On top of homeland, 25. XII. 2016

According to the data from 2 of the most popular hotel chains websites, in which I normally reside, I slept 93 nights in foreign hotels outside Slovenia, mostly in the East side of Europe, somewhere in Warszawa, Prague, Athens, Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna and also somewhere in the USA and many other places. A person, who is traveling so much out of his own country, can almost compete with traveling circuses and other vagabonds of this world. These round 100 nights also mean 1000 of airplane miles, which I accumulated when flying on Adria airlines and their connecting flights of Miles & More.


Las Vegas
My favorite hotel chain already granted me the highest status by giving me their black card and a special royal status, which only 10% of the most loyal customers receive. The most chronical vagabonds, so to speak. But 93 days away from home also means that the other 273 days, I spent comfortably at home with my family. And these days are the most numerous, because I worked on my traveling job for nearly 8 years now or 32 quartiles, as the hard-working American corporations say.


San Francisco
In these 8 years, I got to know people a lot more; leaders, workers, hotel employees, taxi drivers, stewardesses, waiters, con-artist and all of the sorts you can think of, of all colors, sexual orientations, mental illnesses and phantasies. But luckily, I also met some friends and just a few enemies. I know how people are when they are sober and how they act when they let their emotions loose when being drunk. I know exactly what you can expect from a Czechian, Slovakian, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian, Greek, Romanian or Bulgarian person. I came to understand that each and everyone have their own ghosts haunting them, terrible ghosts known as paranoia. The most motivated people, the most successful ones have the worst fears, which make them so successful, because they flee into the safe harbor of success, for which they are willing to work more, better, harder and traveling the extra few miles.


Praga
I also met the laziest people in the world (at least in Europe) and the most hard-working ones the same. And whenever I saw something good, I, like every person out there, compared it to my own homeland. And as a pure-blooded Yugoslavian boy, I have 2 motherlands to be exact. And as it is customary, I always thought very poorly about my first motherland Slovenia, since we will never be as good, because we are too old-school for everything.


Benetke
But the more I travel, met new countries and people, the more I see how beautiful out country Slovenia really is and how wonderful we, the people, really are. As every normal man, I began to see my errors when my wife pointed them out to me. She is also a pure-blood mix, but not Slovenian. Just enough, that she opened my eyes to the truth of how beautiful it is here. And she did that by telling or hinting me with the words “See…” and those 3 dots at the end were flowed by something positive. The waiter’s laughter, a friendly word of a passing-by person, the fantastic nature on every step; and as I saw later on, I started to see these things myself too. And all those different foreigners, who I hosted every time in Ljubljana, were not only friendly when they praised Slovenia and the Slovene people. Sometimes I even heard whole debates and comparisons to other European nations about the Slovene kindness, hospitality, safety, beauty; and diligence. And so it is. In 2016 I started to consciously appreciate our beautiful homeland. I made my way into the nature quite some times, walking through the hills, walking alone, with my family or with friends. I also became a member of the biggest Slovenian network– the alpine union “Planinska Zveza Slovenije”. So my biggest accomplishment this year was not visiting the high and mighty Berlin, crazy Las Vegas, and not even the city which never sleeps, New York. The biggest accomplishment was, figuratively and literally speaking, our tallest mountain Triglav.


Berlin
This was a very special adventure with my wife, friends and friends of my friends. It was a truly marvelous end of the week. And we walked. From the lake Bohinjsko jezero till the mountain cabin Vodnikova koča, and further. We slept in overcrowded mountain cabins all the time. Some offered all the hotel luxury you could get (if you don’t take into account that they only had group rooms), others even didn’t have running tap water, or had tip latrines, which you had to clean with rain water in buckets. I washed myself with baby wipes all the weekend through, but I didn’t miss the intercontinental for only a second. Billions of stars glowing in the Alpine night sky were so much more comforting than all of the 5-star hotels combined. Local food such as “ajdovi žganci z ocvirki” and overpriced beer, were tastier than every sous-vide steaks, followed with the best wines in Hungary. The handful company of my new friends was most comforting, much more than the best profitable business acquaintances in the world.


Budimpešta
In the mountains man– is man. There, all of us fall into the same caste, because, in the end, we are all just human. Our needs and actions become primary, as if we would fall right down Maslow’s ladder. In the mountains, materialism doesn’t exist. At least high up it doesn’t. Those 3 days of hiking and Nordic walking, 3 days of stretching through the Alpine forests, 3 days of heartfelt greetings from strangers, 3 days of mountain therapy, this is the life! And the peak of it all was, of course, the goal, Triglav. As we were just beneath the very top and saw a glimpse of the tower “Aljažev stolp”, my heart began to race like crazy. In those few last steps I could hardly keep my tears to myself, till I could not hold them back anymore. That was a moment when all the advertising about Triglav comes into your mind, when you see the pictures of the Slovenian flag waving on the top after the fought-out independence. It is a moment, when I remembered my dead mother and father; my parents who were happy, content and proud. These are very special moments in life. If not anything else, I will go back to Triglav just because of those emotions I had. Maybe I will feel the same catharsis once more, who knows. It is a very special drug. For those of you who didn’t climb Triglav yet, it’s not that hard as you may think it is, where only the most experienced mountain climbers can conquer it. No, there are many easy paths that lead to the top, anybody who can climb Šmarna gora with ease, can climb without hesitation. Just borrow a book (I recommend: Kako na Triglav, PZS, 1999)!


Triglav
Ask somebody for advice, who already climbed up a few times. Join an organized hike in the summer; there are plenty of those in that time of year. I also recommend a personal protective pack, which you can borrow in every Alpine union cabin for a few euros. Put on that protective helmet and use the carbine. Those will let you travel more safely and surely, especially in crowded months in July or August. Then, the journey will be quite long, since you have to get out of the way all the time and wait, since whole groups from all over the world travel up and down the roads. Usually, you go visit the mountains when you want to have a time off and, I must confess, I like to meet as few people as possible. With my current lifestyle, I have more than enough human interaction as it is. I go on mountains for the therapy, a sort of hiking mediation to meet my true inner self. I like to go as early as possible, before the sunrise. In Slovenia you have countless opportunities where you can go hiking in all difficulty levels and for all age groups, for causal walkers to extremists. And I am thankful for this, living in an Alpine paradise. One of my goals for 2017 is to get to know as much of Slovenia as I can. No matter in what small country we live in, we still don’t know it that well. I want to be amongst the elite people, who know our country very intimately. I want to know all parts in every time of the year; and that is also a great way to spend quality time with your family and especially for upbringing your children in a patriotic spirit, if you want to do that, of course. The small scale of our country is a true advantage of our homeland– everybody can do a 1-day family trip, no matter in what part they live. This year, I want to have as many family trips as possible. I want to have numerous stamps in my Alpine membership booklet and as much good impressions as can be. I want to have wonderful memories of my children, so they can appreciate the beauty of Slovenia even after 35 years. I want to give them what is presented to all of us and what is symbolized into our very national coat-of-arms– water, mountains and stars; very special stars that shine for 2 million too critical souls living there, who don’t appreciate what they have been given as much as they should. Those, who travel long distances, should at least come to know the true gratefulness of what is standing right in front of our noses all the time. God bless you all!