Monday

That was another day full of adventures :D
I woke up and since a considerable time spent wandering around finally got to the local supermarket (Tos) and bought some bread, jiuce, chocolate and pudding :D The lady cashier asked me some questions and I didn't recognize the words but I mirraculously knew what she ment and kept answering "Ne" which is the same in Slovenian and Bulgarian. However, I fear that people hear may think I'm rude since I try to speak in Slovenian but sometimes fail to keep up - here everyone greets you in the elevator with "Hi" and "Bye" and in the shops as well and they tell you "Thank you" ("Hvala") all the time. Good thing I learned fast how all there things are in Slovenian :)
My next mission was to go walking around some sights in the center. I walked downtown (which took only 30 min) and passed by the City hall, the old town, crossed the river, saw the Faculty of architecture (a beautifully decorated by plants building), The Library, The University, The Filharmonia and some other pretty buildings along the river. When I passed the City hall, I entered in a shop for souveniers and stuff and got me postcards (the usual thing for me) and a cute little notebook from recycled paper and sunflower stickers.
I was supposed to go fetch Ger from her faculty but still had time since here I finish my sight-seeing trips always too early (even though I usually leave very late). And there was this H&M shop on my way so I couldn't resist the temptation and that brought additional luggage to my backpack again. But well, who can resist a 5-euro sweet artsy shirt, a 3-euro cute Hello Kitty nightgown and an adorable 1-euro owl case that my phone fit so perfectly in ;)
My next stop was the Faculty of Social Sciences. It was a bit far but I was still feeling enthusiastic about walking. There were 2 curious happennings on the way. First as I was quietly standing and waiting for some vehicles to pass so as to cross the street, a driver from the public transport stopped the bus and waited for me to cross the zebra...I was amazed! That can never never never happen in Bulgaria :D The other thing was this amazing wall covered with graffitti that was more like a painting. I took out my camera but a car stopped so I could pass on the zebra and I couldn't take the picture :(
After some more time I reached the faculty and waited for Ger to finish her class. I had gone to the Tourist information center earlier and gotten a bunch of maps so I looked at the one named "For young travellers" and they had funny facts about the country which made me laugh a bit and very useful tips about places to eat and relax and all the bars :) Finally Ger came out and introduced me to some of her colleagues and showed me around the Faculty. We took the bus home but I wasn't to stay long since I had arranged a meeting with a guy (Uros)from Coachsurfing who offered to show me some things of Ljubljana - my first such experience!
We met at 20.15 (I got off the bus one stop too early and had to walk again) and he showed me Metelkova - this crazy underground art place. There were amazing graffitti but most of the bars and places were closed. We went inside the famous Celica hostel (a former prison) and saw a photo exhibition of Norwegians of anything from seals to gypsies. Uros told me about some events happenning on Thursday. We also saw this huuuuuuge graffitti of a rat - it was awesome :D Next we went to a nice cafe (which turned out to be Kavarna SME), where we both had green jasmin tea and a nice conversation. However, soon he had to go since he had some work to do and he was staying at his girlfriend's place (not currently living in Ljubljana). He took me to a bus stop at the train station and we said "Bye". We were considering going to some parties afterwards but finally staid home.

Sunday

I woke up on Sunday and it was raining...and it didn't stop the whole day. We couldn't even go buy bread since the shops were closed so we had pasta. I read my book ("Men at arms" by Terry Pratchett) and that was how the day passed basically.

