More photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unsoundmethods/
Wha's Up,
We've entered the autumn of the current academic term, and people are starting to anticipate their de-mob happiness. Ian, Christophe and I have started a Friday daytripping club (We were all canny enough to keep Fridays largely free of lessons).
Two weeks ago we headed down into Dolenska. We started off by following the river Krka from its source just south of Ljubljana and made our way down to Novo Mesto. It was a beautiful day, and we took the more minor country roads rather than the avto cesta. We stopped off somewhere for a sluggishly served lunch. I've forgotten the name of the place, but we soon hit the road again and cruised into Novo Mesto.
The day coincided with the high-school students celebrating their graduations. They do this by dancing in the street and blowing whistles, a lot, really a lot, almost non-stop. I don't want to hear anymore whistles, probably ever...
We had a look round Novo Mesto and basked in the sunshine a little before hitting the road again and travelling to a really cool little castle near a place called Očotec. We had a wander around and chilled out on the river bank as the sun began to go down. On the way back the frustrated photographer trapped inside Christophe decided that he wanted to go up on top of a hill to get some pictures. We took the road that appeared to go up the nearest hill and then drove for ages. We made our way up this small single track road, past bemused natives before arriving at a field and an abrupt end to the road. We were really well and truly lost in Dolenska. At least it was a nice night. We made it back to Ljubljana eventually.
Last week we decided to take a trip to Štajerska in the east of the country. Because we set off late, we set ourselves the modest target of reaching Pod Četrtek, going via Laško (where the beer comes from). We hit the road at about half one in the afternoon, and again decided to take the country roads rather than the avto cesta, where we'd have to pay tolls. En route we stopped off for a delicious lunch of cooked meets and chips in the middle of nowhere, but we soon hit the road again in earnest.
After four and a half hours of what can barely be considered roads, we finally made it to Laško. Had we taken the avtocesta, the journey would have taken about 50 minutes. Needless to say, we didn't make it to Pod Četrtek (this bizarrely means 'under Thursday'). But we had a Laško in Laško (nothing to write home about this town) and against my better judgement, we again ascended a hill in search of some good photos. This time we asked directions and actually made it up to a beautiful little church to watch the sunset.
On Saturday I made my cricketing debut playing for Ljubljana cricket club in Austria (I can't believe I went back, and to play bloody cricket!) We were up against a team from the Sri Lankan embassy. They batted first and scored 604 for 7. We only had nine players. We scored about 60. Cricket is shit. I have sunburn...
Peace, love, empathy...
J x
