goodbye lubjub

not quite as hot as saturday, but still there was no room for anything but the slowest walk possible.

there were surprises in store though, and a brief shower made shell very happy indeed on our long slow stroll round town.

unfortunately though, she had to head back home to england on a mid afternoon flight, so i was left to continue wandering. i just managed to keep myself entertained by taking pictures of more of my favourite ljubljana graffiti and street signs.



then there was a great 90 minute wait at the train station for my delayed train back to zürich.

back in ljubljana

hot hot hot.

ljubljana got up to the high 30s today (42 on one over-excited thermometer), so there wasn't really much to do except practice walking very slowly around the city. luckily the old town is a small place, and there's not really that much to do. we headed over to metelkove, the 'christiana' of ljubljana, but it was too early in the day for much to be happening there except for some very impressive graffiti.



for dinner we boldly ventured 500m out of the super-central tourist zone to a middle eastern restaurant. and weren't we richly rewarded! fantastically yum lentil soup, fragrant rice, prune saucey stuff and turkish coffee. it was a bit sad though that we were the only customers. too far from the crowds it seems.

late night movie of the day at the only interesting english language cinema we could find was elephant. neither michelle nor i had seen it before, and both felt rather shocked and stunned afterwards. which is rather the point i suppose. the film is not condescending nor preachy, but is observant, subtle, involving and beautiful.

logarska dolina summit fever

we'd ticked the top 5 castles and museums suggested by lonely planet, and had collected 4 outdoor locations, so it was a fait accompli that we would head north, about as close to austria as you can get without being there, to the logarska dolina. quite a pretty little valley, with towering rock walls all around. even though it was ridicuously hot (37oC!) we got all excited and headed up to one of the huts. a mini peak was bagged before another superyum mountain hut dinner, and we were in bed for an early rise to beat the worst of friday's heat.



getting up early wasn't so much of a hassle, but we still slept in way more than our fellow hikers. that was all planned so that we'd have nice ego boosts later in the morning as we cruise past them all though, of course ;).

we were quite uncertain as to how difficult the via ferreta sections were going to be, but luckily for us wearing a harness would have been more of a hindrance than a help, since there was only three 10m sections were it was even possible to clip into anything. scrambling with a view is so much fun!



but hot it was, and we were mightily impressed with our ascending and descending efforts. yay for mountains!

caves and frogs

being full of limestone, slovenia has lots of caves. the ones in skocjan were pretty cool, with the huge chamber and underground river. the postjana caves, on the other hand, were the most touristy thing i've done in europe. it felt very cheesey lining up with the slovenian, european, american and israeli throngs, mainly because it reminded me that i was a tourist as well. the caves were very cool, but sadly the most exciting part was the electric train ride to allow everyone to access the depths of the cave. weeee! the safety signs were quite a giggle as well.



in the afternoon we headed down into the hills towards the croatian boarder, in the hope of visiting a castle. but it was shut for summer. hmmm. even more disappointing was that the nearby dormouse museum was also closed. pity the poor slovenian dormice. they are traditionally considered to be the spawn of the devil, and it's a slovenian tradition to go out and hunt as many as you can every year one day in september. mildly whacking day-esque. there were old stone frogs in the castle garden too.

the lipica studnets

we left piran before it got all that hot, and headed slightly inland to the world famous (so they kept telling us) lipica horse stud. the lovely pleasant green paddocks and shady linden trees did lend a certain grace to the place, and the horses were pretty impressive. the dressage presentation was just like in the olympics, but touring the stables up close and personal to the horses really showed how solid, stately and freindly they were. a dangerous place to visit with your teenage daughters i think.

piran

slovenia extends all the way (not that it's very far) from italy to hungary, and by the adriatic coast at piran, you could almost convince yourself that you're actually in italy (paying way too many euros for seafood and pizza but feeling all good about it by finishing off with some yum gelato). piran is a very pretty little town though, and we enjoyed a morning wandering through its maze of alleys and squares. things were warming up too, and it got up to mid 30s today (that's very hot for us poor europeans!)

kayak kafe

white water kayaking was not at all on our agenda when we had thought of things to do in slovenia, but it turned out to be an absolutely perfect plan for 2 days in bovec, the wanaka/queestown of slovenia. we booked ourselves in for 2 days of 'kayak school', which was 3 hours for two afternoons. the first day it was shell, myself and two nervous looking germans, but after a bit of brushing up on the basic control strokes we were off down the gently sloping river. how much fun was that!! the grade I/I+ river was perfectly fun and bumpy for us beginners! and the scenery was about as good as it gets.



sunday was just shell and i, so our friendly teacher gave us some more ambitious grade II/II+ bits of the river. first we cruised through yesterday's section of the river, and then had great fun splashing our way on down while practising all our tricky newly learnt moves. it was only at the last rapids of the day when our teacher, desperate for someone to swim, convinced me to try to cross the stream (paddling across the river facing upstream and not moving backwards or forwards) in the fastest bit of the river we'd seen. needless to say i couldn't resist his temptation, and managed to provide excitment and entertainment for all with my predictable capsizing.

