I love Christmas carols.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to go carolling this year.  Perhaps we will have time for Christmas carols at the Flaming Gryphon's 12th Night celebration in January.  Sadly, the 12th Night event is not until January 26th, a little late for most people to want to sing holiday songs, but we might be able to make it work.

I apologize, I've not blogged in a while.  The holiday season has been a bit hectic, as it usually gets.  I spent the week and a half before Christmas baking, baking, and doing more baking as part of my annual cookie blitz.  I love baking Christmas cookies and other goodies, and I give homemade cookie plates to my co-workers as my Christmas present to them.  My husband loves my baking, too, and since he gets to benefit directly from my baking (read: he gets to taste test, lick bowls, can eat any cookies I don't think come out right, and gets all of the leftovers) he does all of my baking dishwashing.  I made 13 different goodies this year, and only had one failure (I wanted to do molded shortbread in the shortbread forms I have, but the recipe I used was not good for molded cookies, and my stupid oven can't preheat correctly or hold a temperature.  I didn't like how they came out, but Jason said they tasted just fine to him!)   

The most interesting baking experience this year was the potica - traditional slovene rolled bread, usually filled with walnuts.  I bake potica every year and usually send a loaf to my Dad as part of his Christmas present.  However, he sent me a note stating that nuts upset his digestive system anymore, so I found a "new" receipe in an old Slovenian Women's Union cookbook ("Women's Glory - The Kitchen" - how non-PC can you get??) for sour cream potica.  Since the sour cream is baked into the bread, I imagined it would not cause him any problems.  First of all, since it was an old recipe it used old measures (a large cake of yeast, a box of sour cream) and imprecise directions ("once the mixture is warm enough..." Warm enough for what?).  Second, I wasn't sure if my yeast was good because the use-by date on the package was 2006.  However, I decided to try it and see if the yeast was still alive - yeast doesn't really go bad, it just won't make the dough rise if it's not good.  I found out in short order that my yeast was good and very, very lively.  Finally, the quantity of flour called for in the recipe fell far short of what I ended up having to use.  I should have known there was a problem when mixing the dough and noticing it had more of a batter consistency than dough (especially for a recipe that you needed to be able to roll out and fill).  My fears were confirmed after letting the dough rise for an hour - I didn't have dough, I had soup!  And happy, happy yeast that made the soup dough rise all the way up the sides of my big Tupperware bread bowl to the very top.  When I went to punch down the dough, my hand pretty much went straight through to the bottom of the bowl.  Good thing I had plastic wrap on top!   Wanting to make the recipe work,  I immediately dumped 2 more cups of flour in (following the recipe, I already had 6 cups of flour in there) and tried to start working the dough with my hands.  No good - it was sticky like taffy and I was in it to my wrists.  So I plaintively called upstairs to my husband to come down and help - he was already getting ready to go to bed - and had him put 2 more cups of flour in the mix.  I ended up dumping out about a 1/3 of a cup of excess flour, but at last I had something I could call dough and that would be useful for the recipe.  I turned it out on my floured tablecloth and kneaded it a bit, then realized I'd have to put it back in the oven to rise for another hour.  So much for getting to bed at a reasonable time that night.... In the end, it worked out well enough and I'm pleased with the results - although I'll be updating the recipe book to require between 9 and 10 cups of flour (not including what was needed for the rolling out).   With the extra flour, after it was all rolled, filled, and baked, I ended up with one round potica in my traditional ceramic bundt-style potica pan, one large bread pan loaf, one medium loaf, a small loaf, and a little ramekin.  It's a good thing I have some experience with making bread or this would have been a complete loss.  And since it did turn out successfully in the end, I'll do it again - maybe next time, I'll make the potica when I have a whole day to devote to it rather than an evening after I get home from work.  Just in case.

Enough of that, I guess.  I hope everyone had a Vesele Bozic~ (Slovene for Merry or Happy Christmas).  I'll return to the travelogue with the next blog entry.  And if she ever sees this, I send my best to Sheree Bozic, my friend from college who drove a Yugo and whose last name means Christmas.

The B-52s, party band that they are, had some fun music.  Rock Lobster is still one of my favorites.  And the extended remix of Love Shack is, in my opinion, better than the original.  And I would be remiss if I neglected to mention Roam, which has a special significance among my local medieval recreationist friends, because with just a little tweaking you can dance "Road to the Isles" ("Roam to the Isles") to it instead of to the music Scotland the Brave. 

So where was I?  Ah, yes, we had just finished the creme layers in Bled.  A full day, you might say?  But - as the famous saying goes - wait, there's more.

We rode on our replacement bus out of Bled and towards Radovljica, as Manja and her trusty cell phone made some quick calls.  (I found it interesting that, in Slovenia, people answer the phone with "Prosim" - that is, please - rather than a Hello like "Zivio".)  We had been scheduled to tour the Apiculture Museum (C~ebelarski Muzej) in Radovljica, but due to the unforeseen delays in Bled we were late and the Museum was closed.  Fortunately, Manja was able to get the Musuem to open for us (a benefit of a 5-star tour, or just an example of how Slovenes are?  I don't know which is more accurate.)

