(Or I Love My Stupid City, and I Never Even Knew)
Maribor, Slovenia.
It doesn’t seem like anything
special. Truth to be told, it probably isn’t, just a town with its history and
its present, with its strengths and weaknesses, bad roads, and so many
cobblestones, and narrow allies that smell like piss.
The thing is...
Yes, I noticed the
piss. I noticed the crumbling buildings, the holes in the roads, the emptiness
of the city in the night hours. I noticed how there isn’t always something
going on, how people don’t simply hang out in the streets, and how you’ll
probably get another child before you’ll find a parking spot in the centre,
doesn’t matter if you’re paying for it or not. How nobody famous ever comes
here because we’re simply too small, how there is no way you’ll find
unconventional things, how the idea of second-hand shops is just starting to
oh-so-slowly take root in the consciousness of the city.
What I didn’t notice—I love the
city. I love the darkness where a street lamp has died, I love the light one
can see enveloping the main square in the evening when the sun is setting, I
even love the stupid holes in the pavement because I know they’re there, and
they feel like home.
I know the streets, the narrow allies
that lead who knows where and no foreigner will ever step into, but I know I
can go there and won’t get lost.
I know exactly which shop to go to
if I need this and that, which bakeries stay open late in the evening, and I
know the paths to walk.
I’ve never read any tourist-oriented
literature about Maribor, so I have no clue what it says, but I might as well
write a couple of lines in case anyone ever gets lost and wanders out Austria…
·
There’s
exactly one very good tea shop, and that’s Čajek. Don’t bother searching for
any other ones; you won’t find them. Not if you want real tea, a cosy
atmosphere, and delicious cake. Chairs with bad backrests come for free (but
I’m sure if you try out enough of them, you’ll find one that’s good. Yes,
almost every chair is different).
·
Behind
the dull, grey exterior of old city houses, there are beautiful atriums no one
else but the building’s residents can see. Why am I telling you this if you
won’t get to see them? Well, now you want to, don’t you?
·
The
best Chinese restaurant? That could be argued about. But I get the right to decide because it's my blog, right? Right.
·
There
are two really good ice cream places, or so people say. I suppose their
customers are sort of, kind of, maybe, at war, except not really. But no one
will ever, and by that I mean ever, convince me Ilich is better than Lastovka. No one. (So don’t let them fool
you, either.)
·
We
have a forest in our city. An actual forest, not a park. Well, we have a park
too, but you get the point. Although… there might be more people inside in than
the trees. But it’s definitely a forest.
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