Hometown Tourist
Bad Kitty
When you know you're not supposed to be on the desk, but you're a one-eyed cat living your best life so you don't think rules apply to you....
NB: Hope you enjoyed those 10 months of unfettered access to that sunny bamboo, Chacha, because summer's here and I'm taking it back!
What are the odds of that?
Turkish Airlines famously flies to more countries than any other airline in the world, and of all the destinations they're currently advertising in their Ljubljana office windows, what are the odds* that one of them would be the place I just spent the better part of five months living?
NB: The other three are Male, Cappadocia and Miami.
*If the internet is accurate and Turkish currently flies to 352 destinations in total, then the odds of Havana (or any other destination) being one of the four window advertisements here is 1 out of 88 or 1.136%.
Hit the showers
Europeans are known for being much more liberal than Americans when it comes to nudity, but I was still a bit surprised to see this new* communal public shower on Ljubljana's main street....
*I'll be using the word 'new' to describe anything opened in the last year or two, since it's all new to me.…
Legends never die
The man, the myth, the legend, the eternal Josip Broz Tito. Still keeping a watchful eye on the cobbled streets of Ljubljana.…
International Cat Day
Here's Chacha telepathically wishing everyone a happy International Cat Day. And also staring deep, deep into the photographer's soul with her one good eye....
NB: The vast majority of these 'official' international days are ridiculous, and I only found out today's designation after ironically seeing multiple posts from Turkish Airlines on the subject, but I was going to share this photo anyway and couldn't think of anything better to say about it.
America loves rodeo
America loves rodeo, apparently.
Meanwhile, that sticker on the bottom is for a local running club, and in the background one of those bizarre two-wheeled contraptions that Europeans seem to be fond of is serendipitously rolling by. Can't make this stuff up....
€18.45 in Groceries
What €18.45 (or around $21.51) of groceries in Slovenia looks like - or at least it does when purchased by a very budget conscious consumer with fairly simple tastes.
Prices for the basics seem more or less the same as they were a full year ago, although literally every single person in Ljubljana I told that to pushed back with varying levels of umbrage....
Ljubljana's famous Dragon Bridge
Good morning, Ljubljana!
Life's a beach
When it's 34°C and you really wanna go to the beach, but holiday traffic on the motorway is terrible and you also don't have a car or a drivers license or any money for public transport....
Say hello, wave goodbye
Ironically, opened just below the offices of the company I used to work for. On the plus side, after first seeing this, I had the Soft Cell song 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' stuck in my head for the next half hour or so. Great song....
Ljubljana is very pretty, please don't come here
Like most of Slovenia, Ljubljana is very very very pretty, but please don't come here, because despite what many corporate run travel media companies try to tell you, the city was long ago 'discovered' and has already been overrun with tourists....
All Cyclists Are Beautiful
Stranded
When you're so excited to climb all the way up to the summit (or in this case top shelf) that you don't properly consider how you'll eventually get back down....
Spoiler alert: She required the assistance of a Good Samaritan. Luckily someone learned their lesson from the last episode of Seinfeld 😉
Some Finns on a road trip. Google says it's only a 25-hour drive (without any stops) covering 2121km from Helsinki to Ljubljana....
Olives before lavender
The IKEA in Ljubljana has tealights in a couple dozen different scents. None of them are lavender, but one is olives. Or perhaps olive oil, I couldn't really tell. Either way, sounds like something AI would have hallucinated....
NB: On social media, a follower helpfully added that this was the official description of this mystery scent from the IKEA website: "A crisp scent of fresh herbs. Suitable when you want to create a gentle and bright atmosphere of a new start at home, inspired by the first days of spring." Whatever.
Preaching to the choir
Some street philosophy, ironically scrawled on the back wall of the Institute of Oncology...
Enjoying the view
She might not have any depth perception, but Chacha can still appreciate a glorious view when she sees one.
My phone's camera on the other hand apparently can't handle it - at least not judging from what's happening in the bottom right corner of this photo....
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
When you're reunited with your beloved Japanese knife after 10 months of separation. It's true what they say, absence does make the heart grow fonder....
NUK
For architecture aficionados, Ljubljana is synonymous with the name of Jože Plečnik, the Secessionist architect responsible for loads of buildings, bridges and more across the city during the first half of the 20th century.
He was notoriously a crochety old bastard (and professor), but did do some pretty interesting stuff. This is the National University Library - or simply NUK to locals, its Slovene acronym - one of the cooler buildings in the city centre.
Riverside table
I love that (presumably) someone from the neighbouring apartments set up this table and chair down by the river, perhaps so they can hide a smoking habit from their kids and/or just enjoy a romantic waterfront sunset in the shadow of the medical oxygen company....
Free water
Ljubljana is the kind of city where theatres can still sell water to thirsty tourists on the honour system. Although €2 a bottle does seem a little pricey, I suppose most people wouldn't want to disappoint Santa Claus.....
NB: The bigger question here isn't how many people take water without dropping €2 into the tin, but how long that tin full of €2 coins will be sitting here before someone snatches the whole thing and runs off.
Eyeing the classifieds
Chacha's always got her one good eye open, on the look out for the best deals around town....
Good lord that's a lot of money
When you're visiting a Slovene friend who lives in the country's second city and plan to bring a dragon magnet from the capital village as a joke gift (after accidentally leaving all your Cuba magnets in the US), but the joke is on you after discovering that they now cost €7, despite that fact that approximately half of the city centre is souvenir shops these days. So much for supply and demand....
Better late than never
After more than a decade and a half of delays, Ljubljana's massive new transport hub mixed use development project, ie Emonika, is finally underway - set to replace the Habsburg era railway station and flimsy tin shed that's technically the country's central 'bus station'.
Scheduled completion the end of 2027....
Bougie burger
When you meet an old friend for burgers and beers at the city's biggest brewery pub, yet the only 'normal' burger on the menu comes with brie, sautéed red onions and arugula.
It wasn't bad, but I was seriously tempted to eat it with a knife and fork....
More Plečnik
The colonnaded arcade of Ljubljana's Central Market is another work of the curmudgeonly architect and hometown hero, Jože Plečnik....
Missing MacGyvers
I haven't followed pop culture too closely the past couple decades, but I was still surprised to see that I'd apparently missed 14 different MacGyvers since the original version of my childhood....