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Hello from Slovenia!  I would greet you in the local language, but since our trusty phrasebook does not have Slovenian, we are out of luck and back to sign language.  We just got in after a surprisingly painless 9-hour train ride from Budapest, where we had did some blitz traveling.

I had fun tormenting pigeons from my rented bicycle.

When last I wrote, we were planning a day trip to Bratislava.  Unfortunately that did not pan out, and we instead returned to Vienna for one last day.  We went out to the cemetary where Beethoven and Schubert are buried, and where Mozart has a memorial statue.  We wandered around a city park, enjoyed some ice cream, and chilled out, before renting bikes and rolling around the city.  As luck would have it, the second we activated our countdown clocks on the bicycles, the skies opened up and rained huge droplets on our heads.  Since it was a hot day, this was actually enjoyable, and we had a great time biking through the streets.  We headed back to our favourite spots, including the rose garden and main squares, and then met up with Gary, Nelly, Peppi and Lizzie for a barbeque.  All in all, it was a splendid last day in Austria.


The day before yesterday, we took a bus to Budapest.  It is another Hapsburg city in Central Europe, and looks the part, but it is less maintained than Prague and Vienna, and the cracks are still showing from when the nation was behind the Iron Curtain.  After figuring out transportation to Ljubljana, we wandered around the Pest side of the river.  We meandered to the City Park and walked around the lovely green space, where a castle rises surprisingly from the lake.  On the edge of the park is Hero's Square, where a semicircle of ancient, larger-than-life Kings glared down at us, daring us to ask what incredible (and likely violent) deeds they accomplished in their lifetimes.  Yesterday, our full day in Budapest, we went up to see Matthias Cathedral and the Castle, which are both on the Buda side of the Danube.  The Cathedral is perched on the edge of the hill, next to a neat wall structure called the Fisherman's Bastion, which provided a breathtaking view over the city, the main feature of which was the most beautiful parliament building I've ever seen... built in the Gothic style, with red rooftops and spires of carved stone, it really was magnificent.  The Cathedral was very beautiful too, though it was under construction.  Inside was a neat exhibit about restoration of old artifacts and of the Cathedral itself.  In the afternoon, we went back to Pest, heading to the Opera house on a tip from a fellow

Hero's Square

traveler, who said that tickets to the Opera could be purchased for $5.  We bought tickets for the night's performance of Anna Karenina, which Kelly is currently reading.  Then we went to meet up with a girl named Kasia from Couch Surfing, who met us for a lemonade downtown.  A few years ago, she did an exchange to Sydney, near Victoria, so she was keen to chat with Canadians again, and since she's working on her Master's in International Relations, we had lots to talk about.  We parted ways, dolled ourselves up, and went to the Opera, a first for me.  The building itself is beautiful, with high, painted ceilings and grand entrances.  The chandeliers provide a lovely glow to everything, and statues of the muses look out towards the stage over the heads of the audience.  The roof is painted with cherubs and angels.  We were up in the nosebleeds, but we figured sound would carry just fine to where we were sitting.  Once the performance started, I was surprised to note that some of the singers were wearing pointe shoes.  Thinking I must be mistaken due to the distance, I settled down to wait for someone with a glass-shattering voice to begin.  To my amazement, no one sang, and everyone danced!  We had accidentally purchased tickets to the ballet!  Despite the moderate alarm at our Hungarian being worse than we could have imagined, I was very happy to watch the Royal Hungarian Ballet perform.

The Kings of Hero's Square

The lovely roof of the opera house.

Matthias Cathedral

Lion's Bridge with the Hungarian Parliament in the background.

Today has been spent almost entirely on the train.  I finished a book, we both slept, and watched the rolling green countryside go by.  Thankfully, no obese men smelling of cigar smoke joined us in our compartment on this journey, and we passed the trip in relative comfort.  We found our way to the hostel, but since we're a day early, having cut out a night in Zagreb due to a train journey that was not findable on the internet, there was no room for us.  We were carted off to another hostel, which is a bit odd, but seems clean enough.  We're going to do a nice exploration of Ljubljana (pronounced L-YOUB-ly-A-na) tomorrow, and we're quite excited.  From what we've read and seen, it's a smaller (pop. 300,000), quieter city, easily walkable and quaint.  Our time in the big cities has been great, but draining, and we're ready for the leg of our journey that takes place in smaller cities, the countryside and along the coast.