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| Our first stay in the Slovak apartment! |
In October of 2024 I got the good news that the finishing work on our new apartment in Piešťany was complete! For comparison, take a look at the photos of how the apartment started here. Basically, this apartment was in a new construction and what I bought was the "naked apartment" (holobyt), which literally consisted of just the unpainted walls. The building itself went through "kolaudacia" in January, which meant it received the official permit of occupancy from the city. I have been working with a local firm called Emaila-In on the interior work. While there were multiple online tagups in 2023 discussing the design, the actual work did not commence until early 2024. The original timeline had them finishing by the summer, when I brought Sandra to have her first look. We ended up staying in a hotel instead as the work was still on going. But this time it was finally done, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The thing is that just having the kitchen or the bathroom done doesn't mean we actually have the necessities for a comfortable existence. I imagined it will be stressful to travel the distance from California and then not even have a towel or a toilet paper on arrival, not to mention a bed to sleep on. So in early November I took off by myself just to make the apartment more habitable for the latter trip with Sandra. I was teaching at USC on Thursdays this semester, and not wanting to skip class, I booked my travel such that I left LAX Thursday night after my class and returned back the following Wednesday. It was a bit nuts but worked out well. Instead of Uber-ing, I tried taking the Metro to the airport. This will be a nice option, in the future, but it is not quite ready yet for prime time. The Expo line is perfectly fine and so was the transfer onto the pink K Line. This is the line that will eventually stop at the Metro Connector station which has been in the state of opening for over a year now. Because of the construction, the K line runs in two segments and there is supposed to be a connecting bus. Well I got off here, at Westchester and Veterans, by now being the sole passenger, and followed signs off the platform for the bus. However, once off the platform, there was no additional signage, until I saw something that looked like a stop. I waited for a while but no bus came. Then I noticed a Metro employee across the street and he told me that the stop was rerouted, and I need to go to a corner about 6 blocks away. I went there, and did find the bus. However, a passenger getting off fell and hit his head so this involved waiting on paramedics and the bus not being able to leave. Then once this all got clear up, I was excited to finally board, but then the bus driver informed me that since it is now past 4pm, the buses leave from that spot I was at earlier and I would need to walk back there. At this point I have had enough of Metro non-sense and just called a Lyft. Luckily I was not in a hurry as this was absolutely nuts. But again, this issue should go away once the Metro finally decides to complete the never-ending construction.
Connection in Munich, a shuttle bus from Vienna to Bratislava, a train from Bratislava to Piestany, and a finally a taxi to the building, and I was finally at the apartment! Walking in was very exciting. Everything looked really (well mostly) great. There were few small issues that had to be fixed up, like the wall behind the TV not being finished smooth but this got corrected by the designer firm in time for Sandra's visit. I really like the various lights built into the ceiling as well as the cabinets. Also having USB plugs in the outlets is useful (this was something I requested). About half my luggage was a sleeping bag and a backpacking mat. I was joking that I am going camping but that was essentially what I had to do. I slept sufficiently well on the Thermarest and my mountaineering sleeping bag, both items which have not been used in a while due to lack of free time.
In the morning I went for a stroll to town. The weather changed quite a lot during my stay. There were some days when the grass and the balcony were frosted over, and other days where the lake was shrouded in a thick fog. Obviously the apartment was void of food, and thus my breakfast was in the BarLa restaurant in the town center. The word 'barla' means a crutch, so this is a play on words since the place is also a bar. Piestany is known for the statue of a handicapped person breaking his crutches after apparently getting healed by the town's mineral waters. I also visited the iconic brutalist House of Arts where I went to see a presentation on - appropriately - the history of brutalist architecture. The interior is actually quite nice and colorful.
My father arrived next. We went to the local Tesco to buy bunch of things for the house like pots or towels or hangers. We also bought an inflatable mattress for him to sleep on. Prior to leaving the USA, I ordered some furniture, namely a sofa that converts to a bed, the actual bed, a mattress, and a coffee table and chairs. For the sofa, I wanted something L-shaped with the L by the window, per the decor observed in Mexico City's Hyatt Regency. Everything was delayed, and the sofa did not arrive until the second day my dad was in town. Big challenge here was in coordinating with the delivery drivers since apparently none of them have thought of setting up a WhatsApp to reach the non-Slovak phone number listed on the order. It was nice having my dad here so we could use his number and I also eventually got a cheap prepaid phone specifically for this purpose. The sofa was really simple to assemble - it basically came in two pieces that are clipped together. It does not offer the most comfortable seating (it is a bit hard) but it serves its purpose well. The bed also arrived but it was too big to fit into the narrow gap left as a sleeping section. Basically, the floor siding is too wide, effectively shrinking the allowable bed width. While we could tried some shenanigans with the siding, the bed color was too dark compared to the rest of the apartment. As such it got delegated to a long rest in the underground storage unit. The idea is that my father will take it once he ends up buying an apartment for himself. I ended up ordering a new, smaller and lighter-colored bed. The other pieces, like the mattress were delayed and did not arrive until my second visit.
