On Friday night, Igor (the father) gave me some beer to try, which was a really interesting taste. It was only 3 or 4% alcohol, so it wasn't very strong. But he told me that it causes weird dreams, which was super true, because it gave me a couple strange dreams that might, and even in my naps the following day. So I don't even know...
The next morning, Saturday, Igor drove me to some local caves that is a really popular tourist spot. Sabina, his other daughter, worked in the caves as the English tour guide up until last year, so she was pretty lucky because these were some amazing caves. However, they asked us not to take pictures inside, so I only got a couple ones secretly...
It was refreshingly cold in the caves, roughly 12C, or about 53F, which was nice compared to outside. The tour guide talked about how ceilings had collapsed approximately 16,000 years ago and formed a large mound (Sabina, if you read this, correct me if I'm wrong...) that was the base of some of the Silent Cave. It's called such because it's the portion of the cave where you can't hear the Reka River flowing. (bonus points if you know what Reka means in Slovenian...)
The second part of the cave, the Murmuring Cave, had a bridge that is 45 meters above the ground, so nothing for anyone scared of heights... They also had these cool formations seen in the first picture above, which were formed when water was seeping through the surface and creating these pools of water surrounded by pure minerals.
(Don't tell these caves I said this, but I prefer Shasta Caverns. Those are some breathtaking caves...)
Later, after Igor and I got back, Sabina and I walked around the town, into a forest in the shadow of an old castle's ruins... Well... It casts a pretty small shadow, so I guess this forest wasn't really in the shadow, but you get the point.
So overall, a really awesome Saturday!!!! I saw some amazing sights and all of my family here is so amazingly nice and wonderful and they let me sleep in until whenever. So that's super awesome too. Most of them speak very good English, with the exception of the parents of all the younger adults (except for Igor who speaks it very well)
My nights have been very good here. I'm sleeping well and completely through the night, which didn't happen at all at the beginning of the trip. The only problem I'm having is that sometimes when I wake up, my right leg cramps up and I'm not sure why??
Sunday was a full day. We had a Barbeque lunch with small sausages, grilled eggplant, grilled zucchini, chicken/bbq cheese shishkebabs, and the works. Super good, super filling.
After a good long nap, I set out for the mountains with Sabina and her husband Claudio, Damijana and her boyfriend Dennis, and Dragica (the mother of Sabina and Damijana, and Igor's wife). We started hiking up one of the mountains in the area, which I so perfectly forget the name of. (That's the problem when you don't know the language...) But it's a ski resort when it snows, so it's very mountainy, if that gives you an idea...
We hiked along the road for about 1.5km, when we turned around because we decided we didn't want to walk the remaining 12km to the next destination. For hose of you playing along at home, 12km is about 7 miles uphill. For 4:00 in the afternoon, that seems like it might take a while... So we drove there in just about 20 minutes and got an amazing view.
The castle you see is from the 19th century, so not as old as some of the others from... Well, the continent...
But it was so beautiful, pictures don't even capture it respectfully. There was a little cottage nearby and so that looked really awesome. The whole reason we were there was to climb the mountain even higher, to the peak. And it was such a nice hike! The view from the top was amazing- we could even see the highest peak in Slovenia, not including the Alps.
I have a good picture of, you know, the fronts of us, but it's on my camera so I can't get it on my blog...
And that was Sunday afternoon and I don't want to write about today yet because I've had enough typing for one day... I'll do it tomorrow. I'm leaving the Pugelj homestead tomorrow around noon to go to Grosuplje, a smaller town near Ljubljana, to meet the Špehar family.
Let me clear something up really quickly. My father's parents are Frank and Katie Pugel. Grandpa Frank's family is the Pugelj family, here in Ilirska Bistrica. Grandma Katie's family is Croatian and lives in Slovenia, and they are the Špehars. For a while, I thought we had family in both Croatia and Slovenia, but it turns out we have Croatian and Slovenian relatives, but they all live in Slovenia.
Just got the chance to read the whole blog. Keep making everyone jealous Josh.
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