One Tab, Bourget -- Ljubljana, Slovenia

I'm starting this post from the left cushion of the large red couch in Andrej's living room. This comfortable couch, covered in an orange sheet, has been my bed for most of last week and I've grown quite fond of it.

It's the first "bed" I've slept on for more than seven days since the end of May. I'm finally starting to wake up and just know where I am instead of waking up and spending thirty seconds thinking, "Okay, let's figure this out. It's still a little dark outside, so that means I'm not in Iceland anymore. It's raining, so I could be in Scotland... but it's too warm for Scotland, so maybe... that's right, I'm in Italy." 

The refrigerator grumbles and moans in the far off corner, irritated and overwhelmed due to all the cheese we stuffed inside a couple of days ago. The coffee machine's blue light softly illuminates the other corner of the kitchen, blending with the morning light filtering in through the blinds behind me. The plump grey clouds look heavy with rain, and I anticipate that much of my day will be spent inside, curled up with Andrej's orange blanket, drinking cappuccino, writing my blog and practicing yoga.

That's one of the best parts about staying in a place for such a long time. I don't feel even a twinge of remorse looking outside, observing that the weather is positively grim, and then deciding it's probably best I just stay inside all day and drink coffee.

Andrej's alarm clock rings every five minutes or so. It jingles merrily for the first time at seven, then keeps ringing on and off until seven thirty. As it does every morning.

It's nice to get to know someone's habits again. The alarm goes off at seven every morning. My friend comes into the living room at seven thirty, makes a cup of coffee without milk, eats two bananas, chats for a while, then goes to work around nine. At this point in my haphazard country hopping, even the routine of someone ELSE feels stabilizing.

I have several tabs open on my computer right now. Couchsurfing in Zagreb, a yoga academy in Nepal, google maps with a potential route through the Balkans, a facebook message to an old friend in Zagreb, and Hostelworld options for Pristina.

I'll probably flip through all of them twice in the time it takes Andrej's alarm to go off again.

My plans for the next few months, as they have an uncanny habit of doing, have gone to hell in a handbasket. According to Wikipedia, this idiom "describes a situation headed for disaster inescapably or precipitately."

So what do I do in these situations?

I make more plans. To keep the other plans company in the handbasket. I don't believe in lonely doomed plans. Doomed plans fare better together. Hence all the open tabs.

I would get so much more done in this life if I could find a way to be happy and content and at peace with one tab. 

My plans have experienced a drastic upheaval due to health problems: my own and of the people who own the apartment I was hoping to rent in Mostar.

Their grandfather might be in his final few months, so he'll need the apartment.

My uterus might be in its final few months, so potentially needing a doctor could turn my life upside down for a bit.

Having health problems in a foreign country is the worst. You probably don't speak the local language, you might not know where to go for help, you might not have friends to talk to, you might not want to burden your friends with your issues, and you might not have insurance. Having health problems in foreign countries is even worse than having health problems in the US (which says something about the quality of American health care). But my body doesn't seem to care about these inconveniences. On September 10th, I started experiencing period pains from Dante's treacherous 9th circle of hell. Some of the most painful cramps of my life. Debilitating, nauseating, ferocious cramps that made me feel like my low back was going to crumple in on itself and then probably implode.

Being a lady... is the worst. Being a lady who has zero desire to make any babies EVER, but has to suffer through this torture every month seems incomprehensibly unfair. 

The cramps lasted for days -- much longer than they usually do.

"I don't understand," I told Boy when we were in Geneva. "The pain is usually really intense for two days, and then it's fine. But it's been five days, and I still feel miserable."

I kept a bottle of Aleve in my daybag, popped pills as often as I needed, and tried not to complain.  Out loud, anyway.

What a bloody curse. Even if I believed in some sort of Creator, I'd never forgive him for making such horribly inconvenient lady parts. 

It's October 10th today. After an entire month of painful bleeding, my period seems (hopefully) to be over. I've lost so much blood that I spent a couple weeks feeling dizzy, exhausted, and struggled to focus on anything more difficult than knitting a hat (or five). When I arrived in Slovenia on the 2nd, I finally felt comfortable telling someone what was going on. I told Andrej, and since Andrej isn't well-versed in menstrual mishaps, he asked his secretary who asked her gynecologist who sent Andrej a text message. Andrej also asked his sister, who happens to be a doctor. I asked Sabina, who has a relative who's a gynecologist and a friend who's a doctor. I asked my friend Janet, who recommended I take some iron supplements to battle my symptoms of anemia.

And this is the story of how half of Slovenia knows about what's going on in my uterus. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to feel comfortable talking about it, though. I should have said something earlier. I shouldn't have waited until I was desperate. Just because it's a little taboo to talk about menstruation doesn't mean I should keep myself from getting the help I need. Thank goodness for people like Andrej and Sabina, who make me feel so safe and comfortable talking about anything... although I feel pretty shitty about coming to visit them and then just saying, "I HAVE PROBLEMS, PLEASE HELP!"

