The Js are Silent

Author: Krista

February Sundays in Ljubljana are very quiet. Very few to no tourists and most commercial businesses are closed on Sundays with the exception of cafes, some restaurants and lekarnas (pharmacies), gas stations, and a bakery chain called Perkarna which have very nice seeded rolls. In fact, some businesses are also closed or have half-day hours on Saturdays, closing at noon or 1pm. Very different from what I am used to in the U.S. where most everything is open 7 days a week. It actually reminds me of when I was a young and growing up in Sebastopol, a very small town in Northern CA. And even when I was a teen and working retail, Saturday and Sunday hours were truncated.

The first Sunday in Ljubljana, I was jet lagged. The second, I was a bit melancholy/homesick (and worried how I’d keep myself busy – okay I am admitting it!). And now, as I close my third Sunday, I am reflective and grateful. It feels like Slovenia has given me permission to take the day off.

As Rory and I have been settling in the last few weeks, we have been plenty busy navigating requests from the Slovenian government re: our residency permits (it’s a slow go but it is moving, thankfully) and setting stuff up for our apartment, which we will move into at the end of February. This has required a couple trips to a mega big box retail area that has IKEA, etc. We have learned all about car sharing. I am now a member of Avant2Go and really like driving the little electric BMW 🙂

It has also meant we met our building manager, Branko, who is most helpful and took us for coffee. We also met our building handyman, Mr. Boric, and he handily changed the door hardware on our storage unit. The original lock and key looked right out of Harry Potter and if you did not align everything just so, no opening the door. It feels good to be making progress but also making time for just being and enjoying the present moment.

Enjoy some pics from this low key Sunday!