Last day in Ljubljana

If all goes as planned, today will be my last day in Ljubljana. Karoleana went to Bled this morning with some Italian guys we met last night, and the plan is for me to meet her there tomorrow morning (or early afternoon). After I wrote my last blog last night, I ran into her at the computers. She said "Are you tiwed?" and I wasn't. So, at 1 AM, we went for a drink with the Italian guys who also happened to be using the computers at that time. Their names are Mario and Bruno.

Here's something I have been wondering about: You know how dog breeds each have their own personality? Do you think it's the same for people? I ask because Karoleana resembles both Tracey and Juliette in different ways, and she has a sort of crazy, fun-loving personality like they do as well. Likewise, I have a string of ex-boyfriend who looked kind of alike, and acted kind of alike too. I have noticed that all of Alison's best female friends have really pretty brown eyes (I flatter myself) and dark hair too, and many of my good friends, in a similar kind of way, are blond. I dunno. I think in a way you see similarities that you want to see. I remember Grayson saying that he wanted to do his thesis to prove that "what is beautiful is good", but you know that doesn't really make any sense.

So, what I hadn't noticed that Karoleana showed me was that there was a contraption on the center square making it rain there. In this incredibly hot weather, that is like the coolest thing ever. When we first arrived at it, we danced around and sang "Singing in the Rain" (until Bruno pulled his back out). It's still going now, and I noticed there's this guy wearing just shorts who has been standing in for at least 3 hours (working on his tan?). However, it also actually rained a moment ago.

We got drinks at a Mexican restaurant (of which there are many in Ljubljana -- go figure) and got to bed about 3 AM, and in the morning I decided I was just not ready to run off to Bled with them. Maybe that was a mistake. Hopefully I can meet up with her tomorrow (she's supposed to call with her coordinates), bc she doesn't seem to suck that much so far. :-)

Today I planned to 1) buy some blueberries at the farmers' market, 2) go to the National Gallery and see this exhibit on Slovenian Impressionist painters, and 3) finally do the boat tour. I would also like to take the time to completely catch up on the blog.

Along with the blueberries, I also got some meat burek, which is a local food that vaguely resembles pizza but greasier and with flaky crust all the way around. I am big fan of flaky crust, but not of greasiness. It was good, but I am not sure I need to have another one. While I ate it at this outdoor picnic table behind the food stall this beggar woman approached me with her 2 small children and talked to me in Slovenian for literally like 10 minutes before giving up.

Since I couldn't possibly have slept more than 5 hours last night, I took a long nap this afternoon before going to the National Gallery. The exhibition is called "Color, light, empathy" so you can see why I was attracted to that. There weren't a lot of paintings, but they were pretty good. It mostly focused on the school of this guy named Anton Ažbe, who influenced many famous painters of the early 20th Century but of whose work very little remains. I think that's an interesting idea -- that someone could be a great artist by their influence without people having any complete knowledge of what his work actually looked like other than the reviews and references to it in other artists' work. I also breezed thru the permanent collections, and I think they should focus on collecting Slovenian art. Since you asked.

And that brings us to the present moment. I'll do another entry catching up of the conference.