I've been sharing this six bed dorm with a Ukrainian doctor. He's on a work holiday here in Austria for about a month. The Ukrainian doctor has two cute little daughters. He told me he can only have daughters and a friend of his can only have sons. He said the secret is that his friend keeps a pistol and a knife under his bed, and the doctor said he could never do that so he is doomed to forever have daughters. I told the doctor that I had some great-great grandparents from Ukraine. He told me they must have come from western Ukraine before WW2. I think he assumed I was at least part Jewish.
Yesterday he was going to take a train to Venice, and I was going to take a train to Ljubljana, and we shared a cab at 5am to the train station in Klagenfurt. We split the cost and parted ways.
I, too, was planning to take a trip to Venice for the day, but I just could not get the timing to work out. The earliest busses and trains were already full. The cheapest place to stay in Venice was about 300 Euro a night (everything else was booked). The travel agent suggested Ljubljana instead. They had a sale going on for a 20 Euro round trip train ticket. She also said that you ride through the Alps and that it's beautiful. Alps? Mountains? I'm in!
I fell asleep on the train ride there, but I woke up and the first light of morning was lighting up snowcapped mountains. Holy crap. Unfortunately, though, for most of the ride, there was too much fog and clouds to see most of the mountains. You could get a peek here and there, but I just closed my eyes again until we reached Ljubljana.
So I know some German, and that helps with signs and menus, but I don't know any Slovenian. Few signs were in English. The Chicago Classic burger at the Ljubljana McDonald's is called the New York Classic. (I end up in McDonald's a lot because of the free wi-fi.) But, surprisingly to me, people spoke better English in the Slovenian capital than here in this college town in southern Austria. Thank goodness. I'm sure if I had been in a rural area, I would have had a more challenging experience.
The University of Ljubljana, home to Zizek, is only one (old, majestic) building. I made it a point to go there and try to sneak in and have a look around. I had no such luck, though I considered taking a picture with this one homeless man who bore a strong resemblance to the philosopher.
Ljubljana is small, only about 250,000 people, and everything that I wanted to see was well within walking distance. I checked out the remains of some ancient Roman walls (actually walked on top of it). I found the Museum of Modern Slovenian Art where I felt like a student, lingering near a group of young adults taking notes on each piece. A late lunch introduced me to a Slovenian beer called Union. It's a lager. It's like almost any other lager. And then, a bit light and fluffy, I took a little mountain-climbing train to Ljubljana Castle. The Castle (Grad) sits on a cliff right over downtown. I had never quite seen a city with such a forested cliff right in its center.
It was a long, long day, and about 5pm I got back on the train to head home. Who did I see when I first popped my head in the train? The Ukrainian doctor. It turned out that he thought he could buy his Venice ticket at the last moment, but he met the same fate I did when I tried to go to Venice. He, too, was also pleasantly surprised by Ljubljana's charm and beauty. As for the train we were on, not so much.
"You can tell this is Slovenian train. So dirty, old, ride not steady. It feels like Soviet Union. Austrian train so nice. Clean. Smooth."
We chatted the rest of the way to Klagenfurt and marveled at the sun setting over the snowcapped peaks of the Alps as we neared the Austrian border.
"So beautiful. Look at this. I surprised. Wow, Slovenia beautiful country."
I could not agree more.
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