Ah Have Always Depended...

Yesterday, Roberto and I headed up to Šmarna Gora, a large hill about 10 km northwest of central Ljubljana. We spent a full hour waiting for the number 8 bus, the only one that goes out there, before a young guy informed us that it doesn't run on Sundays. Moral of the story: Ask the young guys. Old ladies and bus drivers will just misinform you. So we caught an overpriced cab out to Šmarna Gora. (Yes, it is fun to say! No, you are not crazy if you walk the streets pretending to hex people by looking at them sideways for three seconds and then spitting out "Šmarna Gora!" At least I hope not.) We hiked up the "hill"—2,000 feet is definitely pushing my "hill" limits—and got some gorgeous views of the city and the mountains, including Triglav, Slovenia's highest peak.

I think that's it, at least. They don't exactly have signs pointing it out to you. They do, however, have a cute cafeteria with fried dough and sweet tea, which is much appreciated after the trek. Ah, and I shall post the requisite "We Wuz Here" picture:

As you will recall, we had picked up a cab in Ljubljana because no buses were running, so as we stood at the top of the hill, staring at the mountains, I asked Roberto, "So, how are we going to get back from here?" "I have the number of the company." "Oh, great! And you have your phone with you?" "...." So there we were, miles away from town with no way to get back, and since we're such adventurous people, we went down the hill to the less occupied side, where we found ourselves deep in burbville.

The first thing that struck us was the smell: garbage mixed with cow manure. We got quickly away from the garbage, but the cow manure smell remained, and we soon realized we were next to a large barn filled with (wait for the shocker...!) cows. A dog came running down from the driveway, yapping at us. We walked as fast as we could away from the stench, and the dog backed off, extremely proud of itself for driving away the intruders. We walked along the road that looked most likely to lead to civilization, and after a few blocks, we came upon a few people standing in a driveway, including a woman pushing a stroller.

"Dober dan." "Dan. Do you speak English?" "Eh, a little." Often the answer. We told the woman that we were lost and trying to get back to Ljubljana, and she told us to follow her. We got to her house, where a whole bunch of people were sitting in the driveway. They began to argue in Slovene, and finally the woman's husband (I presume) said, "OK, I will drive you to the bus station!" And he did. He dropped us off at the (functional-on-Sundays) number 1 stop, a few miles away, and actually gave us tokens so we could ride the bus for free.

Yeah, yeah, so he told Roberto he's from "not really Italy" because he's from Calabria, in the far south, and he told me that Miami (where his friends live) is "not really the United States" because there are so many Cubans there, but he was a completely random stranger who just gave us a ride to the station and paid our bus fare. That's pretty amazing. In America, I'd be happy to find people who wouldn't walk away before I could ask to use their phone to call a cab. I remember once asking a random woman at a New York flea market if I could use her cell phone to call my friends who had wandered off. I might as well have told her I wanted to call the Messiah. New Yorkers don't touch other New Yorkers' cell phones.

So that was our fun and exciting adventure yesterday.

On a less fun and exciting note, I found out I didn't make law journal. I'm pretty upset about it...it's something I really wanted to do (and, yes, sure, to have done), and I worked very hard throughout the whole admissions process. I had told people I'd be upset if I didn't make it, and there's no reason to pretend I'm not. I've gone through all sorts of extremely mature thoughts—This sort of thing will keep me humble, and humility is a virtue! Bluebooking is a valuable skill, and this process forced me to learn it! I'll have more time for classwork, and I always wish I had more time for my classes!—but really, I just need a little time to be pissed off. The friends I've been bitching to have been wonderful (about this and about other personal stuff), and they're helping me not to think less of myself because of this.

And it's been nice to have Roberto around, who couldn't care less whether I'm on law journal or whether I didn't finish high school. I'm sure if/when I start dating somebody seriously, that person will appreciate my mind (yeah, I know that sounds douchey, but everyone who reads this blog is super-smart, too, so chill), and a large part of our relationship will be an intellectual connection. And there is certainly some element of intellectual connection with Roberto. But there's something very...nice, I guess...about someone liking me just because we share a sort of natural connection and rapport, and it feels nice when we smile at each other. How does the old saying go, "Tell the smart woman she's beautiful and the beautiful woman she's smart?" Something like that? It's an obnoxious saying, but there's more than a little bit of truth there.

Congratulations for making it to the end of the post! As a reward, you get a Wyatt Cenac segment (Cenac is currently edging out John Oliver as my favorite regular Daily Show correspondent) featuring Steve-o* Carter. Enjoy:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Judgmental
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

*Professor Carter: If by some miracle you've made it to this page, welcome! Yes, I am making fun of your (and your father's) somewhat extreme views on formal address. But I hope you will not confuse my editorializing with actual disrespect. Also, a friend points out that you got the parties who appointed Sotomayor to the different courts backwards. I just used Hamer v. Sidway in a gchat conversation, though, so all is forgiven.

By The Waters

I'm blogging live (unlike most of my posts, which are carefully smuggled past the censors and published weeks later) from beautiful Lake Bled. I have pictures but not the cable that connects my camera to the computer, so you'll have to make do with outside shots. Note: The outside shots seriously misrepresent the current color of the sky and visibility of the mountains. They do not, however, misrepresent the overall gorgeousness of the lake area. The parents and I got here after a lovely hour-long bus ride, which took us through a not-insignificant portion of Slovenia. It really is a beautiful country.

Speaking of "by the waters," Roberto showed me some photos of his hometown last night. Photos like this. And this. And this. I mean, I did grow up just a couple of miles from the Long Island Sound, so I figure we had pretty much the same experience. Not to insult the Sound—it's quite lovely as sounds go—but it sure ain't the Mediterranean.

Adam came this week, which was a treat. I think at his sightseeing pace he managed to see as much in one day as my parents saw in five. We walked around and chatted, had meals with my parents, and generally had a nice time. It was great to see a friend over here. By the way, if any of YOU want to be that friend, please consider coming to Budapest and Prague with me from July 30th to August 6th. Natalie's joining me for leg one of EuroTour 2009 (Ljubljana and Dubrovnik from July 24th to July 30th), but then she has to "work" (excuses, excuses), so I'm on my own. But I'd love company. Spread the word.

It's great that so much has been going on this past week or so, but I can't help feeling a little sad that it's all happening at once, and so close to the end of my stay. For the first five weeks, I spent pretty much all my time alone wishing I had just one person to hang out with. Now I'm at Bled with my parents, which is great, I've been looking forward to it, but I also kind of wish I was spending the weekend back in the apartment in Ljubljana. I know, I know, your pity is overwhelming. But it's my blog and I'll kvetch if I want to. Pshaw.

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.

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!

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.