Nasvidenje, Ljubljana!

So, this is it. My last night in the beautiful city of Ljubljana. It hasn't quite hit me yet that I'm leaving the place I just spent two months, and I may never return. I'll return. I think I'll return. Exploring with Natalie and getting her reactions to everything in the city has made me see the place with new eyes. It's really a gorgeous town with solidly friendly, relaxed people, good wine and good food (Natalie has called both last night's mushroom soup and this morning's hot chocolate "the best thing [she's] ever tasted"), and plenty of nooks and crannies. We went to Metelkova Mesto again last night, and Natalie agreed with me that it's just about the coolest thing ever. We can't believe we haven't seen a movie about it, yet...it really feels like a sort of fantasy alternative artists' commune—sort of like the one in Berlin in Passing Strange—but it's all real.

Today Natalie and I went up to the castle. Just this week they finally opened the tower, which had been under renovation since last October. The tower looks oddly cheap from far away, as though they put up cardboard instead of stone, but up close it's all a lovely marble. We got a great 360° view of the city, which maximized the red-roofiness of it all and let us see Ljubljana's most important landmarks from above.

And Natalie and I took the requisite "we don't feel like asking these Norwegian tourists to take our picture" picture.

My glasses look extremely professorial. Tonight I'll say goodbye to my roommates, although Roberto may drag himself out of bed to say goodbye early tomorrow morning. Then Natalie and I take the 8:15 train to Zagreb, grab a quick breakfast there, walk to the bus terminal, go to the airport, fly to Dubrovnik, and check into our hostel. I hope this all works as planned. If so, by this time tomorrow I will be in one of the most beautiful places in the world. And I can stop linking everyone to this picture and provide a few snapshots of my own.

I'll miss this place. I'll miss its cheap, flavorless beer. I'll miss the random stuff market. I'll miss the not-quite-car-free cobblestone streets. I'll miss the crummy waiter service accompanied by a willingness to let you sit at a restaurant for as long as you want. I'll miss the guy selling magazines to make a buck in every tourist-filled area of town. I'll miss the phrase "dober dan." Roberto, I think I'm going to miss you most of all.

I'll check in with y'all from EuroTour 2009.