Bees and beekeeping are enormously important in Slovenia, and not just in history.  As we left Bled, I saw a few fully-functioning beehives, oddly located right along busy streets and close to residential and business areas.  We had already visited one place yesterday with a display of the painted beehive covers, now we were seeing a whole museum dedicated to bees and beekeeping.

We arrived in Radovljica at dusk, and were quickly herded towards the museum building.  We couldn't see much of the town in the waning light, but it was apparent that it was an old city and we were near the city center.  The Museum was on the second floor of a building, and you reaching it by climbing one of a matched set of wide stone stairs.  Very elegant looking.  As we got to the second floor, we could see into parts of the museum through some glass walls.   The guide was there and waiting for us.  After a short introduction, we were allowed to roam freely through the small but very nicely put together museum.  There was an entire room filled with the painted beehive covers (known as Panjska Konc~nica), many from the 1800s.  I think the majority were done by non-professional local people to adorn their own beehives, so they had an authentic rustic quality to them.  I don't mean they were poorly done - most were very well painted!  The covers fell into a few major categories - the most popular appeared to be religious themes (Mary, Jesus, the Holy Infant, saints), folklore, and scenes from daily life (including cautionary themes, like a wife finding her husband drinking and gambling).  The folklore ones were very interesting to me.  One I saw a lot was a woodland scene with animals carrying a prone hunter on a litter.  I wasn't sure if that meant the animals were serving the man, or that it was a reversal and the hunter had become the hunted, and the animals were carrying their trophy.  There was a funny one of men putting old women into a machine, and on the other side out came young women.  Also, there were ones of the devil running a whetstone to sharpen womens' tongues!  But that's just the merest sampling of the variety they had on display.  There were also figural beehives there - in the shape of a mansion, a bear, a person, etc. 

Naturally, the museum also had a live beehive there.  It was against one of the outside walls, and a tunnel allowed the bees to leave and come back.  We watched for a while as the bees went about their business.  I tried to find the queen (usually marked with a dot of paint) but we were running out of time.  Before we left, I bought a few things at the museum's gift shop - an intricate molded beeswax heart-shaped ornament and a bottle of honey liquor.

Our next and final stop of the evening was just down the street from the museum - a restaurant with a Gingerbread museum and shop in the basement!  It was a very natural transition to move from the honey museum to a ginegerbread bakery.  While it wasn't a full-scale museum per se, you could see people working on making the gingerbread, along with the cutters and little paper designs that they put on the finished cookies.  Slovenian gingerbread cookies are not what we think of as gingerbread.  These cookies are given as love tokens and keepsakes as much as they are eaten, I think.  Most are heart shaped and the tops are covered in a deep red glaze, then layers of colored and white icing in detailed patterns and often with pieces of paper held in place by the icing.  As the icing dries, it hardens - and these cookies are durable!  I have one at home that I was given years ago - it is shaped like a narrow oval with a knob at the top, and a Victorian-style vintage looking child's face was on the knob, so the whole thing had the effect of a baby in swaddling clothes with only their face was visible, the red icing the blanket and the icing the decoration on the blanket. 

REM is a worthwhile band.   It's The End of the World As We Know It was just cool and fun, like Stand.  Man in the Moon is one of their best, even though it's about Andy Kaufmann.

Since it's been a while since I updated this blog, this will be a longish entry.  You have been warned.  I hope you packed a lunch. 

Bled is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, it seems.  A lot of other people think so, too, based on the number of hotels and casinos and other touristy amenities there.  And I’ve found that people who have only heard marginally of Slovenia know about Bled, or who have visited Slovenia went to Bled.  And why not?  A gorgeous deep blue alpine lake surrounded by green, wooded hills, and surmounted by a medieval castle on a tall outcrop of rock overlooking the lake.  There is a single small island in the lake with an old church on it.  Just magnificent, from any angle.

Here, again, though it caused so much hardship and even deaths, the flooding actually worked to our advantage.  Since we had been denied a visit to Mt. Vogel and Lake Bohinj, we instead were able to tour the castle (to my happiness).  The road up to the castle was a series of sharp hairpin turns up the mountainside, with the rock face on one side and a sheer drop on the other side.  It was a bit worrisome to look out the windows on the open side of the bus.  Since we were already high above the road in the tour bus, it just exaggerated the effect of being in peril.  And, since this was not the usual bus nor our trusty Luka driving it, I’m sure I was not the only one with any vague, subconscious concern.  (On the other hand, being in the bus in situations like this made for amazing views.) Once we reached the parking lot of the castle, several of us disembarked.  However, it was quite a steep hike up to the castle and I think some stayed on the bus. Jason and I raced up the ramp as well as we could – there were no steps, just time and foot worn cobblestones at a terrific incline.  There was a handrail, though, and some grassy areas along the walls for a little traction.  I loved going through the gate in the wall surrounding the castle, the wooden bridge in days before probably being a drawbridge that could be lifted to bar the way to undesirables.  We reached the top fairly quickly and waited in a little café/patio area while the rest of the group straggled up, and began taking pictures.  You can tell why castles were built where they were – the view from the castle commanded the entire area.  You could see the whole of the lake and surrounding mountains.  It would be difficult to be surprised by an invading army up there, and it was a solid, defensible site.

