Ljubljana + back

The train ride in was pretty uneventful, which I was happy about. I even had my own compartment for most of the time. It was a bit foggy, but I was still able to enjoy the view through the mountains and next to the river once we hit Slovenia.

The Sava river was startlingly clear with a blue green hue. It was beautiful. I was also surprised that the train announcements stopped in Slovenia. I knew we were there because I suddenly saw flags, which struck me how uncommon it is to see them in Germany, because of the WWII history and the fear of having too much pride.

There were several things that I noticed as I walked to my B & B. The architecture and oldness of many buildings was striking. There is a large open air market across from the B & B that I stayed in, so there were still plenty of people humming about despite the rain. The indoor market was not as exciting. I was surprised to see people selling animal hides, which I would expect to see at a souk. There were also people selling clothes and other wearable items, similar to the market in Vienna.

I got settled and explained to the man who gave me my key that I was traveling alone and asked how safe the city was. He asked where I was from and then said 'Compared to Ohio? Yes, it's safe.' He then gave me his business card in case I had any troubles I could call him. I had a cute little room complete with a balcony and tiny kitchenette. I also loved the bathroom floor tiles.

I set out into the old town, which was right around the corner from where I was staying. I couldn't have picked a better location. The streets surrounding the area were very charming and the famed 'Tromosovje' three way bridge was just past the markets leading to the Old Town.

The Ljubljanica river is also there surrounded by cafes and eateries. The social atmosphere is thriving- not so much when you are traveling on your own, but it still gives a nice feeling of community. Traveling alone was sort of strange. I definitely like talking to people more than I was able to and I'd find myself eavsdropping on coversations of other English speakers. Surpringly I even heard several Americans in the mix.

As I was orienting myself I found a book shop and picked up my Slovenian children's book, which happy enough comes from Ljubljana. I am going to have to get it translated, but the pictures are adorable and it looks as though a little girl takes her dog to school in her book bag, however he doesn't like staying in there all day and causes trouble when he seeks her attention.

Right down the street from the book store was the Piranske Soline shop and it was every bit as great as I imagined. I bought salt in many forms - sea salt, salt flower, salt chocolate, and a facial salt. I'm hoping it gives me that fresh glow that comes from swimming in the ocean.

The sales woman at the shop was very helpful ...I'm attributing that to her being kind and not on the amount of products I purchased. I cannot wait for Stefan to come home so we can cook something up with it. I'll also be using it for my cookies.

Another woman who looked to be on a private tour came waltzing in and complained about everything. She said she passed up going to the salt marshes 'because it's not beautiful' and then said that she had tried some of their salt and it was 'saltier than other salt'. I just wondered what gives? She snapped a few photos and bought something small and then she was off to complain about something else.

Andrea recommended that I try the pizza, which I did and was very happy with - so much so that I ate it every day. It was delicious. I found a little pizzeria that served by the slice so I didn't have to sit somewhere and feel lonely. On my last day, when I ordered it again I was so proud of myself for using Slovenian and for the young man to respond in Slovenian. Granted I only said 'one' and 'thank you', but it's a start.

After pizza I went to a pastry and ice cream shop called Zvezda. It was one of the best ice creams I have ever had, which is saying a lot considering that I love ice cream and also worked at Ben + Jerry's. I chose chocolate and blueberry.

The city is filled with art in many shapes, forms, and with different media.

The graffiti is sprinkled around the city. Once again I saw the stencil graffiti, however I was also happy to see some graffiti from more skilled artists. The little monster figures were very cute. It appears the city isn't too enthusiastic about it, as I saw several workers preparing a new canvas for it's under ground artists as it was being painted over.

The large Baroque churches are everywhere and they are distinctly different from one another. Most of Ljubljana is Catholic and I found it interesting that among the churches in the city there were a variety of religious orders. It's not that large of a place.

Art Nouveau definitely caught on in Ljubljana as well. The 'Zmajski Most' (Dragon Bridge) is a prime example of this movement. There were also lights and buildings through the city that echoed this early 1900's period of art.

At night I wanted to be safe and not head to a bar, so I decided to stop at a near by grocery and get some Slovenian wine for the evening. I was happy that I ventured out at dusk because the glowing lights were so beautiful.

I was struck by the tiny details that were just inspiring. Among them were the court yard of the Ljubljana festival headquarters, the bronze city map, a glazed area matching the Sava river underneath a drainage pipe, the colored buildings, the sweet and elegant flower shop, and of course a puppy taking himself on a stroll through town. There are so many interesting elements that I had plenty of time to observe.

