It's one of those rainy days in New York, when you just want to stay home and sleep or at most watch the rain fall outside. I did manage to get a run in early, during a break in the rain.Since I am leaving in a couple of days I actually have a lot to do. So I kind of spent the morning going around trying to find some people I needed to give things to., Since I had a problem with my vegetarian meal on the flight coming, I had to call the airline and confirm that things are ok this time.

It seems my payment for running the Marathon yesterday is a sore left hamstring this morning. I did go out and run a few K's as is normal for me and it made it feel better. Today is going to be another warm one, but it is supposed to be much cooler for the next few days after that. It is hard to believe that I will be back in Slovenia in 5 days time.

I probably have a lot of excuses as to why I ran a 5:07 marathon today, but none of them really matter. I ran it and I still feel pretty good at the end of it.The weather was quite cool to start with and although it got quite hot in the Sun, there was a nice breeze on the first half of the course and that helped a lot. Anyway it's another marathon under my belt.

This afternoon I met an old friend from California who is in New York for a few days and he said I looked like I had aged backwards. Which of course meant that I look younger and that my living in Slovenia is probably the reason. Sometimes we are not conscious of the fact that it is quite stressful in the place you are living in. Plus I think that I am actually happier being back in Europe, though I very much enjoyed my 31 years in New York.

I ran the Saturday morning 2 mile race. It had rained quite heavily during the night and was still raining lightly when the race got underway. There was quite a big field of runners and I firmly planted myself in the middle of them. My time was 15:34 which was in fact 4 seconds faster my race in Ljubljana 2 weeks ago so not too bad. I do of course have a marathon to run in 4 days so it was a nice workout.
Cooler after the rain, but still humid.

This morning it is much cooler, but once I went out for my run I realized that the humidity is quite high, I think that will change as the day goes on. I think I need to adjust to the humidity before the marathon on Tuesday. I got a sample of the coffee that I may be importing from Colombia last night and also talked with someone about maybe getting coffee and speciality teas from Guatemala. So slowly slowly I am making some progress with my business

Yes it is hot and humid here in New York and I must say I did not miss this one bit. I brought my American cell phone with me, but for some reason it will not charge and my battery is now low, so I have to figure something out.Maybe it's unhappy that I took it to Europe ha ha.
Anyway I have a marathon to run in 5 days time and adjusting back to the New York weather is the main priority right now.

It has been an interesting few days for me here in New York. After being away for over 3 months I have come back as a visitor. I do not have a place to live here anymore, so I am staying in a temporary residence that is not far from where I used to live. Of course things are a lot easier since I am familiar with my surroundings.I do however have a different perspective on things now, but it is good to see old friends I do not miss living here

I have been helping my friend Aleksander Arsic on the Trans Slovenia run, he finished 3rd overall. Got back in the evening from Piran where it finished and had to pack for New York. When I have a chance I will write something about the race, but you can check it out on the race site at transslovenia.si. I am now in the airport waiting for an early morning flight to Paris and then New York. Feeling kind of nervous and excited at the same time.

A friend of mine from Belgrade has just arrived. He has come here to run the first Tans Slovenia run. Which will start on Wednesday morning. It is a stage race that will cover 397km in 5 days. I had originally planned to run the race myself, but will now try to help him.
Although it is the first time this race has taken place there will be around 28 runners, with the majority coming from Slovenia, but others coming from as far away as Australia.
I will try to post updates during, or at least a report after the race is over.

I had no internet for a couple of days.
This morning I ran my first 2 mile race in Slovenia. I had not run a 2 mile race since the morning that I left New York. So I was not exactly in race shape. I this kind of situation I usually try to run under 16 minutes.
The race was on a 400 meter red tartan track and there were on 4 runners and my time was 15 minutes 38 seconds. I am happy with that.

In the afternoon I went with a friend to lake Bled and we swam. The water was nice and later we ate Kremsnita, which is a very nice local cake.

