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.

Ljubljana: Now With 200% More Jews

My parents are here! I've had a lovely couple of nights eating, walking, and chilling with them. Last night was dinner at Julija and drinks at Dvorni bar, next to the river. A little after 10 (not far from their bedtime, anyway), I ditched the folks to watch an Italian movie with Roberto. The movie wasn't much—sort of like Mean Girls without the humor and with a crazy and bitter father—but it was nice to collapse and watch something for a while. Roberto was heading to Italy at 2 am (certainly my favorite time to head to Italy) and was planning on pulling a relative all nighter of chilling, but I was zonked after the movie and headed to bed.

Tonight the parents and I ate at Ljubljanski dvor (related to the wine bar), my favorite pizzeria in town, although I haven't yet tried Napoli; those two places, along with Foculus and Trta seem to be the big contenders for the "best pizza" prize. My mom and I split two pies: zucchini, garlic, and mozzarella on one and mozzarella, brie, and parmesan on the other. So, soooo good. Then we all walked to the Dragon Bridge and got dessert at Cacao. And now I'm home, finishing up Matt's latest puzzle (I like it, Matt! More comments tk.) and gearing up to book my post-Ljubljana travels. And Adam's coming to hang out tomorrow! Life is rich these days. Woot.

These Walls Can Talk

So, I almost titled this post: "I have a vagina. Not a pussy. Not a snatch. A vagina." But then I realized people might read these posts at work, and titles are big, and not everyone's employer is down with edgy feminist thought that involves discussions of appropriate names for genitalia (relevant link). Had I given the post that title, however, it would have been ripped from this fine piece of graffiti:

I may have mentioned this before, but I love the graffiti here. Some of it is your typical anti-fascist sloganeering, but a lot of it is beautifully and hilariously rude,

and some of it is just downright creepy and beautiful.


I can't get enough.

Tonight I went to dinner with the lovely Roberto at a Serbian restaurant. I went for the "order the thing you can't translate" technique (Plejeskavica with Kajmak), which I've done frequently in foreign countries, to decidedly mixed results. The waiter asked if we'd like to split a salad. Normally I turn down the random waiter-suggested salads, but I figured that whatever I'd just ordered was probably a big plate of meat, so I got us the salad. Then my dish came, and I was shocked to find it was...a big plate of meat! Specifically, an IHOP pancake-sized sausage meat patty, sitting in a creamy sauce. It was fine, but I only ate about half, and I was so glad to have the tomato/cucumber/pepper salad, too.

After the meal, Roberto and I went a'wanderin', which was very lovely. Even with his mediocre English and my non-existent Italian, we managed to talk pretty smoothly. We wandered through the main plaza, down Trubarjeva cesta into a funky little almost-abandoned area, up the east side of Center, and into Metelkova mesto, where I got Roberto to bond with some of the wall art:

Since I seem to have only photographed Roberto at night, the blinding flash hasn't been especially flattering. But if you want to see hotter pictures, here are a few from Facebook.

I just showed Roberto the picture and said he said he looked weird because he was drunk. Then I reminded him we only got drunk after I took the picture. Jalla Jalla in Metelkova mesto is famed for their schnapps. Now, I've never had straight up schnapps before, just a little bit of peppermint in the hot chocolate (highly recommended during a cold New England winter), but that stuff is strong. Sweet (I had asked for honey, but I think I got cherry), but so, so strong. So after a tiny plastic cupful, we were both a little unsteady on our feet. He told me he was drunk, and I told him I'd protect him if any evil people tried to take advantage of him. The nice thing about a bit of a language barrier is you can be blatantly flirtatious and the other person doesn't notice. The annoying thing about a bit of a language barrier is you can be blatantly flirtatious and the other person doesn't notice.

Anyway, my parents are coming tomorrow! I'm very excited to see them. With my roommates, my parents, and Adam (the high school friend math nerd Adam, not to be confused with the law school friend math nerd Adam) coming Wednesday, suddenly I have a social life! How exciting.

233 Years of Awesome

Happy Independence Day, American friends! I hope you are doing American things such as watching fireworks and grilling burgers. I, despite being in a random European country, have managed to spend this weekend doing actively traitorous things, like watching Fry and Laurie's "Marvelous England" sketch, thinking about how I'd edit Francis Scott Key if he were writing for me (Cut the question after "gleaming," and continue, "Throughout the perilous fight, its broad stripes and bright stars were gallantly streaming o'er the ramparts we watched."), and having a beer at England Pub with Roberto (left) and Bogdan:

I'm a bad American.

