Too Many J's

The rain that had been following us around throughout the ends of our trips through cities didn't disappoint at the end of our stay in Zagreb, only this time it rained in earnest. None of this drizzling mist stuff. We had discovered a bit of a time discrepancy on when we needed to be in Austria and were making new plans on the fly. We decided that the best thing do do was to stay in Ljubljana for the night and catch the next train to the town in Austria we were going to be skiing in. This prompted us to pack in a hurry and run out the door thanking our host profusely. I mean the man bought be a bag of Turkish coffee and taught me how to make it, all because I said I didn't drink alcohol and instead enjoyed coffee. He was quite a cool man. The rain pushed us to our goal quickly, and the tram sheltered us all the way to the train station.

Slovenia, we thought, was going to be a lot like Zagreb; cool, but not really worth spending more than a day in. Our train ride through the countryside of Slovenia was trying to prove us wrong. It was a beautiful ride that wandered through the mountainous region. We had seen evidences of a large amount of water recently being in the area, and the river that was by the tracks raged as it was bursting at the seams. 

Before getting to Ljubljana I had read that the exchange rate was similar to that of Hungary. I was relieved to find out that they had changed to the Euro in 2007. I was back to not having to stretch my brain to find out how many Euros went into different currencies. As it turns out, the city of Ljubljana has many fun things to see. We could spend more than just one afternoon here but that is not how time works for us right now. We heard tell of a castle on a hill and promptly searched it out. On our way up the hill we navigated past an incredible amount of fallen trees due to water. As it turns out there was indeed a lot of water that had recently fallen in the area. We finally made it to the top of the hill and to the castle. There we climbed to the top of the tower and looked over the city. We may or may not have a complex about needing to be on the highest point around. From here we could see the cute town (yes I did just use that word to describe a town). It was quaint and in many ways resembled parts of Austria. Since Austria is just a few hours away I could see this to be possible. Nestled in the southern part of what used to be Yugoslavia, Slovenia had many of the same issues as the rest of Yugoslavia, and several more to boot. In a country that is only one year older than me, I found it to be quite remarkable what all they have done. Being the first country I have been too in weeks to use the Euro, proves that their economic state is relatively stable. I had just one problem with Ljubljana. It has too many j's in the name.

First coming here I had, as previously mentioned, thoughts that this might not be an interesting city. I was thinking that for entertainment people learned how to spell the city with super hard spelling. I knew that's what I was probably going to end up doing. Because I was wrong in assuming there would be nothing to do, I still don't know how to spell it. I had to copy the name off of Google and am pasting it wherever I want to use the word. The pronunciation makes it worthwhile in the end. Because even though it is an exceptionally hard word to spell, it's really fun to say. And frankly, that's all that matters, we have the internet for the spelling.