Marathon Man

I made it up and down the coast of Slovenia today which is just a bit longer than the distance of a marathon race. In Italy they have the Cinca Terra, here is some what similer. But starting just south of the Italalian City of Trieste the first city is Koper. Koper is a port town, had the old town and newer shops and the train station. Next is Izola bypassed on the main road it has 14,500 people and a vibrant old town and some newer shops on the fringe. Heading southe you come to Piran (no car permitted) it is an artsy/craftys town. And just to the south is Portoroz a resort town. Each town is nice and servs a purpose. No one town has everything but the combination makes it so pretty much which ever urban coastal envirornment you may like exist here just minutes from each other.

I have always said everyplace in the world has it's own beauty whether it be the Sahara Desert, Anartica, Cities, countryside or islands. What makes them unique is the people and how they interact with their environment. To that end on Tuesday I met with a travel agent and a couple one studying philosophy and the other working on creating an interactive history of Slovene culture. Yesterday was spent with an American who has lived here for over 20 years. Each has been very kind and helpful in helping me to begin learning about the Slovene's of Slovenia. Yesterday I added a heavy reading load for myself, children books in Slovene. (Children books are very heavy :-). And today I found Slovenian video movies one from each of the last 5 decades of Slovene life. They are all in Slovenian with English subtitles so I hope I can learn some of the language as well as the history and how they have interacted over the years. This will give me something to do while I am back at the hostel making final arrangements to send my things and then myself to Slovenia.

Saturday I leave the sun and the coast for Novo Mesto (new city in Slovenian) it is over 500 years old, which here constitutes new.  When I was in the Karst region yesterday I visited a hostel there. The hostel owner asked if my hostel was a new or old one. I asked her how old her hostel was. To which she replied 400 years. I then responded then my hostel is a new one it is not quite 150 years old. Age is relative. It is nice to be in a country where I can be relatively young instead of relatively old :-).