Winter Travels Part III: Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland

Slovenia was one of my favorite destinations on this trip so far. It’s a tiny country situated in the east end of the Alps, bordering Austria, Italy, Hungary, and Croatia, and has a small coastline on the Adriatic Sea. The country has everything. It has the natural beauty of Switzerland, the sunny beaches of Italy, an impeccably clean and beautiful capital city, the prices of Eastern Europe, and is a mecca for adventure sports enthusiasts. I arrived to Ljubljana (the capital city, pronounced something like Lube-lee-ah-na) in the evening and met some Australians staying at my hostel. I hung out with them for the evening and they were planning a day trip to Lake Bled the following morning, so I tagged along. Lake Bled is a beautiful lake at the base of the mountains, with a small island in the middle and a beautiful old Slavic church on the island. Though at first the lake didn’t look so amazing, when we walked to the far side we were treated to its real beauty, backed by mountains that are only visible from one side. We rented a rowboat, learned how to row a rowboat, and somehow made it to the island and back without tipping over.

                After Lake Bled, the Australians went back to Ljubljana and I continued on to the next lake, Lake Bohinj, to check it out before it got dark. Lake Bohinj was even more beautiful, with snow right up to the shore and surrounded on all sides by mountains. I did a short hike there, bee-lining it straight up a mountain instead of taking the trail so that I could get to a higher vantage point and beat the setting sun. After checking out the view, I headed to the bus stop and went back to Ljubljana, where I met up with Dan, a friend from my internship program in Germany who was also travelling around Europe.

               Dan and I chilled around Ljubljana that night and got a bus to Kranjska Gora the next morning, a ski village up in the Alps. The entire bus ride was gorgeous but the last part was the best, as we came up on the Italian border where the mountains were even more huge and craggy. We got out at the last stop before the border and started hiking directly from there. After about two hours of straddling the Slovenian-Italian border, we finally reached the Austria at the top of the ridge. There was a large pole thing to mark the corner where Italy, Austria, and Slovenia converged on that ridge. The views were amazing in all 3 directions, but the mountains were the most impressive on the Slovenian side.

                We headed towards Kranjska Gora as the sun started to set, making it there just in time to see the amazing view from our hostel. We were pretty exhausted from hiking for 6 hours, so we ate some crepes and went to a bar for a beer or two.

The next day we went on another hike, in the other direction towards the bigger mountains. It was pretty flat and easy most of the way, but the views were incredible. Huge rocky cliffs towered above us on either side with spiky peaks in every direction.

                That afternoon we headed back to Ljubljana to see the city. With 20 minutes until the bus came, we decided to try hitchhiking while we waited. Within a minute, someone had stopped and we were jumping in his car. It was a guy who worked part-time editing scripts for plays, and part-time as a tour guide. He knew everything about Slovenia and was able to answer all of our questions and was a really fun guy to ride with. After an hour and a half he dropped us off at a bus stop in the city where we could easily get to the city center. For the rest of the afternoon we walked around the city, spending most of our time in Metelkova—a semi-autonomous hippie/squatter community that is kind of like a smaller version of Kristiania in Copenhagen. The walls of every building were completely covered in murals, grafitti, sculptures, and some really cool art.

                That evening we walked up to the castle on a hill above the downtown where we could see a view over the city, and discovered a raw milk vending machine in the city center, which was maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It was some of the best milk I’ve ever tasted.

                The next morning I got a few liters of milk from the vending machine and wandered around the city until my bus to Klagenfurt, Austria arrived, where I would spend a night on my way to Vienna. Slovenia was a success.

I don’t have anything really exciting to say about Vienna, since it was definitely the low point of my entire Europe experience so far. This had nothing to do with the city itself—I had a terrible visit because my girlfriend broke up with me there.  She arrived just after me and we had a great time together for the first half of the weekend, exploring the Habsburgs’ old palace and the musical history of the city, but I spent most of the second half of the weekend locked in a hostel room crying, which really tainted my memories of the beauty and personality of the city. It came as a huge surprise to me, one moment we were the happiest couple on Earth planning a Valentine’s Day trip, and then next moment she was gone. I felt completely lost with nowhere to go home to, nobody to make me feel loved, and no idea what to do or where to go next.

Dealing with a breakup while homeless and travelling in a foreign country was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced emotionally. I didn’t want to break up, I didn’t agree with her reasoning, I was still head-over-heels in love with her, and I had grown to rely on her for my own happiness. I put everything I had, mentally and emotionally, into our relationship and suddenly it was all gone. This was compounded by the fact that my only future plans were to go live with her in Madrid and work there for the next few months while I learned Spanish, so I had to rethink all of my plans and I didn’t have much time to do it. I was really fucking depressed and had no motivation to continue travelling or to try to find a job and live anywhere else. I had to re-learn how to create my own happiness, a very difficult process after over two years of always having someone by your side.

 Looking back on it, she had valid reasoning—because we had pretty different ideas of what we wanted out of the next year of our lives. She wanted to stay in Madrid another year and really get to know the city, which I imagine is much easier without being tied down to a relationship, and I wanted to stay in Spain long enough to explore the country and learn Spanish, but didn’t want to stay there for too long because I wanted to explore the rest of the world too (like South America). At the time I was too overcome with emotion to think logically though, and I could not possibly think of worse timing for a breakup after the incredible experiences we had shared together over the previous few weeks in Israel, Jordan, and the first half of Vienna.