I also did some decidedly non-traitorous things, like working a bit on my paper and walking through beautiful Tivoli Park. I decided to hike around the nature trails today. I only wound up hiking for about an hour because I was alone and the trails were unmarked (good idea, Slovenians), so I didn't want to wander too far afield. I did, however, manage to run into a gym in the woods, whose mission was apparently to kill the entire exercise equipment industry by spreading the gospel of the log. Everything you could ever want to do, you can do with logs!

You can step up on logs.

You can hoist logs on your back.

You can even jump over logs!


Why would you ever need anything else? It's big, heavy, wood, better than bad, good...you get the drift.

Since it was such a nice day (despite appearances, the weather's pretty good for the majority of each day), I wandered around the park and around town a bit more, taking snapshots, such as this one, of the National Assembly (Parliament) building:

Before heading home, I stopped for a beer by the Tromostovje. As usual, I got a Laško, but this was the first time I noticed something about the glass:

They are so proud of the year they were founded, it gets an exclamation point! "We've been brewing since eighteen-twenty-five, mothafuckaaaaas!" the glass cries.

Finally, one of my favorite couples of all time got engaged this week. I'm very excited for them. All right, kids, bed time approaches. Later, dudes.

Metelkova Mesto

And to think I had almost given up on finding the cool place in Ljubljana. I had seen all of the bars—indoors, outdoors, divey, classy, casual, fancy—and I knew there were clubs, but these are all standard issue things. They're great, of course, and I will return to the cafes and bars on a daily basis. I had also seen BTC City, the enormous shopping/entertainment complex a short bus ride out of town. And so I kind of figured teenagers and families hung out at BTC, and couples and college kids hung out at the bars, and most people probably spent a bunch of time at home, too. But clearly I was missing something: What about the people who will inevitably, in any city, in any town, gravitate toward something different? Bear with me.

Tomorrow is Ljubljana Pride, so I looked up the parade trajectory and found that it ended at Stari trg (no surprise, it's the south point of the old town), but started at this place called "Metelkova City." "What's 'Metelkova City?'" I asked myself. And then I asked Google.

First, a brief digression on cool places. In New York City, as far as I can tell, there are two ways to make a cool place: (1) You can find a more-or-less safe industrial area and carve out underground clubs, bars, restaurants, galleries, and music venues in its hidden corners until you get SoHo, or you get the Meatpacking district, or you get DUMBO; or (2) you can find an ethnic or cultural enclave, take advantage of its immigrant-low prices and safe streets, and slowly invade with post-college kids and artists until you have Williamsburg or the Lower East Side or Greenwich Village. In both of these circumstances you take something that was built to be functional and you exploit the natural beauty of that functionality. And that works for factories, and that works for middle class ethnic neighborhoods.

But factories and ethnic neighborhood can't hold a candle to 19th Century Austro-Hungarian military barracks.



Yes, Metelkova Mesto is an experiment in what happens when you let a pristine, medium-sized city's alternative community take over barracks just outside the city center and run free. And the result is, frankly, one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.













Yes, it's ridiculous. It's a mix of gorgeous mosaics that glisten in the rain and violent graffiti. It's a complex that looks like it could withstand wars but wash away during the next thunderstorm. And its inhabitants are middle aged hobos and 40 year old black men with Che and Bob Marley posters and teenagers (oh, the teenagers!), goths, punks, skaters...anyone who's willing to wear the color of the hour.



I walked over to Metelkova Mesto tonight unsure of what I'd find. I grabbed a half-liter of the cheapest beer in town (only €1,50 for a Laško;!) and sat on a picnic bench and read my newest novel. This one's the result of walking into a bookstore and saying, "Hi, do you have any Slovenian books in English?" Thus far the book is entertaining enough; we'll see how it shapes up. So I read outside for a while, and moved under a roof when it started to rain. Then I wound up talking with Thomas, an extremely drunk and high Slovenian who told me that he used to work in a Duty Free shop on a cruise ship until he got off in Los Angeles with a joint in his pocket and was immediately sent back to Slovenia.