In time, all had arrived who were coming up.  Jason was suitably impressed by the castle.  He said I could keep my Predjamski Grad, this would be his castle.  I smiled and told him to wait until such time as he saw “my” castle, although I allowed that this could be our “summer castle”.  Ah, dreams.

We proceeded to the walking self-tour through the rooms of the castle museum.  It was set up a little better than when I was there last, but many of the same things were there like the amazing huge wardrobe covered in marquetry.  I looked around at the small gift counter and I think I may have gotten a couple of postcards, but that was all.  Knowing that time was short and we needed to get back to the bus and head to our next destination, but I wanted to look in the chapel first.  Robert was in the chapel, too, and we looked together at the altar area, trying to determine what the niches were used for.  There are some lovely paintings on the wall, possibly frescos, plus coats of arms.  I was attempting to follow the lineage of the arms, but reluctantly knew I had to leave.  As I exited the chapel and entered the plaza area, I heard a cry and saw some commotion ahead of me.  I couldn’t see what was going on due to a large shrub on the steps, so I ran forward, silently whispering to myself, “Please don’t let it be a member of our group, please don’t let it be someone from our group.”  But it was.  I saw Lois lying unhappily and in obvious pain on the paving stones, with one of the Carols kneeling over her.  Apparently, the ladies had been coming down the 3-4 steps from the upper plaza, and one of them tripped or lost her footing and both went down.  Jason had already gone to the gift shop to get help, and another person brought over a goblet of water.  Carol was beside herself as she hovered over Lois.  Slowly, we got her to sit up, then helped her to a nearby chair.  Her ankle hurt very badly, and we couldn’t tell if it was strained or if it had fractured or broken.  We encouraged her to have some water.  It became apparent that Lois would not be able to walk on her own.  Someone else had gone down and advised Manja about what had happened.  After a few minutes rest, Jason and I supported Lois on either side and helped her move to a nearby chair.  Understandably, she was shaken up from the fall and scared about the condition of her ankle. I determined that the quickest way down with the least number of steps was via a semi-circle of steps, like a little amphitheater seating area.  Also, it was the most direct route to a restroom, which Lois was asking for.  We told her to just rest her weight on us and we would support her down the steps.  It took a little while and we paused a few times, but finally we got down to the level with the WC. At this point, Jason ran down to the bus to let everyone else know what was going on and came back as quickly as he could.  The next section that Lois would need to traverse had stairs on one side and slope on the other – I thought the slope was too steep and slippery for Lois’ needs.  The stairs had a handrail she could use to support herself, and she decided to try that.  Carol tried to help, too, blaming herself for the fall.  Lori made it down the stairs and stopped in a chair at the bottom, not wanting to go farther.  Leaving her in Manja’s care, Jason and I went down to the bus and gave the rest of the group an update.  Most of the men on the tour were standing outside of the bus, and we joked that everyone had better be on the bus and in our seats by the time Manja came back or they’d be in trouble!

Manja was going to call an ambulance for Lois so that she could have her ankle x-rayed, but the nearest one was a good few hours away at the site of the flooding and would not be able to make it to the Bled castle anytime soon.  So instead Manja arranged for a cab to come and take her to hospital.  When the taxi arrived, he went up and he and Manja brought Lois down from the castle.  Once Lois was safely in the taxi and en route to hospital, Manja got back on the bus and we started down to the town to try to enjoy the rest of the afternoon as much as possible.

Our next stop was beside the lake, where we all boarded traditional wooden boats (called "pletna") to be rowed across to the island.  Still a little on edge from the incident at the castle, Jason and I helped people onto the boats, which were not so much moored as chained to hooks on the shore.  Once everyone was on the two boats, we took a peaceful ride across the lake.  It was so beautiful, and I took a few pictures of the castle from the middle of the lake.  My Mom and Laurie were on the other boat, and we had fun waving at them from our boat, which was first across.  Manja had told a story about the island, the lake, and the wishing bell (see below) on the way, that a woman mourning the loss of her husband sent all her jewelry to be melted down and cast into a bell for the church.  But the bell, when it was being rowed out to the island, had fallen into the water during a storm and was lost.  The story goes that the woman now haunts the island mourning her love and hoping to find the bell, and her ghost can be seen sometimes in the mists. 