Luckily I have an amazing family who talked me through it, and great friends in Germany and Spain who offered me places to stay for the next few weeks and gave me an opportunity to take my mind off of my ex-girlfriend while I figure out what to do next with my life.  I bought a bus ticket to Germany and the next day got on a 10 hour bus from Vienna to Frankfurt, to head back to Darmstadt the city where I had spent the last 6 months. For the next few weeks I spent a lot of time being sad about the break up, and I still go through sad spells, but I think what has helped the most was surrounding myself with friends, doing things I love like skiing, and going new places and meeting people who are excited about travelling to restore my motivation and excitement.

                After a miserable 10 hours of feeling shitty about myself on a bus, I finally arrived in Darmstadt and was greeted by some friends. It was great to see friendly faces and hang out with them and get my mind off of everything else. The first night I slept on some friends’ floor—other Merck interns—and the rest of the time I slept in my old apartment, which still had an empty room since nobody took my place. I hung out with my friends, went ice skating, made homemade pizza, and had a pretty good time.

While my friends worked during the day, I spent my time figuring out what I needed to do to extend my visa to stay in Europe longer. I wasn’t ready to give up on love quite yet (I have since given up, it’s hopeless), and even if she didn’t want to date me I was still determined to learn Spanish and enjoy the next few months exploring Europe.  I got my shit together for the visa extension, and also spent some time trying to figure out where to go next. I had a good friend who was going skiing in Switzerland that weekend, so I looked into the possibility of joining her. The prospect of skiing helped me slowly turn my mind toward the future and find motivation to explore new and exciting opportunities for the next few months.

                Somehow the ski trip idea magically worked out, and it was exactly what I needed. Two people cancelled their plans to go at the last minute, opening up space for me to stay at a house right on the slopes, owned by the parents of the girlfriend of the TA of the boyfriend of a friend. On a Friday morning I hopped on a blablacar headed to Switzerland (blablacar is a website for organized hitchhiking that costs money but is way cheaper than trains). The driver was in his mid-twenties and we got along quite well, having a great time as we drove through 4 countries—Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. He was going to a different part of Switzerland than me, so I had him drop me off at a rest stop about 2 hours from my destination, where I hitchhiked from. It was incredibly easy to find a ride there—I asked everybody coming out of the rest stop if they were going towards Bellinzona, and after about 10 people an older woman said yes. She was from the Italian part of Switzerland and didn’t speak a word of English, but we communicated pretty well in broken German.  She was incredibly nice and even gave me the phone number of her son, who she thought might be able to get me a summer job in Switzerland. After one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever been on past glaciers and snowy mountain passes, she took me out of her way to drop me off at the train station where I would meet my friend Cassandra.

Hitchhiking through the San Bernardino Pass in central Switzerland

 

                Soon after arriving, I met Hellen, Magda, Trevor, and Maddy, my new friends who I would spend the weekend with. Jaysen and Cassandra were also there, the only two who I already knew. It was an incredibly positive and fun group of people to spend the weekend with. The first night we stayed in Hellen’s house in Gudo, a little town in a valley surrounded by vineyards in the Italian part of Switzerland. Her mom cooked us an amazing meal of gnocchi, the first of a series of very Swiss and very amazing meals that we would have on this trip. The next morning we woke up and got on the bus to Bosco Gurin, a small ski resort in the Alps right on the border of Switzerland and Italy.

Fart, the bus company in Locarno, Switzerland

 

                The house was in the most amazing location imaginable. Right on the slopes, possible to wake up, ski the whole day, and come home without walking a single step. It had a small solar panel which didn’t seem to be functioning very well, and had no running water in the winter, but it had a wood stove to keep warm and had everything we needed. Some friends of Hellen came down from the slopes early that day and still had two lift tickets that were good for the whole day, so Jaysen and I took the tickets and went out for a couple hours of afternoon snowboarding. I didn’t want to pay to rent skis for only 2 hours, so I borrowed Hellen’s snowboard and attempted to learn how to ride. Being a longboarder, I had the balance down when going in a straight line, but I had to learn how to move my feet to control the snowboard, which is very different from a longboard. I fell on my ass countless times, but made it down the hill and had a good time. I still think skiing is way better though.

                The next day was a full day so I rented skis this time. After having to take it slow while learning to snowboard the day before, it felt amazing to feel comfortable racing down the mountain, top to bottom, as fast as I could. Though small, the mountain had some really fun runs which we lapped over and over.

Cassandra and I skiing at Bosco Gurin, on the border of Switzerland and Italy

 

Cassandra, Jason, and I on the ski lift

 

                That evening we finished the day with beer and fondue, an amazing end to an amazing day. The next day was even better—I found the good pow. There was one run which leisurely switchbacked down the mountain, but the off-piste areas in between the switchbacks were lightly forested, pretty steep, and held the best snow on the mountain. One spot had a natural jump on a steep slope with the most perfect powdery landing, which was incredibly fun to lap over and over again, flying 20 feet downhill and landing in the softest pillow imaginable. It was another amazing day of skiing, though it ended a bit unfortunately when my tips went under in the uneven snow and my momentum carried me forward, careening down the mountain while my ejected ski chased me down and hit me in the face, cutting my lip. I finished the day bleeding in the snow, but I think half of the blood was because my lip wouldn’t heal since I couldn’t stop smiling.

From left, Trevor, Maddy, Magda, Hellen, Jason, Cassandra, and Me

 

The incredible view from the top of Bosco Gurin

                The next morning we woke up and said goodbye to Bosco Gurin, and headed towards Locarno, a small city on a lake where we hung out for the day. There was a monastery that we walked up a million stairs to get to, with an amazing view over the lake and surrounding mountains. We also tried the local hot chocolate, which was actually more like hot chocolate pudding. It was amazing. That evening Hellen’s mom cooked us another amazing meal, and the next morning we woke up and got a train to Milan, Italy, where a flight was waiting to take me to Barcelona.

Sunrise from Hellen’s front porch in Gudo, Switzerland