Notes from Eastern Slovenia

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Sept 30 to Oct 4

We left Ljubljana and headed east.  Mostly we were on back roads but got on the super highway for a short stretch.  When we came to the toll booths there were lanes with a picture of a car and what we interpreted to mean that you had to have an electronic pass gizmo, and lanes with green signs for trucks to pay.  We got into the truck green line since we did not have the gizmo.  The attendant looked at us with strange look and just waved us through.  We began to decode this as we drove on.  I had read in the guidebook that cars had to buy an “auto transit” pass when you crossed into the country.  Since there was no official border crossing where we arrived, I just forgot about it. Nadi, the Mayalasian, had crossed in from Croatia where there is a formal border crossing. They said he had to buy a “auto transit” but that they had none, but he could buy one at any gas station later.  Five gas stations and he never found one.  Guess I will have to wait and see if any strange charges show up on the CC when I get home.
picture coming soon

Roaring down the autoroute in the Punto, everything was passing us, so I bumped the speed up to 130kmh/80mph. This is a strange Italian car as they are supposed to like to go fast, but Punto starting flashing “speed” and chiming at me.  I found out that if you ignore it, it goes away.

Filling Punto can be painful to the wallet.

equals 9.7 gallons/ $61.33

Eastern Slovenia is mainly flat with some areas of rolling hills. On the hills they grow grapes, as chronicled already.  On the flat they grow crops, mainly corn and pumpkin like looking things.  We walked through the country fields and most of pumpkin like fields had hundreds of  these laying busted open. We could not figure it out until we came upon a field that had 5 gallon buckets sitting next to the pumpkins.  They were opening up the pumpkin things and harvesting the seeds.

did i mention they grow corn...lots of it.

We are staying in an apartment in the house of Paul and Rachel Dennison, lately of  Suffolk, England now of Turnisce.  They got tired of the rat race and sold everything and moved here. She teaches English in the school and he takes care of the “garden” what we call “the yard” and Yogi, a fine dog. They are great people and can not do enough to make our stay enjoyable. (escape2slovenia.com)

Almost all the houses in this country are picture perfect and Turnisce is no exception.

the baker

the bakers wife

travel hint. at most chain groceries you have to weigh and tag your veggies

I mentioned  to Paul that since we are so close to Hungry we would like some goulash.  He sent us to the Zeveda Restaurant instead to sample the local equivalent called Bograc.  Glad we knew what we wanted, and had it written down, as this is not tourist country and the menu was all in Slovenian.  The waiter brought out a large bowl of what is basically beef stew. There was probably over a pound of beef and some potatoes in the dish.  That and a beer filled me up for 2 days.  Of course Vicki took hers home and ate on it for two days.

There are various holidays like, day of the dead, all souls day, etc that are big days for florist and cemeteries, as most people take flowers to the dead.  Sept 23 is one of those days here, so there are lots of flowers in the cemetaries.  Here, though, they also grow flowers on the graves which is kind of nice.  Of course, a few, are long forgotten, or as will be in my case, longed disliked and long forgotten.

 flowers growing on the grave

this is what mine will look like

We are here to hide from the political noise in the USA, but they are having them here also.  The good news is we can not understand a thing they are saying and they serve wine, slipavtz and food..oh yea and music.  After everybody is schnockered, they all start to sing.They set up these events and you see them rotating around the villages.

the man of the hour

Went to the city of Ptuj.  Vicki’s loves saying as it is pronounced P-too-e.   Sort of like spitting.  Nice old town.  We had a lunch of meats for 2 (the fish was to expensive), but would have fed 4 or more.

Saw OS and their castle.  Nice castle but the interesting thing is they have mirrors on tables so you can see the art on the ceiling with out walking around looking up.

We had lunch with Paul at the local bar.  They serve only a fixed meal, called Malice, and it is soup, salad, entre, and drink (beer for us) and cost $8.

He then sent us off to a park in the woods that had energy fields with healing powers and healing water.  A poor man's Lourdes.  I make no judgement on the healing properties, but I do know that it caused my camera to do strange things.  I stood in one of the circles and the picture washed out. I stood out of the circle and took a picture and Vicki's face washed out.  We both stood out of the circle in identical light facing the same direction and the picture was normal  You decide.

Sometimes you trim the house to meet the road.

 So, we know most of the roads signs, but we were told these don't mean what you think. This means that if the little suckers are out of the cross walk they are free game.  Thus, the green backpack vs the red one. Unlike the over-protected children in the States, children here are required to go to school by themselves at age seven.

Why is this photo significant?  It is the only trash we have seen in this country.  Somebody had a party on the steps to the castle Saturday night.

In men's bathrooms in the States, they sell "sex protection" and maybe something smelly.  Here they sell toothbrushes and breath freshener.

The local international airport.

i took a wrong turn some where

not a clue

the kebab (gyro) has become the main fast food in most of europe. 

Still having focus problems with the camera.