The island has been in use since prehistoric times as a sacred site, so it only made sense to build a church there.  We docked on the far side of the island and walked on wooded paths to the church.  (Manja, also still worried, told everyone to stay on the easy path and not try the stairs!)  The church, dedicated to Mary, was very pretty, but its big claim to fame is the church bell, and you are supposed to make a wish as you ring it.  After looking at some historical information outside we went inside and sat down in the pews.  There, hanging down in the middle of the church between the pews and the altar, was the rope for the wishing bell.  The first couple went up to ring it, and it took quite a few pulls to get the bell going, which made it a little easier for the people after them.  As everyone else was taking their turn, I looked around the altar area.  There were places where the floor had been replaced with glass or some other clear material, and you could see into the area under the church with the catacombs, which was really cool and interesting.  Finally, when everyone else had finished, Jason and I rang the bell.  (I’m not telling you what my wish was, though!) 

Leaving the church, we were told to hurry so we could make it to our next stop, but I peeked in the gift shop building for a moment and walked around a display of crèches.  I wish we had had more time there, but we needed to move on.  The way back to the boats on this side of the church was the island’s other claim to fame: the 99 steps.  They were not particularly steep or difficult, but it is traditional when people get married at the church for the groom to carry his bride up the 99 steps to the top.  Someone Mom knows from SWU branch 103 (Washington, DC) just got married in Bled this summer and there is a picture in the winter Zarja of him carrying his wife-to-be up the steps!

Then, back onto the boats for the return trip to shore.  Instead of returning to the place we’d embarked from, we docked at a small private pier.  I was really looking forward to this stop – we were going to have kremschnitte or crème layers (Bled’s signature dessert) on the patio of a hotel which was once Tito’s palace. (Tito was fond enough of Bled to have a residence built there for himself.)  But as we exited the boats, everyone groaned when they saw they needed to climb a flight up steps to get there!  However, they were very wide, low steps (Tito had foot or leg problems and had the stairs built this way so he could navigate them easier), and to prove that they were no big deal, I climbed them two at a time and reached the top very quickly.  (Besides, once I started up I got into a good stepping rhythm and just kept going until I was done.)  We headed for a small open patio where tables were set up and everyone took seats.  There was a wonderful view of the island and castle from the patio – no wonder Tito chose this spot!   Almost immediately, servers came around to offer a choice of tea and bring out large slabs of crème layers.  Similar to a napoleon, crème layers are thick cakes made of custard and whipped cream with thin layers of pastry separating them and on the top and bottom.  Instead of frosting, there is a dusting of powdered sugar on top.  I chose a fruit tea to go with it, and when the hot water was added it steeped to a gorgeous deep ruby red, slightly tart tea.  Yumm.  

The hotel was quite beautiful and ritzy inside (and expensive, I’m sure).  After our “snack”, we waited in front of the hotel for our bus to come, and I had some time to chat with and get to know more of the people on the tour.

Sweet, in my opinion, is yet another under-appreciated band.  Love is so definitely like oxygen.

Lake Bled is one of the most photogenic sites on Earth.  More later.

Louie Prima, I believe, is under-appreciated these days.  His version of "Old Black Magic" with Keeley Smith stands the test of time.  It is still as lively and rocking as ever.  And Jason is a big Louie Prima fan.

Before I return to our story, I should explain about the strange use of the "~" that I've been peppering my tale with.  Slovenian has 3 letters that English does not.   They are like an extra c, s, and z.  (On they other hand, they do not use "y", since that sound is made by their letter "j".)  C is pronounced "tsc", while c with the little "v" shaped accent over it is "ch"; S is our regular "sss", but the s with the caret is "sh", and their z is similar to our "zzz" but their accented z is pronounced liked "dzg" (like in the English word "bridge").  Since I don't have an international keyboard in front of me, whenever I use the "~" after a c,h, or z, it means the Slovene letter. 

On this topic, I should mention that typing on Slovene keyboards is tricky.  On their keyboards, the z key is where our y key is, and I don't think I ever found the apostrophe.  On some keys, they have 3 options - the main character, a character that you get by holding Alt and the key, and another character you get by holding another extra key on their keyboard down, the Alt Gr key.  (I don't know what Alt Gr stands for, but I say it "Alt Grrrr".)  It's quite a relief to be typing at a "regular" keyboard now that I'm remembering the Slovene keyboards.  I make enough keystroke errors on my own without the added complication of a foreign keyboard map!

The Kompas hotel in Kranska Gora had 2 computers set aside in a niche in their lobby for use by the hotel guests.  They were free to use and you didn't need any special access, you could just sit down and go.  (Well, more to the point, you'd first wait for one to free up since they were almost always in use.)  The computers had a decent connection speed, although I suspect that most people - myself included - just used them to check their email.   There was some confusion on the part of some of the tour members who never use web access to check their email, since most of the pages (and pop-ups and error messages) were in Slovene. Since I only use webmail for my email, I knew what options to choose to get in and it was easy for me.  I had to use some educated guess work to help people figure out how to log in remotely to their mail servers.  Laurie was concerned because she couldn't remember how to log in since she never logs out of her mail at home and it is always open and ready for her to use!  Once she was logged in, I cautioned her to make a point of logging out so that other people could not see/use her email.   Not that I believe there was a huge risk of that or of anyone doing anything malicious, but you can never be sure.