Speaking of joints, I was shocked that it took me over an hour to catch a whiff of pot in this place. For an open-air alterna-teen's paradise it was surprisingly low on drugs. I also realized that I really like the smell of marijuana. Not because it's an especially beautiful smell (although it's wholly inoffensive), but because I associate it entirely with good things. I'm in a dorm room and my friends are smoking up. I'm at a concert on a field and people are smoking up. I'm in some crazy alternative neighborhood on a summer night in a strange town and people are smoking up. The smell of people smoking pot a few feet away from me now gives me a visceral feeling of mellowness that has nothing to do with the actual mood-altering properties of the drug. Clearly this plant is going to be more wily in its plan for world domination via relaxation than we ever anticipated.

Tomorrow: I report on Pride.

Happy Statehood Day!

Today is Statehood Day here in Slovenia, which was totally apparent from the...occasional closed cafe. Really, I didn't see a darn thing to indicate that this was their equivalent of the Fourth of July. Several times during the day I wondered if I was actually supposed to be at work. Then I remembered nobody would notice if I didn't show up for a day. And all was well.

So I spent the day finishing a Fiss article I'm reading for the paper I still have to write, eating and drinking around the town, and adding some small JJD3-recommended changes to my EL&E paper before I throw it to the wolves (read: HenHan and the Olin prize committee).

Speaking of the law paper prizes, a point of clarification: If you would like to submit your paper for the Edgar Cullen Prize for the best paper written by a first-year law student, send it to Professor Fiss. If you would like to submit your paper for the Edward Cullen Prize for the best paper written on the subject of law and sexy teenage vampires, send it to me. Papers should be a maximum of 500 words and need not have been written for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Last night I watched a few TED videos, which of course led me to the John Hodgman TED video, which of course led me to watch tons of John Hodgman videos. I have to point you to this one, which has one line that cracked me (and Jon Stewart) up more than I can remember anything doing in recent memory. So simple. So brilliant.

And it's been a great week for thinking about sexism! First, on the sister subject of racism, we got this jaw-dropper from Dick Nixon, which, as people have been pointing out, came more than a couple of years after Loving.

Then the Times published an article on a study by an overachieving Harvard undergrad exploring bias against female playwrights. One of her big results was that there is significant bias against female playwrights, but all of it comes from female artistic directors and literary managers. To me this is totally unsurprising...I am fully aware of my biases against women, and in general female-female encounters seem more, well, fraught than male-female or male-male encounters. There's just much more judgment there. It's creepy. And as Ayres mentioned in one class this semester, there are plenty of circumstances where you can observe that blacks are biased against blacks or Jews are biased against Jews to the same (or greater) extent as whites or goyim are, respectively.

Finally, there's this whole Mark Sanford scandal. While I have decidedly mixed feelings about William Saletan, I really, really appreciate his point here. The way fallen politicians treat their mistresses is completely disgusting, and Sanford should be commended for acknowledging that this woman is a person worthy of caring and respect. Sure, she did something immoral, too, but that doesn't mean she deserves complete dismissal and disgust. And then after we commend Sanford, we should boo him as "just another politician with a conservative mind and a liberal penis." Thanks, Jon Stewart. You always know just what to say.

UPDATE: Apropos of the Sanford affair, I post this link to a blog post I wrote about four years ago. My views and worries haven't changed (unless you count being slightly more pessimistic about finding a husband in the first place).

Red, Red Wine

We (you know, people) are not particularly good at accurately incorporating colors into our daily language. Neither white people nor white wines are anything vaguely resembling white. Neither black people nor black lights are black. And red wine wasn't red...UNTIL NOW. Meet Cviček, the Slovenian wine I had with dinner this evening:

That is ruby-red wine if I ever saw it. And it tastes exactly like it looks: very light and somewhat cherry-ish. I had been thinking "watered down kool aid," but a nice Slovenian website advises me to set my attitude straight. It was not watered down kool aid. It was gentle and fruity. So there.

I also wandered by the reworked Swan Lake that's happening nightly this week in Prešernov trg. Every time I hear that music I think of the last scene in Billy Elliot, which would cheapen it, if it weren't such a freakin' awesome last scene. Oh, Adam Cooper: so hot then, so hot now.

And here's a (too light) stormy sky shot from last night. I love the time of day/night/dusk when everything just has a blue cast. And if the sky is stormy then, it's such a nice, rich texture:

Aw, yeah.

