Around town

As I am wont to do with various travel partners, I dragged Erin on a two-hour walking tour of Old Ljubljana this morning. Arne, our tour guide, was full of facts, charming, and had serious bed head. Here he is, explaining all of Slovenian history with the help of this giant door on the cathedral, made to honor Pope John Paul when he visited here a while back.


We climbed up to the top of a tower at Ljubljana castle to take a look at the city. Somehow I look less impressed than I was:


But Erin I. was cheerful and looks much more normal:


This is a view of a giant, forested park in the middle of the town. A few years back, a brown bear wandered into this park and then into the center of town. Apparently, all that ensued was the biggest news in Slovenia for the next 5 days.


We then hiked down from the castle along steep little paths and cobbles. Erin and I are big eavesdroppers; we loved listening to the conversations that a group of young teachers in our group from various European countries were having. We also keep trying to overhear any American accented English, and finally tonight we heard some Americans for the first time.


The graffiti here is pretty interesting. Maybe because it's just different from the usual gang stuff I see at home. Quite different:

Best graffiti of all, hands down:

We took a break at a sidewalk cafe and ordered "Cockta", which is a communist-era version of Coca-Cola, advertised to have "berries, fruits, and 8 herbs". It was actually super delicious.


Not content with having walked on the tour for two hours, we navigated our way out to the free Botanical Gardens outside the center of town. Here I am, quite excited that I managed to find it:


The hydrangeas were beautiful and even had a light scent:


Loved these, whatever they are....

Now, despite not understanding a lick of Slovene, it's been quite easy to navigate around, make ourselves understood, and so on. But there are definitely moments where we realize we just don't get it, like this:


They're everywhere. Cardboard birds and fake birdhouses. Art installation, perhaps? OH wait, maybe meant to scare away littler nuisance birds?

After a 2 hour nap, we headed out to dinner. Instead of cocktails we had smoothies. Delicious.

I'm getting sleepy, but here are a few little videos for your viewing pleasure!