Kerrick's Europe Trip (Slovakia, Hungary, and Barcelona)

As many of you know, I'm in Europe to spend time with my fiancee while her visa application is getting processed so she can move to the US.  (She's not a US citizen so to marry and live in the US, we had to file a "fiancee visa" application which is quite the process...)  We spent some time in her home-country of Slovakia with her parents (and the four of us also went into Hungary for a couple days which was a blast too).  Now Veronika and I are in Barcelona where we'll be for the majority of the ~three months of my trip.  My work is allowing me to work remotely and half-time (for half-pay) which is awesome!  If you're friends with me on Facebook, you'll have likely already seen these.  But I thought I'd share 'em with y'all in case you wanted to see!

Here's from a park in Slovakia.  It looks pretty metal so I thought I'd post it here haha.


Here we are at Spissky Hrad in Slovakia.  This is one of the biggest castles in Europe and it is EPIC.


Gorgeous sunset in the small Hungarian village where my future-in-laws have a vacation cottage.


From my apartment in Barcelona.


Us at the park that's between our two apartments.


I'll post more from my trip as new photo-ops come. 

Great photos, Kerrick! I'm glad you guys are having a good time! You are right: that park in Slovakia is amazing! Like something out of a movie!...filmed at a park in Slovakia.

Deepfriar wrote: Like something out of a movie!...filmed at a park in Slovakia.

Kerrick's European Vacation

This is nice.

Great pictures.  That's really cool that your employers lets you do that.  If you don't mind my asking, what do you do for a living?

The last photo reveals to you Americans what we Europians have known for a long time - the most beautiful women come from Slovakia.



Congratulations Kerrick! Can I ask you, where did you meet? It is a long trip from US to the heart of the Europe.

Thanks all!

Verbum Lux wrote:Great pictures.  That's really cool that your employers lets you do that.  If you don't mind my asking, what do you do for a living?

I'm a mechanical engineer for a relatively small contract engineering/manufacturing firm.  We mostly do electrical control enclosures though we've been branching out and doing quite a bit of different stuff.

Stand against the wind wrote:The last photo reveals to you Americans what we Europians have known for a long time - the most beautiful women come from Slovakia.



Congratulations Kerrick! Can I ask you, where did you meet? It is a long trip from US to the heart of the Europe.

Haha yes indeed!  We met at my church actually.  She is working on her PhD in Linguistics here in Barcelona and her advisor is an alumni from the college in my home town.  So Veronika went there for a research stay for three months last year.  She decided to check out my church, we met, hit it off, and the rest is history as they say!  I went to Slovakia in the fall for a week to meet her parents and then she came to the US for a few months for the holidays.  Otherwise we've been doing the long-distance thing which is rough but you make it work.

More pictures to come later!  But for now, some fun stories. 

On Monday the two of us went on a big hike along the coast outside of Barcelona but we got a super late start. The plan was to take a bus or train back to the city from where the trail ended.  However, that was not to be the case...  We got to the road and by this time it was pitch-black and the sketchy industrial area with a sand factory (or whatever it was) had no bus station.  We had to go under this creepy bridge and run along/across the highway to get to the train station.  Unfortunately, the train did not stop there but instead just cruelly passed us by.  There was no way we were walking miles along the highway with no shoulder in the middle of the night.  So we scrambled back through the creepy industrial area to where the trail supposedly continued.  I brought a flashlight and it'd only be ~one hour hiking to continue to the next town.  We found what appeared to be the trail but it quickly petered out and continuing to stand in the darkness with nothing but bushes and barking dogs around us, we decided to not continue that way...  We ended up hitchhiking and got a ride from a very friendly middle-aged gay couple to the next town where buses still ran.  We didn't get back to Barcelona until about 3:00am but it was well worth it!  Good times.  The following night we went with Veronika's housemate to a very authentic flamenco dance show in this tiny, dingy bar in the middle of the redlight district and it was absolutely fantastic.

Some more fun pictures from my trip thus far!

Veronika and I overlooking the city.



The beach (just a ~10 minute walk).


On a hike in a nearby park.

More great pics! Thanks for keeping us updated Kerrick

Nice, we're off to Budapest next week! Glad you're enjoying yourself in mainland Europe.

Oh right on!  We may spend some time in Budapest on our way back to Slovakia since the Budapest airport is the closest one to her family.  What are you and Clare planning on doing there?  I don't know how familiar you are with the city, but Veronika lived there for a bit a while ago and may be able to recommend some cool spots if you'd like.

Met any metalheads? Seen any rare cd's? Talk a little about peoples religious views there...and their american views..anyone there follow american elections?

Kerrick wrote:On a hike in a nearby park.

Oh, this place looks cool.

Kerrick wrote:Oh right on!  We may spend some time in Budapest on our way back to Slovakia since the Budapest airport is the closest one to her family.  What are you and Clare planning on doing there?  I don't know how familiar you are with the city, but Veronika lived there for a bit a while ago and may be able to recommend some cool spots if you'd like.

There's a conference that we're going to run by WSCF (World Student Christian Federation), for which Clare is on the board. We've then got a few days to ourselves before we fly back to London. Will probably explore museums and other touristy things.

As well as possibly drinking a lot of beer on Saturday night and laughing at Eurovision.

Good there is great places i never heard talk.If you're going through Marseille in your Europe tour we can have a drink

Savage Amusement wrote:Met any metalheads? Seen any rare cd's? Talk a little about peoples religious views there...and their american views..anyone there follow american elections?

I've seen a couple metalheads but not too many.  I've searched for good records stores and only found one so far that had any metal at all, though it had a lot of metal!  Some fairly obscure stuff though nothing on my want-list.  People here seem to be primarily irreligious or marginally Catholic.  I've spoken to a few folks about politics but not much.

deathisgain wrote:Oh, this place looks cool.

Yeah that spot was way cool!  It was in a park on our way up to a cool church on a hill that's visible from Veronika's apartment's window.

thedavo wrote:

Kerrick wrote:Oh right on!  We may spend some time in Budapest on our way back to Slovakia since the Budapest airport is the closest one to her family.  What are you and Clare planning on doing there?  I don't know how familiar you are with the city, but Veronika lived there for a bit a while ago and may be able to recommend some cool spots if you'd like.

There's a conference that we're going to run by WSCF (World Student Christian Federation), for which Clare is on the board. We've then got a few days to ourselves before we fly back to London. Will probably explore museums and other touristy things.

As well as possibly drinking a lot of beer on Saturday night and laughing at Eurovision.

Nice!  I hope you enjoy and drink some good beer for me! 

Pastèque wrote:Good there is great places i never heard talk.If you're going through Marseille in your Europe tour we can have a drink

That'd be fun!  I don't know how much traveling out of the area we'll be doing, but if we do head that way, I would love to!