While waiting for my train I decided to stop by the Celica hostel, which is a former prison and supposed to be super nice by hostel standards. I don't really have a comparison, although it looks well designed and clean.

The hostel offers a tour daily at 2pm and I was happy to see some of the former prison cells. Each cell was decorated by an artist who was given 500 euros. The results are very interesting. On the tour I also learned that the demolition crew was already at the site and put two holes in the building, which were then incorporated into the architecture. The artists some how were able to get them to stop and over 10 years it was transformed into what Lonely Planet calls 'The hippest hostel'. My favorite room that we saw was 116, because it was very circular, including the bed. There is a dining area, a small prayer room, and the building remains true to compositional directions with the east and west sides of the building taking on the respective aesthetics. Surprisingly, when this was used as a prison there were 14 people in each cell.

It's in an area called Metelkova city, which has a lot of old military barracks and graffiti. Before I came I read that it was compared to Christianshavn in Copenhagen, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I think they only the that could be similar is the graffiti... there wasn't blatant drug use and the people were friendly.

The trip home was slightly more of an adventure than I would have cared for. Rather than taking the direct train to Munich we were rerouted due to a suicide. I heard the conductor blow his whistle twice and the carriage ahead of mine felt the accident. I later learned that Slovenia has one of the highest suicide rates and it's becoming more common place. According to the conductor it was a young man. There is an area close to the train station that crosses a highway and it seems there is a bushy area where people hide and jump out. We sat and waited on the train for close to an hour before they had us get off and then wait for a bus.

I could not believe just how many people walked to the front of the train to take a look. Even worse was parents let their young children walk up and look. The underside of the train was dripping with body matter and I stood there in disbelief.

I am a big fan of street wisdom - those tiny tidbits of information that someone felt was worthy enough to share with the world. They sometimes come in the most unlikely of places, yet give me a sense of commonality and a connection to other people. Maybe it's my state of mind when I stumble upon them, but they resonate with me, especially these that I saw in Ljubljana in light of the trip home.

The only positive thing about all of this was meeting Eva and Sandra, who were also alone and traveling from Croatia and Slovenia. We chatted for the journey home about life, traveling, and America. Sandra kept saying how important it was to live life, which she realized she had cancer in her early twenties. Eva talked about her breaking up with her boyfriend of nine years who then married her best friend two weeks ago. It was nice to have traveler's tales and have ladies my age to travel with. We exchanged emails and Sandra said she wanted to make the trip back to Salzburg this summer so I could give her a tour.

Our voyage took us by bus transfer to Vižmarje, where we then took a train to Jesenice, where once again we had to disembark for a train to Villach, Austria, and get on another train to Salzburg. If we had waited for the train to Munich it would have been another three hours. Eva's boyfriend who lives in Munich was kind enough to pick us up in Salzburg. Poor Sandra still had to go to Berlin. She had missed her connecting train and therefore had to leave at 4:30am.

It was interesting to me how traveling to a country where I really don't speak the language helped me realize just how much German I know. I was forever grateful when I asked the conductor if he spoke 'Angleško', and he said 'Deutsch'.

Roger

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about interior design and redecorating as we consider moving. The most important part, being the apartment, hasn't been decided upon... but I still plan what I would like to do with the space when I have it.

Stefan gets annoyed with my collection of design magazines and I confess it is time to part with them. I tear out the things that I like and neatly organize them into transparent folios for future reference so the magazines don't take up space.

While looking through the pages, I came across an ad about there not being enough art in our schools and it said 'no wonder people think Caravaggio is a guy on the Sopranos'. The art enthusiast in me makes me read the entire ad, agree, and then think back to my own art education, which I absolutely loved.

My entire life I have been blessed with interesting characters as art teachers. They are usually an eccentric bunch with right brained mentalities. I even had a theory growing up that tempera paint had something to do with pregnancy, because my elementary school went through so many art teachers who became pregnant and moved on.

Something I miss about attending a university are the dynamic professors. Of course they are few and far between, but once you have class with them you never forget. My philosophy of art professor has had so many professions in his life including aerospace engineer, patent lawyer, and professor. He also had fascinating stories about growing up in an orphanage, having a best friend there that murdered his entire family, teaching himself to read, surviving a plane crash, nearly going blind 'so everything looks like a Monet painting' - it goes on and on.

His lectures were always filled with random comments, like 'if I were a homosexual I'd say Michelangelo's David was pretty well hung', or stating that in college 'you party and have fun, but then you search for something more to life, which is when you find art'. I would always write down his strange quotes along side my notes.

