I forgot a few things

Other things I look forward to that didn't make the top 10 list:
a. soft water--my hair is looking rather frazzled
b. the clothes dryer--then my clothes will be soft before i put them on and wear them for a few hours
c. TV in English, on a screen bigger than about 4x6 inches
d. cashiers that talk to you and ask if you found everything
e. Tillamook Mudslide icecream
f. drinking fountains
g. free public toilets

Top 10 things

When I get back to Portland, I look forward to:
10. Panda Express (orange chicken)
9. Mazatlan Mexican (strawberry daquiris and enchiladas)
8. A seemingly endless supply of dark chocolate M&Ms
7. My house
6. Driving my car whenever I want, wherever I want
5. Shopping at normal grocery stores
4. Church
3. Sewing
2. Playing games with friends
1. seeing Meg and Lauri and Mladen and Keith and Stephanie and Mike and Nicki and David and Aurea and Rawdon and Kathleen and Colin and Julian and Monica and Emma and Jeff and Alex and Brad and Darsy and MB/DA and Ward and a prego Jennifer and...everybody...

there's a piano in my hotel room

Solska Pot apparently means "school crossing" in Slovenian.

no kidding! a baby grand in my room. The last time we were told our room had been upgraded, it was a sad story: we were above a bar in a very hot room. This time it looks and feels too good to be true. But we're in a room facing into the back, about the 4th or 5th floor (they call it the 2nd floor, but you enter, then reception is one floor up, then the mezzanine, then floor one, then floor 2. I think). Today we are in Vienna. The last 2 days we were in Graz, where there was no internet. Actually, you could use the machine in the hotel lobby, cost 1 euro for 10 minutes. At 9 minutes and 53 seconds I still hadn't connected to my email. Got my euro back!
Here, also, is a pic of the dragons we saw in Ljubljana (a tshirt there said loob-lah-nuh)

Ljubljana

We've been in Ljubljana for 3 days now. We've had fun here. We drove over to Trieste, Italy, yesterday. Today we roamed around the town and took the funicular to the castle in the middle of town. I'll inclue here a picture of one of the dragons we have seen around town. Dragons seem to be the mascots of Ljubljana. Tomorrow we go to Graz, Austria. If you get bored today, try typing Ljubljana. It's hard. I think fingers are used to stretching out to the aeiou instead of typing a thousand consonants in a row. Some fun towns we've seen: Uggl and Egg. Also, a street named Duh. Oh, whoops, I don't have dragon pics on my laptop yet, so instead I will show you some funny signs we've seen.You can't really have any sort of fun at the lake. You're not even allowed to pet snails!

slap savica

Slap means waterfall, I think, and Savica is the name of the falls that feed Lake Bohinj. 9 km bike ride each direction (that's 5.4 miles each way) and a short hike. Very pretty. More later.

Austria

We're on vacation again. This time it's Austria and Slovenia. It's been a beautiful trip so far. Warm weather and dry. Except on the Grossglockner Road, but that's cuz it was so high in elevation. Here are a few pictures I took in Innsbruck. The dragons were in a royal garden near a playground. And I was glad to see that both men and women are allowed to cross the road there. Apparently, tho, only if they are dressed up. And I'm not sure what they are supposed to do between 6 am and 10:30 am. It's hard to post pictures in a hotel lobby, so I'll get more up in a few days, or whenever we actually have internet access in our room. Right now there are three women and a man staring at Rob and I. I think they're speaking Slovenian, cuz it doesn't sound like German.

Proof!

When I see a sign or hear an announcer and I don't know what it means (ie, it's in German or some other language), I tell Rob it means that there are bears around, and you better watch out. He always laughs and doesn't believe me. Now I have proof. When we were at the bank today, withdrawing money for our vacation, it was right there on the screen: Bearbeitet. Pronounced in German, it says, "bear-bite-it." See? You do have to watch out for the bears. We knew someone was taking a 1% bite out of every purchase we make (I'd show you our bank statements, but, um, well, you know) and now there is proof. It's the bears.