so drowned cat but happy i finished our kayak preschool all excited about tracking down some more back in switzerland!

triglav national park

3 days walking through the rather spectacular triglav national park was simply brilliant. it was a touch warm for the first day, with a good 1800m vertical climb being good for the legs, and the sunny mountainous views very kind on the eyes. the mountains were quite similar to switzerland, but were a bit craggier and felt slightly more isolated. there were still plenty of cows (sans bells) to help me feel at home though!



both nights we spent in a different mountain hut, fully equiped with cooked meals, bunk beds with all linen provided, and even beer on tap! coming from an australian walking background, it feels very strange indeed to have so much luxury at the top of a mountain, but i suppose it does limit the impact of the increased numbers of people it encourages to visit.

wednesday was to be our mt triglav summit day...

however, the not so spectacular weather forced us to reconsider, and we made it up a nearby peak on our way through some very desolate karst moonscape to the glacial lake-littered valley and our next hut.



the next day dawned with threatening clouds, and the deluge held off until we were just before a mountain hut, only an hour from the car. we dashed through the rain and into the hut, only to realize that it wasn't the tourist hut, but a local cow tender's! he was incredibly welcoming though, and our broken german conversation (on both sides) informed us he lived in the bohinj valley below, and was just up for a couple of weeks to look after some cows. he seemed to relish the chance to ply us with schnapps, beer, schnapps, coffee and schnapps, and since michelle was feeling sensible, it was up to me to appreciate his hospitality. he didn't want any of our chocolate ('just for kids!'), but was very happy indeed with our leftover dried figs. the end of a 3 day walk isn't really the time for choice gifts! mountain hospitality is truely amazing.

bled

after having pretty much cleaned up the tourist spots in ljubljana in 1.5 days, it was refreshing to get out into the countryside. driving was a bit exciting for me (after a year's break, and on the right side of the road), but we made it safely to bled, a perfectly picturesque town on a glacial lake with a cute church on an island, and overlooked by a cliff-top castle. nice stuff. we strolled round the lake, hired a rowboat for a tour out to the island, made it safely back to shore, and got all psyched up for walking up to mt triglav in the next few days.



slovenians also seem to get all excited about rubbish bins in the shape of frogs. they're so cute they make me want to buy more stuff just so i can feed them!

lubjub

after a rather epic train journey from zürich to ljubljana, which included a not-so-exciting 5 hour stopover in predawn salzburg, i was all excited to savour the delights of the slovene capital. and what a cute, friendly and accessible town it is!





after checking out the action in the tour (does anyone else find it a bit boring with lance just winning all the time?), and a quick snooze, i met shell at the train station and we enjoyed wandering round the town eating icecreams all afternoon.

sunday was a cruisey tourist day, with a tour of the cute castle overlooking the city, a visit to the slovenian art gallery (with some impressive home grown 19th century impressionism), and then to the 'tivoli park' for some (frustratingly unsuccesful) icecream hunting and lazing around in the nice warm afternoon sun.

bis bald

see you all in 2 weeks. i'm off to meet michelle in slovenia!

happy birthday to me (and dad!)

yay for birthdays! so far i've only had to provide 2 cakes for the lab, have received one present in the mail (thanks mum and dad!), and have at least a couple of pressies still on the way, so that makes me way ahead already :)

last night i managed to convince martin, reto, patrick and farnoush to join me at more than mode for an evening of darkness. so much leather, so many pasty-white goths, so much wave, new wave, dark wave, whatever. and of course much fun!

mixarama

i've put together a bit of a tune for the ccmixter and magnatune lisa debenedicts remix contest. have a listen here, and go crazy with the (lavishing and critical) comments!

longstreet carnival

so it seems i picked the absolute best time to move in near langstrasse. last night was the annual 'longstreet carnival' - 12 hours of free street party is exactly what everyone needs! and of course the convience of 5 minutes walk home to soft warm bed was never more appreciated.

the most amazing thing was the huge numbers of people jam packed all along the 2km mix of sizzling food and (mostly) funky beats. yummy. it was almost not frustrating at all not actually being able to get anywhere you wanted to.

i spent most of the night grooving away under the railway bridge at the hiphop party. dats da shit! i was looking forward to hearing some karaoke from hell (be the lead singer in your very own live covers band!) on my stroll home, but was i glad i didn't waste my time there earlier. rock never sounded so old.

back from the (internet) dead

... i don't really think random posts on hiren's site count.

but everything's good in zürich! 1) summer is here, and although it's mostly rainy and cold, it is still possible to occasionally glimpse some bits of blue sky. 2) i've just moved from my cosy apartment in the less than thrilling höngg to a spacious and modern new share apartment in kreis 5, the heart of zürich nightlife (think of a sleepy king's cross). 3) work in the lab is as slowly progressing as ever, but i have summer holidays soon!

here are some pics of my new apartment. pady and barbara haven't been around at the same time as my camera, so you don't get to say hello to them yet.

the building complex does look a little soulless from the outside.


but is really light and spacious in the living room


and we've got a back yard full of herbs and veggies!