Day 1 (July 19, 2015): Best laid plans of mice and men?

"Dober dan!" That's g'day in Slovene! Thank you for tuning into my Balkans Blog.  Over the next nine days, you can join me for highlights of Slovenia, Macedonia, Albania and Serbia. I wish I could offer free Starbucks coffee for each visit to the blog, but that's not "on", unfortunately. So I will just have to lure you back with interesting pics and tales. 

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?  Well, the plans of this man -- to leave Halifax Saturday night, get to Ljubljana on Sunday morning, and have a full day to sink his teeth into Slovenia -- went quite off the rails. 

Just before our neighbours were to pick us up to take us to Halifax Aiport, Condor (the German airline we had booked to Europe) posted a delay on the flight. Long story short, we ended up leaving after midnight, 4 1/2 hours late.

Our Condor flight out of Halifax. Black and white effect is to reflect how bummed out we were. LOL

That meant we missed our connection in Frankfurt and had to wait around all day for the next flight to Ljubljana. 

There was a couple from London behind us in the Condor help desk lineup, who was enroute to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. They had gone through a terrible travel nightmare. We had a grand ole' chat with them while we waited in a never ending line up for a rebooked flight. Always makes one feel a wee bit better when hearing a travel story that makes one's own pale in comparison. 

Since we are able to submit a claim to our insurance for a flight delay, we paid a small fortune and went into a business lounge to wait things out. If you're ever in Frankfurt, be warned that "Luxxlounge" is very skimpy on the luxe end of things, as there was hardly anything on offer to eat, except some little German cakes. 

Having arrived at 11am, before we knew it, it was 4pm and we were boarding our Adria Airlines flight. However, we ended up sitting on the plane for an hour-and-a-half before take-off.

Sleep deprived, but staying upbeat about a long tarmac wait in Frankfurt

For the plane buffs out there (like me), the Condor plane was a very new Boeing 767ER, and our Adria Airways plane was a made-in-Canada Bombardier CRJ-900. 

Bombardier CRJ-900. A proud Canadian product!

The flight to Ljubljana provided excellent views of Slovenia's Julian Alps:

And both the descent and drive into the city revealed a beautiful landscape with amazing agriculture and forests:

We ate dinner at the hotel tonight and enjoyed an informative chat with the waiter, who had lots of tips on the Balkans. And even knew Halifax!  We are calling it quits early, as a scorching day of touring awaits!  Day one turned out to be a bit of a wash-out. But we are hopeful tomorrow will start off well. 

To close, this is what I call pure, unadulterated blog filler!  Just to show you HOW I write these things at night in our hotel room.  G'night from the Balkans. 

Pure unadulterated blog filler!