After Lesce-Bled and visiting one of the most beautiful places we had ever seen, my boyfriend and I travelled further down south and into the capital of Slovenia, where we encountered our first challenge of our journey! This post, then, is a little taster of the small inconvenience that you can encounter when travelling.
The train journey was spent relaxing and looking out of the window. It was always a bit hard because both of us wanted to sleep, but of course one had to stay awake to make sure we did not miss our stop. Arriving in Ljubljana we were left with the 'road path' question: two exists, but no idea which one was the right one. The station was not habitat by staff like in the U.K, instead you had underground cafes full of locals and their cigarettes. After debating which side to exist from, we obviously chose the wrong one. After asking around and waiting around for the right bus for an hour, I finally gave into my boyfriend and we walked in 'right' direction. The bag weighed, the sun was burning and we were tired. We walked and walked for what felt like eternity until we finally reached the bus station, hurray!
This was challenge number one achieved. Finding the bus station did not mean finding the bus, like we had so eagerly hoped. After walking up and down the station for 15 minutes, our bus arrived. We ran and jumped on; but as quickly we got on, we got out. The bus did not accept cash, you had to pay with pre-paid cards. Being kicked off at the next stop and moods that little bit more fouler, we found the payment machine for the bus-cards. The topping of the icing at this point was my intelligence. Happily inserting 10 Euros of my 60 Euros budget into the machine, hoping I would receive change, the machine took all my money! Budgeting challenge number one! In hindsight this is not the most frustrating thing in the world, but when you are tired, sweaty with a bag heavier than you, it does not make you smile.
But as with all in life, the journey carried on and we successfully got onto the bus! There was a huge sense of relieve! We knew we had 10 stops from the station to our destination, and we concentrated hard counting all the stops. Reaching number 10, we smile and got off the bus into a residential area. We asked the bus-driver if he could direct us in the right direction, but to our luck of that afternoon we he did not recognise the area indicated on our directions! Challenge number three. We were in the suburbs of the the city with no one, not the bus-driver, nor the kind man walking past, having any idea where our hostel was. It had been by now nearly two hours since we had arrived in Ljubljana and we were not any closer to the hostel. We walked and walked and asked anyone we could for directions. Another 30 minutes went past walking in the hot sun until we finally encountered our beloved hostel.
Our welcome to Ljubljana was a bit frustrating, but our stay there was one of the most beautiful.
What this afternoon taught myself, and I think my boyfriend too, was that no matter how much we planned, things could go wrong. It was down to us how we dealt with it.
Another post will follow on the actual good stuff about the place!
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