Originally, our concert in Postojna had been scheduled for 6:00 PM, but somewhere in the couple of days prior, someone realized that was impossible, and changed it to 8:00, which even then we only barely made work. This also meant cancelling the trip into the vaunted cave system nearby, touted to us as the second largest cave system in the world - the first largest, coincidentally, being the one just a few hours south of Louisville back home.
Here is the square where the bus dropped us off:
We met with the woman that had arranged our concert that evening and followed her on foot to the church, just a block or two up the hill:
We took as absolutely much time as we could possibly squeeze to rehearse in the church, then scurried away so that the 7:00 PM mass could take place. Then, at 8:00, we returned, dressed in concert black, to sing once more:
And thus it was that my time singing with this fine choral ensemble came to an end. As tired as I was - as we all were - I was very much glad to have one last full-length concert to go out on, as opposed to the 10-minute set that won us the Grand Prix in Zadar.
After the concert, we went to a pizza place for dinner, accompanied by Andrej Makor, a Slovenian composer who had written one of the works in our repertoire, and who had just finished a piece commissioned from him by Dr. Hatteberg. Now, I'm not sure if this was done to wow Makor, or more for the benefit of the people in the group who wouldn't be a part of the version of Cardinal that would, presumably, premiere the work the following fall, but midway through our dinner Dr. Hatteberg handed out copies of the brand new choral work and had us sightread it for him, right then and there. Whether it was meant to wow Makor or not, it did, causing him to remark in amazement that he's never seen a choir read a new piece right off the page like that. I think we made a good impression.
After another hour or so on the bus, we finally arrived in Ljubljana, a place I'd been wanting to see for several years, ever since my Austria trip back in 2013, the first time I'd heard of Slovenia at all. The downside to finally visiting this capital city was that we were only there for one night and morning, which allowed for precious little time to actually see the city at all.
For this stop, the choir split in two for the night, with half in a hotel and half at a hostel, which was presumably cheaper, but was also terrible. A lot of little annoyances, like no towels provided, plus bigger ones like the rat seen in one person's room, made for a frustrating stay.
The following morning was really the only time we had to see any of the city, after a short journey on foot to the hotel for breakfast - the hostel, of course, didn't provide any, so we'd paid extra (as a group) to accommodate the hostel half for breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast, I walked around for about an hour on my own:
Ljubljana is situated on a river, which made for some scenic touring:
There were some statues:
The latter of which is the dragon supposedly slain by Jason, of Jason and the Argonauts fame, who according to legend founded the Slovenian capital.
Diverting away from the water, I happened upon this silent church:
and sat inside for a few minutes, until it became time to head back to the hostel, acquire my luggage, and board the bus toward our final stop.
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