Lend Me A Hand

Someone up there is trying to tell me to stop drinking Coke. Today, I went to my lunch place, as usual, got a Coke and a new sandwich, and headed back to the court. I opened the sandwich, forked in a bite, and grabbed my Coke. It wouldn't open. Now, as I may have mentioned, oh, fifteen times, I drink a lot of Coke. Sometimes, if I don't finish a bottle and put it back in the fridge, it can be hard to re-open. But never have I had trouble opening an unopened bottle. I used my napkin. I used a paper towel. I tried using my hand again. Nothing. It wouldn't budge. I walked down the hall and asked one of the other girls if she'd give it a try. She used her hand. She used her shirt. Nothing. I tried some more, to no avail. Yet another girl from down the hall...her hand, her skirt. Nope. Me again: Fail, fail, fail. This was the Coke bottle of doom. So finally I asked my boss, the only man on our half of the floor. He couldn't do it with his hands, but he had a real towel in his office, so with that, he managed to open the Coke bottle. Victory! And that was when I looked at my right hand.

Wow. And I promise, it looks worse in real life. "Won't forget, can't regret, what I diiiiid foooooor Coooooooke. What I did for Cooooooooke..."

Did American research for a case today. I'm still not entirely sure what they want from the quick-turnaround not-quite-memos or the long-turnaround more-like-memos. Hopefully I'll get some feedback, though. I'm enjoying having to be humble about American law. At law school, we get very wrapped up in all the economic sense these laws make, but the rest of the world seems to see things through a more Fissian lens and less of an Ellicksonian lens. "You have a 'property' right to your child's corpse? Really?" "So, if it's not in the Constitution, human rights don't matter? Really?" And of course the answer to both of those is "well, sort of." But it's still interesting. Not as interesting as Adam D.C.'s most recent case, but you'll have to talk to him about that directly.

I also discovered the joys of Slovenian ATMs today. The funny thing about Slovenian ATMs, you see, is that THEY DON'T DISPENSE CASH. I eventually managed to get some cash out of one (of six), with my back-up credit card, but apparently my debit card doesn't function in these things. Lovely.

And the apartment company pushed back my move to the place-with-roommates until June 30th. I guess that means I'll be moving directly into the good room, but it also means another couple of weeks without friends. Or Roberto's smiling face. Eh, maybe I'll hit up the marine happy hour on Friday.

Besides all that it was actually a nice day. Did some reading, had some bad pizza and beer and some good hot chocolate and watched a thunderstorm over the city right after dusk. I have some pictures that haven't yet made their way onto the blog, so as your reward for looking at my hideous blisters, you get pretty scenes of Ljubljana. We start, as always, with the river:

Next up, the view into the courtyard from my apartment:

The beautiful University of Ljubljana. I think over 20% of the city's population is university students:

Here's a great old building in the south-of-center area (which, as you can see, is a lot like South Central):

And finally, sunset over an old building behind a construction site. I love this stuff:


Eso es todo. Goodnight, friends!

Killing, Mourning

Someone in this room is going to die. I don't know where he's hiding, but as soon as he starts flying around or lands against a nice white wall, that will be the end of him. I have become a remorseless mosquito killer since I moved into this apartment. I may not own a single shoe without blood on its sole (metaphorically, that is; there's usually no blood). If reincarnation's true, perhaps I'm killing someone's grandmother. Then again, if reincarnation's true, and they've been a good mosquito, I'm doing them a favor.

Two more assignments came down at work today...I actually have a lot on my plate now, but only one due date, which is nice. One case relates to what they call the "Right to Piety." Now, if you were to read "Right to Piety," what would you think it meant? I sure thought it was some sort of freedom of religion thing...possibly the right to observe strictly even if it interferes with other obligations. But no. The woman in the office started explaining to me, "It's like this statue with Mary holding the body of Jesus." "The Pietà." "Yes. It is the translation of that." Right. So apparently what they mean by "Right to Piety" is, like, the right to have an appropriate relationship with your deceased loved ones. The right to mourn and visit their grave, etc. Yes, Google Translate tells me that "pietà" translates as "piety," but good ol' dictionary.com doesn't seem to give the definition they want. I guess "pay your respects" is the most appropriate bridge between them. Still.

Update: The mosquito is dead. Don't worry. It was quick.

This is how getting assignments at work usually seems to go.

Them: Here's a description of this case. We're wondering if there's anything pertinent to this question in American law.
Me: That actually sounds completely antithetical to everything American law is about.
(Pause)
Me: But now that I think about it, there is a lot of stuff that might be relevant. But email me the question.
Me (aside): Because I have no idea if I understood what you just said.
Them: Ok!

