The Iron Curtain - These words were very meaningful to me it was a huge part of my childhood growing up with this huge east west divide guarded with minefields tanks walls fences guard dogs machine gun towers and the constant threat of nuclear war. the people on the other side of that curtain we were taught, by newspapers and TV were uneducated brain washed people who loved the dictatorship they lived in and wanted to destroy us, we lived in a fear of nuclear war at any moment, this fear is still there of course but its the middle east Russia (alone not the USSR) china possibly north Korea these days it seems a bit different nowadays, but I was starting to think that this European free border crossings was the way forward, the bigger the border the more the mistrust there seemed to be, the two worst border crossings i have done in my life where crossing into Israel from Jordan and leaving northern Ireland for southern (back in the 80`s its non existent now), america is a lot of paperwork but fine if your documents are fine, getting visas for other places like India china Australia etc its just documentation, my previous passports were filled with border stamps and visas nowadays its rare to get a stamp in your passport or a signed up visa paper`s stuck on a page,
Because I had taken the boat from Vienna to Bratislava I had missed the opportunity to cycle through that iron curtain! i decide because I liked Bratislava so much i would have a down day from the cycling and go for a run over the iron curtain, I was really glad i did there is a lovely running /cycling loop right over the border as usual throughout Europe there is no border sign and you have no idea if the other runners or cyclists are German dutch Austrian Slovak Serb Hungarian everyone smiles, I was the only one stopping to take pics it was all ancient history to them and i suppose thats the way it should be learn from it and move on we are awe jock tamsons bairns after awe!
It was a good 7 mile run and i was thinking of Gary Allan and poop at home that day running the Glasgow 10km i hoped they had the sunshine i was enjoying, after my run i at last booked my flight home i should have done it a while ago as now the flights were expensive I hate ryanair but it was my only option and they knew it!
I then done a bit of sightseeing and before I knew it the sun was going down, I went to a restaurant for dinner a sort of fake Hard Rock Cafe style place. Then went to a few bars I popped into the loch ness bar again and bumped into a group of Geordie lads who were asking me loudly where was the best places to drink while ordering jack Daniels in a Scottish bar! Typical` one of them was holding a flyer for a strip bar which promised free drink all night after you paid your entrance fee, he asked me if I thought that this was going to be true? I said yes it will be but you bunch of daft geordies will end up buying some lovely girl a a few drinks also and that will cost, I later seen them at the tourist attraction of a brass worker coming out a manhole one of them was kicking him in the head while the others took pics lol, it was time for bed for me I had cycling to get done the next day
Which was beautiful and sunny in the morning after my excellent breakfast, being in Eastern Europe the cycle path signs had changed again and the language and scenery
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