A couple hours after finally leaving Zagreb my bus pulled into the station in Ljubljana, Slovenia where I was to stay the next four nights. After following my map to the hostel and checking in I went out for a quick dinner of pizza at the nearest pub and then returned to my hostel where I got settled in. After all of my stuff was situated in my new environs, I went out to the common room where I could hear some of my fellow hostel guests watching Harry Potter. I watched the last couple minutes of the movie and then it was time for introductions. Two of my fellow guests, who we’ll call Roenis and Emily, invited me to join them as they were about to head out to a nightclub for some dancing. I quickly agreed and a few minutes later we were walking towards the center of town. As we walked we talked and I quickly discovered that they were roommates from Vienna, in town for the weekend. I told them that Vienna was my next destination and they pretty much immediately offered to put me up at their place when I got to town. I gave them a chance to take back the invitation if they hadn’t really meant it, warning them that if the invitation was sincere I was definitely going to take them up on it. They told me that they had meant it and that one of their other roommates was out of town until the end of the month so I would actually have my own room if I stayed with them. I thanked my fortune that Zagreb had delayed me long enough so that I was in Ljubljana at the right time to meet these fine people and receive free accommodation for the next leg of my journey.
We got to the nightclub and paid the 5-euro entry fee, which included a drink coupon, pretty much negating the cost of entry and took the elevator up to the top floor where we entered the actual club and got drinks and went out onto the nearly empty dance floor (the night was young). As I danced I was so overjoyed to be able to breathe. After so many countries without smoking bans the relief my lungs felt being in a smokeless club was incredible. My two new friends were both semi-professional dancers and put everyone else in the club to shame (even me with my killer dance moves). The club was very nice and from what I was told, it was one of the most popular clubs in all of Ljubljana, so I was surprised to find that even as the night moved along it never filled up too much and there was always plenty of room to actually dance. The funniest part of the evening came when one of the two half naked ladies that would get up on the stage on either side of the DJ and dance around every once in a while got really pissed at a group of people who had put their coats on the edge of the stage and started kicking them off. Hilarious.
My first full day in town I used as a work day and spent most of the day writing and ended up skipping lunch as a result. I eventually ventured out to find dinner and came across a burger place that looked pretty good, so I popped in and took a seat at the bar. I ordered a burger, some fries, and a lemonade and was given some peanuts to snack on while I waited. The burger chef was just off to my right and next to him through a door was a kitchen where another guy or two cooked up the rest of the menu items. Apparently there was a mix-up when I ordered my meal and the burger chef didn’t communicate to the kitchen staff that they needed to make fries, so my burger arrived a few minutes before my fries did. I was not at all concerned by this, but the burger chef was very apologetic. I was still famished when I finished my meal and decided that since I was going to be getting free accommodation in Vienna, I could afford to splurge and get a second burger. Right after I put in my order the burger chef came over with an order of onion rings and gave them to me as an apology for the fry mix-up. Completely unnecessary but very appreciated. Free things were apparently the specialty of the week for me. First I had the free night stay my last night in Zagreb since I didn’t have a room, then I was offered free accommodation for the six nights I was going to be staying in Vienna, and now I was getting free onion rings. When I arrived back to the hostel after dinner, I was offered a free piece of cake and watched the second half of In Her Shoes with one of the other guests and the hostel worker and then a group of Americans checked into the hostel and the hostel worker offered all of us two free shots.
How did I follow up all of this free stuff the next day? By going on the free walking tour of course. While on the tour I started chatting with an Australian girl, “Christine”, who had recently moved to Munich and was exploring some of the nearby surroundings. After the tour we decided to keep hanging out for a while and went over to check out Metelkova, which is an autonomous alternative community in the heart of Ljubljana. It is an artist’s community and is very recognizable by the abundance of graffiti that covers every building.
We then grabbed lunch before going our own ways for the rest of the afternoon and early evening with plans to meet later at a bar that was supposed to have free live music that night. Free stuff forever.
I then went up to check out the castle on the hill overlooking the city center. While the views from atop the hill were beautiful the castle itself was quite underwhelming.
After enjoying the beauty of the city for a while I headed back to my hostel and enquired about somewhere to go to get some traditional Slovenian food. The hostel worker showed me a couple different spots on the map and I headed into town to check them out. The first place I came across looked nice but the prices looked like they could probably be beat so unfortunately I passed that spot by and went to check out the other location, (a mistake I would end up regretting). After being seated I waited an eternity for the menu and then another eternity to actually order. I got a pasta dish which was mediocre, cheese dumplings which were the only good thing about the restaurant, and I also ordered a ginger lemonade which sounded delicious, but turned out to be a glass of water with a pouch of ginger lemon syrup. They didn’t even bother to mix the two themselves. Incredibly disappointing. I didn’t bother waiting another eternity for them to bring me the check and went up to the counter to pay when I had finished eating.
