"You're Punking Me, Right?"

I've seen lots of T-shirt offerings on Facebook recently - "I'm a Wine and Tennis Kind of Girl" and "I'm a Floridian Girl" It's amazing how FB knows so much about me! But, what I'd really like to see is a T-shirt that says, "I'm an Airbnb Kind of Girl" Where the heck is that offering? Because, I am an Airbnb kind of girl. If anyone knows me, they know, I've been patronizing Airbnb, maybe from the beginning. Certainly before any of my friends. And, I"m still waiting for my family to get on the Airbnb bandwagon.

The first time I stayed at an Airbnb was in Rome. Everything was wonderful except the part about getting lost while trying to get to our Airbnb. One small missed right turn, and an hour later, David and I finally arrived at the address of our hostess' apartment. Granted, the rental car place was only a mile away, but with the one way streets, the Italian signs, and no GPS, we were doomed from the start.

This is a story of Airbnb's and getting lost.

Last year, Angela and I traveled to Lake Bled. Lake Bled is one of the most beautiful spots in the world. The Church of the Assumption of Mary on a tiny island in the middle of the lake. And, on a hill overlooking the lake, Bled Castle, the oldest castle in Slovenia. Whenever I mention how Slovenia looks like a fairy tale land, I'm referring to this image.

Lake Bled

But, this story is not about Lake Bled. This story is about Lake Bohinj. Lake Bohinj is very close to Lake Bled, and is the largest lake in Slovenia, at the base of the Julian Alps, and part of the Triglav National Park. Sounds great, right. Well, our little excursion to Lake Bohinj was great, except for the getting lost part, on our way to our Airbnb.

Lake Bohinj

Me, in Lake Bohinj

Sammy, on the shore of Lake Bohinj

My favorite picture of Lake Bohinj

The story starts with an email I received on the morning we were heading out of Venice, Italy, and towards Lake Bohinj. Jorg, our Airbnb host said, all cheery like - "I live in Ljubljana and can give you the keys if you are traveling to Bohinj through Ljubljana. Just give me a call when you are here. We can meet at the main train station perhaps? see you soon, Jorg" Well, our plan wasn't to drive through Ljubljana - that didn't make any sense. From Venice, it's a straight shoot north to Lake Bohinj....or so we thought.... And, that's how our morning started. Wanting to get in touch with Jorg and letting him know, no I wasn't going to be in Ljubljana, so how the heck am I going to get the keys? I emailed him back. No answer. In fact, Jorg was MIA (missing in action) for the entire day.

We couldn't reach him. We emailed. We texted. We called. We even tracked him down on Facebook and Friended him in the hopes of getting in touch with him that way. No, go. If only Jorg had been a better Airbnb host, maybe, we wouldn't have gotten lost - this is what Angela and I kept saying to each other, all day long. Maybe, we wouldn't have spent 5 hours driving aimlessly around. Maybe, we would have gotten to our apartment when the sun was still up and we would have had a pleasant day of hiking, swimming and eating trout by the lake. That would all have to wait until the NEXT day.

Which brings me to the getting lost part - this part of my story begins with our Garmin. A Garmin is the GPS that we paid extra for at Zest Car Rental. I love Zest Car Rental at the Ljubljana Airport. How often can you say that about a rental car company? Or, that you kinda know the guy who works at the car rental place. Well, I know Peter. I rented from him last year. And, I rented from him this year. He's so nice, he even gave me a discount because I'm such a good customer. Unfortunately, the Garmin he rented to us wasn't so nice. This Garmin, with his British accent and all, kept taking us on the back roads, the "old" roads, the roads that are scary when going up a mountain, zig-zagging here and there. I don't know why the Garmin was doing this, but he was. And, how did Angela and I know that this wasn't the road we were supposed to be taking? We had heard that Lake Bohinj was in the mountains. So, to us, going up this steep mountain road seemed logical. The fact that we weren't seeing any other cars didn't faze us. Nor, that the road wasn't paved. Who needs new roads, anyway? Certainly, not us. The problem was after stopping for a delicious ice cream in the middle of nowhere and seeing the most amazing WW I statue built into the side of the mountain, we weren't too happy when after an hour of driving up a winding, scary mountain, we came back down and found ourselves right in front of this SAME WW I statue. Our hearts dropped, our jaws dropped, we stopped the car in the middle of the road and almost started crying. We couldn't believe that we had just made a complete circle around the mountain. Oh! I screamed!

In the meantime, our host, Jorg, finally did return my call, at about 4 pm in the afternoon. He told us he was in Ljubljana, and weren't we there too? Actually, no, we weren't in Ljubljana - we had just driven from Venice, Italy, and we were lost, somewhere between Venice and our destination, on an unknown mountain, in the middle of nowhere. We had thought driving straight north from Venice was the way to go - how did we know that driving through Ljubljana, may have been the way to go; the most logical, quickest and most efficient way to get to Lake Bohinj? It didn't look like this based on the map we had. But, then again, we weren't locals, and locals know these things.

Jorg said he would drive to the Airbnb apartment in Lake Bohinj and meet us there with the keys. How long would we be? "Thirty minutes," Angela said. How she came up with that figure, I'll never know, but Jorg was happy with that. Well, about 90 minutes later, when he called us and asked us where we were and we tried to tell him where we were, he gasped. "You guys are no where near here!" So, Jorg, did his best trying to tell us how to get un-lost. Truthfully, talking to him was pretty humiliating. He pointed out to us that we were on an "old road" and that didn't make much sense. Then, he told us one way to get off the old road, but that led us to a road closure and a detour. After driving around for awhile and not really getting to Lake Bohinj, Jorg directed us to a bigger "city" called Skofja Loka where we could meet to do the key exchange. We found that on the map, and the words SKOFJA LOKA were CAPITALIZED, so we felt really confident that we could find that place. And, Skofja Loka turned out to be a pretty cool, medieval town, where we stopped for dinner, met Jorg and got the keys. Since Skofja Loka was close to the highway, all we had to do was get on the A2, head north for a ways, and we'd be in Lake Bohinj in no time. Sure!

You'd think so right....well, not two minutes after parting ways with good 'ole Jorg, and looking for the A2, we were lost! Again! Angela said, "Let's call him." I said, "No way!" She said, "We must." I said, "OK." When we called him, and told him we were lost, he said, "You're punking, me right?" If only we were.

Needless to say, we finally arrived in Lake Bohinj close to midnight. Exhausted, we collapsed and woke up the next morning to see a lovely lake, in a small, resort village, with restaurants filled with trout, beautiful hiking trails, and luscious lakeside places to place our towels and go for a swim. Everything worked out.

Relaxing on Lake Bohinj

Sammy making himself comfortable, as usual.

Our Airbnb

And, Sammy. Well, for this story, Sammy spent most of the time in the back seat of the car. No back seat driving from him. He was as quiet as a mouse. For 10 hours. Once again, Sammy is the hero of this story. And, if he had had the ability to talk, we probably wouldn't have gotten so lost.

Lesson learned: Sometimes, getting lost is the most wondrous thing that happen. Being open to discovering new and unexpected things along the way. Being adventurous and in the moment. We saw an incredible WW I statue. We had some amazing views from the top of mountains. We had dinner in a medieval town.

Conclusion

What I learned at USM (University of Santa Monica) while studying Spiritual Psychology is a principle called "How You Relate to the Issue is the Issue." Angela and I both related to getting lost, for the most part, with a cool, calm and accepting attitude. And, we're still friends.

I'm curious: Have you ever been really, really lost - whether literally or metaphorically? What happened?

Let me know, if you're willing.

Love,

Lynn