Day 12

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

Ljubljana, Lake Bled, and Celje - Slovenia

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Got up on Friday morning and Brooke, Sarah and I headed north about 40 minutes to Lake Bled. It is a quaint little town that sits at the base of the Alps, with a lake, a castle on a cliff overlooking the lake, and a church out on an island - what more could you ask for? In the summer the lake is warm enough to swim in - but we just went for a long walk around.

Bled Castle on the cliff...

















Living in California for 2 years now, I've started to miss the seasons. So you can understand why I'd be excited about the fall leaves and colors :)

Old house, again the castle in the background...

That evening we drove back down to Ljubljana and picked up Jonny and continued on to another city about 1.5 hours away called Celje (sell-yay - Brooke, did I spell that correctly?). The missionaries in that area had started a Summer English Camp to teach Slovene teens English. They had a follow-up event that coincided with the Holiday; a Chestnut Picnic

Now, seeing as how Sarah and I had never eaten an actual chestnut, we were a bit unclear on what a picnic of said chestnuts entails. Basically, it is like a pizza party, with chips and drinks, but instead of pizza as the main entrée, you roast a crapload of chestnuts until their soft inside - kind of the consistency of a baked potato.

(Sarah with chestnuts)

They trained us well and we ate our fill.


















(Ryan with chestnuts)

Roasted chestnuts get charred black ash on the outside - this leads to blackened fingers - that leads to the chestnut picnic version of a food fight where you smear one another's faces with said ash.






(Brooke with chestnuts...)
We also played some English games/mixers. We had paper taped on our backs and as we'd walk around and have discussions (in English, thankfully) we would write encouraging adjectives about the person on their back. The kids pretty quickly learned that Sarah and I are actors in Hollywood... which factored into most of the conversations.








(Jonny... with chestnuts)

After about 30 minutes, we placed all the paper into a pile and read the list of adjectives aloud, then tried to guess who's paper it was. When mine came up it said "Barely famous" at the top and everyone looked straight at Sarah and I and started laughing! Jonny was leading the group and said, "Ok, so let's have a quick discussion about what the word 'barely' technically means."

I saved that paper. Regardless of whether or not I ever am famous, it will be a good reminder to stay grounded. After all... isn't everyone pretty much "barely famous"?

Will someone from OKC tell James Sturgis that I found his younger, slovene brother? I might have creeped this kid out because I kept taking photos of him and telling Sarah "He looks SO much like James."










Afterwards the 4 of us went to get Kebap - which is not a Turkish Pop Group as Sarah and I guessed, but rather a gyro type late-night chicken sandwich/pita thing. SUPER good. Especially when you've had nothing but chestnuts all night.


Also, Brooke's hubcaps got stolen. A bummer of an ending to an otherwise cool evening. But more on that tomorrow...