Saturday

This was a big day in my trip - a little bit of sightseeing, shopping, partying :)
First Ger and I walked to the center, had a falafel on the street, saw a wedding and went up the hill to the castle, where there was another wedding :). It wasn't as impressive as I'd expected but it had a nice view over the city and was a pleasant walk in a forest up the hill. We walked around the castle, saw an exhibition (where I learned a new word in Slovenian - "mucki", which, considered it was written below a photo of two cats, is supposed to mean "cat" or "kitten".
Next we went downhill where we saw another church (supposedly the Church of St. James) and got on a bus to the other mall (that is actualy close to GEr's place - BTC). However, the bus was going to garage so we had to get off and wait for another one in the center, where I saw the headqurters of the bank that I used to work in - Societe Generale. In the mall we went to quite e few shops - shoe ones, New Yorker, H&M, Tally Weijl, an Indian one (where I got this nice nice shawl - jacket :), Bershka, Stradevarius, Pull and Bear, and I got also a winter hat, and a bathing suit pants :D Oh and we bought amazing chocolate from a chocolate shop - a big bar with dried fruits on top - very delicious.
Since it was a Saturday night Ger looked for parties and found 2 - one swing/ska/reggae/rock/etc and one with djs and some strange types of music. We chose the second one. So we dressed up and walked to the center (since it was after 12 and there was no public transport). The club was looking quite underground with no so many people, but late more came and it got realatively full. We got ourselves drinks - a beer for me :) and checked out the two scenes - on the first only girls were playing - first reggaeton and then a cool looking chick from Serbia - dubstep. On the other one there were 3 guys - I quickly determined which one was my favourite (Dj Government 4000 from Serbia) and we danced a bit. When it got near 4 we decided to go but then we went to the girl's part and there was this cool Serbian dj and we watched her for some time. When we left, we were expecting that the public transport would be already running but it wasn't so had to walk home again in the rain and the first bus appeared when we were almost home.
Happy with the party experience we went to bed at about 5 :)

Friday

I woke up at about 12 in the afternoon on Friday and waited for Ger to come home from school to go on my first "expedition" in Ljubljana :) We took the bus downtown, passed the Dragon bridge and walked along a nice street with some shops until we got to Presernov trg (square) with the Church of the Annunciation and the Triple bridge. I could see the castle on the top of the hill from there - it was very close. Then we took another bus and went to a mall on the other end of the city (not that it was so far since it is a relatively small city). There we went to a clothes shop where I got my fake hair :D just kidding - I got this very fashionable hair band in the form of two braids from something resembling hair. Then we went around a big show shop and finally got into this huuuuge supermarket with everything one could think of. We got some delicacies from there (like the white tea with lychee sort of jiuce, and kita - pastry with chocolate). Since we were both tired we spent the night at home watching a movie ("The Darjeeling unlimited" - a great movie, by the way:).

The journey

It started at 15.30 on a Thursday (14/10/2010) from the international bus station in Sofia. I bought the cheapest 2-way ticket and still we had a free bottle of water and free dinner ("pleskavitsa" at a nice Serbian restaurant 2 hours after the border:) and we were only 3 passengers (an older man going to Trieste and an older woman going to Firenze and then Elba isle) on the bus and 2 drivers so I almost had the bus for myself.


We passed the border between Bulgaria and Serbia relatively fast (it took us only 1 hour considered I had waited there once before for about 6) and they made us get off the bus at the Bulgarian side and at the Serbian - a friendly customs guy got on the bus and inspected everything - as they always do - smiling :) It was raining in Serbia, as it had in Bulgaria. We passed through my favourite spot of the road - where the many tunnels and breath-taking rocks are and through Beograd (which looked almost exactly like Sofia. The drivers asked us to carry some cigarettes across the borders because they had bought a lot but we didn't have any problem with that.

It took us about 5 hours to pass through Serbia and we reached the border between Serbia and Croatia at about 22.30. The usual smiling Serbian guy got on the bus and checked our passports on the Serbian side but we weren't so lucky on the Croatian one. There were again a lot of young customs people and a lot of girls. We had to get off with all our luggage and pass an inspection. The first thing that I noticed when I went into the building was the big fat cat taking a nap :) I was so glad that the girl went through my stuff without taking it all out and checked only this and that (she was really puzzled at my transparent bag with medicines and cheched each one). Then they seemed to find my passport interesting because they took it somewhere inside but in a few minutes brought it back withoput saying anything. We stopped after 5 min and had a rest at a gas station - it wasn't rainin aby more and the weather seemed really nice.

Then after another 4-5 hours we reached the Slovenian border - it turned out to be my favourite since on the Serbian side the driver took our passports to the customs and nobody checked us in the bus and on the Slovenian side a guy came on the bus - no getting off and walking half asleep. Since I can never sleep proper on buses I didn't have much rest. When we reached Slovenia I didn't even feel like sleeping and in only an hour we finally reached Ljubljana. I got off the bus at the train/bus station and waited for Ger for about an hour. There were already a lot of people going around in 5 in the morning but it was cold and misty. When Ger arrived we took the bus (2 buses :) home and walked across a river. She lives on the 12th floor so the view is breath-taking. I took a shower and she prepared to go to school. I fell asleep even before she had finished preparing.