The Hannahlogues

Insert my most sheepish and apologetic face here! I have been AWOL for far too long, but I promise I have several at least medium acceptable reasons for my absence, and one very exciting reason for finally getting around to an update post.

I’ve officially been back in the US for over 4 months (wah!), but the last time I posted I was in Sarajevo adjusting to a post-Kolocep reality. I was reflecting on the challenges of leaving an environment where I was able to be indulgently self centered – caring for nothing other than the things I wanted to do, read, and write. I was backsliding into the “should,” and worrying about the reality of coming home, reentering the “real world,” and how to make this more of a permanent change in the way I live my life than a mid-life crisis.

I’ll give you some of the quick hits of the last few months to bring you up to speed and connect the dots to the real reason for the post (which, depending on length, may end up being a quick follow to this post). Unfortunately for you, there are a few incredible Mostar-level epic fail stories that I just never got around to writing, so you’ll get the abridged versions here, but they deserved better than that.

Also fair warning… I’m just word vomiting and posting so please forgive typos or errors. Too much to say, not enough time!

Part I: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Let’s just say that this country was everything I had hoped it would be, and more. I was charmed, transfixed, and rendered speechless by this country. I was one smitten kitten. It’s big and diverse enough in landscape to not feel like there’s no variety, but small enough to be able to drive across the country in a couple of hours. It’s about the size of Massachusetts or New Jersey, but with approximately 2 million people compared to MA and NJ’s 7 and 9.5 million population, respectively. It has a short 30 mile piece of the Adriatic coast line and its northern border with Austria is comprised largely of the Julian Alps.

The entire center of the city of Ljubljana is pedestrian only, lined with cafes, restaurants, shops and apartments. People watching is one of the most Slovenian things you can do. The northern edge of the pedestrian zone is the home of a massive daily outdoor/indoor market. Every Friday from March-October the market transforms into an “Open Kitchen” where local vendors and restaurants set up their food carts, a live band sets up, and diners and families mingle on lounge chairs and stone steps, while children run amok through the stalls.

While I really did enjoy my time in Bosnia + Herzegovina, I had a surprising revelation almost immediately. As I was walking towards the river/pedestrian area from my airbnb on my first day, I was admiring the gorgeous buildings on either side of the street, when I noticed a series of equally spaced out holes in the facade. When I realized they were by design, drainage holes or something, it hit me that I had been carrying around some internalized sadness and emotional pain from three weeks in a country ravaged by war and genocide thirty years prior. I was pretty shocked realizing it had taken such a mental toll… my shoulders felt lighter in Slovenia. It makes me want to understand more about how Bosnians feel living with.. inside those reminders.

The last few days of my 2 week visit coincided with the International Volleyball on Water tournament which is pretty self explanatory. Mens and women’s teams from all over the world compete in a volleyball court set on a floating platform in the middle of the Ljubljana River. The tournament runs all day, but the real action starts at night, when the neon lights of the court light up and the whole atmosphere becomes one big party. I have to attach some stolen pictures, because mine don’t do it justice.

Perched atop the city center is the Ljubljana Castle, which can be reached by a short but steep walk, or funicular ride. It has been painstakingly renovated to contain museum/restored castle exhibits, rotating art galleries, several restaurants/cafes/wine bars, an event space, wedding venue, picnic site, film festival location, etc… There is even an escape room/scavenger hunt type activity and a mascot – Friderick the Castle Rat!

I sandwiched my Lake Bled trip with Ljubljana stays, so I had two different airbnbs in different neighborhoods which was actually great, because I got to explore well beyond the pedestrian only main drag. I would say that’s probably where the tourists flock, but to be honest, it’s really hard to tell the tourists apart from locals. Usually you don’t see locals spending a lot of time in places like that, but I got chatting with a couple sitting next to me at a bar where I was having drinks with a woman I had met on my walking tour that morning. We ended up being invited to a party they were hosting the following evening at their apartment just around the corner, so we can confirm that locals do in fact live there!

My first airbnb was not far from Tivoli Park and Tivoli Forest, which I would compare more to Montreal’s Mont Royal than to Central Park, as there is a decent elevation and incredible city views. In fact, at 2 square miles, it’s about 30% bigger than Central Park and more than twice the size of Mont Royal. I had a very decent sweat going by the time I made it to the breathtaking views from the top – where you’ll also find exercise equipment and a cafe/bar.

It’s an outdoor country without feeling aggressive about it… I haven’t been, but I feel like Denver is an aggressive outdoor city. Richmond feels borderline aggressive. People aren’t walking around with bike shorts and shoes on, and they’re not going mountaineering every weekend that I can tell, but I saw plenty of people exercising, and walking and biking is the default. In fact, people bike around the entire country on a regular basis. There are more than a dozen hikes of varying levels of difficulty you can get to from the city center via public transportation. And if you are so inclined, you CAN hike the Julian Alps. You could also just drive to the top.