So I'm, in some bizarre way, figuring out what European-style rights American courts have created but given American names. ("That's not personhood! That's property!") It's kind of cool.

I should be feeling great right now. I turned in the assignment I had to do for today (still no email confirmation of receipt, four-and-a-half hours later) and had a great dinner (gnocchi with beef, chanterelles, and mushrooms and a glass of red wine at the adorable Le Petit Cafe). I'm even reading a great new novel. But I'm feeling low. I have just two more days in this apartment, and I'm having a bit of an existential crisis about my time in Ljubljana. Why am I here? What did I hope to accomplish? What is the point of leaving everyone you know to spend two months in a 270,000 person city where you don't speak their language? I guess I assumed that if you do something like this you get something out of it, but I still don't know what that is or will be. We shall see.

The Horror! The Horror!

So, which is scarier: The sadomasochistic skeletons adorning the super-kitschy crypt-themed bar I went to tonight:

or the dolls at the UNICEF benefit I passed by after dinner:

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Not much to report today (please pray to the work gods for me, if you get a chance). I got a new wallet, which is cool. I couldn't shop for it on the weekend because stores are all closed on the weekends (brilliant business plan, Slovenia), but today I found something nice at a non-psychotic price. The change compartment on my old wallet had completely fallen apart...which wouldn't be such a big deal during the school year in the US, but while I'm wearing work clothes every day (read: no pockets) and I'm dealing with €2 coins, I need something that can secure my change. Finished reading the article I was reading, which means writing looms. Maybe I'll get to bed early tonight. Yeah, that'd be nice.

How Much Is The Fish?

The first time, I thought I might have been dreaming. Here I am, in Ljubljana in 2009. It is 6:53 on Tuesday morning. I am woken by my radio (which is 7 minutes fast; hence the 6:53). First, I hear the tail end of some pop song. Then, I hear a techno intro. "No, it can't be," I think. A voice speaks. Then another line of techno, this time with words. "But it is!" The voice interrupts again and another line of techno plays. "Yes, yes, it absolutely is!" Here, in Ljubljana in 2009, I'm hearing clips of a song (interspersed with heaven-knows-what) that my sister and I listened to in Madrid in 1998. It is the great/awful German techno group Scooter, singing their hit song, How Much is the Fish? This morning, at 6:53, it came on again. It was real.

If you didn't pick up on it, that link up there goes to the music video of How Much is the Fish?, which Natalie and I watched constantly on Canal+, and you should absolutely click on it. Considering the video has nearly 3 million views, maybe it's not so strange that it's showing up as intro-outro on the radio. One of the great features of the song is that its first line (of many nonsensical lines), "Transforming the tunes," sounds much more like "Transforming the Jews." Oh, Germany!

I went back to Salon tonight. I think it could be my place. I like the server there...he's a stern-looking muscle-bound fellow around 30 who doesn't condescendingly speak to me in English whenever I stutter out "vroča čokolada s smetano" or laugh nervously and try to work with me. He just leans in, eyebrows furrowed, and I repeat it, and he nods gruffly and walks away. Then he brings the hot chocolate (or Irish coffee, as was the case tonight), and I sit in my ridiculously comfortable leopard skin chair and read. Tonight I was sitting next to a group of 20-something girls and trying to pick out their language. It's possible it was an extremely non-nasal Portuguese, but I think it might have been Catalan. Which is kind of awesome.

Maybe I can start wearing my leather jacket at Salon. I stopped wearing it after a day and a half when I realized if I wore the jacket, people assumed I was Slovenian, but if I wore my North Face fleece (yay for the serendipitous North Face outlet in freezing-cold Berkeley, CA a couple of weeks ago), people assumed I was American. Having someone speak to you expectantly for 20 seconds before you can tell them you don't speak the language ("um...angleško?") is kind of embarrassing. So I'm sticking to the fleece for now. I tempered my wearing of the jacket in New York for different reasons...the first day I ever wore it, I got hit on by these two women as I walked from the subway to work. And not just flattering hit on: if-they-were-men-I-would-have-called-the-cops hit on. Blocked-my-path-as-they-walked-with-me-for-two-blocks-asking-if-I-had-a-girlfriend hit on. If there's one thing I enjoy less than telling people I don't speak their language, it's telling people I'm not interested in going out with them. So, depending on where I am, the jacket makes me look either native or gay. It is a very powerful jacket. Don't mess with it.

