Sun, Rain and Big Bills

Each day is an adventure here. Usually— teaching, for sure, giving a tour of a city I know, focusing people in gatherings— I like to be in charge. Hopefully not in a bossy way, but as a kind of benevolent dictator that leads people to fun and engaging experiences. That was my role in Salzburg and quite happily so.

 

But here in Slovenia, I happily defer to either Karen, Gerry or Terry to follow the little blue lines on their phone as it guides us from one town to another. They also have the papers that tell about worthwhile sites in each place, as well as recommended restaurants. I just follow them around like a lap dog and don’t know where our next place will be until Karen reads about it the night before. So everything is a surprise and I like it that way. 

 

Yesterday in Vrhnika it continued to rain heavily and Karen and I taught Terry and Gerry Rummy 500 in the hotel café, which gradually shifted to dinner in the same place and a few more card tricks I had up my sleeve. The night ended with us all checking tomorrow’s weather and lo and behold, it promised sun, sun and yet more sun. 

 

We awoke optimistic and as we began the next 35 kilometer ride (some 20 miles), it was overcast but not raining. The sun came out a few times and the wind kicked up a bit and on we rode through the still beautiful countryside. We arrived at our next destination, Postonja quite early (11:30 am), but luckily both our room was ready and our luggage had arrived. Trusting the weather report, I had biked without a single article of raingear and the moment we arrived at the hotel—and I mean literally the moment— it started to rain! By the time we finished checking in, it had stopped and the original weather report held true. The gods were with us.

 

We had the afternoon before us and there were two tourist-worthy sites that charged enough money (42 Euros each) that they better dang well be tourist-worthy! I had brought with me Euros that I had earned in 2019 and never changed to dollars because I was waiting for the exchange rate to go up. It never did for a year and then the pandemic and then still not a great exchange rate and there they were, still sitting in an envelope on my desk. I used some for the bike trip to Puglia back in 2022, but still had a lot left over. So give years later, I brought them all with me on this trip and that’s what we’re using for money.

 

Yesterday, I got down to one bill and it was a 500 Euro bill and I decided I could use it to pay for the above-mentioned tour. The man ran it through a machine and made a joke about it being counterfeit, because the machine wouldn’t accept it. And he didn't either, giving it back to me and asking for our credit card. Terry looked it up and apparently they had stopped printing them in 2019, but it was still supposed to be legal tender. We paid with a credit card and I was nervous that somehow I might be out 500 Euros. More on that later. 

But once we arrived at the first tourist site, Predjama Castle, I was ready to shake it off and devote myself fully to being a first-class tourist. Stay tuned.