Home, Sweet Jetlag

We are finally stateside again after our seven weeks in Ljubljana.  And, despite a 4am wake-up call and layovers in Paris and Reykjavik, we made it back in one piece (although sans one suitcase, which is getting delivered later this evening).  A key component of this was entertainment that kept the whole family glued to the screen (see below).

Our final weekend consisted of a few of our staples:  sandwiches down by the river for lunch, pizza at restaurant Trta for dinner, and (what else?) a few ice cream cones.  We also managed to squeeze in a date night with a home-cooked fish dinner.  We did not, however, go to the playground because we were too ecstatic about making it all the way through our trip with no E/R visits.

We had a great mix of new and old experiences this time around.  What was fun to watch was how much the kiddos (especially Rosetta) remembered from last year.  It was really fun (or “Super!”, as they say in Slovenia) being in our old apartment the final two weeks.  That brought back so many memories, first and foremost of which was sitting in the living room all night with Grandpa watching the Packers win the “Super!” Bowl.  We chuckled walking all those stairs up to the apartment thinking about hauling two strollers with us every time last year.  We also chuckled when we found some Legos under the couch that we lost last year.

All in all, it was a successful seven weeks and Ljubljana has certainly engrained a special place in our hearts.  Thank you for joining us again on our journey and for allowing us to share our experiences with you.  We hope you’ve enjoyed it too!

Vrbnik

This week, we drove to the town of Vrbnik, on the island Krk off the coast of Croatia.  Vrbnik was built somewhere around 1200 and was originally designed to protect Krk from pirates.  It's now a remote village of about 900 people.

Talk about a cool town, especially from a kid's perspective.  The village inside the original town wall is a bunch of narrow, winding walkways between old stone buildings, with a lot of archways, steps, dead-ends, and “mini-doors,” as the kids called them.  There is even one street Vrbnik claims to be the world’s narrowest at 42 centimeters wide (see below).  Every single building is unique.  Luckily, the town is so small that when you get lost (there is no chance of finding your way using your sense of direction) it only takes a few minutes of walking before you end up at the town square or another village exit.  Vrbnik is also small enough and remote enough that it isn’t touristy at all, so it still has the feel of an 800-year-old town.

The house where we stayed was inside the wall, at the top of the hill near the church (which means we awoke to the 6:45am bells each morning), and about as old as they come.  We haven’t seen many houses like it:  it was about 12’ x 12’ square and four stories.  You can picture what that means for the stairwells…even Chantelle cracked her head a few times on the ceiling.  The cellar was a kitchen, the main floor was a living room, and the top two floors were bedrooms.  There wasn’t a whole lot of room to maneuver, but, of course, the kiddos loved it because it presented all sorts of new opportunities.

Whatever the house lacked in amenities, it made up for with its rooftop deck and the rockstar view of the Adriatic during the day and a bazillion stars at night.  From the deck, you could also see how close together the buildings in the town were:  you could literally walk across town on the rooftops if you fancied.

Most importantly, though, we all had a blast at the beach.  It certainly didn’t bother the kids that it was small and rocky, or that the sea was rough the last day (again, new challenges).  We swam ourselves ragged enough to have early, early bedtimes each night.  In fact, the last day, Celia was so tired by early afternoon that she declared, “I think I’m finished swimming,” and went and sat on a beach chair.  We capped off each beach day with a “Pinocchio” ice cream…big hit!

Wedding in Preseren Square

Yesterday, we happened to be walking through Preseren Square when a wedding ended at the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation.   It was quite a sight.  The wedding party was in full traditional garb and they danced in the square to an accordion.  We thought they were at risk of heat stroke, but they certainly seemed to be having a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures of the bride and groom coming out of the church and down the steps…they got pelted with a couple kilos of rice (seriously).  We think there were more tourists gathered around taking photos and videos than people who were actually there for the wedding!

