Put him in the Brig: Ljubljana, Slovenia

If there were one only thing, one fact, one truth, which I will take back to Canada with me, it would be that Europeans are crazy about their football.

Landing myself in Zürich was like landing myself in Münich for the first time. It’s a strange feeling; almost tricking myself into thinking I’m at the beginning of where I started. It’s this feeling that has caused me to accept a “been there, done that” attitude towards the larger Swiss/Austrian countries. The thought of wandering around town all day, taking in as many museums as possible, then going crazy by night, no longer appeals to me as much as it once did. I find myself enjoying the adventure of being lost with no real direction, letting fate decide what I do. I bring a book along with me, and should the opportunity present itself, I’ll just find some bench to read on (with some delicious Kebap—mmmmmm).

In Zürich, one of my hostel mates (Jon) was a Brit. He was simply the most knowledgeable football fan I’ve ever seen (I won’t go into details, but he knew everything about everything). Two nights in a row contained action from Chelsea and Manchester United (they didn’t play each other though). Needless to say, Jon was ecstatic. A group of us went to the pub, both nights, and simply watched the games on T.V. The game that I went to in Barcelona was awesome, but so was the pub. Both experiences gave me a unique vantage point of how the football culture is experienced here, from day to day. Surprisingly, it’s not much different from what I’m used to (say, going to watch the Roughriders play at a lounge of some sort). I dare say that Roughrider fans give Euro football fans a run for their money (in a “hey we’re crazy, blualulualua!” kind of way).

Vienna was not dissimilar to my experience in Zürich. This time however, I was not in Münich, I was in a pre WWII Berlin (which happens to be one of my all time favorite cities so far). Unfortunately, I had just been bit by the cold bug, and wasn’t in much of an exploration mood (a serious prolem when traveling alone. Nobody healthy is there to kick your butt out of bed for being lazy). I’m surprised how much energy it takes to travel, and when you’re sick, it’s nearly impossible (outside of those lucky people with amazing willpower, which I did have at the beginning of my trip). Downtown Vienna was extremely large scale Art Nouveau, green space filled, and musical in nature (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Strauss; to name some of those I recognized). Much of the outdoor art was excessively grand, and often covered in perfectly polished, yellow gold. Unfortunately, most of the green space in the inner city was “brown space” (no leaves). With a little imagination though, I could envision the amazing beauty of the place in Summer time. Perhaps I’ll come back some day and visit Nice, Barcelona, Bergen, and Vienna in summer.

Kyle-still trying to find the correct pronunciation of this city-out