Slovenia: getting lost

The day started out poorly. After getting into the Ljubljana airport around midnight and getting to the hotel in the city center around 1am, I set the alarm on one of my phones to get up at 0630, in time to check email, shower and get dressed for early breakfast meeting and then off to customers. Except that I forgot that my UK phone was set to go off at 0430 – which it did, much to my consternation after about 3 hours sleep. As it usually does, it took long enough to go back to sleep that I was in deep dream mode when the other alarm went off – doh!

Tomek and I headed off to our first meeting which went not just uneventfully, but excellently. The customer had chosen us already and we convinced them to go for paid trial and issue purchase order and start project all within the next 6 weeks. So that was good. What was supposed to be a one hour meeting, stretched to 2 ½ hours before we set off for the next meeting.

We were set to meet with Iskratel, a “systems solutions provider” focused on Russia and the “CIS” countries (the “stan” countries and former Soviet Republic lands). We left the operator’s offices and Tomek gave the driver the directions. It was supposed to be about 20 minutes away, through the countryside and in an industrial suburb where lots of technology companies were headquartered. But it took over an hour.

We should have seen the bad experience coming.

For awhile the driver was yelling and arguing with his dispatch about the address over the loudspeaker and – we think – getting nowhere. He had no GPS, no map (always a map!) and we were asking him to take us to a 500 person office building, which should not be so hard in a suburb of about 35,000. Then we pulled up even with a car next to us and he asked the other driver to roll down his window. They yelled at each other for awhile and our driver drove on. He was still lost but we had beautiful views of the Alps and rain coming down . Then, we asked to stop so Tomek could get some more money from the ATM, since the meter kept going and going. Meanwhile, I stayed in the cab, and the driver got out and chatted up a young girl sitting on the bus-stop, presumably to ask HER where we were going and how to get there. Did not help.

The driver did not speak or understand English very well, and Tomek’s Polish was not much help. So we asked our partner, whom we were meeting, to talk to the driver to direct him. After some more yelling and driving we were still lost. The driver kept trying to take us to motels, diners and auto shops, when we were clearly trying to get to a large office building.

Then the final straw. We pulled alongside an outside café and asked the driver to talk to the patrons to find out where we were (again). He got out but would not talk to them. I suggested to Tomek that he write down the address and Tomek talk to the diners and have them draw a map. Yay – this worked and we could see the company name up ahead on a building. Meanwhile, Tomek is cursing under and over his breath, saying “you are the worst taxi driver I have ever seen”. He paid the bill and said this again several times, but the driver seemed unfazed – it could have been worse, we could have woke up tomorrow and been a taxi driver in Slovenia!

To finish the story of today, Slovenians apparently start early and end early, we found out. We had lunch in the company cafeteria around 1pm, and as we were leaving the turned the lights out. After another 5 hour meeting, the offices were nearly empty as they took us to our cabs – Tomek to the airport, me to the hotel to catch a dawn flight tomorrow to London. (We made sure the cabs knew where they were going )

After numerous work calls in the cab and back at the hotel, I took a walk in the old town of Ljubljana, which was fantastic. Just an amazing old Europe city with squares and buildings from the 1500’s. I was trying to get to Skoda, a restaurant the hotel had recommended, across the river bridges. I brought a book with me to keep me company at the restaurant, instead of blankly staring into space.

When I walked in, another English speaking guy was behind me. The hostess asked if we were “together”, which we were not . So she said to me, “are you alone?”. Not, “are you dining by yourself” or “dining alone”, but “are you alone?”. I think it was the English, but it still sounded kind of desperate. Anyway, I did have a nice special meal of Serbian food – don’t ask what it was, not for the faint-of-heart. And after paying the bill, I slipped out of the restaurant as the table of 12 locals near me, was getting louder and louder from their strong Slovenian beer and wine.

Conclusion: it’s a beautiful country. Drivers can’t be trusted. Eating alone sucks. Traveling is hard. Able to laugh afterwards (and during) – PRICELESS!