As the trip progressed and we went on to the other 3 hotels on the tour, we missed the Kompas hotel's computer offerings (and full size, if Slovene, keyboards).

Talking Heads.  New Wave.  Same as it ever was.  Same as it ever was.

Day 4 of the trip, day 3 in Slovenia.  It turned out to be a leisurely morning for all of us, another change to our intinerary due to the flooding.  We had been scheduled for a trip to Lake Bohinj and a cable car ride up Mt. Vogel for views of Triglav (the highest peak in Slovenia and the mountain on the country's coat of arms), but apparently the roads either were completely washed out or in such a poor state that we had to cancel that trip.

To the plus, I think all of us were very glad to have a few hours to relax.  After a nice breakfast, most of the tour goup headed into the little town by the hotel.  It was such a glorious morning!  The air was cool but clear, and all of us were busy taking pictures of the beautiful mountains surrounding us.  The tops were wreathed in clouds and the forested sides lit by the morning sun. 

Our first stop of the day was at one of the banks in town to exchange dollars for euros.  I had exchanged some at the airport, but the rate at the bank was a little better so I decided to change some more money.  Sadly, while we were in Slovenia the dollar hit its all-time low against the Euro, so things we bought over there were more expensive than I had anticipated. 

After the bank, Mom went to the post office to mail the postcards she had already written.  I never got around to sending any postcards, I just bought them as souvenirs.  After the post office, we went to the Mercator, which is a large department store chain in Slovenia.  We saw many Mercators over the next week and a half as we travelled around the country.  I bought some postcards there and some water to refill our water bottles with (less expensive than buying new water bottles all the time).  I got a litre of lemon flavored water and a litre of Radenska, Slovenia's mineral water.  I really like the taste of Radenska and had been craving it for a while.  I ordered some on the Adria flight, but that only whetted my appetite for it.  Radenska is available both sparkling ("with gas") and plain ("without gas").    I also got some strawberry tea (caj), and they even had the brand I was looking for.  I had bought this kind of tea the last time I was in Slovenia and enjoyed it, and not too long ago I used up the last of the tea bags so I wanted some more to take home.  (Jason and I love tea, and we keep an extensive selection at home.  We also love going to high tea together, but that too is a story for a different time.)

With full shopping bags, we proceeded into the village to get a better look at the shops we had passed the night before on the way to dinner now that they were open.  I browsed in a few, but nothing interested me enough to buy.  There were also some carts set up in the plaza near the town's church.   One of the carts had a woman who would tell you about your health and what semi-precious stone you should carry in order to ease or remedy any ailments you suffered from.  Mom and Laurie had their stones read, but I wasn't interested.  At another cart was a honey seller with honey, honey liquors, and other honey products.  We also looked inside the church, which was beautiful, but we could only get as far as the glassed-in vestuble since no services were going on at the time.

We all returned to the hotel and prepared for the rest of the day's planned activities.  Back on the bus, we headed out to a the village of Dovje to see a "typical Gorenjski region house", called Kovac~nica.  There, after being greeted at the door with brandies, we were treated to a wonderful lunch.  It began with 3 slices of good bread, each spread or covered with something different.   On one slice was a sharp-tasting green onion paste, one had a type of salty lardy stuff (not terribly different from butter, if you think about it), one had a slice of prociutto, and these were joined on the plate by several slices of dried apple.  As we ate a man came out and started playing on the accordion (since it was a small room, the accordion was very loud).  It was funny, the women who were serving and telling us about the house had to keep shushing him when they needed to talk.   After the appetizer, we were served very good mushroom soup.  We also had our first (but certainly not last) taste of buckwheat.  A mound of brown soft polenta-looking stuff was brought to the table with the soup, and we asked what it was.  We were informed that it was buckwheat, and we could stir into the soup to make it more like a stew - give it body and texture (but not much extra flavor).  I forget what else we had, possibly another strukli for dessert, but it was all very good.  (Correction: we had potica for dessert for the first time during our trip.  Potica might as well be the national dish - it is a rolled, filled pastry, usually made with walnuts and honey.  Mmmm.)  I noticed an old spinning wheel in one corner and asked if I could take a look.  It was in poor condition and missing pieces, but I was fascinated nonetheless.  We also learned how to crack walnuts with your bare hands - squeeze two together, and if there is a weak spot one will break the shell of the other.  The walnuts were different from English walnuts, which we in America are most used to.  One of the brandies they served at the beginning was made from walnuts.

After lunch, we headed down to the gift shop below, and to some bad news.  When we were coming into the village on the bus, the bus driver realized halfway up a hill that the bus would not make it into the town and we'd need to walk up the steep incline to the village.   As he backed up the bus to turn around, a wheel went off the road and into a hole.  The sound it made alarmed everyone on the bus, and there was a  burning-ish smell.  Manja told us that the bus was broken and Luka had taken it to be repaired.  The repair would take a little while, but as we were eating lunch she had arranged for another bus and driver to come, and it was now waiting for us at the bottom of the hill. 

Our next stop was a place I was very anxious for Jason to see, because it is so beautiful and it has a great castle: Lake Bled.

