Day 22: Ljubljana

Waking up in a parking lot in Ljubljana , i lay there pondering the fact that i woke up in Germany just the morning earlier . Then i begin to think of showering , Petri is up ! We decide to go hunt for somewhere to shower open the door and BLAM the parking lot is jam packed !!!! Beginning to feel like a gypsy , my first reaction is to find the public bathroom and a coffee....first we walk into any random building ( probably not supposed to be there but went anyway ) and find a toilet , with a semi shower inside ....totally Ghetto we decide to abort the idea . Get some drinks and head back to camper to find Rainer awake and ready to move , we sit and ponder ideas on the map i got from the hotel that wanted 140 Euros for us to shower there . There is a public swimming pool , lets go there.

Somehow we accidentally find the arena parking lot !!!! There are only 2 arenas in pretty much all of Slovenia and we accidentally stumble upon 1 looking for somewhere to shower ? Petri and myself run straight to the arena leaving Rainer behind at the camper ( natural magnetism to hockey ) and right away i start asking people outside the arena about playing today . With a Pro team , Womens Pro team, B team , Junior team all practising on this day it was a problem. Petri ran to the toilet in the arena and then i followed reluctantly. We tried to get into a dressing room to shower but were looked at like gypsys ( i wonder why ) . Somehow we found out that there was a pool in the complex and we went back to find Rainer .

Heading to the pool as fast as possible we find out that it is closed when we arrive and ask if there are showers, there are showers but we have to pay something like 3 Euros each ....at this point i would have paid 20.Finally having a nice hot shower and a shave we all head to the arena to try to get on , no luck ...we need the internet to contact some people to try to get on the ice. We have to eat first so we walk across the street to pick out our lunch which we ate directly behind the arena . At this point our gypsy lives changed when we met our new pet Katvogel (LOL ) ...Rainer saw the cat and put this can of leftover canned fish out for it and Katvogel was ours for the day :) .

Then deciding to head through the park to the city centre. I am a big fan of graffiti and got lucky walking through this walkway to see some of the best graf i had seen on this whole trip ( aside from graf i saw on train going through Czech ) . We get to the city centre and walk basically to where the bar we were at was . Wandering about , it was a beautiful day to wear shorts and a tshirt , the city centre is truly beautiful with lots of cool art and some great little cafes. Having problems finding ourselves an internet cafe we wander into a bar and were greeted by some really amazing people working at this establishment, being kind enough to plug in Petris phone and joke around about throwing it out too LOL! The beer was a homebrew from the local brewery and was how do you say ...not the greatest , well the beer i tried the night before was not exactly a fav either ( it was a weak pilsener).

We finally get to this internet cafe on the other side of the river , some really cool statues are all over this bridge right near our destination! Frantically all 3 of us try finding contacts to get us on the ice tonight , sure we contacted people but were never contacted back :( ....the sombre walk back to the arena for one last chance to get on the ice , Rainer disappears on the walk back ( he is like stealth or something ) as he ends up ahead of us somehow at the arena already ! We decide that if we can't get on the ice tonight then we are gonna start heading to Cortina D'Ampezzo,Italy.

One last try , there is a hobby league with 1 game tonight ....maybe we can try to ask . So Petri and i get out of the camper and Rainer is ( apparently) sleeping. We go to the arena and start talking to people while we watch yet another team practising ,there is a glimpse of hope ...Petri gets a text that Rainer is now in the city centre and will come back later ? we head to the camper and it is locked , so now if we can get on the ice we can't get our equipment ! So regardless i could not get on , but 1 team had only 7 skaters which i am sure could have used Petri. Instead we go to the bar in the arena and have a pint together and talk about our roadtrip when Katvogel comes in the bar and heads to the kitchen , the barkeeper just smiled and went to feed him....this cat was working it ! Finally Rainer shows up and we start our trek to Cortina, stopping for a bite to eat i am in my complaining about food mood and resort to eating a sandwich in the hockey mobile while we are on the road....passing out after leaving Ljubljana's city limits , who knows where i will wake up tomorrow ?