Thursday, September 12, 2013

Slovenia, Revisited

I left Rijeka on an early bus to Ljubljana and arrived a few hours later to the city I'd fallen in love with a just a few months earlier.  At the bus station, I was greeted by three members of my extended family I had not yet met: my cousin H and her teenage daughters, J and A, with whom I would spend the next several days.  They all speak excellent English, which allowed us a conversation over coffee (which grew to include Masa and Sebastian) that wasn't stunted by my lukewarm foreign language skills.
H, her husband J, and their daughters live north of Ljubljana in Kranj.  At the house, the girls showed me to my temporary room (A slept on the couch so I could have her bed; people here are so generous) I took a lengthy nap.  I was awoken some time later by A, who informed me that some people wanted to meet me...  To my delighted surprise, Vesna, Darko, Tadej, Sandra, and Baby L (who was still cooking in June) had all come over for dinner!  It's hard for me to describe the happiness I exuded over this reunion but, in a word, it was joyful.  (And the dinner was delicious). 
Tadej, me, Sandra, and baby L
A and me
I would have liked to spend at least a week with family, but I spent more time in Romania than I had originally factored into my trip, so I only had a few days in Slovenia.  We made the most of that time, though; I bonded with my new-found family over food, sightseeing, and (in typical ex-Yugoslav fashion) loud and lengthy conversation.  Time went by too fast.  The morning of Tuesday, August 27, I left Slovenia for the last leg of my trip, which I will relate in the next post.  Until then, enjoy the pictures!
Veliki Otok
Predjama Castle

No comments:

Post a Comment