Saturday night I got back to Paris after nine days spent traveling in Italy, Croatia, Slovenia. The bf and I start
ed out in Trieste, Italy and stayed there for two days. Trieste is on the coast of the Adriatic sea, northeast of Venice and about 20 minutes from Slovenia. Its been controlled over the years by a number of peeps, such as the Romans and the Austro-Hungarian empire. My favorite part of the city was the Piazza dell Unita d'Italia (sp?) which opened up onto the sea and was surrounded by cafes and yummy gelato places.
After Trieste we a took a bus to Rijeka, Croatia. We decided to go there because it was the only
bus running to Croatia on a Saturday (we didn't have any specific plan of what we were going to do), and it turned out to be a really good decision. Rijeka is a port town on the Golf of Kvarner and it doesn't get many tourists. Mostly it gets businessmen, so all the hotels were really expensive and we had to stay in a hostel- me for the first time. I'm not overly impressed with the hostel as a type of lodging. Lets just say that once I am actually making money I won't be staying in them anymore. However, it sufficed this time for my student budget. We stayed in Riejka for the weekend, but on Easter we took a 20 minute bus ride to the town of Opatija. Opatija has been a well known seaside town since the 18th century, when the rulers of the Austr0-Hungarian empire started going there to take in the sea air. Jack and I cared more about getting a tan, a goal which we successfully accomplished.
The next day we took another bus (2 hours) to the Croatian capital of Zagreb. Their public transportation system consists of buses and trams, so I got to take a tram for the first time. We couldn't figure out if you had to pay for the tram or not because we couldn't see anyone punching their tickets or anything. So for two days we didn't buy tickets, then right before we left I read that it was indeed necessary to buy tickets, at little kiosks around town and that you would get slammed with a heavy fine if you didn't have a stamped ticket. Oops! So we bought tickets for our last tram ride and felt very happy that there didn't seem to have been many controllers out while we were there. While we were there we went to a museum on the history of Zagreb, which was really interesting, but only half the signs were in English so I was glad the entry price was only 2 dollars.
After being informed that there was "no bus to Slovenia, only train" (said with a heavy accent), we took a train to the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana (loob-lee-ana) and on the way encountered the most ridiculous border crossing I've ever had. Ok, so I haven't had to deal with crossing borders all the much in my life. Nobody cares when you cross the border to Canada, and the EU has handily removed border crossings within the Schengen zone, making my life infinitely easier. However, Croatia isn't in the EU and Slovenia apparently likes making its life even more difficult. So the border crossing- the train stops and we see a guy in the hallway next to our train
compartment removing the ceciling panels and looking in them with a flashlight and mirror. We sit there for about 20 minutes before four or five guards reach our compartment of four people. Everyone hands over their passport and is questioned on why and where they are going in Slovenia. The guy with the Serbian passport has his bag searched by one of the guards (he later comments to us that Slovenians think Serbs are criminals) and one of the guards asks Jack in a very scary way why he is laughing after he chuckles quietly at something.
Uck. Finally the scary border police leave and we arrive in Ljubljana, which quickly becomes my favorite place of the trip. Our hostel was right on the river, on a pedestrian street full of cafes and restaurants. The city is a little bit bigger than Madison, and also has a large student population. The atmosphere in the city was also much more relaxed than any of the other places we had visited. It was really a charming city. We visited two museums- the National Art Gallery and a museum on contemporary history (world war one to present).
The only drawback to Ljubljana was that the only bus back to Trieste, where we had to fly home from, was at 6:25 AM. Not my favorite time of day, but we did it and then instead of wasting half the day traveling, we got more time to spend in Trieste. That last night that we were there the sky was absolutely gorgeous. The pictures I have of it looked photoshopped its so unreal.
It was incredibly how many people we encountered while traveling that spoke English. People have said to me before how lucky I am to speak English because it is everywhere, and I always kind of blew that off before, but not anymore. The realization first took place when we were taking the train to the airport, and some foreign guy hadn't bought the right ticket. The controller was trying to make him pay a fine for it- in English. In hostels people from all over Europe would be using English to communicate with each other. I have mixed feelings about this and kind of understand how people could resent English as a dominating force.
Currently I am being a bum as I am on spring break for another week. Today I went to my favorite cafe by Bastille and then to the Place des Vosges to read in the sun. No grand plans until Thursday when I leave to spend the weekend in Belfast.
On the steps of the Bastille Opera where the goth kids also like to hang out. For some reason most of the homeless people have dogs with them at all times. I think its their schtick. 
And some of the ever present pigeons at a market by the Bastille. I saw a book on pigeons and their place in history the other day. I don't know if it would be more or less interesting than the book I saw on the history of the cat. I love cats, but I once played a pigeon in a ballet...tough choice.