We then went for a walk. It is very pretty here in the fall with the leaves changing color. This is something I no longer get to experience living in southern California. Life here is also so much less stresfull. In the photo below you can also notice the steam coming out from the cooling towers of our local nuclear powerplant./p>
A really neat feature of the apartment building is that it contains a sauna relaxation center called Welialand. This is a separate business where we need to pay per use, but building residents get a discount. I went to check it out with my dad. The place also has a small coffee shop where we ran into some neighbors. Besides this I also went to look at wallpapers and dad and I traveled to Bratislava to visit Petra and her newborn baby #3, Riško
Then two weeks later, I returned. This time with Sandra. We ended up flying through Toronto as it was the cheapest option during the busy travel season. Arriving was much simpler now since we had the sofa to sleep on, but the mattress also arrived the first day and so did a small kitchen table. We still didn't have the actual bed, but at least had the mattress to sleep on. The kitchen table will eventually get replaced by something a tad bigger. The chairs were still on back order so we had to keep using the small stepper ladder as a seat. The coffee table and a TV stand were also delayed. One of the first things we did was to go to Nay to buy a TV, an iron, and also a hair dryer (for Sandra, obviously).
Besides this, we just enjoyed the city and tried to familiarize ourselves with the local restaurants. I noticed there being a Spanish one called Bodega Latina, and upon entering, were surprised to find a lot of Colombia decorations. Turns out the owner is a Slovak lady who met her Colombia husband in Slovakia. The lady speaks perfect Spanish, and was very excited to have somebody around to chat with! We also visited Concept Coffee Roasters and then Sandra popped into a boutique that also doubled as a coffee shop. Looks like this idea of dual-purpose stores is now also found in Slovakia!
We had dinner in La Musica, which is popular for having life music, but not on the day of our visit. The food was excellent though. And I really liked the wall paper. We also visited Mlynček Mulino (where I had really fun hot dogs served on a porcellain that looks like a paper plate, also mlynček means a grinder), and Villa Vodička which is a small hotel with an onsite coffee shop with a beautiful dining room.
We just happened to be in Piešťany for the start of the Christmas season, which involved various parades and events, which also explains the server's outfit in the preceding picture. We also got to see the lighting of the Christmas tree. Something super cool was watching a concert of a children's band called Rockids. They were truly amazing. Take a listen to their cover of Iron Maiden's The Trooper.
The start of the Christmas season also meant the opening of Christmas markets! The following day (a Saturday), my sister and brother-in-law came in from Bratislava, which was also Sandra's first time meeting Petra's new baby. We later went to the spa island for their Christmas market, which included a small petting zoo with donkey and such.
The following day it was our turn to head to Bratislava, partly so that Sandra could see Petra and Fero's new house, and also to celebrate Sofia's birthday. Fero cooked up a feast for us! He even made duck liver, which was followed by excellent ribs and grilled chicken and goose from his Green Egg grill. I need to get me one of those.
And that was that. The next day it was time for us to head back home. My dad ended up staying in the apartment for couple more days to wait for the delayed furniture. The coffee table, the TV stand, and the bed arrived basically the day after we left, so I (to this day) have not seen them in person. My dad spent much time assembling everything, including the bed. Then later, my mom arrived from Bulgaria and ended up spending roughly 3 months here. Towards the end of her visit, the wallpaper got put in on the wall behind the sofa; I think it looks really nice. Another simpler wall paper went on the wall opposite the entrance door. The TV also got installed on the wall. All that remains is the central light fixture. As I am writing this, Sandra's is in the apartment, enjoying a 3 week mini-sabbatical. She will return in June with her family so this was also a practice run to earn how to get around (including on here new cute basket bicycle). It was a long (and pricey!) process but the apartment turned out quite nice! I am very much looking forward to spending my summers there.
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