We stayed at Zio Flavio's house for two weeks, and then transfered over to Dad's cousins house, in another tiny village. Ingrid and David had offered us there house, and they had two kids, Iris (14) and Tadej (11 - pronounced Today). Their grandparents live on the middle floor and they make the biggest meals for us, in a little room for dining benches which hardly had enough room for all the pots and trays and saucers and plates of food spread across them! Not only did it take twenty minutes to digest, it took an hour!
We had Mom's birthday there, and she is officially 51! It was the anniversary of the Big Decision! Ingrid and David had planned to go to . . .
We had Mom's birthday there, and she is officially 51! It was the anniversary of the Big Decision! Ingrid and David had planned to go to . . .
Bled, a city based on a lake, with a little church on the island in the middle. After our newly-bought-just-the-day-before car broke down seven minutes away from their house we finally got back on the road, and stopped in Ljubljana (remember the 'j' - 'y's? Pronounced Lubi-yana) to go to the Ljubljana Castle. We stopped there, and Mom took the exact same picture that we had when we went to it when I was three years old, the last time I'd been Slovenia. We walked around a bunch, then when it was around five o'clock headed back to the car to make the long car ride to Bled.
When we got up the next morning, we took a short walk up the hill next to our hostel and visited yet another castle! Seriously, every single hill in Slovenia has a castle!!! Anyways, we went into the museum, and learned about the 'olden days'; what paintings they did, what they wore, what signs were for every month, and so on... It was actually quite interesting, especially the little model of the castle, and how well they shaped the hill and how many windows there were.
After the museum, we went to see a printing press based on the guggenheim press way back in history, and the man working there taught us a lot about it. We got a photo done with the date, stamp, favorite picture out of the small selection and 'Happy Birthday Mom!' printed in shiny ink on it. It was great!
After the museum, we went to see a printing press based on the guggenheim press way back in history, and the man working there taught us a lot about it. We got a photo done with the date, stamp, favorite picture out of the small selection and 'Happy Birthday Mom!' printed in shiny ink on it. It was great!
After the castle we walked for a while around the lake, finally coming to a restaurant, reccomended by Ingrid, and tried the Bled specailty - cream schinta! The ingredients were horrible for health, but delectable for taste; cream, egg, and butter! It was absolutly delicious, and filling!
I hardly had enough room for the pinic we had afterwards close to a dock filled with row boats. Some row boats had someone rowing for you, which fit up to about twenty people, and the other ones you could row yourself, but they only fit up to four people. We all climbed into the big one, but after a few words of discussion, Birch, Dad, Tadej and I hopped out at the last second and into the row-yourself one. A guy popped out of the restaurant nearby, and Dad payed for an hour and a half.Rowing our own boat was so much fun! The water was just beautiful, reflecting the sparkling sun and clear blue sky. The snow capped mountains were far away and I had to put my sweater back on because of the sharp wind. I rowed a little (having a tiny bit of expeirience from Beautiful Bowen, and our little red row boat in the bay), and Birch pretty much rowed the rest of the way, and Dad tried too... We offered Tadej a try but he wouldn't, he just liked bobbing around in the lake.
When we were almost there, the big boat had docked, and five minutes later we did too. Ingrid, David, Mom and Iris were waiting at the small docks and soon we headed up to the church. The legend says that if you ring the tower bells three times you get a wish and true love... I really had no intrest in the love part, but I suppose it might come in handy later on. Anyways, we made our wishes, and of course Mom made sure we understood the history of the island - once upon a time there was a beatiful princess (or maiden - not very sure which) who married a rich guy and wanted a church built on the island. She died before it was constructed, and it ended up being her shrine. I don't think it goes excatly like that, but at least that's what I can remember!
After a short walk around the Island we went back to the boats, this time Mom and Dad accomppanying Birch and I. We all took turns rowing, but when we came back the guy we rented the boat from wasn't there - Tadej, Iris, Birch and I fooled around outside while the adults went into a restaurant across the road.
After a few more minutes Dad came out to check on us and we asked if we could take the boat out again, since Iris hadn't been able to the other times. He said it was okay, so we rowed out, towards the castle, hoping to get to the other shore, but we heard the family called (a very loud and distinct AAAAAAA-OOOOUUU-A-OOOO) ... Fine, I heard it. So we rowed back and Mom claimed she never called - so we rowed back out again, this time deciding to circle around the Island. But the wind had picked up to a ferocious state, and it took us much longer than we had expected - even Birch had difficulties. As we were half way around the Island Tadej's phone started ringing (I know, HE has his OWN PHONE!) and it was David asking where we were and telling us to come back. Having noticed the time several moments ago, we were already going as fast as we could, which, mind you, wasn't acually that fast.
Once we had rounded the corner of the island and could now see the docks, we were going with the wind, not against it. It was much easier and after much pursuading, Iris took the oars, and rowed us a little ways before Tadej asked for a turn, and we got there just in time with Birch docking our boat. It was, out of the whole month, definitely in the top three best events!
The drive back was long, but I slept most of the way - unfortunately missing the mountains!
-Allie
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