Idiot boy

Summer 2011 continued...

My brother is a good brother. After a day of his company I knew we'd be fine travelling companions. He can recognise when I am not interested in conversation, enjoys a beer and most importantly looks on the bright side of life. The last attribute would come in very handy after 48 hours of the start of his holidays.

Our first two nights were spent in Bratislava and Vienna and were great. They're both cities with something to offer. We only had a night in each before moving on to Slovenia where we would stop and breathe for a while. Bratislava had cool statues and a party in an outdoor club which doubled as a kids' playground/volleyball court during the day. Vienna had lots of big buildings and our hostel was in prostitute alley. For me the small and affordable Bratislava was better than the big expensive Vienna, although the train prices from Bratislava suggested that most people preferred Vienna: Bratislava to Vienna - €16.40, return €11.

So 48 hours of John's trip had ticked away, we were high on travels and exploring Ljubljana. Then John jumped from a pathetically small height off a wall and said 'ouch'. Ten paces later he couldn't walk. This could be serious, he really couldn't manage to go any further. Crap. Fortunately there was a bar within carrying distance and so we did the only sensible thing to do when injured in a foreign country and ordered a round of beers. We successfully negotiated a night out by taking it in turns to give John a piggy back from bar to bar.


The bar gave us the chance to get to know our room mate Asa, an Israeli man who would become our friend and a big part of our Slovenian experience. In physical appearance Asa is the stereotype of a middle east terrorist, except twice the size you're picturing. In personality he is honestly one of the best human beings it has been my pleasure to meet. He was in his third year of travelling and this had given him humility and an appreciation of what is important in life. In my experience long term travels can go two ways - the Asa way or the way of our other LSD taking, skateboarding room mate in Ljubljana - The way of the tool.



So, let's get to the big news of John's foot. We had to put off our planned move on to lake Bled and take the bro to hospital. He didn't have insurance so he pretended to be me with my passport and card to pay the bill. I don't mind admitting this as I have since bottled the fraudulent insurance claim. The bill came to €110 after x-ray and basically concluded that John had hurt his foot, probably broken it. To get it properly seen to would run our bill through the roof so he took up their offer of crutches and left apologising to me profusely insisting it wouldn't ruin the holiday. He was right, the way he dealt with the inconvenience of not being able to walk was commendable and it hardly stopped us doing anything. Kudos to the little bruv. Bring on Bled and Croatia.