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Published: September 2nd 2006
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What can I say but I love Slovenia. I have had the most wonderful 24 hours, first with the party last night and then an amazing, culture-experiencing, death-defying, leg-burning hike today.
Last night, after spending the day touring (see Beautiful Day entry) the city and doing a few errands, Simona took me out to a going away party for a student leaving for France for a year. The party was out at this little cabin/barn thing, and apparently the guy who was leaving invited everybody from his cell phone… even people he couldn’t remember who they were!
Needless to say, there were a ton of people there, all getting pretty drunk and all waiting on this enormous stewing pot of traditional Slovenian Goulash. We drank good wine (they make excellent wines here mom!), and danced… even did a 10 minute long conga line! One of the guys told me that Ljubljana was voted the #2 city in the world to party in, and I can totally see why… the people here REALLY know how to party!
And you would think that, as in our Western world, with a group of 30-40 twenty-something’s, there would be something go wrong
or someone puking drunk or a fight… but partying here seems to just be about having a GOOD time, and making sure everyone around you is too.
Anyway, so finally after all that, at about 1am the goulash was ready to serve (I think it takes about 5-6 hours to make properly). Everybody was really hungry but there was plenty for everyone… and let me tell you it was GOOOOOOOD! They served it with a cornmeal kind of paste called Polenta (see picture) that was delicious.
Anyway, after the food we decided to head out pretty early.. you know… like 2am! So strange that that is early here to go home! Besides, I had a big hike to attend the next day…
…which turned out to be amazing! Simona’s older brother Matej took me on this incredible 7 hour hike through mountains and a village that are called Velika Planina. This was definitely the hardest hike I’ve EVER done in my life. We hiked for 3 and a half hours pretty much all straight up scaling 1100 meters. I honestly thought I was going to die at some points. I felt awful too because here is Matej
just bored out of his mind because 1) we were going so slow from my out-of-shape-ness and 2) because I was breathing so hard I wasn’t that interesting to talk to! We made a lot of stops along the way though, so my heart rate could come down to about 300! Haha….
We got to this one point of the trail with a breathtaking view of the Slovenian Alps. So incredibly fantastic! (see picture)… It’s amazing how such a small country has so many different and amazing climate and geographical extremes.
At the top though, it was amazing. My journal entry once there reads, “Just climbed 1100 meters up. Can’t believe I made it. Feel really bad for Matej but SO greatful for his patience!” Really, I had to thank him like 80 times for being so patient with my out of shape arse!
We ate lunch overlooking an old, traditional mountain village, now kept running mainly for the tourists sake, although there were some locals living in some of the buildings. The view was absolutely stunning, looking out over basically all of Slovenia! (haha, kidding, but not really! It’s pretty small!). I walked around
for about an hour while Matej booked it to the top of the mountain, and while I didn’t get the courage to attempt to talk to any of the residents who were outside their homes, I did muster up a “Dober dan” (good day) to an older lady sitting in her yard.
The neatest thing about the top was the ceaseless soft ringing of cowbells heard as we walked around the village. It was such a foreign sound to me I had to ask what it was! Kind of neat that ideas developed over a thousand years ago still work today.
The way down was pretty hard (on the knees especially), and we got a little lost, but getting lost turned out to be wonderful because we came upon this little farm house with a family out front playing some traditional Slovenian music! There was a guy on the accordion and a girl on guitar who were singing, a little girl on a drum, an older man playing the washboard, and my favorite, the man who helped us refind our trail was using two flattened rocks as claves! So neat! I didn’t want to ask if I could
take their picture because they were pretty involved in their little family-ness, so I just listened and enjoyed while Matej got directions from the clave player!
Well, that was about it for the day! I’m absolutely exhausted, and greatly looking forward to hitting the hay and seeing what tomorrow brings!
Love you all,
Mel.
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Nancy Hill
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Wow!
The views from your hike look incredible. Good luck with your move tomorrow. Hugs!