Chapter 14: Don’t Call It Luh-Jub-Luh-Jana

It’s absolutely a cliché for travel bloggers to have at least one post where they commiserate that travel can be hard, and that day-to-day life on the road isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. Maybe this is one of those posts? I don’t know; I haven’t written it yet. You’ll know by the end, I suppose.

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You will recall that Dubrovnik has no train station, so we left the city on our first plane in three months. We flew to Zagreb, then re-entered the Schengen Zone and crossed into Slovenia by train en route to Ljubljana.

Now. Be honest. I know you skipped over pronouncing that word in your head, so let’s get this out of the way: the J’s are kinda pronounced like I’s. LOOB-lee-AH-nuh.

Actually, can I just say that from now on? It’s probably insulting to a few hundred thousand people, huh? Oh well. Loob-lee-ah-nuh.

Slovenia immediately impressed us with its bright green forests and soaring mountains, and our train car slowly creaked alongside a rushing creek stuffed with suitcase-sized rocks. We arrived into Loob-lee-ah-nuh, the small, charming capital, and wandered down to the riverside district in search of supper.

A Slovenian restaurant served us an assortment of sausages and bread, along with enormous slices of a local cheese-and-spinach pie called zeljanica, not unlike Greek spanikopita. Leftovers seen below.

When the server brought our food, he said “Here yogurt”, and sat down two enormous 20 ounce glasses, each full of the runny pourable yogurt popular here in Europe. Rachel and I were somewhat perplexed, and I called him back over. “What do we do with this? Do we drizzle it on the pie? Or dip pieces into it?”

He shook his head no and indicated that we were to take a bite of the pie and then take a big gulp of the yogurt to wash it down. He laughed heartily and indicated to my pint of lager. “I tell you, it not taste great with beer”.

Well, we still don’t know exactly what is the maximum amount of yogurt that Rachel and I can drink while eating spinach pie, but now we are at least certain that is quite less than 40 ounces.

The next morning we made our way back to the riverside for Slovenian štruklji, a rolled dumpling dish with savory or sweet fillings (not to be confused with Croatian štrukli).

We ordered meat, lemon, and chocolate štruklji, along with two cappuccinos, and then gingerly rolled ourselves back home.

The town is lovely and quaint, and famous for its many bridges that span the winding Loob-lee-ah-nica River, lined with outdoor cafes and restaurants.

Here is the Dragon Bridge, with the Loob-lee-ah-nuh Castle in the background perched on a hilltop.

Slovenia’s number one tourist attraction is Lake Bled, about an hour’s bus ride from Loob-lee-ah-nuh. We walked into the station at about 8:00 a.m. on a Wednesday, relatively confident in our itinerary, and walked away confused by the time and numbers printed on our ticket. We swallowed our pride, went back to the window, and gradually realized that we had visited the train station, not the bus station, and were now the owners of train tickets to the other (non-tourist) side of Lake Bled, connecting with a long layover through a different remote Slovenian town.

We pled our apologies and ignorance, received a refund, and rushed across the street to the (actual) bus station to buy the correct ticket, complete with two perforated squares for the departure and returning journey. We ran up to make our bus, and Rachel handed the driver the tickets we’d helpfully detached for this leg.

“Must be together. No good!” He shoved Rachel to the side and continued collecting tickets from other passengers.

We pled our apologies and ignorance for the second time, and annoyed him until he let us on.

Lake Bled was gorgeous. Below are the two main attractions, Bled Island in the middle of the lake with a small church on it, and medieval Bled Castle.

After 30 to 40 seconds of staring at this bucolic vista, we started wondering what else we could do, and decided to rent e-bikes and ride into the adjacent Triglav National Park. If you’re unfamiliar, e-bikes combine the exercise benefits of a moped with the coolness and hip factor of a large, bulky, pedal-powered bicycle.

I’m not sure how we ended up on the gravel road (cough cough Rachel)…

…but we passed through several lovely rural Slovenian towns which vaguely smelled of cow poop (in the pleasant way that rural towns sometimes smell of cow poop)…

…crossed some burbling mountain streams…

…and wound up at a small B&B, the only roadside building for miles (excuse me, kilometres) around, which we’d been told was a good place to stop for nourishment.

The view from my spot at the picnic table was fantastic.

Ok sure, that one was great, but I was actually referring to this one.

Sufficiently satiated, we cruised back to Lake Bled on our e-bikes like the freaking badasses we are. Rachel did mention how satisfying it was for her to zoom past hardcode cyclists wearing lycra and sweat-stained faces, while she pedaled along in jeans and ballet flats.

So, Loob-lee-ah-nuh, and Slovenia as a whole, was gorgeous.

We both agree that our e-bike ride into Triglav National Park was our favorite excursion of this European trip so far.

We did have a couple of awkward moments. Rachel and I like to joke that it’s guaranteed that we will embarrass ourselves at least once a day.

Rachel had a bit of work to finish up after we returned from Lake Bled. (Recall that this is the day we’d already accidentally bought train tickets instead of bus tickets.) I walked Lily out to use the bathroom, and a sweet old lady at the bus stop started talking to us. Generally my response here is to attempt to discern whether they are asking me a question or not. If they are, I say “Anglesko?” to ask if they speak English. If they are just making a statement, I’ll nod my head and smile and continue doing that for as long as they are talking, which generally is quite a while. I decided “statement” for this particular woman, but I think I chose wrong because she looked at me curiously as I began to walk away, then gave me the evil eye. Guess she was asking me a question.

I took Lily back inside and walked to a nearby bar for a happy hour beer. I scanned the row of beer taps inside, picked out the only word I thought I could pronounce, and pointed at it and ordered a “pivovarna”. I got a curious look but the bartender started to pour. (Only then did I Google “pivovarna” to discover that it means “brewery”). The tap burbled foam and he indicated that the keg was empty. I said “something similar?” and he nodded and said a few heavily-accented words in English. A few moments later he slid me a tasting glass, which I sipped while nodding my head. “That’s good, I’ll take it!” He rolled his eyes again, frustrated. “No more. It is OUT!”.

He had given me the last drops of the original one I ordered, so I’d know it for next time I came in.

I finally got a pint, and drank it while reading predictions for the upcoming college football season on my phone. I left a five on the bar and rose to leave, and the bartender sprang from his stool and fumbled towards the cash register to print me a receipt, running around the bar to hand it to me. I didn’t particularly want it…

I bought a donut and they gave me a receipt. I don’t need that. I give you money, you give me the donut, end of transaction. We don’t need to bring ink and paper into this. I can’t imagine a scenario where I would have to prove that I bought a donut.
– Mitch Hedberg

…but then I remembered my uncle telling me in Italy it’s a law that restaurants have to give receipts to customers, and they’re periodically checked upon leaving to ensure that nobody is ripping off the tourists. So maybe that was it.

I wandered back home, stopping at a small grocery store to get a bottle of prosecco for dinner. I asked the lady behind the counter if she spoke English and she nodded yes. I pointed to a bottle and said “Is this dry?”. She nodded, “Yes, white.” I shook it off. “No, is it DRY?” She nodded again while rolling her eyes, and gestured to the entire section. “This white.” She gestured to the far end. “That red.” I bought it anyway.

Now, I realize that I’m very privileged to speak by far the most common second language in the world (nearly a billion people; Arabic is a distant second with 275 million). It’s not my suggestion that our trip would be so much easier if all those damn Europeans would just speak better English.

I guess we kinda knew there would be misunderstandings as we traipsed through a slew of countries where we didn’t speak the language, but we didn’t realize how often they would happen, or that they wouldn’t taper off the more time we spent here.

It’s just humbling to feel like a dumbass every day for three months, especially when you somewhat fancy yourself a clever and intelligent individual, as all of us do.

I have come to immensely admire my friends from grad school who flew over from China and India and Pakistan two days before classes started, with nothing but a suitcase and tenuous grasp of English, to immediately begin participating in round-table discussions on predicate logic, or the psychology of economic decisions, all while adjusting to life in small-town Georgia.

(I remember them complaining about our colloquialisms: “What does it mean, ‘Sounds like a plan’?”)

Anyway. Daily embarrassments. A few days before my writing this, Rachel and I were getting yelled at by a grocery store checkout girl in German while loading our groceries onto the conveyor belt, but couldn’t figure out why. Finally a kind English-speaking customer said that she was telling us to lay our wine bottle on its side so it didn’t fall over when the belt moved.

(Looking back at this list, it appears that maybe we should just stop buying alcohol?

Hahaha ok now seriously.)

After we left the grocery store, we just had to laugh. I told Rachel that there are now probably 80 people in the world who think that we’re just complete idiots. But, out of 8 billion, that’s not a bad ratio.

Of course, I’m writing this at 9:15 a.m. By this evening there will be 81.

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This concludes today’s post. Congratulations! You have just learned how to pronounce the capital of Slovenia.