Part 3: Slovenia

I wasn't much of a fan of Ljubljana. I guess they've got a pretty cool cafe culture along the river, and it's nice at night, but by the time it came to consider lodging for the night I didn't like the city so much that I just set out for the town of Divaca. Ljubljana was pretty much not as pretty as Vienna or Prague or other cities with old architecture and castles, not as charming, didn't really have anything unique or standoutish. I guess just comparatively dull. And my hip was hurting so walking around was a bit miserable. I had a nice room in Divaca, my own after several nights in hostels and on a bus, and the next morning walked 5 kilometers to the caves, asking for directions along the way (German really came in handy, people spoke that but not English). The caves were pretty amazing, lots of tiring steps but absolutely gorgeous. Sadly no pictures were allowed. I bumped into an American woman there who I'd met in Ljubljana waiting for the tourist train to the unspectacular castle, so she offered me a ride to the train station. But she was going to Lipizanna to see the horses, so I went with her en route. They were pretty nice. One of the towns I stopped in on the train route was Nova Gorica, which is on the Italian border. Like, I walked through town square and ended up in Italy, which is tecnically illegal cause I should have used the border crossing down the road. They have a fence right through town, and 2 mayors, but they took down the fence in town square.

I ended up getting into Bovec really, really late, which was apparently bad. All the room agencies were closed and my choices appeared to be expensive (52 euro) hotels. The cheaper hotel (32 euro) said they had no rooms, so I asked the lady if she had any ideas of where I could find one, and she somehow found an extra room she hadn't noticed. Whatever, it was nice, had a tv (national geographic! we don't get that in vienna). The next morning I confirmed with the tourist office that the bus to Bled I'd found out about in Ljubljana would be coming at 3 and I found a rafting agency. I guess I'd missed the early morning canyoning trips so I ended up having to do a more expensive one at 11am with this Slovenian and Croatian family. It was pretty fun, terrifying at some points. Canyoning is basically jumping off waterfalls, with ropes-course-like belay lines set up. We had to hike up, waaaay up, and the air was very very thin. Then we jumped down, slid down, climbed down. One jump was maybe 20 meters down into a cave, which scared the shit out of me, and the more I stood there counting "1-2..." over and over again, the worse it got. Plus all the Slovenians were laughing at me. Finally jumped, and got down just in time to change and make the 3pm bus. Except the bus didn't come. I waited, I asked the tourist office, then this Slovenian lady also going that direction called the bus company. From her very little German I came to understand that the bus had gone kapput and was the last bus of the day. This left me with 1 option: hitchhiking. Which I did, nervously, and survived fine, coming out with a cocacola and apple. I got down to a town with a train station and trained into Bled, where I wandered around in the dark until I found the hostel (where I'd called to make a reservation). And there were 2 guys from my program! The next morning we went to the castle, which had amazing views though not as amazing as the canyoning views, and 6 and 9 liter wine bottles that they use for weddings and open by chopping off the top with swords. Then we went swimming in the frigid, frigid lake, because our train wasn't til like 4, and then slowly made our way back to Vienna where I arrived in time to catch the last Sunday night streetcar to my apartment.

The end.