travelenvelope: 10

See the World for Free

The idea here is to TRAVEL THE WORLD regardless of time or budget. It dawned on me one day that even if I had unlimited time and money (which I definitley do not), I still couldn't see everything in the world that I'd like to see--I'm simply not going to live long enough to do it.

But I had a bit of brain wave and soon after the travel envelope was born. This is an actual physical envelope. I typed the name of every country in the world, plus every state in the US on little slips of paper which I then put into the envelope. In the beginning we (myself, my husband, Dave and daugher Catherine) would draw out a slip at random at the beginning of the month and that's where we would go---at least in our minds. We grab some books about the country from the library and put them in our bathroom to look at. We also check out some videos about the country if any. We check it out on googleearth, listen to the music, try the food, maybe even attempt to learn a dance or celebrate a festival.

After the first two years we discovered that even virtual traveling can be tiring, so we travel now whenever I happen to be in the mood.

It's great fun. I especially love it when people I meet have been to the place I'm "visiting" in real life, or get excited and have some virtual adventures of their own. I hope that anyone who comes across this blog will feel welcome to come with us on the trip!

You have a standing reservation to see it all!

Apr 10, 2010

Human Fish

We went to the zoo today which made me wonder what kinds of animals live in Slovenia. Lots of forest mammals, but Slovenia also has lots of caves and in the caves live "human fish." These fish never see the sun, so skin grows over their eyes and their skin never takes on much pigment, hence they're "human colored." There is such a thing as a black human fish, and that is only found in Slovenia. These can get up to 30 cm's long which make them the biggest cave animal in the world.

I have a fondness for caves and was glad to see the Slovenia seems to have made some of them accessible to tourists. This picture is from a website advertising postojna cave.

Apr 5, 2010

Dragon Bridge

This is Slovenia's famous Dragon Bridge. The capitol city, Ljubliana was founded by Jason of Jason and the Argonauts fame. Jason slew a dragon. And this bridge, which was quite an engineering feat in 1901, is for him. Legend has it that when a virgin crosses the bridge the dragons wag their tails.

Apr 4, 2010

Slovenia!

Happy Easter and welcome to Slovenia!! This one took us awhile to find on the map (right next to Austria). I'm embarrassed to say that before today I wouldn't have been able to tell you if this was a real place or just a great sounding setting for a romance novel. Well, based on 30 seconds of research it DOES look like a terrific place for a romance. I did look up Easter traditions. Easter is a big deal there. Good Friday is, or was, a strict day of fasting and the Easter dinner is the biggest and best of the year.

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