“Excuse me, Miss, may I help you with that?” I looked up from my tangle of feet and arms, dangling with my bag from the train steps, to see my student Denes eager to help me. (He is the most helpful, kind-hearted ninth grader! ) With his help, I managed to lower all my goodies to the ground to await the next train, only to meet two sisters, one a former student at Teleki, with whom I enjoyed a little over an hour of great conversation.
Continuing on my train ride to Slovenia, I curled into my seat on the train and began to write. When my computer slowly died, I found that the couple sitting beside me spoke fabulous English. They were on their way to take a ten-day tour of Slovenia, and were also couch surfing! They were couch surfing veterans and their stories of all the people they’d met and cultures they wouldn’t have been able to truly experience without couch surfing thrilled me – I couldn’t wait to get to Ljubljana to meet Marta and have my first surfing experience.
Our train arrived forty minutes late and Marta was awaiting me at the stairs. With a wave, a grin, and good wishes, I departed from the couple and met Marta, a twenty-one year-old Ljubljana native with Serbian ancestry. Knowing I’d be starving, Marta led me to her car to drop off my bag and then we christened my first Slovenian night in style – with traditional Yugoslav fast food! We ordered cheese burek, a flaky swirling pastry filled with turo-like cottage cheese, and the aroma made my mouth water. As we waited, a floating paper landed at our feet – fifty Euro! When we returned it to the genial man in line before us, he generously paid for our meal! What a wonderful introduction to the friendly people of Slovenia!
As I tore a piece of burek, the steam wafted into the car, a heady perfume. The pastry melted in my mouth – heavy, cheesy, flaky, oily, and filling – delicious! We drove on to Marta’s apartment, a little way out of the center. We shared stories over gourmet lime tea, speaking of our travels, education, and families. About 2:30 a.m., I sank into a heavenly bed with the cleanest freshest smelling sheets I’d enjoyed in months, drifting into blissful sleep.
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