We’re on our way to the beach tomorrow for three days.  You can imagine the energy level of our apartment this morning...

Cheese Toast with Ketchup and Mayo

Unfortunately, we are now into the last ten days of our stay here.  My class has ended, and I don’t think I could have asked for it to go any better…who knows, maybe they’ll invite us back next year.  Since moving back to our old apartment on Sunday, we have just been enjoying being in Old Town again, which means not doing much of anything.

We have, of course, been keeping up with the Olympics and Slovenia’s one gold and two bronze medals (which, if you go by its population of two million people, Slovenia is proportionately laying waste to the top two medal contenders).  In the process, we’ve learned that cheese toast with ketchup and mayo washed down with Lasko makes an excellent Olympics-watching snack.

This is Our Old Apartment

We got through moving on Sunday in one piece, or at least fairly close.  We’re now pretty much settled in for our last two weeks in Ljubljana, staying in the same apartment we lived in last year for five months (see Eighty-Five Steps and Tea Parties).  We played baseball down in our courtyard this morning, roamed around Old Town this afternoon, stopped in for a cheese toast with ketchup and mayo and some Olympics, and had a tea party on the patio before dinner.  Some of the contributions we made last year are even still here: cow placemats, wine glasses, and herbs that Chantelle planted on the patio.  The only thing that’s missing is Morris the cat.  Otherwise, it’s great to be back…feels like home.

Last Year:

This Year:

Moving Day

One of the issues with moving to Ljubljana with three kids is that there aren’t many apartments designed for five people here.  And in the summer, those that are get rented quickly.  So, we had to split our stay in two apartments and today is the day we move.

We’re moving to the same apartment where we stayed last year, a beautiful apartment right below the castle in old town.  Living in the old part of town is wonderful, but the only way to get there is on foot (there is one taxi that has access to the pedestrian zone, but the driver is on holiday right now).  So, moving for us means several trips of hauling all of our luggage down the 103 steps of this apartment, towing it a half-mile to our next apartment, and then hauling it up the 70 steps or so there.  And, it means the general chaos involved with endless reminders to make sure no babies, bears, or other important toys are left behind.

We are looking forward to back in our old apartment, but there are certainly things we’ll miss about this one.  One of the biggest will be our terrace, which really makes this apartment great.  It has enough room for the kiddos to get out their scooters and roam around a bit, it’s a great place to have breakfast in the morning, and it offers fantastic sunset views over Tivoli Park and the mountains to the north.

Velika Planina and Predjama Castle

Wednesday and Thursday of this week, we rented a car and took a couple of day trips.  The first was to Velika Planina (“Big Mountain”), which is a series of herdsmen villages on the Austrian border at the top of, well, a big mountain.  To get there, you need to take a cable car about half way up and then an archaic ski lift the rest of the way.  When we got off the cable car and saw the ski lift, our initial reaction was, “No way.”  But the lift operator said, “No problem,” so against our better judgment we decided we’d try it.  Chantelle and Rosetta hopped on a chair and the other three of us got ready for the next one.  With two kids and a backpack, getting on was as difficult as I anticipated, and we had to bail on the first attempt because Sy wasn’t going to make it on board.  But the second try was the charm, and with Celia on my lap white-knuckling it and Sy next to me thinking he was pretty cool we finished the trip up.

Velika Planina is quite a unique place because it’s not a tourist trap.  It is literally just small villages dispersed around the top of the mountain.  Huts, people, and cows.  No electricity, no SuperTarget, no Apple Store.  There aren't even any signs anywhere, so it’s not obvious what you’re supposed to do once you get to the top, other than walk around avoiding both the cows and their pies.  In fact, it took us a good hour of walking to find a place to get a bite to eat.  Living there would be an isolated existence to say the least, but the people there looked very content.  The cows did as well…it was sort of amusing that the fences were around the outside of the huts to keep the cows out, rather than around the cows to keep them in.  So, many of the cows just hung out more or less right next to the huts, while others roamed around the mountainside.

