Lumbering in Ljubljana

Saturday May 19.  Made the short trip from Bled, Slovenia to Ljubljana, Slovenia this morning and landed at a perfectly located and cheap place right in the heart of the city.  The first thing Tara said when entered the room was "this is awesome, look at the size of the shower and this bathroom door is great".  The place we state in Plitvice a few nights ago had a decent sized bathroom, but the sink and shower were hobbit sized.  There was no soap holder on the inside of the shower, so I had to bend down every time to get more on my hands.  To do so was tricky enough given the confined space, but every time I leaned over I would hit my head on the water control and change the temperature.

We visited a Serbian Orthodox church today while a service was in session.  Very interesting.  If I have my church history right, the Orthodox church preceded the Catholic church, whic or course proceeded the Protestant church.  The service is all done in a sort of chant and there a no pews, standing room only.  The interior is very ornate with heavy use of icons.

Ljubljana seems to have a nice focus on bike transit with bike shares everywhere and dedicated bike lanes with all sorts of folks using them.  Patti actually said she was scared as bikes were everywhere and always seemed to be headed for her.  The bikers seemed to know that peds could be erratic and planned for the worst to avoid injury.  

This place was hopping today, or maybe jumping.  The European 3 on 3 basketball competition was in town.  We at some kebabs and took in some ball.  They we're giving away a free probiotic drink (basically liquid yogurt with a lot of sugar) to anyone that could toss 1 of 3 baskets.  Patti failed, Riley got one, Tara had to take two rounds.  When I was a teen I embarrassed myself with basketball in North America, I was not about to do it again in Europe.

Tara is a Looky Lou.  Patti is driving for three reasons, all of which are probably tied for first in priority.  I like to look around at everything, and the wheel on occasion follows.  I was born with a 6th sense of navigation which was refined during my career as a flower delivery boy.  Finally, I am really skilled at back seat driving, my father had trained me well, and coaching is always welcome when driving in a foreign land.  I am pretty sure we went through at least one red light today. It seems Tara has received my gift of Looky Lou.  She has had a number of run ins on this trip including, but not limited too; falling down stairs, running into poles, colliding with people.  The shot below is a dramatization done on a closed street by a professional, Tara was not hurt.

Patti is doing the last laundry load of the trip as available machines end with this nights accomodation.  With kiddos along, laundry machines have been must as the kids seem to have collected the food stains of Europe along the way.

In the states it is common to see ladies of the older generation with 'blue hair'.  The phenomenon in Ljubljana for the elder female set is 'hot-red hair'.  This is not a great picture as taking pictures of senior hair is a little over the top even for my tourist lens.  On the subject of tourist pictures, I have noticed that if I line up for a shot of essentially nothing and there are any other tourists heading my way with a camera they always try to line up the shot and wonder what it was I had in mind.  Lemmings with a lense, and I am one of them.

Ok, this is it.  Our room has a very interesting function.  You need to use the card key for the door to activate the power in the room.  Electricity in Slovenia is so expensive that they want to ensure that power is drawn only when absolutely necessary.  Croatia was similar in that you were billed an extra 5€ per day if you used the air conditioning.  Of course with Patti we ran the heat (electric) non-stop so much for our cheap accommodations ;-)

We are off to Trieste, Italy tomorrow and taking and overnight train to Linz, Autria where we may hit Salzburg on Monday before making our way into the Czeck Republic.  Not sure when we are going to have Internet again.  Until then, Ciao!

All the pics are up under the links towards the top right of this page.