Crazy, rickety mountain coaster! This view was right outside our hotel, which I'm assuming is a ski resort:
Hi friends!
While I think many people's intentions were to unpack and get some dinner first, when we realized the mountain ride closed at 7:00, and it was currently 6:30, we rushed out to make sure we had a turn. On the ski lift up, we got a spectacular view of the town:
At the top, we loaded up into the scooty little cars and descended one by one:
They may look rickety, but let me just say: that is absolutely the case. They do have a seatbelt, and one single godforsaken lever that allows for both going and stopping, but other than that, the only possible safety precaution you can utilize is called "hold onto your butts". I wanted to just drop the lever and fly down, but on the first couple of turns it really felt like I might be ejected from the car, so I employed the brakes just a tad.
Almost everyone in the group took part, including...
...who was just about the fastest one of us all.
After all that thrill and excitement, it was time to eat. With the bus drivers off for the night and no real public transportation in this sleepy mountain town, it was on us to trek down from the resort to see what there was to see. Not far down, we found an Italian restaurant, which was good enough for a group of us who chose to eat there with a few bottles of wine for the table. And another after, found at a convenience store. That night was spent on the balcony of the room, in dialogue with other pockets of Cardinals on their own balconies, hanging out of their windows, or in the patio area down below.
The next morning we were on the bus again, to finish our trek to the true destination of this leg of the journey, Koper. Koper is where we had a concert scheduled, but the drive would have been too long of a haul for one day, so we'd split it in half with the stop in Maribor. Koper is one of the few towns on the Slovenian coast, which, if you look at a map, is just a tiny little wedge jammed in between the coasts of Italy and Croatia, who really seem to have taken far more than their fair share. So all that to say, being on the Slovenian coast is a rare thing indeed.
But the reason we had a concert in Koper is because of Ambrož Čopi, a Slovenian composer and conductor who had either commissioned or premiered a number of works by Slovenian composers that we were doing on our tour. Dr. Hatteberg had gotten in touch with him and the two of them had arranged a joint concert together while we were in Europe.
We had only a partial check-in upon our arrival in Koper, as not all the rooms were ready. We put our stuff down and made our way to a pub for lunch, which was for some reason extremely cheap.
Upon returning to the hotel, we sorted ourselves out into our actual rooms, then went as a group to the church for a sound check.
As well as to meet Ambrož himself. He didn't stay long, which was good actually - we needed to rehearse a surprise we had for him. One of the grad students had found one of his pieces and we had quickly learned it in order to perform it as an encore at this concert. The look of realization that spread over his face later that night as we jumped into it was worth the work - that and, it's a pretty nice piece.
After the rehearsal, we had a bit of time to eat and walk around the town. First, we took a look around the square where the church resided:
Then the streets of Koper
Then the seaside at last:
We walked out onto the pier to get a better look at the surrounding city:
The view gave us a Naples-esque vibe. Didn't know there was something like that in Slovenia.
We continued exploring:
Before heading back into town to find food. The Slovenians had planned a dinner for us after the concert, but we all decided to get something small beforehand to tide us over. We found this place:
With a bizarre menu:
It was pizza, by the way. And it was delicious.
Then, the concert. Ambrož's choir went first, then us:
Then we joined together to sing one of the Slovenian pieces in our rep, which they also knew, and of course, the surprise piece for Ambrož. It was also a surprise for them. They may or may not have been sight reading. ANYWAY...
We then journeyed to the afterparty where they served us, you guessed it, pizza. And also wine! It's like they know us. While that setup may sound like the makings of a raucous evening, it ended relatively early, and we all returned to the hotel in preparation for an early busride the next morning to our next destination, where the meat of the trip was to take place.
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