I then went to the bar where I was supposed to meet Christine and waited around a few minutes until she showed up with a couple of friends she had invited from her hostel. It turned out that the time I had been told the show would start was an hour off so we got drinks and sat in the corner booth and chatted for an hour until the band was ready to go. They were a group from Budapest and put on a really fun show with some really great music. After about an hour of playing they took a break for about twenty minutes. Christine’s friends both left at separate points during the first set, but Christine continued to hang out and drink with me through the second set which was also about an hour. After the second set had finished we were about to head out when one of the audience members got on stage and began to play some music accompanied by the bassist from the band. He was very entertaining so we continued to stick around. Eventually the other two band members also joined them for a jam session. It was hilarious.
Shortly before the music finally ended for the night two local guys at the next table started to talk to us. Once the music had ended we continued to chat with these two gentlemen and we inquired where we might be able to get food at this hour on a Monday night. One of the guys bought us a round of drinks while the other guy took our map and proceeded to mark every spot in Ljubljana which might be open at that hour, where we could get food. He then continued to mark the map with every place in Ljubljana where we could find live music throughout the week. After our map was thoroughly marked up he finally put the pen away and the four of us hung out as the bar emptied out, I stopped drinking, but the other three continued until we finally left the establishment ourselves, to the great relief of the bartender.
Once outside we said goodbye to our helpful friend who had marked up our map and then set off in search of food with our other new friend, who was a bit crazy. We tried to go to the nearest locations that had been marked on our map but he wanted us to go to another spot near the center of town. Our trip there was quite entertaining. I was pretty much sober by the time we left the bar around two in the morning, while Christine was pretty drunk, and our local guide was absolutely tanked. As we wandered the quiet streets of Ljubljana we found several ways to entertain ourselves. There was plenty of singing, which I joined in on happily despite lacking the excuse of intoxication. In one of the small squares, we found a yoga ball, which we kicked around for a while before continuing on our way.
When we reached the restaurant he was bringing us to it was closed, so he told us to continue to follow him because he knew of a 24hr spot where we could definitely get some food. Our nutty friend then dragged us all the way to the far end of town. This guy spoke fine English. There was definitely no language barrier. Which made it even weirder when he said things to us like, “put on your special singing hats” and “put your sandwiches on your hands”. Quite odd. We were beginning to suspect that he was going to lead us out to the middle of nowhere so that he could murder us, when we finally came across the spot he was leading us to. After getting a bite to eat and chatting with the owner and another customer for a while we left and said goodbye to our crazy new friend and I walked Christine back across town to her hostel before returning to my own at about five in the morning. On a Monday night. In a city that is not exactly known for its nightlife.
I had planned to go on a daytrip to Bled the next day but abandoned that plan after my late night and instead I hung around town and took it pretty easy that day. Got some writing done in the morning and then went and walked around the city for a while. I got some burek and a kebab for dinner and was very pleased with how little money I ended up spending that day when I returned to my hostel for the evening. Almost immediately after I returned an Australian girl, code name – Carrie, who had been staying at the hostel the past couple of nights asked me if I would like to join her and a couple other folks for dinner. I told her that I had actually just eaten but that I can always eat more, so a couple minutes later we headed back to the city center where we met up with an American girl “Marina” and a Finnish guy “John”. We then went in search of a place to eat. The place that had been recommended to Carrie was closed so we found another spot that looked good and entered. This fine establishment was quite fancy but fortunately had very reasonable prices. I had a couple of glasses of wine with my dinner, which consisted of a delicious risotto with prawns, along with some bread and pumpkin oil for the table. It was all very delicious and the conversation was quite enjoyable as well. Carrie had to leave after we had finished eating because she had an online interview, but the rest of us decided to keep hanging out for a while and go find a bar where we could get another drink.
The night before when I had been out at the bar with Christine, out of the blue she had asked me, “Who is your best friend?” I was caught completely off guard by the question. My first thought was ‘that’s a really weird question to ask a stranger’ and I flippantly responded, “You don’t know them.” As often happens when drinking at a bar the topic quickly changed and I never actually gave a real answer. However I had been thinking about that question all day and while my first thoughts of it being a really weird question to ask a stranger held true, I also realized that it could be a really fascinating question as well. So, while I sat drinking at a bar with my two new friends, I told them I had a weird question for them and asked, “Who’s your best friend and why?” The answers I got in response were incredible. They were thoughtful and really helped me to get to know these people that I had just met by providing me with some insight into what kind of people they were, based on what they valued in a friend. I decided that this question would need further exploration as I continued on my travels. After we finished our drinks we decided to call it an early night, as we had early mornings the next day. I hugged my new friends goodbye and headed back to my hostel where I prepped all of my stuff for leaving in the morning. I then went to bed, waking up shortly before my alarm went off as I am prone to do and heading off to the bus station, ready for the next leg of my grand adventure.
“Put your singing hats on”! Of course, I LOVE that!