Moving quickly now
because I have a lot of ground to cover. When I last updated you, I was in Dubrovnik, way down the bottom of the Croatian coast. You remember, I kept going on about the water like I was from Alice Springs or something. Well I got to know the Croatian bus system pretty well over the next few days -- it took two days of travelling before I was back up north, in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana. It's a cute little town, made all the cuter because I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce it. I fell back on my old trick of just saying the name confidently and fast -- it's gotten me by so far. The town reeked of the Austrian monarchs, the Habsburgs, with pale pastel townhouses and cobbled squares everywhere you turned around.

Walking along the river one night, I stopped to look at a menu in English. My attention was pretty quickly grabbed by the range of steaks they served: Turkey, Pork, Beef, Veal, Horse, Stallion. Yes, really. I kept moving past that particular establishment, but later in the night I ate at a fast-food place called "Hot Horse." While I wasn't so starving, I ordered a "burger" and didn't ask any questions.

So then to Bled. I've avoided using the word until now, but there is simply no other way to describe Bled: quaint. Some quaint little towns around a quaint little lake. A quaint castle on a quaint hill. A quaint church on a quaint island in the quaint lake. Quaintness (whatever it really is) oozes out of every pore of this gorgoeous little town. It hangs ever-present in the air, like the rain did for the whole time I was there.

I promptly met an American named Andy as we were both kicked off the bus into the aforementioned rain. Making the best of a bad situation, we spent the next few hours in various bars waiting for the rain to stop. Andy is studying to become a psychiatrist and I am a pseudo-intellectual, so the conversation took some profound turns (Is work a means to an ends? Do you know yourself? Can you ever escape yourself? What is the purpose of life? Do you believe in love? What is that strange hook thing on a Swiss army knife for? Should we have another beer?) but all the better for it.

Next on my travel checklist was Poland, but I had used my visas for Czech and Hungary so I had to carefully work my way through Austria and Slovakia so I didn't run afoul of any of the power-tripping, I-have-a-gun-as-well-as-a-stamp-let's-just-see-which-one-I-decide-to-use border police. Happily, this meant I got to spend a couple more days in Vienna. I had also developed a pretty disguisting head cold by this point, so I was keen to just take it easy for a few days. One thing I did find time to do in Vienna, though, was go to the opera again. I only paid 2 euro for my ticket this time, and I saw Carmen, which is a very famous opera indeed. The staging was once again fantastic, and the actress playing Carmen was suitably raunchy. Unfortunately, though, my cold was at its most disguisting during the performance. Just after the second intermission it switched gears from storing as much mucus as possible, to evacuating it from every available orifice. It was made even more pleasant because my tissues were in my day pack, safely stored in the bag check. Strike one for me.

The road to salvation
The next adventure took me right into the heart of Slovakia, far away from the English-speaking comforts of Vienna. I was avoiding the Czech Republic, but also I wanted to do some hiking in the Slovak Tatra mountains. But on my way there, I stayed one night in Levoca, a pointless little town which Lonely Planet recommends for some reason beyond me. It does have some old city walls and some big-arse churches inside, but it takes more than that to impress me these days.

One redeeming feature of Levoca, though, is the large Church of Marianska Hora overlooking the town, which is the destination of Slovakia's largest Catholic pilgrimige every year. The night I spent there happened to coincide with it, and I saw thousands of pilgrims up on the hill around the church. I had sleep on my mind that night, but the next day I set off with a convert's zeal to climb this little puppy. The real pilgrims went there looking for salvation or enlightenment, and what the hell, I could do with a bit of that myself.

As it turns out, this particular road to englightenment was signposted. But it still didn't help me. I got very lost three times on the 2km hike to the church, basically circling the town the first time. The second time I got much closer, walking around the hill instead of up it. I back-tracked and took a road up the hill until I saw that I was running parallel with the real path to the church. Rather than back-track yet again, I decided to cut across the field that separated me from the path to salvation. The farmer had just harvested the hay from the field, so it all looked too easy. At the end of the field, though, I came across a gulley of thick, thorny-looking plant things. (My rule is that I don't learn the name of any animal or plant I can't eat.) Just to set the scene for you, it was a hot day. I was wearing shorts. But I was not turning back at this late stage and I was definitely visiting this bloody salvation church. Dammit, onwards!

I spotted a reasonable route, down some thick-ish plant life to a lower field, and then an easy stroll up through some long grass, so I proceeded. I waded through the first forest of the little buggers, trying to stamp them out of my way before I moved my leg forward, but not encountering much in the way of success. I came out of the other side with a few thorns stuck in me and a lot of irritated stings. Fuck. I picked out the thorns, and at a loss of what to do about the stings, I just poured some of my water over my shins. Surprising, the stinging sensation was replaced by a cold and damp unpleasentness. It was an improvement, and good enough for me. Onward. The next stretch of the outdoors was just some tall grass, so tossing out all my Austrailan programming about poisonous snakes I bounded through it and into the clear, right up to the path leading to the church.

Well, it wasn't a path. It was a road. Made of fucking bitumen. It was built so cars could go up there, while there I was, schelpping around Farmer Brown's poison ivy plantation trying to get in. A few choice comments on this turn of events escaped my lips, and I set up the hill, even more fucking determined to get to the top.

Now this last part of the hill was really steep. I climbed a few mountains in the week after this little episode, and I never encountered a climb that was so relentless and exhausting. After the parking lot (The Parking Lot!!) there was a rest station every 20m or so, and I used most of these little fucking beauties.

Finally I made it. I collapses on the lawn in front of the church, sweat pouring out of me, getting into my eyes and smudging my glasses, my shirt sticking to me front and back. A sqaudron of flies set in around me, probably sensing imminent death. I did, however, have a nice view of the town and the gently rolling hills for my efforts. So then I just sat back and let my mind meditate, free to find enlightenment, the secret of life, and so forth. But no matter how much I tried to ascend to the Zen plane, I always came back to the one thought. I. Hate. Fucking. Slovakia.

So there we have it. Man performs religious pilgrimige, gets incredibly lost three times, is stung by nettle on return to path, is exhausted by path when he finds it, regrets whole enterprise. Can anyone provide a meaningful interpretation of the symbolism of this tale? No really, bring it on. I'll post the responses here, so your name could go up in lights.