31/07 Passport success, skip-bo boilers, geriatric couchette, Koln
wurst and crimp battles
Monday had arrived. This meant
that we were able to apply for an emergency passport! Great news! Turning up at
9am on the dot with forms in hand the boilers at the Australian embassy
immediately took a shine to our organisation and our bad luck. Credit must go
to Mumsy for all her hel back home as well- going to the Australian Passport
Office in Melbourne to get documents cited. Anyway, they assured us that I
would be issued with an Emergency passport on the same day! Great news! We were
out of the shithole of place that was Brussels. In fact, the Belgian security
guards at the Australian embassy commented that their own town was a dangerous
shit hole; they said being school holidays a lot of bags get snatched. I don’t
know what everyone else did on their school holidays but I sure didn’t go and
snatch bags for kicks! 6 hours layter we got a phone call saying my passport
was ready and that my application for my full passport was submitted and would
be sent to Zagreb to be picked up there! We proceeded straight to the train
station to get a ticket out of there. What we booked was a 24 hour train
journey direct to Ljubljana!
First leg from Brussels to
Cologne was fun filled. Mainly because of the two German boilers from Aachen
who were indulging in a card game called skip-bo. After making friends and then
observing the incomprehensible rules of their game Harro was invited to play!
With help from one of the boilers, he mastered the game quickly to beat the
Germans at their own game. Australia 1- Germany 0.
Jumping off the train in Cologne
we had 3 hours to kill. What better way to spend 3 hours than at a German beer
hall. A Wurst and 3 beers later it was back to the station for our overnight
train to Munchen. On this leg we benefited from our 3 bed couchette
reservation. Of which a tour was necessary- see below. Me, harro and a
geriatric cyclist from America made for an interesting journey. It wasn’t long
before we were woken by the couchette and then our free breakfast.
First off the train in Munchen we
were intent on getting out of expensive euro cities and keen on booking a
ticket to Ljubljana. It would be 5 hours til our 6 hour train to Ljubljana so
we went exploring – buying coffees and checking out the farmers market in the
main square. This is where we bought 2.50 euro pp lunch consisting of home made
capsicum dip, Turkish bread and walnut stuffed olives! Tired from the
overnighter we got on the train and crashed- before we woke to the a Croatian
angel sitting opposite us. With mila kunis like looks harro thought he was in a
dream but then realised he was not so stared at her for the remainder of the
trip in awe of her amazing facial features!
We arrived in Ljubljana and made
the trek down to the Sax Hostel, a jazz inspired hostel that looked awesome
online and was sure to provide some good times. On arrival we made friends with
the SAFA Jake with whom we sunk some beers and grabbed some dinner. Onward from
dinner we hit up a bar where beers were consumed on a gutter and a month long
street party at which the whole student community seemed to attend. Harro got
his birding on straight away meeting educated types from ljubljana’s student
community but it is his long game style that is seemingly being his down fall-
but as Confucius said ‘a short game is only as long as your shortest long
game’. I sense he will learn!
The SAFA Jake
01/08
Our first full day in Ljubljana was spent getting lost in
the small city that is Ljubljana. Wandering nd taking turns where you have no understanding
of where you could end up is often the best way to discover a city. I met a
great man in Vienna who shared his experience from Moscow with me. He said
every day he used to go to Moscows’s central train station catch a suburban
train to the end of the line and simply try to find his way back without a map;
that is truly travel and exploration!
The highlight of getting lost in the city was coming across
a Football and Art exhibition. As the name suggests all the exhibitors had
somehow focused their artwork on experiences, events and concepts in football.
With free entry, it was amazing value- just some of the coolest stuff Id ever
seen from sculpture to movie to photography. It showed Ljubljana really does
have a thriving art culture. After a long day walking a couple of beers at sax hostel was enough to make us weary and
suggest we probably needed an early night!