On Thursday, we visited Predjama, one of Slovenia’s more well-known castles.  It is built into a cliff and many of the rooms and passageways are actually caves.  The castle is about 800 years old and is complete with a huge cave at the top, where we speculate the dragon and/or giant live (we were careful not to wake them), and a dungeon at the bottom.  There was also a medieval version of an Exersaucer (see below).

The most famous occupant of Predjama was Erazem, who made his living in the 15^th century robbing Habsburg estates and killing Austrian nobles.  When the Austrian emperor put the castle under siege, Erazem held out more than a year by getting supplies via a secret passage (legend has it that he would use the passage to buy cherries from a village nearby and pelt the Austrian soldiers with them).  Legend also has it that eventually he was betrayed and killed by a cannonball while using the castle toilet.

The kiddos had a lot of fun on the trips, mostly riding up and down the mountain (other than Celia, that is), and going on our dragon hunt.  Of course, no trip to a herdsman village or a robber-baron’s castle would be complete without ice cream, so that was a highlight as well.

Boris Kidrič

There aren’t too many tributes to Yugoslavia or communism left here in Ljubljana, but across the street from our apartment a prominent statue of Boris Kidrič remains.  Kidrič was a leader in the Communist Party of Slovenia and in the Partisan resistance against German occupation during World War II.  We have read and heard that because the Partisans were communist, there was a somewhat ironic support of the Nazis by many business and religious groups here (I was actually fortunate enough to have had dinner with a member of the Partisans last year).  As a result, Kidrič is labeled a hero by some for his efforts during the war and a villain by others for his role in establishing the Yugoslav government.  We have also heard that leaders here would prefer to have the statue removed and that the only reason it is still standing is that it is on private property (but don’t quote us on that).  In any event, we think Mr. Kidrič might be amused that, seventy years after his death and twenty years after the end of communism here, kids (and adults) are still emulating his likeness.

Skerlje and Lipica

We left Mijo late in the afternoon on Thursday and drove to the Skerlje tourist farm to spend the night.  Skerlje is in a tiny village right near the Italian border and about a fifteen-minute drive from Lipica.  We had visited Skerlje last year and decided it was worth a second trip.  The family who runs it is truly amazing:  they keep pigs, chickens, rabbits, bees, a vineyard, an orchard, and a field of vegetables.  Plus, they run an inn and restaurant and they make everything they serve there from scratch (meats, cheeses, bread, honey, jams, butters, wine, juice…everything).  The place is amazingly beautiful and the food is amazingly awesome.

But, the real selling point for going back was that they have a pool.  Last time, we were there too early in the year to swim, but this time we took full advantage.  After loading up on crepes and eggs and apple muffins for breakfast, we donned our new swimsuits from Mijo and headed poolside.  Fortunately, we had the pool to ourselves, as we are likely among the loudest guests Skerlje has had.  If you want the full effect, click on this video and turn the volume all the way up: https://vimeo.com/46174215.  In fact, Mr. Skerlje kept walking by the pool chuckling at the mayhem.  It was so nice that Chantelle got in all the way up to her neck (we’re not making this up…the evidence is below).

When we were all swam out, we headed south to the LipicaStud Farm to catch the 3:00 show.  Lipica is the main breeding ground for Lipizzaner horses and is a main attraction in Slovenia.  The kiddos’ attention spans were a little short at this point (as opposed to the long attention spans they usually have), but Rosetta was alert enough to see the carriage draw a Figure 8 with its tracks:  “Daddy, that’s an 8!”  And they were all very excited when the jumping portion of the show got started.  After the show, we went out to the field and watched the ponies chase each other around, and then returned home to Ljubljana.

After returning our high-octane Opel Corsa, it dawned on us that some of the adventure of driving here is gone, now that we have some idea where we’re going and how to drive a stick.  That’s a good thing.