Around 7 or 8 p.m. the clouds started rolling in and the sky darkening...and not just your typical sundown darkness.
I was sitting in the ˝chill out room˝ with a girl from Washington state and chatting and about an hour later the thunder started, then the rain and lightning.
Its passed for now and seems clear again, but gotta say, thunderstorms in Slovenia are pretty fun. Its like being a kid again with your face pressed to the window, watching lightning and listening to thunder for as long as it lasts.
I've loved this town and met a lot of great people here.
Last night, the girl from Washington and I were chatting and heres some interesting things we noticed:
Slovenia is maybe the prettiest, cleanest, nicest, most organized countries either of us have been to. She's been to more countries, but I agree. I decided last night too that if I spoke the language, I'd love this country as much as I love New Zealand.
I also learned from the couple I met at the caves last week, that this is a major transition for Slovenia. It only became an independent nation, freed from Yugoslavia, in the early 1990s and apparently, it didn't used to be so nice. So, kudos to Slovenia.
We also decided that as much as we love to travel, experience new cultures and meet people, we both appreciate a familiar song, book, movie, or just something simple that reminds us of home. Must be why I turn to my trusty ipod when I get lonely or stressed out in foreign countries. And why I found myself watching an old episode of NCIS last night when I was bored.
But, thats all for now...catch you all in Maribor, the gem of the northeast of Slovenia. Then to Ptuj, a town that was mentioned by name as early as 67 AD.
But last nights thunderstorm left clouds and rain today and its actually cold in Maribor.
The bus ride from Bled to Ljublijana was alright, I think I somehow developed motion sickness though.
Switched to the train in Ljublijana and was paranoid that I was on the wrong one, but I was in fact on the right train and it was a nice one too. Shared a cabin with a very nice Slovenian woman and had great views of the countryside, mountains and rivers. Also made some progress on my book -- Andrea Mitchell's bio -- without too much of the random motion sickness.
There's some sort of tennis tournament in town and there are kids everywhere. There was also some rowing event going on in Bled I think since I saw it on the news when I got here. Although I didn't notice them in town while I was there, but I didn't go by the lake this morning on my way out of town.
Tomorrow I think I'll day trip out to Ptuj and see the church there and then come back to Maribor and tour around town for the day. Probably heading back to Ljublijana either Friday afternoon or Saturday morning and think I'm going to add some day trips from there.
But for now, time to sort hostel bookings and call it a night so I can go back into traveller mode in the morning.