Ljubljana, Slovenia

The capital of this country that we never anticipated spending too much time in is our place of rest for night number 4. At 6:20 tomorrow morning we head to Croatia. We plan to camp on or near the beach.

This morning started off nicely as we slept in, cooked some eggs and sausage for breakfast, Kory and I took a run, but then I was an idiot. I sat on a glass table...oops! Guess what? Yeah, it broke. Try explaining to a cute little Slovenian woman that you broke her favorite table. I felt terrible. We paid (it was cheap) and headed to the bus that would bring us here. It was a 4 hour bus ride through the mountains...the entire way. Wow! I've seriously never turned more times per minute in my entire life. I bet we averaged 7 turns per minute for 4 hours. But, we made it.

We've found this city to be full of amazing food, a beautiful castle overlooking the city, and a lot of people making out. We like it a lot though. Dinner was fantastic! Mom, you would have loved the salad Kory and I got.

Cultures are a beautiful thing to explore. It really gives you a taste of how beautifully diverse our God is. We found ourselves constantly stopping to stare at the Slovenian mountains and just saying, ˝Wow!˝ The people here have also been so kind and so helpful. We have met many generous Slovenian souls. God is creative...and we've loved seeing more and more of his creativity, in people and in nature.

The Word is in: Slovenia may in fact be God's country

Coming into night 3 in the beautiful quaint but majestic country of Slovenia. I never would have thought I'd spend 3-4 nights in this country of 2 million. We went canyoning yesterday with Luna, our guide. Amazingly and sometimes scarily, he let us do about anything we wanted. We'd say, ˝Can we jump from here?˝ and he would nod yes. And we would continue this process again and again. No waiver. No release. Little instruction. Add all this up for Kory, Gerbz, Ben, and myself and you get a really, really great time. Highlight was a 12 m waterfall that we slid down...straight down...at the end. We have video footage to prove.

Hitchhiking was fun...and very safe in Slovenia. Our 2 bedroom, kitchen, and bath apartment is rocking and we have cooked twice there. Tonight we had authentic Slovenia meat...very good. We are living the dream and it really does feel like a dream.

This morning we went hydrospeeding. Look it up online. Water was freezing and I'm sure my hands have never been this numb...frostbite was looming...but we conquered rapids on our bellies with only a little plastic thing and fins, that tons of people were rafting through...wimps. We took a nap and at some PBJ (our staple this trip) and some fresh fruit (we made friends with the local fresh fruit salesman and we've visited him about 4 times. He always gives us about 4 times too many cherries, but he does it with a sneaky smile and we can't turn him down.

We snaked our way around on a hike this afternoon which we had no idea where we were going. We ended up going UP a DOWNHILL mountain biking trail. Really hard, but really fun. It rained on us. We saw a spectacular rainbow and the city below. It cleared up and we saw the gorgeous Julian Alps.

TOmorrow we sleep in and then head to the capital, Ljubljana, and then the next morning we will head to Pula, Croatia we believe. Can't wait for the beaches. For those following our itinerary. We will be in Switzerland only 3-4 nights now. Stops in Venice, Cinque Terra, and Rome still are in our horizon before finishing in Lauterbrunnen/Gimmelwald.

We are in amazement at God's provision and guidance.

We love each other. We love you all!