Lost in Translation

Dragon Bridge

From Zagreb we took the train to Ljubljana (the j is silent), Slovenia. In the same compartment of the train was an older couple was from somewhere in Eastern Europe. The couple was fascinated with us and kept trying to speak to us, but we couldn’t understand what they were saying. (Information that will help make this story make sense, the Aussies I have been traveling with are named Jill and Hayley) Hayley was eating a cup of yogurt on the train and the man pointed at the spoon she was using and indicated that he wanted to know the name of it in English. Hayley informed him that it was a spoon and he said “spoon…spade, spade, spade”. Then the man talked with his wife and told her it was a spade and then wanted Hayley to try to pronounce spoon in their language and said a word that sounded like cash-e-cow. Hayley repeated it to the man and both he and his wife bounced up and down with jubilation that she had pronounced it correctly. The man then looked at Jill and repeated the word to her for her to repeat and what she said sounded nothing at all like what the man was saying and the man burst into laughter. Whatever she had said apparently meant motorcycle helmet.

The hostel in Ljubljana was formally a prison that has had a facelift. It was a very large hostel complete with its own bar, restaurant and art gallery. The former prison cells were converted into rooms where two people sleep with an external privacy door and a prison gate on the inside for tour groups to admire. I was not given a former prison cell room but instead was put in a room in what used to be the attic, complete with a slanting roof that made rolling over in my bed nearly impossible.

Ljubljana has a castle on a hill high above town that is supposed to have really great views of the city, but the weather was really foggy, rainy and cold so we never actually made it up to the castle. We wandered the streets for a while but got wet and cold and decided to head back to the hostel to relax and get warm. While wandering however we did come across a group of Japanese tourists and when the clocks struck 12 and started to play some music, the group of Japanese tourists broke out into an accompanying hushed song.

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