slovakians, are very competitive and aggressive drivers, and the go kart track is no different.  Even with a pair of racing gloves and a helmet, I was not ready to push the kart to the level of competition which others desired. Furthermore, without any seat belt, I believe the helmet was actually wearing me for protection.  Although I have not driven on many courses, this was by far the best, with challenging turns well padded for any incident; the races were very safe races and a lot of fun.  Even with limited driving experience over year, I managed to stay in the middle of the pack, breaking the 50 second mark for a lap once while the leaders were consistently in the 46-48 seconds per lap range. 

  After the completion of the races, the team gathered at one of the outdoor restaurants at the nearby lake.  While some decided to head for a swim to cool off, I was not ready to jump into a lake with high voltage power lines crossing above.  We enjoyed traditional Slovak sausages with mustard and fried dough, but my event planning strategy could use some improvement.  My original thought of holding a team event on the 4^th of July US Holiday was so that we could leave work early to enjoy the day. And that happened, however, we all needed to be in the office the next day, and with team events running late into the night, the homemade wine, which tasted great, kept flowing and Croatian shots, which tasted terrible, kept being toasted.  The next day was very long at the office, with very little appetite for lunch.  Everyone on the team had a great time, and we are all looking forward to the next event.

  Finally, after successfully identifying 15 of 16 candies from a candy line-up (no, it was not a set-up with all samples being a Twix bar), I consider myself to be a candy expert and I think most of the friends and family will agree that sugar is a staple of my diet.  I also know that they changed the $100,000 Bar to 100 Grand, and that most candy commercials have swirling chocolate except Skittles.  But in recent weeks, my candy knowledge has taken a step in the wrong direction.  All stores and vending machines in Bratislava have the typical US candy consisting of Snickers, Twix, Skittles, and M&Ms, but no Hershey’s products, although I have my secret store for peanut butter cups.  However, I never could find my current favorite, the elusive Milky Way bar.  I was always intimidated by the Mars bar which is found throughout Europe, because I thought was a dark chocolate, but finally gave it a try.  To my astonishment, the Mars bar in Europe is actually a Milky Way in the US!  And, it turns out that Milky Way bar here, is actually a 3 Musketeers bar, but in a much smaller version and different packaging.

Candy Quiz - I only used the pictures, and not the written description.

The lake, with crossing power lines at the top