We wrote up stories in English class....this was my rough draft but it gives you a good idea of what it took to actually GET to Slovenia.....
Conquering Slovenia
Mika, Amelia, Hannah and I had conquered Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain, and Italy in the past two months of summer so rounding off our 10 break in Slovenia seemed easy. We traveled though Barcelona and Venice before catching the only train from Venice to Ljubljana, Slovenia at 9 pm on a Saturday night. The four hour ride passed quickly, but I knew that arriving in Slovenia at 2 am was not an ideal situation especially since we needed to get one hour outside of Ljubljana to our hostel in Selo near Lake Bled for our final destination. During the day, a bus is easy to catch between Ljubljana and the small town of Lake Bled, but since we were arriving in the middle of the night our only option was to take a taxi. What could go wrong? We felt invincible- wouldn't it be an adventure to find our way through Slovenia at night?
My thoughts weren't as lofty went we pulled into the station. It was cold and pouring rain. there wasn't a soul around. Miki promptly sat on a bench and checked her ipod for internet. Amelia laid her head on Miki's lap because her stomach was hurting. Hannah was all I had left to help me find a taxi so we set off in the rain. Eventually, we found about six drivers huddled under a tent smoking and laughing. They were like bees to honey seeing two blondes in shorts walk up looking cold, pathetic, and in desperate need of a taxi. Only one spoke a bit of English and he told us "1 Euro for 1 Kilometer. We get you there 60 to 70 Euro." Realizing this was our only option, we fixed the price and put our things in the car. I climbed in the front seat next to our driver who spoke no English and felt like I was signing my life away getting into that car.
I studied our driver as he gunned it out of the parking lot of the train station and I gripped the door handle for dear life. He was a large man with scruff and the yellow and purple stripes of his shirt seemed too happy to fit the atmosphere. In no time at all we had left the city, a thick fog had settled in around the car and mountains and woods surrounded us as the rain continued to pour down. To top it all off the background music consisted of classics like Beyonce and U2. You'd think this would cheer me up, but at the time it just seemed wildly inappropriate to sooth my nerves. The meter was also running alarmingly fast. At 30 Euros I squinted out my window hoping to catch a glimpse of the road signs. I had a blind hope that if we were kidnapped in the dead of night by our driver, at least I would remember where we were. Realizing this was fruitless because everything was in jumbled Slovenian I gave up and listened to the conversation. Our driver knew about five words in English.
"Student or tourist?"
"We're students."
"American?"
"Yes, American."
"Ah! Obama Good! Clinton good! Bush....baaaad!"
"Yeah!"
It wasn't worth discussing politics with this man I sat back in my seat to stare out the window getting more and more anxious with each passing kilometer. Sixty Euros on the meter and Bled still hadn't shown up on the road signs. I began to weigh our options. It's always the nice innocent girls in horror films who get kidnapped and killed first so I needed a game plan. If we were going to have to fight this man I'd need a strong group behind me. I looked to the back seat. A scared 15 year old for whom I felt particularly responsible sat behind me. Hannah is short and I didn't think she would hold up for much in a fight but she is feisty so I'm glad to have her on my side. In the middle sat Mika. She sang along along with the music bouncing from side to side. She obviously had no idea how serious our situation was becoming. I sat there clench fisted wondering if fate would land us in the back woods of Slovenia at 3 am dealing with who knows what. I like her happy-go-lucky spirit but I wasn't sure how much of a fighter she would be. My suspicions were confirmed when she promptly leaned forward and fell asleep. Behind our driver sat Amelia. She is street savvy and willing to do what it takes to be in charge and we usually tag team problems like this but at the moment my greatest ally was trying not to writhe in pain from her stomach ache. I was worried I'd have to explain to our driver we would need a hospital and our hostel as well.
The meter hit 70 Euro and I finally saw Bled show up on the street signs. Knowing we were staying about 5 kilos outside of Bled I thought we would be there soon and I showed our driver the address again. He looked confused and pulled over to the dark side of the deserted road. This was the LAST thing I wanted him to do. He continued talking to himself before a triumphant look came over his face, "Navigational!" At this, he got out of the car and pulled something from his trunk. We were saved! The man had a GPS. All he had to do was put the address and we would be there in minutes. It soon became clear as the meter ticked to 89 Euros -19 more than we agreed on paying- that the man didn't even know how to use his own navigational system. He was pushing buttons randomly as he drove along back roads, making eight point turns to turn around when he got confused. By the third turn-around I was able to convince him (or get my point across using sign language) that he needed to call our hostel. He did but after hanging up he looked even more confused and began muttering to himself. Finally, he handed me the GPS and motioned for me to work it.
He called the hostel again but still seemed hopelessly lost. He repeated "Selo, Selo." again and again as if repeating the name of the town we were trying to find would make it magically appear in front of us. It was 4 am and we were lost in the middle of Slovenia in the pouring rain with a scruffy man that seemed to get more angry at every passing moment. I could feel the tension in the car as he turned around again and again. I continued to punch numbers into the GPS, all the while I was praying our driver wouldn't give up, force us to pay 120 euros and leave us dripping on the side of the road in Slovenia.
Our driver yelled "BAGH!" for the fourth time and I got the courage to ask him for his phone so I could call the hostel. The man who answered spoke English. He was starting to get a little upset that some strangers were calling him at 3:30 am. He happened to be on a trip to Belgrade hundreds of miles away and was not even at the hostel. His family owns the hostel and normally, at this point (I'd like to assume), he would have come out to find us. But he was obviously nowhere near so he could only try to explain to me on the phone, between the f-word and other profanities and frustrations where we were and how to get to the hostel. After 10 minutes of hand signals and small miracles I was able to direct our driver to the hostel. I'm still surprise I was able to get him there at all; I can't even give people directions in English to a place I'm familiar with.
It was completely dark in the hostel when we arrived, but after a few minutes of ringing the bells in the rain an old woman stuck her head out. She spoke no English either but she looked inviting so we started walking inside. The meter showed 130 Euros as we got out of the car so I knew it was going to interesting when we handed our diver 75 Euros and started walking away. I wasn't disappointed. After a harrowing night it was 4 am in the pouring rain and our driver was now yelling in frustration that we hadn't paid him enough (at least I think that is what he was yelling- I wouldn't really know since he wasn't speaking English and I found out later he wasn't speaking a normal dialect of Slovenian either). At this point, my little band of followers were starting to get hysterical and Hannah was almost in tears. Finally, the little old woman ushered us inside put us to bed and helped us understand that she would make us breakfast whenever we woke up. She left us to our soft beds and comforters and we fell into them after a long group hug and the drying of Hannah's tears. I lay listening to the rain fall outside my window and cars driving outside, and with every crunch of tires on gravel I was deathly afraid our driver was coming back to get his extra 60 Euros.
Even though it was crazy trying to get to Lake Bled it was totally worth it. We spent the day touring this tiny town.
1 comments:
Well written, Ale! You would expect the driver to kidnap you... you would...
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