A Slightly Odd Day.

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Friday 15 May:



If you were growing up in Auckland in the 70s and 80s you might have travelled to school on one of those old ARA buses with the wooden seats. If you ever wondered what happened to those buses I can inform you they are happily transporting the citizens of Ljubljana, Slovenia!



It has been a bit of an unusual day. Zachary woke up at 5. Mr Rado from the Bled hostel gave us a lift in his Saab to Ljubljana. He had gone to the trouble of getting a proper car seat for Zachary which Zachary was quite chuffed about and we zoomed down the highway (the speed limit is 130 here). As it was raining he insisted on taking us right to our new accommodation. What an extremely nice man he is and we really hope he does well. We’ll certainly be encouraging people we know and meet to go to Bled and stay at his hostel! It was also good to talk about life in Slovenia with him. Slovenia joined the EU in 2004 and adopted the euro in 2007. This hasn’t proved to be beneficial for the average Slovenian and the criticisms and concerns he had were typical of many people around the world: incompetent and corrupt politicians; apathy resulting in entrenchment of the old systems; too few jobs; too low wages. While he doesn’t exactly yearn for a return to the days of Tito’s socialist Yugoslavia at least in those days everyone had a job and could afford a house.



Anyway, we got to our accommodation which is a combined hotel / hostel within a sports and leisure complex 5km from the city, and we decided to get bus tickets and head into town. The rain was easing and with coats on we thought we’d find something to eat and have a bit of a wander around. Unfortunately by the time we got into the centre it was pouring again. We had no luck finding a Zagreb style eatery where we had got off so contented ourselves with going to the supermarket and buying some pastries and snacks. The rain was getting worse so we went back to the hotel and ate there. We had coffee and ordered Zachary a hot chocolate from the little café there. His hit chocolate was literally that. It was heated chocolate pudding and he had some, but even he found it too chocolaty and sweet.



Our laundry hadn’t got 100%!d(MISSING)ry at Bled so I set off to find a laundry so that I could chuck it in a dryer for 20 minutes or so. Easier said than done. While self-service laundries were common in Zagreb they are not used here. The Irishman at the desk thought there was one at the railway station. I asked if he could check to save me going in for nothing if it wasn’t. Sure enough, it was no longer there. However he rang another hostel and ascertained they allowed non-guests to use their laundry and gave me directions. The first bus simply didn’t show up and the next one scheduled 13 minutes later arrived 6 minutes late so that was a bad start. After crawling through some traffic we got there. It is fair to say that had I booked that hostel, I wouldn’t have checked in. It was in a dodgy part of town and the building next door was all decked out with goth stuff and graffiti and a number of stoned looking gothic youths were loitering outside. The inside of the hostel wasn’t too inviting either but I asked about the laundry. Sure enough for €6 I could use a dryer and she gave me a key to get upstairs to the laundry room. I was anticipating at least a couple of machines and dryers, but no, just one. The dryer was small and the laundry room barely had room to stand in. I took out somebody else’s stuff and put ours in and by now I was sweltering. After several attempts at deciphering the Slovenian instructions I got it going. I gave it half an hour and hoped for the best. To be honest I just wanted to get out of there! I went back to the bus stop and waited for a bus that was 10 minutes late. Just in case the experience couldn’t get any odder, a guy got on the bus with his dog. Not so unusual you might think unless you saw the dog, which was quite clearly a wolf.



Glad to be back at our hostel / hotel then which is much more normal. It has quite different style beds – they are large solid wood shelves almost with mattresses on top. Zachary and Heather are in the double, I am in the top bunk. The tv has English programmes and Zachary had a bit of a quiet afternoon catching up on tv watching!



We headed down the road to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. It wasn’t as good as the one we went to in Zagreb but it was okay. When the waiter (I think he might have been the manager or owner) bought the bill he gave us complimentary small glasses of mulled wine and a chupa chup for Zachary which was a nice touch. €25 all up including drinks so no complaints.



Thankfully the rain seems to have packed it in. We only have one full day in Ljubljana tomorrow so we’d like to go the Saturday market, go up the funicular to the castle, and go to Tivoli park. A boat trip would be nice too but that will all be weather dependant.

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