Adventures of a Wandering Thirtysomething

Ljubljana is approximately the size of Spokane and the capital of Slovenia. It was our last stop on this Verheul Adventure through Croatia and Slovenia and the final adventure of this wandering twentysomething as I am now THIRTY! I couldn’t have asked for a better final day to wrap up the era of my youth while simultaneously immersing myself in all the passions that lead me with anticipation into the next decade.

If you’re reading this you already know that Christina and I share our two favorite passions: travel and food. When you get to number three we begin to diverge, but for me it’s sports.

Ljubljana satisfied the first of these passions most obviously. This small town had a beautiful and vibrant old core that rivals any large city in Europe. While nothing about Ljubljana has any extreme historical significance, there was such a large portion of town that went untouched since the 18^th century and earlier that it’s easy to enjoy by simply parking yourself at a bench and taking in the architecture and ambiance.

I must confess here that Christina and I did take a guided walking tour through town to start our day. While this is normally the kind of thing we detest, it came highly recommended. As you would expect, the tour had its annoyances, like an older couple complaining about requiring an elevator anytime we had to climb more than three steps and who were always confused, but the tour was nonetheless enjoyable. One of the highlights was learning about the fresco of Moses in the cathedral painted by an Italian artist. When the Hebrew bible was translated to Italian, the description of Moses carried two possible meanings: radiating light and growing horns. For a time in Italy this resulted in a “horns of light” interpretation, and Moses was painted here and at many churches across Italy with his horns of light. We have been in many of those churches and had never known this fact.

Ljubljana was the culmination of a two week journey set to end exactly on my 30^th birthday. Christina and I have been so incredibly blessed that we head into the next decade planning and anticipating similar travels on an annual to semi-annual basis. Next year will include trips to Thailand and Tulum, Mexico with plans for France/Spain, South Pacific, South America, India, Greece/Turkey, New Zealand and Africa in the years to come. My twenties have completely transformed my dreams about travel and no place on earth feels out of reach.

The second of my passions, food, turned up in Ljubljana in a spectacularly unexpected way. After arriving in town, we headed for the farmers market for breakfast. This is something we often do - opting to eat local and avoid the tourist traps offering American style breakfast. On the way we encountered something called Open Kitchen. Throughout the summer on Tuesdays and Fridays, restaurants from all over Slovenia set up booths and serve food right in the square from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. It was great luck that we happened to be in town on a Friday to take in this incredible feast.

The booths were still pretty quiet when we walked up for breakfast (life in Europe rarely stirs before about 9 a.m., but it gave us the opportunity to talk with one of the passionate chefs about his food for the day. He struggled for words to describe the delicious stuffed noodles he was serving. We offered up the word “ravioli” only to have him declare ravioli an insult to his creation. The original was his grandmother’s recipe and it was filled with dried pear and topped with a sweet rum raisin sauce, while his more recent creation was a fantastic noodle filled with apple strudel and topped with cracklins. We returned later for lunch and tried sample platters of Turkish and Eqyptian delights. The experience was the foodie highlight of our trip. We half joked all day if there was a city in America that could replicate this concept, we would live there.

In addition to the city’s great ambiance, great market and Open Kitchen event, Eurobasket was being hosted by Ljubljana during our visit. The event brought an extra energy to the city as fans from all over Europe were in town. Similar to when we visited Germany during their run to the World Cup semifinals, Congress Square in the center of town was equipped with a massive screen for broadcasting games and a stage where bands performed free concerts. Many of the NBA players from Europe were in town playing in the tournament, and the games were something interesting to watch on TV while relaxing in the room.