A Supertramp reference today, from their excellent album "Breakfast In America".  The title song includes the word "kippers".  I don't know any other song off the top of my head which does, and I think it's very cool.  I enjoyed kippers a few times while in England.  But I'm pretty sure they don't have them in Texas, even though everyone's a millionaire.

So, we are on the 3rd day of the Slovenia trip, although only the 2nd day in Slovenia.  I was in room 308 - I remember this because they wrote it in chalk on the top of my suitcase, and you can still read it.  After a lovely breakfast buffet - like I said earlier, the Kompas hotel had the *best* food - we got on the bus and headed for Kobarid, where there is a World War I museum. 

The drive to the museum - in fact, all of the driving today - wove out of Slovenia and through Italy before returning to Slovenia.  We crossed the Italian border a total of 4 times, I think.  While Manja advised us to have our passports ready when we got to a border crossing, we were only stopped one time because the Italian guard came on the bus to ask if anyone was from Boston!  He had either visited Boston or knew people in Boston.  (No Bostonians, the closest we had were a couple from Connecticut.)  I think the ease of border crossing was a combination of several factors - our bus driver explaining that we were short-cutting to other places in Slovenia, the EU, a tour bus full of nice older Americans - although Manja joked at one point it was because Luka smiled so nice at the border guard.  Someone on the bus shouted for Luca to show some leg next time, too, in case the border guards started to give us trouble.

Italy in that area doesn't look terribly different from Slovenia.  A lot of the signs were still in Slovene (or both languages), and people living in that area probably consider themselves both Slovene and Italian.  That territory has been disputed for so long, and part of so many different countries and empires that they probably ignore a lot of the political distinctions and carry on with life as usual.  One difference Manja pointed out, though, is the high cost of energy in Italy versus Slovenia.  And that the Italians were not as well off as the people on the Slovenian side of the border. 

Back in Slovenia, we finally arrived in Kobarid. The Museum is quite good, packed with artifacts, and we had a very good guide.   As we arrived and were waiting to begin our tour, a local school group came through for a tour.  It was interesting seeing local life continuing as usual - a school field trip of kids with notebooks and backpacks - as we were on this huge vacation.

The Museum is in a house that, I believe, was at least 300-400 years old.  We started on the top floor, where in one room they have an enormous dimensional scale map of the Alps in that area, showing the 2 local river valleys and the lines of defense during the war.  It was a great history lesson of the war in that area.  History becomes so much more interesting and "real" when you can actually go where it happened and listen to people who are passionate about it.   We were able to identify the way we had driven to the museum by looking at the map.  The way was very interesting, passing both castles and WWI bunkers (some being one and the same).  We also passed a war monument / monuement to one of the generals with a huge sleeping lion statue at the bottom.

After the initial presentation orienting us, we went into a room to watch a film about the war in that area.  (I also ducked into a small room with a mock-up of an officer's hut - cool.)  The war there was problematic due to the mountains and the cold, and the lack of shelter.  War is, as has been often observed, nasty business.  Oddly, the film contradicted and/or offered a different viewpoint on a few items versus what the museum guide had told us in the other room.  There are always so many different ways of looking at something - at least as many viewpoints as there are people looking at anything. 

The rest of the museum was artifacts, uniforms, tools, pictures, relics.  One room was pointed out with a warning - not for the squeamish or easily upset.  That was the room with pictures of the dead soldiers laying in the field, and photos of people who had part or much of their face blown away, although they were still alive.  Laurie tried to shield me from that display, but I've seen similar before.  It is a testament to the wonder of the human body, and to the complexity of the head.  To have at least 2 sense organs missing - how do you continue?  I remembered an article I read in Smithsonian about how, during the World Wars, plastic surgery was either in its infancy, unknown, or practicioners were stretched too thin to take care of more than a percentage of the wounded.  A group of artists then began making masks to replicate what the face looked like before the wound for the solders to wear, to give them some sense of "normalcy" back in civilian life.

As this was the first site we visited, of course our group hit the tiny little souvenir area hard, buying mostly post cards.   Unfortunately, since most people just had got their Euros and didn't have much change, there was a problem with the gift shop running out of change for what people were buying!

After the mueseum, we kept driving in the beautiful alpine countryside to our first "tourist farm".  The term "tourist farm" still strikes me - and probably a lot of Americans - as funny. But it is an actual working farm or other agriculture site where they give demonstrations and host people to show what farms are like.  There's more to it, though.  I don't think I can describe it very well.  The area is what is known as the "Goris~ka Brda" wine region.  (Slovenia has 3 wine regions - we visited all and sampled all - with interest.)  This area was known for its white wines.  At the farm, Toros~, we had a big lunch.  Toros was interesting because, looking down the hill, over the grapevines, we could see some houses maybe a half mile away.  The owner told us that the houses were in Italy!  The other thing about tourist farms is that they can only serve / sell what they produce onsite.  We had lovely fresh apple juice, white polenta with prosciutto,  mushroom soup (good!),  I think potatoes and meat and something else.  Dessert was s~trukli, a type of rolled pastry that is boiled, usually filled with cheese.  It can be served sweet or savory, and we had both on the tour.  This was sweet, with a kind of vanilla carmel topping.  Or fig.  There was a huge fig tree out front of the house, and olive trees growing on the side near where the bus let us off.

