Day 8 (14 June): Ljubljana, What a Name for a Town
I arrived in Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia, pronounced lube-lee-ana) last night and met my friend Hugh from high school who I will be traveling with for the next week or so. Since I'm sure almost no one has heard of the city or the country here are some quick facts:
-It borders Italy in the West, Austria in the North, Hungary in the East, and Croatia in the South
-It was part of the former Yugoslavia, fighting a short 10 day war with Serbia to gain independence as the Serbs had a much harder battle to fight with Croatia.
-It was the richest part of the former Yugoslavia and its economic engine if Yugoslavia had one.
-Its very small as the capitol has only about 120,000 people in it and the country as a whole is only has a population of 2,000,000 that's about half that of the city of Los Angeles.
-Its a very alpine country with only a sliver of coastline on the Adriatic Sea and has some of the best scenery of anywhere I've been:
-People there are very friendly and almost everyone we met was multi-lingual speaking Slovene, German, Italian, and English.
In the morning, Hugh and I visited Ljubljana's castle, old town, and churches. The city sits in a valley where three rivers converge and there is a hill above town with the castle on it. In the afternoon we took a hike to a church in the Tivoli park which overlooks the city from the other side of the valley. The whole city is very picturesque and has a very good feel to it.
During the day, we spotted a number of posters for the Ljubljana Triathlon which was to take place the next day. I looked into renting a bike and entering, only to find out the it was limited to 20 pros only, despite its absurdly short 500m swim, 5000m bike, and 1500m run. It would have been really fun to do a triathlon in another country, especially since it wasn't planned to be there for it.
That evening on the way back to the Hostel we stayed in (which was former prison and had rooms with the original cell bars making it quite interesting, yet surprisingly nice) we explored the neighborhood nearby: Metelkova. Hugh ended up arm-wrestling a Slovenia guy to get us into a bar right near the Hostel. There we met an American expat who had been living in Slovenia for 15 years (since he married a Slovenian woman) who showed us to other locals night spots and provided some interesting insight into the country as well as stories about being there during their 10 day war, etc. In many ways at this point, he was probably more Slovenian than American and had even picked up a Slovenia accent when he spoke English.
Economic observations of the day:
1) Ljubljana has more bicycles per capita than anywhere I've been outside of Asia, despite being wealthy for its part of the world so people can afford cars. There are just a lot of bike lanes and riding bikes seems to be part of the culture.
2) Its possible to eat fatty food and not be fat. We ate a Slovenian 'Country Feast' the evening before when we arrived that consisted of 4 different kinds meat (one type of sausage, a blood sausage, a cured pork piece, and a mystery meat) along with bread dumplings and 'groats' which to the best of my knowledge is grease-soaked buckwheat flour with spices. Despite this type of food and large portions everywhere people in Slovenia all look very skinny and healthy. Maybe its all the biking and walking they do.
3) European Economic Community countries are still reluctant to accept the Euro. In Slovenia, no one wants anything to do with the Euro and ATMs do not dispense them, but only Slovenia Tolars. Slovenia, however, was reluctant to join the EU as it knew it would become a net contributor.
-It borders Italy in the West, Austria in the North, Hungary in the East, and Croatia in the South
-It was part of the former Yugoslavia, fighting a short 10 day war with Serbia to gain independence as the Serbs had a much harder battle to fight with Croatia.
-It was the richest part of the former Yugoslavia and its economic engine if Yugoslavia had one.
-Its very small as the capitol has only about 120,000 people in it and the country as a whole is only has a population of 2,000,000 that's about half that of the city of Los Angeles.
-Its a very alpine country with only a sliver of coastline on the Adriatic Sea and has some of the best scenery of anywhere I've been:
-People there are very friendly and almost everyone we met was multi-lingual speaking Slovene, German, Italian, and English.
In the morning, Hugh and I visited Ljubljana's castle, old town, and churches. The city sits in a valley where three rivers converge and there is a hill above town with the castle on it. In the afternoon we took a hike to a church in the Tivoli park which overlooks the city from the other side of the valley. The whole city is very picturesque and has a very good feel to it.
During the day, we spotted a number of posters for the Ljubljana Triathlon which was to take place the next day. I looked into renting a bike and entering, only to find out the it was limited to 20 pros only, despite its absurdly short 500m swim, 5000m bike, and 1500m run. It would have been really fun to do a triathlon in another country, especially since it wasn't planned to be there for it.
That evening on the way back to the Hostel we stayed in (which was former prison and had rooms with the original cell bars making it quite interesting, yet surprisingly nice) we explored the neighborhood nearby: Metelkova. Hugh ended up arm-wrestling a Slovenia guy to get us into a bar right near the Hostel. There we met an American expat who had been living in Slovenia for 15 years (since he married a Slovenian woman) who showed us to other locals night spots and provided some interesting insight into the country as well as stories about being there during their 10 day war, etc. In many ways at this point, he was probably more Slovenian than American and had even picked up a Slovenia accent when he spoke English.
Economic observations of the day:
1) Ljubljana has more bicycles per capita than anywhere I've been outside of Asia, despite being wealthy for its part of the world so people can afford cars. There are just a lot of bike lanes and riding bikes seems to be part of the culture.
2) Its possible to eat fatty food and not be fat. We ate a Slovenian 'Country Feast' the evening before when we arrived that consisted of 4 different kinds meat (one type of sausage, a blood sausage, a cured pork piece, and a mystery meat) along with bread dumplings and 'groats' which to the best of my knowledge is grease-soaked buckwheat flour with spices. Despite this type of food and large portions everywhere people in Slovenia all look very skinny and healthy. Maybe its all the biking and walking they do.
3) European Economic Community countries are still reluctant to accept the Euro. In Slovenia, no one wants anything to do with the Euro and ATMs do not dispense them, but only Slovenia Tolars. Slovenia, however, was reluctant to join the EU as it knew it would become a net contributor.
posted by Traveling Brian at 7:17 AM
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