Needless to say I went on to double major in art education and art history. It was my art history teachers in college that I loved the most. They were personable, creative, articulate, and very observant. Even with their PhD's, they always insisted you call them by their first names.

One of the best teacher's I've ever had was Roger. He was studying to be a lawyer when he decided to take an art history course and then found his true calling. He always would remind us to stop and consider who the patrons were and how ideas and materials were transfered through trade routes. We would discuss the processes of making art and paint during the Renaissance versus today and there was never a dull moment.

So as I looked at this Caravaggio ad and think back to Roger, since his specialty is Italian art. Now it seems ironic to me to look at interior design magazines knowing I will most likely pick the majority of furnishings, upholstery, and decorations, while the paper trail leads back to my husband. Sometimes I have to laugh at how history repeats.

I love art history's ability to connect cultures and time periods, which unites humanity in the search for what life is about.

Interestingly there are many replicas of Michelangelo's David around the world, including the one above, which we were surprised to see in Copenhagen. I'm sure he never imagined his works would be replicated and made into kitschy tourist mementos.

Now I'll have to send that ad to Roger.

Olympiadorf

At the suggestion of Troy, from Munich Daily Photo, I went to see the last remaining units in the Olympiadorf.


I remember being slightly shocked and intrigued by this bunker style student housing when I initially came to Munich and went to the Olympic park. They were brightly colored and looked slightly decrepit. It's a dichotomy since Munich is known for being a posh and wealthy city and this looks like a small piece of rebellious Berlin within.

Seeing the reconstruction made me recall my own university experience with 'the ghetto', - an affectionate name for a fabulous neighborhood of university owned housing. While it is undergoing a facelift of it's own, it is an essential part of what gives the university a major sense of community.

When I went to see the Olympiadorf remnants there was a feeling of sadness and hope as I strolled through the blocks of housing. It reminded me of my university days and how it slowly has become less recognizable. During my visit students were moving out and talking to each other from their roof top patios and dogs scampered around as they waited on their owners to say their last goodbyes. The ivy on the buildings clung for life adding a beautiful contrast on the colors.

The feeling of hope radiated and I appreciated the unique artistic displays that the students had painted on the facades of their homes. Some were more literal than others with replicas of Piet Mondrian, Roy Lichtenstein, and Keith Haring.

The news hit that these units were going to be a thing of the past and students decided to have a party which quickly escalated into outsiders deciding they could help in the destruction. Sadly, broken windows, fist fights, and fires broke out and the party promoters had to call riot police in August of last year. Photos can be seen at Sueddeutsch Zeitung. Rather than renovating, it is less expensive for the units to simply be rebuilt.

Another unexpected shock to me was how it reminded me of a cleaner version of Christiania, the squatter type neighborhood located in Copenhagen pictured above. The colors of Christiania added to it's allure, however when curiosity caught the best of us and we decided to visit I was really disappointed. The concept of Christiania was to provide for each other, which sounds good in theory, but I couldn't really respect the conditions that these people chose to live in or their attitudes towards outsiders. I like to tell myself these people were so busy caring for each other that they simply didn't have time to care about their city. The area was litter filled and lacked the 'hippiness' I was told it was filled with.

Having visited the village of Yellow Springs, Ohio many times, I think I have a fair comparison of how a self respecting hippy village looks. It's a place of pride, natural living, and even draws free concerts from Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and other friends of resident celebrity Dave Chappelle.


I am intrigued to see if the new village, which is scheduled for completion in 2009, will have as much character as it does now.

Thanks Troy for the inspiration! Check out his blog, it's really informative, not only for Munich but many other European cities.

Another thing...if you are visiting Munich in the near future, there is a beautiful view from olympic tower B on the 15th floor. You can see the entire BMW plant, Allianze arena, olympic park, Frauenkirche, and on a good day even the Alps.

Copenhagen

We spent a lot of our day shopping and enjoying the great design stores - particularly Illums, which loves to tout that the Queen shops there. We spent plenty of time walking around and enjoying all of the colorful buildings.

Last night we had a really great meal at a Vietnamese restaurant down the street from our hotel called Lê Lë Nhà Hang. It is a modern take on street food with really fresh and delicious ingredients. It's a great place.

I started keeping a small list of things I noticed during our visit to Copenhagen...

Beautiful design - but it's the same price as home, just all condensed into shops.

The 80's is back in full force... tight pants / pants tucked into socks (no thanks).

