Lizards! And Monkfish! And Beer!!

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

Real quick, since I'm about to leave Roc and Živa's apartment to catch a train to Vienna. Past few days have been a little less hectic, but still lots of fun. Yesterday Dad and I went to Ptuj, and the scenery was great, but it wasn't the highlight of the trip. The highlight was finally getting the chance to simply sit down and enjoy a meal while people-watching. I grabbed a pizza, and Dad some lasagna, and we got the chance to enjoy the glorious weather (PS - I'm loving the sunglasses) and watch one father play Superman with his child. He'd throw a superball on the ground, and fly his child around, trying to catch it.

Side note - I've noticed I'm spending a very large amount of time talking about the food here. Interesting how my mind works, no?

Ptuj is a very pretty town, with much more medieval and renaissance architecture surviving than anything we had seen outside of Ljubljana. There was one monastary with pink walls and ornate white carvings on the outside. It was completely abandoned - no tours until high tourist season - so we explored a bit. We found lizards! (Ok, not exactly what you go to Europe for, but c'mon, lizards! In holes!)

When we got to the castle, we found (and I hate to say this almost as much as I hate how much I'm using parenthesis) another two-story white horseshoe castle, like Ljubljana, like Skofja-Loka. Inside, however, was an actually interesting museum with some cool medieval artifacts. There was a tapestry detailing the Cyclops in the Odessey (to think, they had access to the greats here), some lawn gnomes, a great medival art section, and a really cool dragon chandelier. I love the dragons here. The dragon is the national symbol, and wonderfully alive, fantastic dragons are everywhere.

Afterwards my father and I changed, and we met the whole family at the best restaraunt in town, Aš. (pronounced - yes - Ass.) They serve primarily fish, and so we had an enormous monkfish that was apparantly swimming in the wild that day. It was delicious, but somehow I don't feel right eating wild fish. There's so few of them left!

Once I got home I encountered what I fear will become a regular foe of mine - handwashing laundry. My god this is a time consuming, seemingly pointless exercise. First, the soap I have is on dissolvable sheets, and I thought 150 would cover the 140 or so days of this trip. Well last night I probably went through 20 of these sheets. Unless your washing one or two things, you really need four sheets for a full sink, and even then there's only a few suds. I really feel like 10 might give you a good amount of soap, except if that were the case, I'd be out of soap in a month. Next, you have to agitate your clothes forever, especially if you have stockpiled dirty laundry.

Finally, I refuse to believe clothes dry. Ever. I washed nearly everything, and when I got up this morning, I had to put on wet socks. After eight hours of drying on the porch, nothing was ready to wear. Today I left the apartment, grabbed cappuchino and found a wifi connection, did all my internet stuff for a few hours, came back at five, and still, nothing. I had to crank up the heat, put all my clothes on the radiators (including one pair of socks in the oven), and wait half an hour before they were dry enough to even pack. I had to brush off saying goodbye to Nevenka just so I could wait for my clothes to dry. I have no idea what I'm going to do in a hostel.

I was looking forward to having today to myself - finally just being able to wander - but Ižtoc and Roc apparantly had other plans for me. At dinner the previous night, Ižtoc offered to take me to see the Hostel Celica, one of the best hostels in Europe. But when we got there, they weren't offering tours! So instead we simply hung out in the refurbished prison, talking about the relative merits of capitalism and communism. My goodness, to be at the forefront of the Cold War, to see how seriously these people take communism, it's a bit of an eye-opener to the biases of living in the West.

After dealing with my clothes and setting up my Flickr account (and having the most amazing hot dog here - they hollow out a baguette, warm it up from the inside, and stick in a hot dog and mustard), I met Roc at eight to hit the town. Roc had offered to show me what nightlife Ljubljana has on a Tuesday night, and it was fantastic. As soon as I got there, Roc said we couldn't leave without having a beer. Živa, Roc and I all went to the Metalična (or something like that), the artist's neighborhood surrounding the Hostel Celica. It was like Burning Man all over again. The whole courtyard is covered in head to toe with punk graffiti, people of all types (though mostly leather and stud and mohawk types) hanging out, drinking beer, smoking all sorts of things (even though smoking in bars in prohibited; I saw the bartender smoking), and generally having a good time.

We had a few more, and as I finished discussing education policy in America, and my head became dizzier, we headed off to a concert next door. I swear, screamo is only good when you're drunk, but it sure can be good. I grabbed a button in Slovenian to remember the night by, and all I could think about was how much James (one of my more rough friends) would enjoy this.

I wish I could write more, but I've written too much as it is. Alright, I've got to catch the overnight to Venice. Wish me luck! (Haha! Venice!)

Goodbye Slovenia! I sLOVEenia you! (groan)