LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

by Dan Winters (posted by his more techy savvy daughter) 

        "Hi, guys. Your guide will be Borat. He will be waiting for you in the parking place near Ljubljana's open air market.... For easy recognition he'll he wearing a Cowboy Hat." -- Email from Slovenia travel agent, September 6, 2015

Borut & Carol

We were scheduled for another city tour, this time of the Slovenian capital. We were pissed. It was our fourth day of the trip and we were red states stupid from jet lag exhaustion and blue states whiney due to an overdose of useless information from Zagreb and Varazdin. Sadly our genetic limited capacity for history & knowledge was maxed out. Our cathedral and castle cards were punched. The expiration dates on generals and popes had come and gone.  Our tolerance tank for what was exported and who invaded who was on empty. Now, another tour and a guide named Borat with a cowboy hat—really? We vowed to actually read our itinerary in the future.  Turned out his name was Borut, not Borat and he was a guru. The only disappointment was that he wasn't wearing a ten gallon Hoss Cartwright cowboy hat—it was only a Little Joe five galloner.

Borut had lived in Marin in the 60's and there was a decidedly twisted 60's Marin bias to his Ljubljana tour. (BTW, Ljubljana is a pretty cool name, right? We think we figured out the Slavic technique of cool naming. Just take a normal word and randomly add a j,l,h,t or z anywhere that suits you. Example—Dan. Slavic = Danj. Carol = Cazolh. Los Altos = Hlos Ajltzos. That is how you can know that Ljubljana is a Slavic capital. Two j's, two l's and a bonus b. It's a theory.)



"Face"booking in a cafe

Anyway, Borut considered Ljubljana deeply soulful, just the right size to “know”. It had a population of 325,000 of which 55,000 were college kids. Everything that counted—the University, the government buildings, the historic district, the arts, the discos, the cafes—were enclosed in a six block pedestrian-only area along the river. Everyone hung out there. He said, "It was the original Facebook, but with real faces." Cazolh observed, "Yeah, but Slovenians are not caught up in a pennant race." Borut might be right; we never saw anyone non-American looking at a cell phone in public. Further, he insisted on experiencing two cathedrals, but like a good Marinite, he pointing out the pornography in the paintings. He noted that 85 % of the country were, his term, "Recreational Catholics". He took us to a salt-only shop and to a butcher who made the only Slovenia food that had not been robbed from the Italians, Austrians and Hungarians—a sausage. He couldn't recommended it. He is vegan. However, he loved the poetry in the city architecture, the architecture of its folk music, and the music of its politics. Wow, I thought, "If I had teachers like Borut, I wouldn't have cut all those classes and been such a general jag off." It's epiphanies like this that are the meat of travel. Feel free to quote me.

Sunday late morning, Ljubljana was as alive as advertised. There were, all at the same

Said One Man Band

time, an antique flea market, boat rides on the river, the finish line of a long distance bike race (don't know how long, but it took the winner four hours and eight minutes), a DJ playing Bruno Mars in the biker recovery and beer drinking area, a thirty piece brass band playing marches in the main square, a one man band from Zagreb via New Jersey playing Dylan, and best of all, a group of 12 elderly men with wine glasses singing Slovenian harmony, packed outdoor cafes, pubs and restaurants, open art galleries and shops. Borut said, "What do you expect from a country whose national anthem is a drinking toast?"

We had a great time with Borut. On his advice, we took the afternoon off and spent several hours in a great restaurant trying not to look at our cell phones. We shared a crispy fried squid, you know, the kind with the tentacles that look like brain tumors, all washed down with too many Lasko beers. Carol toasted, "These are the best testicles I have ever had for lunch."  That said it all. It was really a good day.