Bike lanes are incredibly well protected and have their own stop lights and crosswalks. Even in the immediate vicinity of the non-pedestrian zone, cars are few and far between. I’m not sure I heard a horn my entire time there. I’ve never considered myself the kid of gal who would own a bike and use it for my daily commute. But I think that I just hadn’t met the right city yet. It’s not defensive bike riding like I’ve witnessed in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. There just aren’t enough people for biking to feel intimidating or life threatening.

They have dozens of citi-bike type stations all over the city, with an easy to use app and a ONE EURO A WEEK membership fee that lets you ride free for an hour, with a small incremental fee after the first hour.

And don’t even get me started on my absolute favorite part of my whole trip – fresh, clean, and FREE water available everywhere you turn. Slovenia even has an app that points you to the nearest available public fountain! I have not stopped thinking about what a treat that was for 5 months, especially when I’m purchasing a $6 smart water.

I was lucky enough to overlap with the 73th annual Ljubljana festival which takes places over the entire summer, and was comprised of 132 music, dance, and theater events at dozens of sights across the country. I stumbled on a symphony and an opera, but the highlight of the trip was seeing the Duke Ellington Orchestra (from Harlem) perform in the courtyard-turned outdoor theater in a former Monastery of the Holy Cross on the last weekend of my trip. I’m glad I was diligent about my daily note taking as I sit here 5 months later trying to remember the details of this trip. My note for this day was:

“Had a bit of a NYC moment.. transcendent.. Magical. One of those “I can’t believe I am here right now” moments. Perhaps one of my favorite nights of the whole trip.”

It turns out, Slovenia has festivals going on more than they don’t.. looks like there’s a winter one gearing up now. While I definitley experienced the sticker shock after three weeks in Bosnia + Herzegovina, it’s just an absolutely incredible country, and it remains at the top of my list for a return trip.

Part II: Lake Bled, Slovenia

When I TELL YOU IM OBSESSED. I’m obsessed. Was it as touristy as I was warned? Yes and no. I think touristy is all relative, because peak season in Slovenia is still less crowded than peak season in Italy or Greece, but the fact that I spent more on housing over the last two weeks of my trip than I did the prior 10 weeks speaks to the peak season. Note to self: make accommodation arrangements MUCH sooner in advance next time.

There were many who warned me against the kitschiness of Bled and encouraged me to go a bit further afield to Bohinj, but I got all the feels the moment I saw the church in the middle of the lake that I have inadvertently been staring at on my TV screensaver for the last 4 years.

It’s really a testament to how special Lake Bled was that I had the time I had, because…. everything that could go wrong pretty much did. Something I haven’t mentioned yet is that summer had arrived, and we’re talking 20-30 degrees hotter than average.. so instead of 67 degrees, we’re looking at temps in the 90s.

Oh man, I’m really sorry you aren’t going to get the full post this trip deserves, but even the short version will be as entertaining as my Mostar luggage story.

Firstly, I took a bus to the lake, which is a mere hour from the city center. The bus cost me less than $3. However, I was only going for 3 nights, and was staying in a small guest house, so didn’t want to lug my 80 pound suitcase with me. So that morning, I took an uber to drop my big bag at a luggage locker located inside a gym.. very convenient app and a very reasonable price. However what’s not convenient is the fact that the gym was on the second floor, but the escalator to get there was broken. So I had the pleasure of making three full trips up and down the stairs to get all my shit upstairs. Since I was going to another apartment a few days later, I had a loose bag of non-perishable food and a few other odds and ends since I was redistributing my packing for the 3 nights away in my carry on backpack.

After dropping the bag off, I hopped on a bike share to get to the bus station with what had to have been a 50 lb backpack on my back, and a stuffed full tote bag precariously perched in the basket. I’m not sure I stopped sweating at any point over the next 3 days.

Upon drop off in Bled, I realize I overshot the stop closest to my guest house by a good half mile. While I knew the guest house was a few blocks removed from the lake itself, what I did NOT know is that it was a few blocks UP A VERTICAL INCLINE. Everything was burning. My shoulders were ready to fall off my body from the weight of the backpack. Every single part of my body is drenched in sweat.

I finally made it to my guest house which was… just adorable. Villa Nana is run by a woman in her 90s named Rosemary, who goes by Nana. The guest house was really cute and had a lovely balcony overlooking the rolling countryside… but what it did not have was AC. Because why would you have AC when average summer temps rarely reach 80. *sigh*

She greeted me graciously, and although my room was not yet ready, I was able to drop my bag, redistribute to a smaller one, turn back around and head for the lake.

The lake is just breathless. It’s the kind of place where your photos need no editing. It’s just THAT gorgeous. I didn’t really know what to expect, so everything was a bit of a surprise. There’s no one place to go. Some of the nicer hotels have private lakefront seating areas, but mostly people just found a little nook to spread out their towel and hop in. In typical lake fashion, there’s no beach, just grass, until there’s water. It’s sort of hard to explain, but the casualness of it all was one of my favorite parts.