Slovenia is well known for mountains, lake bled and eating
horse; however they are lesser know for being stuck in the 90s. The sport(I use
this term loosly) of Rollerblading is still going strong. This is the second
most popular form of transportation in Ljubljana. In the first 4 hours of being here we saw 16
rollerbladers. I questioned many locals about the practicality of this, what
happens when you get to your destination? Where are your shoes? This never
seemed to phase them or Finlay who is wholehartady a full retard for liking
rollerblading as a practical form of transportation. Just use a bike.
The second most interesting “treaty” of Ljubljana is white
pants. All the chicks wear these largely transparent pants…. Initially we were sceptical
but then after seeing the ultimate combination of white hot pants and
rollerblades that was the tipping point. Only this combination was acceptable.
02/08
We decided it was time for team NoLongerAnchored to get
cultured, and what better way than a walking tour of Ljubljana. Our mate Jake
said that this tour would put everything into perspective and explain the city,
he was not wrong. Turns out that the citys pride and joy is a Preseren a drunk poet
who creeps on 14 year old girls; with a large bronze statue in the middle of
the city square dedicated to the man (the statue also stare directly at another
statue of his muse, a 14yo girl). The majority of the students we have met all
study literature and hence the cogs ticked why this is so. The ideal place for
one Jonathan Hibbert.
The tour took us past the Milk vending machine where fresh unpasteurised
milk is collected by the locals. This typical American tourist who constantly
asked annoying questons proclaimed selling such milk was in fact illegal in
American; and was somehow captured in an underground milk trade.
The highlight of the tour was the famous dragon bridge. The
myth being that if a virgin walked across the bridge the dragons would wag
their tails at said person. The converse story told to us by the locals was
that the dragons wink at you if you are a slut. Naturally they had some
epileptic fit when Finlay crossed the bridge.
The other interesting point from the tour was that one
killer Slovenian architect, Joze Plecnik, designed pretty much the whole city.
So much so that hearing about PLecnik, his ballusrtades and pillars became
slightly monotonous. But big ups to Plecnik for designing cool stuff in a cool
city with cool people. All in all, Plecnik is a boss!
MUNBATS 2012/13 preseason campaign began today with the
sherbeb running down to the local park and showing the Slovenians how to get it
done. Dips, push ups and squat jumps where performed. The locals crowded around
as 2 man cut outs, sniper bounce and lightning were unveiled.
Dubbed the “very average terrace party” due to speculation
the night before, we arrived and were led up to the very rustic and bohemian
terrace. Jake felt ballsy and stepped in first and was greeted by a weary bunch
of 30-somethings who seemed to not be expecting us. We eased into things as the
night moved on and were fed various finger foods including horse and mushrooms.
Well, it is possible that it wasn’t horse but our immediate assumption when
eating any meat in Slovenia is that we may be eating black caviar’s
illegitimate child. A few warm beers later and we went to explore the house. We
found the most epic “onesi” with glittery stretch fabric and placed our orders
on the spot, as well as other strange, but awesome designerish stuff, including
illuminating pillow case masks, most with a shwearrib, made by the “happy
tattoo” girl (who was incidentally really hot) and our new friends sister. Some
other revelations from the night was that the largest Slovenian community
outside Slovenia is in Kew- random?!? But also that the host of the party, for
reasons unknown to us didn’t like Jake. He is the most chilled nicest dude from
South Africa so readons to hate him were almost as foreign to us as eating
horse. But we think she had issues given that she maintained that the vegetable
she was chopping was a pumpkin when it clearly wasn’t.
03/08
With a new member, Mel from Sydney in tow the crew headed out
to the #1 tourist attraction, the Postojna Caves.
bus trip, 12 euro
entry fee to the caves, 4 euro
Seeing a fish that looks like a dick, priceless.
The fish (called Proteus) is blind, can live for 3 years without food and looks like a dick (as described by a local Slovenian). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olm
A 'i heart double dick fish' t shirt
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