In the suburbs of Dragon City
My new job sent me on a fast trip to a cool place: Ljubljana, Slovenia. Because right now neither Waffle nor Phil are available to stay home with Miles, he ended up as my plus one to a conference. We almost missed our flight out of Brussels! Thomas the Train to the airport caused confusion and delay by 1.) being late to begin with, then 2.) going to Gare Nord station, and 3.) staying at Gare Nord instead of progressing as promised to the airport. Pocky and I were just sitting there like lox along with some other airport-bound travelers until a conductor came in and clucked at us to get off the train, you idiots, and go find a different platform and a different train. We found yet another train that probably wasn't the one he was talking about but it did indicate airport in teensy letters so we jumped on as it was basically pulling away and crossed our fingers. It eventually progressed beyond what Miles referred to as “jogging speed” and dropped us in the underbelly of Zaventem. Some youths ahead of us in the security line had never ever seen an airport before which normally I don’t mind but by this point we were getting kind of dire so I did huff a bit. Once we were through, we had to run, at which, fortunately, Miles excels. We were rewarded for this stressful incident by a nice layover in Zurich where there are chocolate fountains and rosti with spinach and cheese. By the time we got to Ljubljana it was pitch dark out and quite late and our taxi driver regaled us with the tale of a young man who had shot a gun on the highway that day, which never has happened in the history of the country, as he put it.
We were in the suburbs at a huge conference center owned by an American company, so it was very much like being transported to the United States instead of Slovenia (with fewer guns). The breakfast was incredible, naturally. Miles mostly read, did his homework, arranged his Magic decks, and tagged along to dinner. We went for a walk through the loops and lollipops of the conference center at one point and heard woofing and so were able to discover a dog agility tournament, which made for a nice break. Next day already we headed back to Brussels! But not without quickly stopping to see the actual city of Ljubljana which is completely gorgeous and weird.
Our taxi driver back to the Ljubljana airport also told us about the young man who shot a gun on the highway, but with more details—apparently, he grabbed it off a police officer. “This piece of shit was on drugs” he said. The driver in front of us was also a piece of shit, by the way, except also Italian (I don’t know how he knew this but it was clearly a fact). The mountains were beautiful but you shouldn’t climb those particular ones [gesturing to the right] because they crumble and his favorite girlfriend fell off and died. Those ones there [straight ahead] are the ones to climb instead. I am absolutely not going to climb the crumbly mountains, and I’m very grateful to know to avoid them, but I would very much like to go back to Slovenia and climb the safe ones because they are beautiful.
It was raining on the walk back from the tram and our bags felt heavy and we got wet, but you know what? It did feel a little bit like coming back home.