I’ll have to let the photos speak for my time in Bled. This is truly “a picture is worth 1,000 words” situation. I rented a bike that afternoon for the three days – money well spent considering the hike to and from the guest house. The lake is also about 4 miles around, so it’s not exactly a quick trip to get where you’re going.

That said, the most chaotic part of my entire trip took place during a trip to the nearby Vintgar Gorge, labeled as a can’t miss by everyone I spoke with. I was able to ride my bike the few miles to the shuttle point the early one morning, as daily visitors are limited, and all the advice was to be in one of the earliest groups of the day to avoid the crowds.

This gorge is… sorry… I have to… GORGEOUS. It’s 1 mile long, and .1 miles deep in some places.. it is not to be fucked around with. What did I do? Oh I fucked around of course. And then I found out.

Let’s just say there was a bridge. And there was a loose phone mount. And there was a bounce. And there was a plop. And then there was my phone… IN the gorge.

It was one of those situations where I watched it all happen in slow motion and just sort of stood there like… yep. That’s on me. I couldn’t even be mad. That was 100% my bad. I was actually really proud of my response. There was nothing I could do but figure this out.

I was SO FORTUNATE that it landed in a shallow tidepool of sorts, so while it wasn’t within reach, it hadn’t been swept away by the roaring water either. If I was telling the full version of this story I would explain how many times I ended up walking up and down the boardwalk of the gorge in my little orange hard hat, accompanied by staff members. But let me just say, had I dropped my phone in a gorge in America, I think my chances of a staff member helping me recover it would have been based entirely on the benevolence of the individual staff member, while here in the Vintgar Gorge, every single staff member helped me without blinking. Less than an hour later, I had my hand back in my phone while the other park visitors around us cheered on – and IT WAS STILL ON! Talk about an ad for iPhone.

I was even able to continue taking photos for the rest of my morning, though I recognized that I was likely living on borrowed time. At the first possible chance, I made sure my photos from the previous two days had backed up to the cloud (truly my biggest concern) and made do with an intermittently working phone for the remainder of my time in Bled.

By the time I arrived back in Ljubljana, I was days away from my departure and had to make do with a refurbished iPhone 10 because it’s pretty much impossible to travel internationally without a smartphone these days (not to mention all the apps you need for unlocking bikes, and multifactor authentication, ordering ubers, etc…).

I’ll tell ya though, trying to navigate on bike to the lone electronics repair shop in a strip mall deep in the residential part of the city with a hand drawn map was… somethin else.

I may just call it a day here as this post really got away from me and the evening really got away from me. I must say, it’s been such a pleasure to remind myself of those final two weeks of my trip, because they were the perfect bookend to Kolocep. I have no regrets about Bosnia, and really connected with Sarjaevo, but Slovenia really felt like “I could live here.” Some of that was getting around on bike so easily, stumbling onto cultural events and activities like I used to in NYC, a very manageable number of people, and the GREENness of the city and country. In fact, in 2019 Slovenia was voted the greenest city in Europe – second in the world, I believe – which meant they had the highest ratio of trees-to-humans. The country is deliberate about recycling, composting and reducing reliance on single use plastics. Cars exist, but so does really accessible public transportation. Bosnia was not a smoke free city, nor did they recycle. It was grittier.. which I know a lot of people prefer. I did love the east meets west vibe, and I do love a good call to prayer, but I think Slovenia better embodies of the kind of life I want to live. Except DAMN it’s expensive (again, it’s all relative).

Attending the party comprised largely of Slovenians married to Americans (mixes of men and women in either role) who currently split their time between the US and Ljubljana. The woman that I had met at the bar who hosted the party is quite literally a rock star – she plays electric guitar and has a band out of Zagreb, Croatia, and was leaving for the US a couple weeks after me to join a US rock star for a few dates of her tour.

One last thing

Perhaps the most important factor in my lack of updates for my final month was that my computer time was spent cutting together a video for my dad’s 70th birthday! My mom and I reached out to dozens of people from all walks of his life and we got close to 50 responses. Letters, photos, and video messages that all had to be cut together into what turned into a 45 minute video tribute.

My ability to not half ass anything is both my strongest and weakest trait, haha. I spent every second of my 8 hour flight home working on it, as well as every spare moment I had for the 5 days between landing home and our family vacay in Maine.

So you can blame Tom Wesley for having such a meaningful impact on so many people’s lives that it took his daughter a full month to cut together his birthday video.

Ok friends, I hope I’ve made it up to you at least a little bit. And I promise you’ll get another post – maybe two – within the next day because my news is TIME SENSITIVE!

My mom celebrated her 70th on Monday, so happy birthday to both of them!!