It was quite a busy day for me. First I had to run even though I had some kidney pain. I think that I am fighting an infection, but nothing serious. Well I did run for 30+ minutes and it felt good, I think my legs are stronger after going up Mount Triglav a little more than 2 weeks ago.

Later I went shopping for a few more items for my get together. Then it was time to make the pancakes or as they call them here Palacinke. I made half of them filled with Chocolate and half with Apricot jam. I thought they tasted pretty good and 2 of my friends said they tasted good. So there you go.

I bought some nice carnations and picked some wild flowers to compliment them.

Well the thunderstorms came last night and we had some pretty heavy rain this morning. I did get to do some work this morning, but this afternoon has been kind of lazy.

I am going to make pancakes for a weekly get together I go to and will be going out to buy the ingredients and do some early prep'. They will be filled with either chocolate sauce or jam. We will see how it goes, I did not make them for a long time.

A friend of mine in Ljubljana says that it always rains when I come back from Croatia. Well I arrived on the morning train and as I walked out if the station it started to rain. It was only a light shower, but...

I did not get to do everything I wanted in Croatia, but it seems it is holiday season there and it is not so easy to meet with people and there is a lot of traffic on the roads.

I did get in a nice 40 minute run on Saturday afternoon in Jarun, though it was pretty hot and the Sun was strong. I went out early on Sunday morning and ran for 1 hour.

I will be going to Croatia this afternoon, it is just a few hours away by train. First I will go to Zagreb and then plan to go by bus to Karlovac where I have family and some friends. I would like to go see my place in Donje Dubrave, but we will have to see what happens.

3 years ago today I posted a video on Youtube called What a Monster, showing a caterpillar I had found on the street crawling on my hand. Well this video just reached 500,000 views. When I first put it up there I think it had 150 views in the first 3 days, on the 4th daz it suddenly started to get around 1000 an hour. It did eventually slow down, but still seems quite popular, especially with kids in their teens and twentys. Who knew!

The keyboards on computers here have all the English letters, but are set up in a different way. The y and z are switched around. As a result when I am typing fast I write strangely and I post without noticing until later.The weather continues to be nice, if somewhat warm. It kind of reminds me of New York without the humidity. Some of my friends in New York have been asking me how things are going and I think that I am finally finding my way around on my own, which I guess is a big step. Mainly I have to get used to the slower pace here.

I went into the Berlitz Language place here in Ljubljana to inquire about Slovenian classes and they said they only have for individuals and they cost €40. The class is 40 minutes long, so €1 per minute.So I loaded a software programme I bought in New York, for $20 into mu laptop and now I am learning.
I quickly learned a couple of phrases and everyone thinks it's great.
The days here are quite hot, but this week the nights have been cool, so good sleeping weather


This was what I looked at while hiking up to Triglav
Will post a view of the mountain later.

On Saturday I took an early , 6 am bus to Bled where some friends are vacationing for about 10 days. The ride is only about 1 hour 20 minutes. It had rained for about 45 minutes but stopped just before I left to walk to the bus. When I got there it was beautiful. I ran around the lake with my friend Pedja and then had kremsnita for breakfast, this is a very tasty sweet desert.In the afternoon we all went to Bohin another lake and actually hiked up to Slap Savica or Waterfall Savica which I visited back in 1996.After dinner I caught the last bus back, which was at 8.30 and was home by just after 10.After a pretty lazy day on Sunday I am ready to start the new week.Oh yeah it seem the guz I want to get my coffee raosting machine from is on vacation, so have to wait a little longer.

I was supposed to be going to Croatia today and then go to my place in the country, but things fell through and I think I will go next week instead. There is a chance that I will go to Bled instead. It is a beautiful lake resort that I have been to before. If it all works out I will visit with some friends there. It turns out that the place where I can sometimes use internet near my place is called GDS and not hte ministry of commerce.I am now near the river in the city and there is a Mariachi band plying for tourists nearby. Ljubljana is really colourful in the summer season