Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ljubljana, Solvenia Day 2

It rained all night, and it was still pouring when we woke up. One option was to get all dressed up in rain gear and hit the old city. The other option was to hang out inside and hopefully the weather got better. We chose the latter. Living in the desert of Las Vegas for years, it sure was nice to watch the rain and see what it was capable of. The trees and plants around here are beautiful with the consistent rain. Later, we saw that the river was flowing nicely through the center of the town. So, for a large part of the day, we just chilled in the dorm room and read, watched a movie, and took a nap. Maybe this was a good rest point for us? It sure felt so. We did manage to get ourselves together to go out when the rain subsided a bit. But, heading out on foot, with these ominous clouds over head, I was sure to pack all rainwear. With that, we took a stroll over to the old historic area of town. It was a beautiful sight to see the river snaking through the center of buildings and concrete banks along it's sides covered in ivy. The middle of the town has been rebuilt from the World Wars and the repair work looks impeccable. One thing that I noticed was the work done on the street. There was this semicircle pattern of paving stones that we have seen elsewhere. But, this time, it looked as if the stones were set with a concrete grout and had been mechanically flattened. It made for a near perfect smoothness and still upheld the authentic old town flavor. Many times before these cobble stones are set with dirt mortar and have shifted all over the place. This was much more appealing than black generic asphalt. I took a pic and will be sure to post it on Facebook. Ljubljana is known for the many bridges that cross the Ljubljanica river. Our favorites were the Dragon bridge and the section called Three Bridges. The Dragon bridge had 4 bronze dragons, 2 on either end which are the town symbol. There is even a dragon beer here. The Three Bridge area is neat since, for some reson, all three bridges are right next to each other. Right across from them was a huge cathedral and shopping area. We took a look around and even though the weather was a little sketchy, we still managed to cover a lot of ground. We did not hit any museums and just took in the scenery. It was really nice without large crowds. They must have been scared away with the rain.

We stopped for a little bite and headed back to the dorm. As we entered, we got the ping pong paddles and ball for an evening of sporting madness. There is a table at the end of the first floor and it had not been killed by the annoying Brit dudes, so we played for an hour or so. It was no pool like at Atilla's or Bulgaria, but was a nice change of pace. Andrew, being a beer pong master, put up a good fight at real table tennis. Katherine is just fun to get fired up. For myself, I just took a digger to the floor in hopes of returning the ball to Andrew. I made the shot for the point, but a tile floor bites back. Whew!

Katherine and I headed out to the track for a little workout session. Since there was one so close, why not give it a try. The track was just off the front steps of the dorm building. It was a little different on a metric track. It felt like the loop was a quarter kilometer around. I don't think that there was enough room inside the oval for a soccer pitch. One fits inside an English track for sure with room to spare. One point for the English measuring system, but a billion points for metric. We need to open our eyes!

Basketball seems to be popular here as some local dudes came out to play. The day before, with some better weather, ther were a lot of them out playing in the area inside the running loop. The rain had held off for just long enough to get in a great run.

There was a Skype session at 9pm with the Gadens and Andrew will not be one minute late for that. We got our showers and talked for a little bit.

Tomorrow, we head to Lake Bled by bus and will stay for a few days.