Everything You've Ever Heard About Slovenia is True

I don’t have any negative feelings about this country. I didn’t know what to expect though, so quite frankly, it was a surprise. And not a terrifying surprise like, “Surprise! I’m pregnant!”, but the way better surprise like, “No, I just packed on a few pounds”.

Weird analogy? Mildly inappropriate? Not something that anyone has ever actually told me or you? Probably. But regardless, let’s get back to the topic at hand here: Slovenia.

Basically, everything you’ve ever heard about Slovenia is true. I won’t go into details. If you haven’t heard anything about Slovenia, that’s fine too; just read on and watch your wildest dreams come to life.

Oh Slovenia. Sweet, sweet Slovenia. What's in a name? That which we call Slovenia, a tiny, almost-landlocked country, by any other name would smell as sweet.

…But would it, really? Never.

I’ve created a list of the top 8 reasons why I like Slovenia. Consider this to essentially be a Buzzfeed article, or a 2^nd Grader’s class report; I consider them to be almost synonymous. However, while they say a picture tells a thousand words, I unfortunately am still struggling to sift through hundreds (and counting) of RAW photos on a netbook meant to do little more than word processing. So for the time being, I’ve decided to shoot for a thousand words instead and let that imagination of yours do the work. As of right now, I’m at a little over 300. Let’s get crackin’.

What, you haven’t taken a ride on the imagination train since elementary school? Time to fire up your engines, boys and girls, because it’s about to get Slovene.

1) Bathrooms are free

To clarify, I’m referring to the fee that is charged for using many of the “public” restrooms in Europe/Asia/anywhere except the US. Apparently Slovenia doesn’t believe in charging you to pee, because I did not encounter any fees, anywhere. You’re probably saying to yourselves, “But Jason, why is this your number one reason for liking Slovenia so much?” And to that, I have a strong rebuttal: because getting charged 1.50 Euros every time I had to use the toilet in Venice was a real pain in the ass.

…Clearly I’m not above poop jokes. Sorry, I’m not sorry.

2) Slovenians love the letter ‘J’

Much like the rest of my blog, this also probably doesn’t make much sense out of context—just follow along. I’m not quite sure how or why this came to be, but somehow when ye olde Slovenians decided to adopt the Latin alphabet to write their language, they said to one another “Dude, this letter ‘J’ is really the shit.” And so it became that every fifth word would contain a (silent) ‘J’. Maybe it’s just me, but I believe it’s been completely underutilized in the English language; as my newest cousin, Jeff, recently pointed out to me (shout out to Cousin Megan for marrying him), the game Scrabble only contains one ‘J’ piece. Just one, people. One. Maybe I have too much affection for the letter, but without it, I just wouldn’t be the same person.

3) Burek

Choo chooooo. Next stop: imagination-ville. Suppose you had a very buttery and flakey croissant, which was filled with meat and/or cheese, and shaped somewhat like a cinnamon roll. You would have burek, and you would forever be happy. Sadly, you don’t have it, because you are not in the greater Balkan region. I, however, have been surviving largely on this piece of heaven for most of my meals.

4) Rollerblading is making a comeback

Although it’s just as likely that it never left. Quite frankly I don’t think it makes a difference if it just came, or has been here for decades—rollerblading is here to stay. It may be more taxing, more inconvenient, and more dependant on high-grade road surfaces than biking, but god is it cool. Leave it up to the Slovenians to pick up the one piece of 1994 we should never have left behind.

5) Potable tap water

It’s the little things, people. I don’t want to get Giardia from my tab water, and Slovenia isn’t about to give it to me. For that, I am glad.

6) The radio only plays music from my prime

And by that I mean the 1980’s—the best 12 days of my life. As I don’t have a walkman or a car here though (I’m not sure where else people can conceivably listen to the radio), I’ve only heard it during bus trips. That said, it’s been a delicious mix of 1980’s throwbacks and the occasional club hit dubbed in Slovene; I always knew Pitbull was Slavic at heart.

7) It rains a lot

It’s really, really green. Literally. The tourism folks are pretty proud of the fact that 60% of the country is covered in forest. Now, the rain might be a little frustrating to the layperson, but it feels rather Oregon-esque to me—60 degrees and raining in June. Perfect.

8) I don’t feel like I’m always about to get ripped off

While I do miss haggling, I don’t miss anyone telling me that they are giving me the “friend price”. Moreover, maybe it’s because I’m just as pale as everyone else here, but cab drivers are much less forthcoming than they were in Morocco. Weird.

Also: English is widely spoken, and it’s a beautiful, easily accessible country. It looks like I’m a few words short of that 1000 word mark though, so I’ll end this with a fitting quote that most Americans know:

“Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country…And then keep going West 10,000 miles, take a left at Budapest, and stay right at the fork on highway A1.”

-Horace Greeley

Happy trails,

JHW