Bright pants - even shiny spandex bright leggings (eek!) - I just kept thinking Richard Simons sweating to the oldies!

The slim fit pants are worn with low converse or vans in a variety of colors and patterns.

Expensive food - dinner is going to set you back at least 50€ or about $75, for a no frills meal.

Dividing by 7 for the price... at least things aren't deceiving - you know it's expensive when it says 700 DKK.

Christmas came and went during our visit - all the decorations were taken down so quickly.

Nyhavn is one of the most picturesque little areas with a great nautical flair. Everyone knows how much I wish my life was a musical and this could very well make a great set... but it's real life!

The grocery had alligator, spring bok, kangaroo, and ostrich meats in the freezer!

Christiania - the independent community, is dilapidated and spray painted. I like graffiti -I'm a big fan of Banksy, but this was pushing the limits for me... it was more of a squatter community than hippie area.


The best meals were at Lê Lë Nhà Hang + Lagkagehuset (a bakery in Christianshavn and across from Tivoli). I am still thinking about this blintz.

English TV with Danish subtitles - this is why all the Scandinavian people speak English so well.

Today we had a hard time finding a children's book. Typically we buy one written in English or with a lot of great pictures, however it was not as easy to find one. We settled on a pretty little animal lexicon with the danish word for the animal written underneath it.

Our next stop was the Rundetårn or round tower, where we walked up for a decent view of the city. It was a bit foggy so things weren't very visible. After that we went to Christianshavn for a quick lunch and then the the 'Freetown Christiania', which was a big let down.

It seemed more like a ramshackle area than one that I envisioned to be like Yellow Springs back home. The dirt streets smelled of marijuana and run down 'homes' were lucky to still be standing. From all that I have read, the people that live there have fought tooth and nail to keep their subculture alive, which I have to respect. It's just difficult for me to think highly of their abode when they don't seem to care what it looks like - the spray painting is one thing, but the trash littering the area is something else.

Københaven

Stefan and I arrived this morning in Copenhagen... I should also mention that we left at 5am!

It was a great start because we were able to use Stefan's Senator status and check in with first class and enjoy the nice lounge and delicious breakfast.

Our flight left at 6am and was in to Copenhagen by 8am. Fortunately we were able to check into our hotel right away and we promptly took a nap and then began our day around 11am. I couldn't get over just how dark it was - even at 9am things looked really dusky. The nap was just what we needed after waking up at 4am.

Our first stop was to the tourist info office (this is always my first stop now after learning of the great maps they have). Then we headed across the street to Tivoli Park. It was a kitschy take on international destinations such as Morocco, Asia, and India. There were a lot of carney rides and some beautiful lighted areas.

We continued walking into town and it was quite a hike! We walked past the Råthus (townhall) and down some of the shopping streets - most of which were closed due to the holiday. I saw plenty of beautiful design shops that I am sure we are going to stop at tomorrow.


After wandering about town (and being guided mainly by beautiful colored buildings) we stopped at Gråbrødretorv - a picturesque square where we were alone to enjoy it (photo was taken with the self timer). I couldn't get enough of the colors. We walked past Nikolaj church and towards Børse (the stock exchange) on our way to Nyhavn. I loved walking along the water way and stumbling upon the most serene seascapes. I also loved all of the boats and contrasting colors.


Once we arrived at Nyhavn I was in heaven. It has a lot of row homes and businesses with boats in the canals. Since it is so warm many of the cafes are still open with outdoor seating. We stopped at a beautiful little nautical themed restaurant for a mug of gløgg (similar to Munich's glühwein with almonds bits and raisins in the bottom). I don't think I could take enough photos, but it was really nice to see the sun shining on the beautiful row houses after a relatively gray day.

We walked quite far - all the way past the Royal palace (Amalienborg) and to see the Little Mermaid statue in honor of Hans Christian Andersen's story. Tomorrow we will head to a book shop to hopefully find a beautifully designed children's book based on some of his tales.


I love Scandinavia because of the proximity to water, the cleanliness, and the striking design. Stefan kept telling me that he is happy that I like beautiful things and it makes him happy to buy them for me. Then he snuck in the comments about he appreciates them too and that's why he married me. We love to say overly saccharine things to each other, but as dorky as it is we always have fun making each other laugh with things like that.

We walked all around town for about 5 hours and I was so happy to see the 'S bahn' and come back to our hotel. It also gets dark quite early so around 5pm my body is telling me it's closer to 9pm. I can already tell I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight!