Ljubljana

Obviously, traveling continuously is not particularly conducive to blog writing. Last spring, I was always back in Geneva after a trip, so I had time to write an entry before the next grand adventure, but this summer passed quite differently. Each time I left a place and was ready to write down my thoughts, I was in the next place and wanted to be out with my feet in the Mediterranean or tasting every flavor of gelato I could find. So it seems this blog will be a serial novel for a while rather than a series of real-time updates as I catch up and settle into life in Strasbourg (where I have so far made spaghettis au romaran, à la tomate et aux câpres; crème du petits pois au parmesan; and penne aux tomates confites au chèvre in my very own kitchen, proving once more my obsession with pasta).

First of all, I would like to say that at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, from which I caught my flight to Slovenia, I waited not a second more than 2 minutes in the security line, including the part where I take off my shoes and belt. My sincere congratulations to the Dutch.

Ljubljana was, for me, three days of complete happiness. I hardly said a word, except in the evenings when I chatted with a constantly-changing set of British roommates, spending all my time out on my own wandering around the city in no hurry at all. The weather was perfect every single day—not that bloody heat which gives me murderous impulses. I slept at least eight hours every night. I bought a beautiful, beautiful dress for only 15 euros. And at least once a day, I sat in a sidewalk café, drinking peach ice tea, reading Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours and watching the passers-by.

Ljubljana is lovely. Surrounded by hills and mountains, which always ups a city’s rating in my book (reference: Heidelberg, Florence, Athens, Budapest, Geneva, and later Sarajevo, Dubrovnik, and now Strasbourg), with fields and forests just outside the city limits; slow-paced with lots and lots of sidewalk cafés placed along its cobblestone streets in the center on either side of the Ljubljanica; those red tile roofs of which I am so fond; and litter cleaners doing their jobs in pressed black slacks, a white button-up shirt with a black bow tie, and white gloves. It is full of French tourists; I hardly heard a word of English during my entire sojourn. If I lived nearby, I would vacation in Ljubljana every year.

My first afternoon, I stumbled upon the city museum and naturally went inside. The basement is amongst the foundations of Emona, the old Roman colony located there and founded by Jason and his Argonauts according to legend, so it had lots of archaeological displays. The upper floors covered the history of the town from prehistoric times until present-day, with a heavy emphasis on the Romans. In one room, next to a mirror, there was a cloth hung which you could wrap into the toga of an adult male citizen following instructions. Of course I did it, so I now have an excellent photo of me grinning my head off in a toga.

I sat at the foot of the statue in Prešernov Square for two hours in the early evening, people-watching and listening to the fantastic saxophone-drums-keyboard street musicians playing from across the Triple Bridge. This was prime pigeon-chasing territory for small children. With the music and the river and the late evening sun on my hair, it was a perfect moment.

The next day, I toured various Ljubljanian (Ljubljanese? Ljubljanski?) grocery stores in my hunt for conditioner and the perfect black ballpoint pen. No luck on the pen, but I did buy something called “glatt spülung” which was indeed conditioner, and I always think wandering around foreign grocery stores is fascinating. Then it was up the large hill which dominates the city to Ljubljana castle. While walking through Prešernov Square on my way, I noticed a Mexican mariachi band setting up in the shade, and once I (with rather a bit more perspiration than I care to admit) reached the top of the hill and climbed the ramparts of the castle, I could hear the strains of mariachi wafting up from the train.

After a long peach ice tea in the courtyard and a climb up the vertiginous tower, I walked around the ridge of the hill towards the southwest to visit the botanical gardens on the other side, but first I stumbled upon a round meadow filled with aster and clover. The breeze rustled the leaves of all the trees around its edges, but the meadow was still except for buzzing bumblebees. I thought it looked like the kind of place where the gods would have napped on summer afternoons in Roman times, and so I was not surprised to find a wrought iron cross directly in the center of the meadow.

I ate dinner in a pizzeria that evening. This is actually notable because of the following: I ordered a pizza rustico—tomato sauce, mozzarella, onions, and olives—off a menu with exactly 100 different pizza options. I laughed to myself when the menu pages just kept going and going; I ordered in sheer desperation just to put an end to trying to choose. I asked for the normal size rather than the small option, because I assumed that the three strapping men at the table next to me had ordered medium and theirs looked to be exactly the right size—but this was a false assumption on my part! It was huge, and I could only finish three-fourths of the monster.

Two evenings in a row, I attended free/very cheap concerts at the Ljubljana city museum. The second was a saxophone-piano concert and quite nice, but the first was voice and piano and unquestionably fantastic. The bass was Peter Martinčič, and the mezzosoprano was Nuša Drašček, and she was beyond words. Because they skipped around the program, which additionally was written in Slovenian, I was completely lost in regards to song titles, but after she sang one song that was so, so achingly pure that my eyes teared up (which never happens), I ran over to one of the ushers during the applause to ask which song had just been sung, which turned out to be Schubert’s “Nacht und Traüme.” The “Habenera” from Carmen that was her final song was also wonderful; she had so much fun singing it that I could not stop grinning and hummed it to myself for the next five days.

I spent one afternoon wandering through the Tivoli Gardens, which are huge. I found a shady spot under a very tall tree with fern-like leaves and had a picnic of freshly-purchased cheese burek and an apple stolen from the hostel breakfast, and then I lay in the grass—in a separate spot for strategic reasons, as I may have dropped a few flakes of burek and did not want to sit amongst the ants—and finished Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours. A lovely afternoon, but then it got hot so I sought refuge in the National Gallery and looked at art for an hour. There was an alarmingly large number of that genre of still lifes with dead fish on a table as the subject, perhaps 20 or so.

Photographs.

Then, on 23 July, I flew to Sarajevo…

In the meantime, if anyone wants to write me letters (but not send packages, as I have to figure out something else for that just kidding, packages are fine and I love them, especially if they contain Pilot EasyTouch FINE POINT black ballpoint pens), my new address is:

Mlle Bonnie MAGNUSON

E/004

Résidence Universitaire Paul Appell

8, rue de Palerme B.P. 60017

67084 STRASBOURG Cedex

FRANCE