we're in sLOVEnia

HI GUYS!

We're back to tell you about Slovenia! Basically, we sat on various trains all day to get from Prague to Ljubljana. We finally hopped off the last train and followed the other travellers. Frances had directed us to wait under the clock outside the entrance, so when we saw a clock hanging down, we plonked ourselves on the ground to wait. This waiting went on for longer than we had initially expected, as we had unwittingly gone out the wrong entrance and sat down under the wrong clock. Who knew that life could be so difficult? Well, now we do, and now so do you. That can be your thought for the day. Anyway, after a while Lucy called John and he seemed surprised that Frances hadn't arrived yet. "She'll be there any minute," he said. "She's with a friend." Little did he know how much impact that simple statement would have. After another little while, I said to Lucy, 'wouldn't it be funny if they paged you over the loudspeakers?'. She agreed that this would, in fact, be quite humourous, but was unlikely.

After another small while, Lucy woke me from my reverie to say 'they're saying my name!!!!!!' and surely enough, when I listened closely, I could hear a voice saying 'Looooooooooishee Bowers. Mrs Loooooooooooishee Bowers. You must come...' Unfortunately the message at this point became interminable, so we ran towards the source of the sound. As we hurried, a man lurched out of the shadows, clutching a cigarette and slurring various Slovenian words at me. When I ignored him, he grabbed my arm, and, being no ordinary street assailant, his grip was more firm than I expected, and it took quite an effort to shake him off, which I did at a run. We realised that the disembodied voice was directing us towards platform 4, so we ran up there, but it was quite deserted. However, when we started back towards the stairs, a woman appeared at the bottom of them, and Lucy said 'That's Frances.' She was soon joined by a station guard, and moments later, by the same man who had grabbed me. The three all cried their relief and threw their arms in the air in a gesture that clearly said 'there you are. Thank god you are safe'. A series of thoughts now went through my mind. I realised that the man must have, in fact, been Frances' friend that John had mentioned on the phone, and that he had been grabbing me to get my attention, as he spoke no English. You can imagine my embarrassment. I had literally thrown Frances' friend off me and run away, in the assumption that he was like all the other creepy men we had thus far encountered in Europe. So while Lucy greeted Frances and they and the station guard chattered hysterically about how ridiculous the whole misunderstanding had been, I clutched at the man's forearm and earnestly offered my deepest apologies. Until, a moment later, Frances touched my arm and gently led me away from the hobo, with a look on her face that clearly showed that she was of the opinion that Lucy's friend was perhaps, not quite all there. Again, realisation dawned. This time, the correct realisation.

"Oh." I said. "that's not your friend. So he IS a creepy old man."

We literally (or littely) laughed the whole way home in the car. Admittedly Frances and Mija (the real Frances' friend) did not seem to find it as funny as we did, but we thoroughly enjoyed recreating the hobo's hand gestures and apparent relief as he had appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Lucy also told me of her confusion as to why I had started touching his arm and apologising, as she had seen him pulling up his trousers as he approached the bottom of the stairs, something which I, unfortunately, had missed. It could have saved me a lot of embarrassment, but also deprived us of much hilarity.

Now that I have told that story, over to Lucy. I felt it was mine to tell.

So we arrived at John and Frances', ready for bed to be asked what we wanted to eat for supper. Thus began Frances' 5 day long mission of feeding all day every day, cooking any dish we mentioned liking in passing and generally stuffing us with enough food to feed an army. Basically, it was bliss.

In the morning, Franny slept in, causing John to ask every now and then whether I thought she was still alive. When she woke up we explored the garden together, eating fresh raspberries and strawberries and admiring the vegetable patch, grapes and the 80 year old plum tree. In the afternoon, we went for a drive with Frances and her friend, Mija. Menges, where John and Frances live, is surrounded by mountains and, as you can see, the scenery is pretty amazing. Afterwards, we went to the Frances and Mija's favourite ice-cream parlour where our incredible language skills (we said 'thank you' in Slovenian) earnt us both a marriage proposal from one of the employees. We thought it was hilarious, but Frances was more wary. When I wanted to go to the bathroom, she told me I should wait because he 'might want to go in with you'.

The next morning, we caught the Kam Bus into Ljubljana. We walked around town, past the Franciscan Church and St Nicholas' Basilica (both of which were mysteriously closed), over the Three Bridges and Dragon Bridge and through a little market in the Old Town Center. We caught a little train up to Ljubljana castle which beautiful. There was a cute little church and towers with amazing views over the city, but the highlight for me was the 'Virtual Museum'. We were enthusiastic from the offset, exclaiming 'this is already hilarious!' when the man handed us our 3D glasses. He seemed less excited, asking us if we were joking and ensuring us that it wasn't that great.

The 'Virtual Museum' is basically a summary of Ljubljana's history, moving quickly through the years due to a tendancy to leave large gaps (skipping from 318 to 1200, for example). The reason it was called a 'Virtual Museum' was never really made clear as although we had to wear 3D glasses, the quality of the technology could best be described as... lacklustre. The film concluded with a hilarious montage of candid, Ljubljana-based moments involving a young man with hilarious reflective sunglasses.



On Saturday morning, after we were lucky enough to have Luke's favourite treat breakfast- a donut, we drove to Bled, which is about an hour away from Menges near the Austrian border. The town is situated on a lake and it is absolutely beautiful. As we drove around looking for a park, we discovered that (by huge and hilarious coincidence) we had come to Bled on the very day of some triathlon. Although this meant that we had to take a slightly longer route to find a park, the amusment we got while walking around the lake was well worth it. At first, we assumed the triathlon was a small, local one. After a several older runners passed us while we walked around the lake, we decided it must be a Master's race, but eventually when a pack of teenage boys ran past us we realised it was some kind of international event (we saw runners from Germany, Slovenia, Austria...). Seeing the looks on their faces made me glad I am not an aspiring triathlete, especially when the Ukrainian coach started running alongside his athlete yelling at him (we thought he was yelling at us, and quickly moved off the road onto the grass). The course doubled back on itself, so we got to see the runners passing us having just started the leg and then again at the end of the race. The road was blocked by the finish line, so we went around the side behind some marquees and suddenly found ourself surrounded by half naked boys who had finished the race and were stuffing themselves with food (one delightfully weedy one literally bit off more watermelon than he could chew and had a huge coughing fit).

After we made it the whole way around, we met John and Frances at a restaraunt that sells the best of Bled's famous cream cakes. Apparently, they sell 40 000 a day and I can certainly see why, because it was pretty delicious.

We wanted to go for THE walk with John on Sunday morning, but the rain the night before meant that it was to muddy so instead, John drove us to Trzin to see a castle and we went for a little walk in the forest nearby. In the afternoon, Mija drove us over the mountains we saw on the first day. We saw an old-fashioned, water powered flour mill, and visited Agatha, an old lady who lives on her own in an old house up on the mountain and Mija's daughter, both of whom fed us (it seems you cannot enter a house without eating in Slovenia. Not that that is a bad thing...).

All in all, we had a lovely time in Slovenia. We ate enough delicious food and got enough sleep to make up for at least some of the hostel beds and breakfasts we'd experienced so far.

Na svidnje!

Lucy and Franny xx