beenalready: Ljubljana, Slovenia
BEEN ALREADY

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

2015-12-13, 23:08, JASON

STAY: TRESOR HOSTEL (1ST TIME), HOSTEL CELICA (2ND TIME)

From Vienna, Austria to Ljubljana, we departed on a train. It's funny, once we cross the border, that German efficiency (excuse me for calling the Austrians Germans, but I can only hope the language transfer -- the low flavor at least -- transmitted some of that punctuality) slowly deteriorated. More stops, more faults, but no problem. We made it in, fine. A few scenic landscapes (read: sheep grazing) and hours later, we arrived in Ljubljana.

As an aside, we arrived in Ljubljana, but took a day-and-a-half trip to Bled, so this post will combine the two 'different' times we spent in Ljubljana.

Not really sure what to have expected, honestly. We checked into our hostel, that was off one of the main bits. We asked them for a tourist map, and then decided to hit up all spots on this map. Now, keep in mind, because we flashed through this city, there may be a lot of random pictures of things we thought were important, and might have actually just been built for whatever X Y Z reason. No one knows. Well, I'm sure the Slovenians do. The general layout was this: you would head into the city center from our hostel, and you would be in a main square. In this square, there is a university (leading to a bunch of university students cruising around in roller blades, skateboards, etc), as well as the infamous 'triple bridge.' You guys, these are three bridges that congregate to the same point on the other side. You effectively (yes, effectively!) have three methods to cross the small canal. That's three too many options, if you ask me.

Along past the bridge (and, a couple of other bridges), there is a semi-ring that you can walk that around and stroll through the streets. Overall, pretty cool city, in a similar style to Bratislava, but, maybe the Slovaks (and Slovenes) will hate me for saying that. If you go slightly out of the main center, and walk along the canal, there are nice scenic spots to take pictures. What's cool is that it becomes a bit hillish so there's different layers to the architecture landscape. Some pictures from the city center proper: 

‍Is this statue important..? Let me block it with my finger. Main square.
The infamous triple bridges. I'm standing at the point of congregation. When three becomes onnnneeee.
‍I gotta say, pretty on-point.
‍The freshest breadest loaf around. Blown away by that dough flavor. I think this is a famous building..
‍Minimalist church. Kinda digging that plain facade.
‍I think you have some seaweed on you..
‍Dragon + bridge = tourist attraction. This is the general formula for success in tourism. Put dragons.. on everything--EVERYTHING.
Hey boys, this way to Ljubljana

After that, we decide to walk out of the city a bit. There was some nice churches on one edge of the city. There was also an old Roman wall - remnants, is a better word - that was around there, so we took some time to just follow along the walls. On the other edge, there was Ljubljana Castle. The castle was strategically placed on top of a hill, and the church was strategically placed.. where there were people. The castle courtyard was nice, but a lot of the site was developed for tourism, as such, walls were refurbished and the actual image of the castle may have bore little resemblance to the original. Still, the view from the top was great. 

‍Throwing up some thizz face in Slovenia, like everyone does.
Housekeeping...?
‍Man swagging in front of the school of music.
‍Another separate square, with a bunch of university students in it.
‍Cute church on the edge of the city center.
‍View from one tower of Ljubljana Castle, looking into the main castle square, overlooking Ljubljana.

So, that was the first leg of our trip. If you've been reading (congratulate yourself now), I said previously Ljubljana was split into two visits, sandwiching Bled. This is the second park when we went back to Ljubljana:

There are some old communist-looking buildings outside the city, in the 'citier' part. Apparently, one of them was the tallest building in Ljubljana for a while. There was also some ridiculous ranking of sorts, saying that it might have been the tallest building in communist eastern Europe from X year to Yth year, although, if we go that far, I'm sure everything building was the first of something. Whatever, when we went in, it was actually marbled out with two spiral staircases leading up to the same platform, all the way to the top. Along the way, we took some pictures of the offices. That typical forest-green, mahogany marble color contrasted with these spiral, simple staircases made it look extremely á la mode communism. It was great. We got a coffee at the top of the building, where there was a small restaurant. 

‍Communism architecture at its finest. At its roundest..
‍Looking down. See what I mean??
‍Even the language is in communist creole.

Someone played "word association" and won with this. Another two cool parts is the arts district, filled with interesting sculptures and wall graffiti, as well as the local park. Our hostel the second night was in an old prison camp, converted into a hostel. The night was.. interest.. there was an old lady that snored like no other and a French girl that got up in a rage because she was snoring so loudly, and proceeded to sleep just outside the room. Because the hostel itself was a bit popular due to its history, you got.. an eclectic group of people. Anyway, the cultural aspect of it was cool, and the location was also cool, but as it is with big hostels, they begin mirroring hotel-ish behavior, as in, you don't really get to meet anyone, and the prices are hiked up like .. I don't know.. hiked up like (insert analogy of hiking). The area was legit though. I have to feature this here: there are some hilarious pieces of artwork that we saw scattered through the city. Those pictures are posted as well.

‍No idea what goes through artists' minds. Pretty amazing, though.
‍I call this, "when your lecturer sucks but you're still being tested on the material."
‍Street art. Put this on a t-shirt and sell it in the U.S. if you want instant millionaire status.
‍Great message; a bit lost in the spelling. But, it's "The God's" way of doing it, so don't hate.

From Ljubljana, we decided, "enough of you, Slovenia!" and we took a train in the station to Zagreb. Even in the train stations, the word art preaches true.

‍YOMO: you only McDonald's once