After dinner, we all were given a wine glass and the owner took us to his wine fermentation room.  All the wines were in tall stainless steel vats.  We were told which wine was in each vate, and then given free rein to use the spigots on the vats to serve ourselves, as much and as often as we wished!  I didn't like the wines here much - they were all too dry for my taste. 

Today was also the day we learned something of the extent of flooding damage in Slovenia.  During much of the drive, we followed the river Soc~a, which was flowing fast and heavy, athough it was so clear and a lovely clean pale blue.  We had been scheduled to visit Mt. Vrs~ic~, but could not due to the condition of the roads and treacherous conditions in places.  We did pass several ski jumps as we drove along, one of which held the record as the first place a jumper passed the 100 or 200 meter mark (I forget which).

Finally, back to the hotel to change, and a short walk into town to the Pri Martinu (St. Martin's) for a lovely dinner at 7:30.   Our group was directed to a warm, dark-wooded basement room with long tables, and we were serenaded by the same accordionist who was playing during dinner at the hotel last night.  Some of the couples got up and danced, which was great to see.  (Mom and I got up and tried to dance, but we couldn't decide who was leading!)   We were greeted with small glasses of schnapps (I didn't like the pear at all, but the blueberry was okay), then were served huge toureens of soup.  There was a creamy mushroom and a beef broth with thin noodles.  After, we went up to the buffet and loaded up our plates with good stuff.  (Everyone else went straight for the salad so I went through the hot line where there was no line, and went back for salad later after that line moved to the hot line.)  I remember there was a wonderful stuffing loaf that I originally mistook for pork.  There was beef en croute (a puff pastry-like crust) and vegetables, probably something else.  Apparently, the president of Slovenia had dined there the night before so there was a joke about the person who sat in that seat being the president.  There was a "restroom" (WC) door directly behind where Laurie and Mom were sitting - it was a joke, as that was a wall, and behind the door was a painting of a person caught on the toilet.  After we found that, everyone had to take a look.  It was all so good, although I couldn't eat the dessert.  It was good that we had to walk back to the hotel, although no one wanted to move after!  We looked at the shops on the way to and from so we could decide where we wanted to go the next day.   We all slept well that night!

Actually, the song I have in my head is "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard".  But that doesn't translate very well into a blog title.    Graceland, by Paul Simon, is an excellent album.  And it is a very good album to work out to. 

Where was I?  Oh, yes, we had just arrived in Slovenia.  Looking worriedly at the sky and the buckets of rain coming down, we made our way out of the airport and found our tour bus.  Very nice!  Cushy, roomy, well apprortioned.   We met our guide, Manja, and our bus driver, Luka.  Manja began telling us a little about Slovenia and where we were going, I think.  Between the movement of the bus, the long flight out (we all were unable to fall asleep on the plane across the Atlantic, although we were happily seated all together, the four of us, for that flight), and the dreary, rainy day outside, I fell asleep almost immediately.  The gentle swaying motion of the bus actually rocked me to sleep several times.  I imagine I wasn't alone.  Actually, I remember seeing one of Laurie's pictures showing Jason fast asleep in the seat beside me.  She couldn't tell if I was asleep or not because I was still holding on to the itinerary with my head turned towards the window.  (I found the itinerary on the floor beneath my seat when we finally arrived at the hotel and disembarked.)

The hotel was very nice, and we decided at the end of the tour that it had been our favorite (although the shower was a bit small, and we fixed the wonky shower door ourselves.  We could have asked the hotel, but by the time we figured out what the problem was, it was late and nearly the end of our stay there).  It was the Kompas hotel at Kranjska Gora, and we were there for 3 nights.  That hotel was so nice because: a) it had the best breakfast buffet, b) the views of the Julian Alps were stunning, c) it was close to the village so we could walk to and stroll about town, d) the staff was very nice and low-key, e) it had 2 fairly high-speed computers in the lobby we could use for free to check email and such, f) had we chosen to use it, the pool looked very warm and comfortable, g) it came with a "free spa usage" card, although we never had a chance to take advantage of the spa, and h) more and better TV channels.  I came to expect towel warmers in all the hotels after this one, and true to expectation, only one hotel didn't have them.  I'm guessing it was off-season for this hotel; I imagine they are booked solid during the ski season.  (Slovenes are big on outdoor sports.)   There was a kind of bobsled track down the mountain that we might have tried had we stayed longer. 

