Caves, Cops and Canadians

Our last day in Lublijana has been one of our best yet. The day before, we recruited two people to come to the caves with us, Daniel and Sofie. Sofie is an Australian from Sydney who is currently away for several years. Daniel is a Canadian from Virgil! Small world. The story goes like this. Jonathan always thinks he knows everybody. No matter where we are, he is whispering and pointing out all the people he apparently ´knows' somehow. Our arrival at our hostel in Lublijana is no exception. We are walking up the stairs to our room and walk past a guy sitting in the windowsill. 'I know him', Jonathan whispers to me. I give him the look. Seriously, Jonathan. We are in Slovenia, give it up. We get into our room and I start to put the sheets onto our beds. Jonathan is eating honey out of the jar with a spoon. This aparently inspires him to go talk to the guy he claims to know back in the hall. I expect him to be back in seconds because the poor guy he is pestering probably doesn't even speak English. He looks German. After 10 minutes I go check on him. I feel bad for the other guy. Jonathan introduces the mystery man. This is Daniel, from Virgil. I met him at the couchsurfing get together. I'm actually shocked, almost at a loss for words (but that doesn't last long, don't worry). He's got to be right once in a while, I guess. First time in 5 years,but whos counting?

So the caves...

Since I (Kristen) am such a wonderful excursion planner, the caves went off without a hitch. We hopped on the train through the beautiful Slovenian countryside, mostly chatting instead of watching. We get to the station to catch our free bus to the caves. Since it is a holiday, there is a tour as soon as we get there (1st time a holiday has ever worked in our favour when travelling). The caves themselves are amazing. The stalactites and stalagmites (sorry, Laura) are like in a love story, growing closer one drip at a time. It takes 100 years to grow 1 cm! (That would be the LONGEST, WORST MOVIE EVER!) They are so colourful and have very interesting shapes. The caves themselves are massive. There is a river that runs through the cave, ending in a spectacular underground waterfall. It is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Jonathan, however, is missing it all because he is too busy yapping with Daniel. (Picture Dad and Ronnie on Sunday morning and, for good measure, throw in a Canadian Tire flyer with the best sale of the century!). I keep glaring at them and they keep pretending not to notice.

When we get back from our perfectly planned day trip, we all go back to our room to relax before dinner...but as usual, that's when the excitement starts. Enter Jonathan the Hero.

Downstairs in our hostel there was a traditional-style Oriental cafe with floor seating and the such. We thought that would be a good place for supper (Gnocchi! (not Oriental)). We all went down but found it was closed for the holiday. We asked and heard there was maybe (only maybe) a pizzeria open downtown, so I ran up to the room to get a coat. As I was finishing in our room, a man came out of our shared bathroom with blood all over his forehead. My intial thought was 'Wow...he is horrible at shaving'. After quickly realizing that not even I need to shave my forehead (well, except for that one time...) I next thought he fell in the shower. I was wrong again. I asked if he was okay (obviously he wasn't) and he told me he fell early that day and he thought he broke his shoulder. We cleaned up his head and he laid down in his bed. I ran down to tell the group what happened and asked where a hospital was. There was one across the street. Perfect! When I went back up to tell the guy (Don) he had passed out and wouldn't wake up. Going back to my lifeguard days, I did the 'talk and tap' (or was it the pinch and pat...or was it the shake and shout...or was it...) and he came to. I walked with him across the street to find that the 'hospital' was actually a dentist office. I suppose if Don had of knocked some teeth out when he fell that would have been the right place to be. Anyway, we found out Emergency was several blocks away. We arrived at the real hospital and Don checked in. Lesson: always get health insurance, or, don't fall). I left him at that point to meet the others for dinner. It turns out his collar bone was broken and he forgot to ask about his head. We wish him a quick recovery.

After dinner, Daniel needed to check the schedule at the train station. We dropped the girls off and moved on to the train station. As we were going there a police car pulled up on the sidewalk just in front of us. We smiled and waved at them, commented how friendly the Slovenian police were and walked past...then something strange happened: The blue lights came on! We looked left and we looked right and we were the only people on the street. There were no cars and no people; just us and them. We turned around and walked back and said, 'hello', (maybe they were REALLY friendly and wanted to chat). After a moment of confusion, Daniel, who speaks German, found out the issue. We crossed the street (making sure to cross at a designated corssing area), but, it turns out, without the green walking guy's permission (Kristen and I call him 'the jealous guy'). After getting a 'get-out-of-jail-free-card', we checked our schedule and willingly went back to prison. It was a great day.

p.s. One warning was enough, we have since waited for the jealous guy at all our crosswalks (which annoys the Impatient One).

Till next time, Hello. ('Hello' is like 'ciao', it means 'hi' and bye' in Hungarian)