Ljubljana, where have you been all my life?

So today's blip was going to be amusing anecdotes from my early start (6:30am - pardon??) and the train journey - getting on the wrong train and not twigging til it set off 15mins early - ok though, as it only moved 10 feet then stopped again!

And the journey through southern Austria was interesting. It's absolutely beautiful scenery - I'd recommend it! Do try to make sure though, if you make the trip, that you're not in a compartment next to a group of boys with a crate of Stella (yes, before 8am) and heavy/death/thrash/doom metal (you know the type, where there's a vocalist - I hesitate to say singer - growling loudly and unintelligibly) on an ipod with speakers. A group who insist on growling along with the 'music' (and I use that term loosely) for the whole two and a half hours. Bless 'em, they'll never win Austria's Got Talent ;-)

Ok, so it is a bit about the train journey...

Got to Ljubljana at lunchtime, very helpful train conductor telling me it's the next stop and another helpful tourist information person telling me how to get to my hotel (Hungarians, see how easy it is?). He lied though, 10 minute walk my arse, more like 20, and in 30+ degree heat with a heavy bag. Still, I walked off the ice cream from later ;-)

I've had a fabulous afternoon wandering the streets - it's quirky like Salzburg and Prague, hot like Rome (22 degrees at 11.30pm), there's a canal like Venice, bars and cafes everywhere, the best ice cream i've had since Italy and everyone is so friendly. If it wasn't for my 99.9% lack of Slovenian, I could live here. Well, no, because I spent a fortune this afternoon!

Took myself off on a walking tour of the old town tonight, and at 11pm sat down to eat a massive bowl of goulash, as recommended by the American chap on the next table, who'd been travelling solo for 3 months and was thinking of heading home in the next few weeks. See, I'm getting better! And he was right about the goulash - flippin' delicious!

I'm still going to Lake Bled tomorrow, but I will definitely come back to Ljubljana!

Lahko no? x

ps have found out what was in the pastry in Prague - poppy seed! They do something with it to make it into a kind of sweet paste. She was trying to tell me it was a flower, bug all I could think of were sunflowers! Had another one with poppy seed and black cherry yesterday.