Andrej checked online and found that an ultrasound in Slovenia without insurance only costs seventy euros. So I'll be doing that in the near future. And then making the rest of my decisions from there. It's hard to keep one tab open, though. The only tab I need open at this point is, "Get an Ultrasound". That's it. Period. But I feel like I'm switching between tabs of "What if You Need Surgery?" and "What if You Have Cancer?" and "What if You're So Sick You Have to Fly Home?" and "What if You Have to Take Birth Control to Reduce Fibroids and Your Hormones Go Berserk?"

One tab, Bourget. One tab.

My time with Sabina and Larissa and Dino was sweet and simple. Playtime with Larissa in the living room, an endless soundtrack of children's songs, and a couple of walks around the neighborhood in search of friendly cats to cuddle. We found no cats, but happened upon a few dandelion seeds that I gave to Larissa to blow into the grass.

"What do you love the most about being a mother?" I asked Sabina, forever curious about motherhood even though I've sworn off babies of my own.

"That's a good question," Sabina pondered. "I think it's that she allows me to be a child. For example, when we go into a restaurant, I always want to see what's going on behind the bar. But I can't, because it's not appropriate. But Larissa, she just goes. She doesn't care because she hasn't learned the social rules. Other mothers will call back their kids and say, "no, you can't go in there!" But I... I just follow her!"

"So she sort of... opens up the world to you, in a way."

"Yes. Yes, she does."

"What's one of the hardest things about being a mother? Besides not sleeping."

"It's the feeling I get when she's hurt. When she's hurt, I hurt. I feel so deeply with Larissa."

We also took a quick trip to the zoo. Larissa has been to the zoo so many times in her short year and a half of life, it almost seemed like she was leading the way.

Sabina and Dino dropped me off at Andrej's on Friday afternoon, and then drove to spend the weekend at Sabina's mother's home. After catching up with my friend, we went for a stroll through Ljubljana.

This bit of street always makes me a little melancholy. It's lined with pictures of birds. I can recognize maybe two or three, but I know that Boy would be able to tell me the name and habits of every single bird.

Ljubljana is one of the greenest cities in Europe (one of the reasons I love it so much), so there are parks, trees and bike lanes everywhere. The current mayor, Janković, has spent a good deal of time and money improving the city during his ten years in office. Walking with Andrej through Ljubljana sounds like this:

"This square? It used to be a bus parking lot. Then the mayor decided that a bus parking lot in the city center isn't so nice, so now it's a square that is used for concerts."

"This bridge? The mayor built it a couple of years ago. Slovenians don't like to walk so far."

"This park? The mayor made it."

"The mayor didn't make this park, but he put in the walking paths."

"This walking street? Cars used to go through it, but the mayor closed it to cars and made it much nicer."

"Sounds like your mayor has been busy!" I smiled and wished Grand Junction had a similar mayor.

"Yes, but there's some controversy. Ljubljana is in debt and the mayor keeps building. But Ljubljana was in debt before the mayor. Ljubljana is still in debt, but at least now, it's much nicer."

It's chestnut season in Slovenia, so men and women sell chestnuts from every touristic corner of the city.

The mayor probably built this bridge.

We met Andrej's father at ten on Saturday morning, piled into Andrej's BMW and set off an adventure to the far corners of Slovenia.

Which takes about two hours to reach by car.

I have such a different perception of distance than Andrej. To me, two hours is nothing. Two hours is less than half the drive to visit my brother in Boulder. In Slovenia... it's a trip to Italy. Or Croatia. Or Austria. Or Hungary. 

Our first stop was Lago di Fusine, two breathtaking mountain lakes in Italy. 

Our second stop was at a cheese market in Tolmin, the town Andrej's father is from.

The numbers show how old the cheese is, day and month. This is very young cheese. Very young, delicious cheese. Some of which is in Andrej's grumpy refrigerator.

We then drove across the precarious Devil's Bridge, up a narrow, serpentine road (which reminded me of the roads in the mountains of Mexico, but with a guardrail), until we arrived at Čadrg. We parked the car at the old house of Andrej's grandfather and then went for a walk.

I thought it was a hobbit hole, but Andrej told me it was a bunker. I don't believe him.

Andrej tried to get me to pronounce "Žlejžn." I... err... should probably stick to learning French and leave Slovenian to the locals.

We found this hobbit storage room, which confirms my suspicion that the bunker was not a bunker and that hobbits do, in fact, inhabit Slovenian mountains. Like the "hidden people" in Iceland.

DUGE BABE? This is another reason to love Slovenia. As if I needed another reason.

Devil's Bridge

We met with several of Andrej's relatives (some of whom Andrej hadn't seen in fifteen years), drank much local liqueur, then drove home.

I scrunched my daybag into a pillow, propped it against the door and slept in the back of the BMW. Like the excellent travel buddy I am.