There Are Giants In The Sky

Before I came to Ljubljana, I looked at a picture of the city, and in the background were the Alps. I had thought Ljubljana was decidedly south of the Alps, but I said to my mother, "Mom, I think Ljubljana might be kind-of-sort-of in the Alps." She confirmed my original thought that it was South. Here is proof (shot along Slovenska cesta, Ljubljana's main drag) that (a) Ljubljana is indeed south of the Alps, and (b) I wasn't crazy for thinking it was kind-of-sort-of in the Alps:

I understand that distant mountains can sometimes look like clouds, so I've drawn this helpful diagram:

I'm not sure how well it comes across in those snapshots (I'm still using the PowerShot that I keep in my messenger bag; I'll break out the SLR at some point), but those mountains are...rather large. I'm not sure whether they're the Julien Alps or the Kamnik Alps, but either way, they look almost surreal at the end of a city street. I've always had a sort of visceral reaction to enormity—things that are very tall but even wider, like cruise ships—so these mountains sort of stop my heart.

More reading today at work. I think I'm going to view this as an educational experience for now. I get to learn about European Constitutional Courts—how they operate, what issues they face—and maybe I'll get to help one out while I'm here. By the way, the Slovenian Constitutional Court would never let this happen. The oath the judges take is: "I swear that I shall judge according to the Constitution, the law, and my conscience and that I shall strive with all my power for constitutionality, legality, and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms." Yes, the judge's conscience and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms is put on the same plane as the Constitution itself (although some might say that the order matters here). Our judges say: "I, ------, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ------ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God." (23 U.S.C. § 453) Ok, so our oath isn't so bad (although how the 'so help me God' would fly in a town that's one-fifth atheist is anyone's guess). Still, there's something awfully appealing about a human rights override.

Robert the Tech Guy asked me today how Ljubljana is different from what I expected. I think he was surprised by my answer ("Fewer chain stores"); he'd expected me to say it was more modern or cosmopolitan or something. I told him I'd browsed around before I came and realized that most bars and cafes had decently-designed websites, which I found to be a pretty strong indicator of a city's modernity. As a tech guy, he appreciated that.

Until tomorrow, friends.

If God Lived in Europe...

When I was an undergrad, the ever-humorous Yale Record put out an issue lambasting the residential colleges. Their bit on Silliman was as follows:

If God went to Yale, he'd be a Sillimander. "That's right," he declares. "I love the blend of Georgian and shitty architecture. It is in keeping with the diversity of my creation, which ranges from the restrained and tasteful Bengal tiger to the ugly-ass manatee."

If this is, indeed, how God chooses real estate, I think he would be thrilled to live in Ljubljana. Rome? Please. Last I heard, pride was a sin. Plus, we're talking about architectural diversity, here. Exhibit A:Ah, yes. That pleasing blend of Baroque/Art Nouveau (right two buildings) and, as the Record so nicely put it, "shitty" (left two buildings). I don't know whether this stuff is left over from the Soviet era or just their idea of cool, functional building, but, in any case, it's hideous, especially next to the rest of the gorgeousness.

This morning I went to an "American Breakfast" at the Marine House. There weren't too many people my age there (the marine I spoke with most was 34 and married with a 13-year-old daughter), and it seemed like everyone I spoke with wasn't actually from America. First was the nice and dorky Slovenian couple who had spent five years in New York while the wife did her post-doc at Columbia. Then there was the British man who just decided to settle in Slovenia, since his consulting job takes him all around the world. When I told him what I was doing, he mentioned he thought the Slovenian legal system was one of the worst in the world, citing judges who gave out disparate sentences for horribly silly reasons (the relative ages of two adult perps). I then told him about America's sleeping lawyer rules, and I don't think he was any less appalled by the Slovenian system, but he was certainly more appalled by American courts. I'm such a bad ambassador.

I chatted with two girls around my age who were from Venezuela, one of whom had lived in the states for a while. The marine I spoke with was from Trinidad & Tobago via Brooklyn. I did speak with a few always-American Americans, including a Colonel who reminded me just a little of Josh Brolin's Bush in W.. They were all good people (and very family oriented...so many little kids), and hopefully I'll see them at another social event. And maybe then the Marines will be in uniform.