About our room: it was nice and comfortable, and we had an extra bed I used for organizing my suitcase.  The toilet was odd because it had two flush options: low flush or high flush, depending on what/how much needed to be flushed.  Good for water conservation, I guess.  Most of the hotel toilets were like this.  The window opened in a few different ways, which was a little confusing at first.  I needed to close the window because the first night it kept raining the whole time, and it was rather cool out.  We also had a table and chairs.  All hotels had at least loaner slippers if not loaner robes for going down to the pool and spas.  It was kinda odd the first time I saw other guests in the hotel wearing the slippers and robe down in the lobby on their way to or from the pool and spa.  Different culture.  *shrug*

At any rate, I was glad I had packed some warm clothes in my suitcase - while it was very warm back in America, up in the Alps it was pretty nippy!  I had questioned bringing 2 sweaters and 2 turtlenecks, but it turned out to be the right decision. 

That night, we had a nice "Welcome to Slovenia" dinner at the hotel and got to better acquaint ourselves with the other members of our group.  We had met a few at the Airport in Philly, and then of course everyone on the bus was part of our tour, but we weren't paying much attention until dinner.  I think this was where we started drinking.  Nearly every day, at least once, we were met at various locations and dinner with brandies, liquors, cordials, and schnapps.  I preferred the blueberry and honey liquors; I didn't care for the black walnut or pear, though.   And I'm not a Slivovitz (Slov: slivovka) fan (that stuff is supposedly made from plums?!?)  And a truism about the tour: the wine during meals was free, the water you had to pay for!  (What a reversal of the US!). 

Another constant of the trip: every meal we ate was enormous.  The welcome dinner was a buffet with so many really yummy options.  The kruh (bread) was to die for, it was so good.  Especially with a little bit of maslo (butter).  And delicious prosciutto everywhere.  By the time we were finished with dinner, everyone was ready to get some sleep, especially since we had an early wake-up call the next day. 

My title today comes at the request of my friend Tanner!  (Hi Tanner!  *waves*)  He sent me a link to a new TMBG video from their latest album, The Else.  They Might Be Giants and Yes are my two favorite bands.   I like songs by other groups, too (if you can't tell from the variety of titles I use), but those are my favorites.

So, back to my Slovenia trip.  We left from our home airport at noon-ish on 9/17, arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, at 6:00am (European time)  on 9/18, and finally reached our hotel about 2pm.  Frankfurt was problematic.  Since we arrived so early in the morning, the information desks were not staffed and we couldn't find the bag check area for Adria (Slovenia's airline).  After asking several staffers and security guards, we finally found Adria tucked in the midst of the Lufthansa area.  We all had our Adria plane tickets in hand, but when we tried to get boarding passes we found that we were not listed on our scheduled flight!  (We later learned that Adria's computers deleted all of the data for our tour group.)  So after waiting at the Adria counter for it to open (at 9am), we all rushed to the Adria gate to get boarding passes.  Of the 20+ people in the tour group that were scheduled for that flight, all but 4 got aboard.  Since we didn't have seat reservations, we were scattered all over the plane.  I sat next to a very nice Slovenian lady who didn't speak much English, but was coming home after visiting her husband in Louisville.  Small world.

We arrived at Slovenia's airport at Brnik in the midst of a huge downpour, and we started hearing reports of massive flooding across the country (more on that later).   Once we finally got our luggage (all of it arrived!  Yay!), we found our way to our tour bus and loaded up.

About luggage - I was worried because when my parents flew out to meet me in Slovenia after I finished Summer School there in 1994, my Mom's luggage got stopped at Frankfurt and didn't arrive for several days.  We later found out her curlers were to blame - based on the x-ray of her luggage, they thought her curlers were a bomb, and her suitcase was sitting in a concrete bunker at the Frankfurt airport waiting for her curlers to explode!

Okay, this is a good place to stop for today.  Plenty more to come.  One more thing before I end - I've been IM'ing with the aforementioned Tanner, and I thought you might be interested in something I just typed.  We're talking about the latest TMBG CD, and he's listening to the Bonus CD.   My CD (still unopened) doesn't mention anything about a bonus CD.  So I wrote him:

"But it won't mention anything about the bonus CD on the packaging? I'd hate to open this and have it be an earlier release without the bonus. It's like getting a displacer beast without the free glowing trident."

That's a story for another time.

Hi there!

I know, it's been a while since I've blogged, but there was a good reason - I was in Europe!  Specifically, Slovenia.  A perfectly lovely little country.  My husband and I went as part of a tour, along with my Mom, my friend Laurie (suprise!) and 32 other people.  My husband and I and one other girl were the only people on the tour under 50.  But we were okay with that. 

Jason and I called it the second part of our first honeymoon. We celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary while we were there - sure it was a long time to wait for the rest of our honeymoon, but it was worth it.   It was his first time out of the USA, and my 3rd trip to Slovenia.  I loved watching him see everything for the first time, finally sharing with him the wonder that is Slovenia.

But, I'm still tired so I'll continue this later.

It's A Kind of Magic may be my favorite Queen song.  It's yet another that is difficult for me to sing, though.  Go figure.  That seems to be a hallmark of the songs I like best.  Black Water is the first rock song I remember being my favorite.  And Steppin' Out.  That's the first song I remember calling in to a radio station to request.