After that I did more article reading (not for pleasure, sadly) outside at Cacao, where I had a mean hot chocolate and this view:
I then walked up to Ljubljana castle, where I sat overlooking the cloud-covered Alps and the red roofs of Ljubljana. I'll post Alpy pictures when there are fewer clouds...it's pretty awesome how well you can see them on a clear day. And now I am back in my room an blogging, soon to head back over to England for a Lasko. It's raining and I don't want to go far...plus, maybe I'll drink up an appetite for burek.

Šake Šack

New York has many wonderful things that Ljubljana doesn't—downtown movie theaters, a subway system, racial diversity—but one thing the cities have in common is a super-popular burger joint in the park:

Hot Horse is a lot like Shake Shack, but there's a twist. I'll give you a clue: It's called Hot Horse. Yes, that's right. My mouth now tastes like horse. Frankly, I see why beef caught on. Like so many advertisements, the Hot Horse website has an animal cheerfully encouraging you to eat it, and like so many Slovenian websites, its English translation sounds like someone got a little thesaurus-happy. If you click on the mustard, it will tell you that "All the students...nerds, party animals, truants...come to me." They did a pretty good job with "nerds" and "party animals," but someone just couldn't come up with "slackers," so they asked their thesaurus oracle, "Thesaurus Oracle, what do you call a young person who fails to attend class?" And the thesaurus oracle said "a truant!" and that was that. For the second to last paragraph here, they asked, "Thesaurus Oracle, what do you call someone who likes high-culture and wouldn't want to go to an ordinary dive bar?" and the thesaurus oracle said "pretentious!" and so it was written.

I spent most of today reading a journal piece at a snail's pace. Really, watching the people around me was just much more interesting than the law review article in front of me. Maybe I'll finish it tomorrow...maybe. I first read outdoors at beautiful Čajna hiša. The waiters at all of these restaurants seem shockingly reluctant to give you your bill...especially for an outdoor cafe, where they only come out on occasion, and it would be absurdly easy just to walk away. They're just totally unconcerned. I get the impression people sort of know each other here. Several times I've had someone walking down the street come up to the people sitting next to me and talk to them like old friends. I also get the impression there's almost no crime. There were zero murders in 2008, and people just seem generally unconcerned and law-abiding. I wouldn't say it's inappropriate to cross against the light here, but it's definitely appropriate not to cross against the light, which isn't so much the case in New York.

Anyway, after I read at the cafe, I moved to attractive-but-sketchy Miklošičeva Park. I had originally placed it slightly below Tompkins Square Park on the sketch scale, with only one roving bum and one decently-dressed man passed out against a tree. But after the bum pointed to the decently-dressed man to show me that he was holding himself and peeing in a dramatic arc onto the grass, I moved it slightly above Tompkins. Then I left.

I got a Slovenian SIM card for my phone, which came with free ice cream:

I don't really see the connection, either. But I was happy to take the ice cream. Then it was off to Hot Horse. And now I'm at England, the pub next door to my apartment, drinking a larger-than-a-pint glass of Union, the local beer (I walked past the brewery today). It set me back a whopping €2,20, but, sad to say, that's pretty appropriate. It's somewhat, er, Coors-esque. Maybe not that bad, but it's no Guinness. This place closes at 11, so I suppose that's all for tonight, friends. Send me stories of America!

Dobrodošli!

Hello, friends! I am here, blogging live from fabulous Ljubljana, Slovenia:

I plan to blog here regularly throughout my time in Slovenia, so if you're interested in my (mis)adventures, check frequently. And please comment...half of the reason I'm doing this is to connect back with the English-speaking world. It will make me very happy to hear reactions (or random interjections) from the outside.

So here was today: After a long day's journey into night and back out again (in which I accomplished nothing necessary but did watch House and do an Atlantic Puzzler), I arrived at the extremely chill Ljubljana airport. I don't think they even stamped my passport. I took a cab into town and arrived at my lovely little apartment. I access the place via a door in a parking lot. That's it, no hallway, just a door that I open and I am in my room. I spent a while walking around and getting acquainted with the city—and getting snubbed by a waitress who just completely forgot I had ordered food—I read Middlesex in Tivoli Park for a little while. (Unfortunately, I'm really liking the book, which will help in my quest to do all of my school stuff last minute.) I then had dinner at Tomato and read with a glass of wine at a place called Antico in the old town.

I also finally heard from the marines! They're hosting a breakfast for Americans on Saturday, so I'll be going to that. Yay, American Marines in Ljubljana.

OK, this post was no fun because I am hideously jetlagged and need to sleep. More to come tomorrow!

P.S. The dragons send their best.