Day 8 – Bled – Skills Competition

We started out the day with a early wake up at 7:15 to get some breakfast and then hop on the bus at 8:30 to make our way towards Bled, Slovenia. We made a pit stop around halfway through our drive in Salzburg, Austria to walk around and grab a bite to eat. Up until this point in the trip, this was my absolute favorite place. This was truly and old, European town. Shops lined the streets, there were stands all around, the buildings were very old but that made them even more amazing. It felt as if I was in a movie based in the 1700’s. I loved it. The first stop we made was in the cathedral. This was this biggest church I think I have ever seen in my life. It was not only enormous vertically, but horizontally it seemed to just keep going. The pipe organ took up almost the entire back wall of the cathedral. I’m willing to bet that one loud note could fill the entire room and nearly blast out the stained windows. After that, I ventured off on my own to finish up my shopping and grab a quick bite to eat. It was hard not to be in awe walking through these streets. I had seen the pictures and the movies of places like this but I never thought I would actually get to see them in real life. I had to restrain myself because I found a store that sells, full length swords, daggers and even old time guns. All were outrageously expensive, and even so, it would be just my luck to be stopped by TSA and held in the Munich prison for carrying a weapon onto a plane. Back on the bus, we made our way back on the highway to Bled. In order to get there we had to travel through the Alps, I have never seen more breathtaking scenery. I must have taken 150 pictures of just the mountains. It truly was amazing. And it didn’t stop there. The views continued on the rest of our 2 hour bus ride to Bled and it only got better. Bled is a small Slovenian town, but it is a full town. They have used basically all of the land they have and still have some of the most unreal sights. The back ground of the city is pure mountainous all around. The city itself surrounds a lake that has another cathedral (these Europeans can’t get enough of them apparently) in the middle of it on an island, and on the opposite side of the lake is this enormous castle that, according to our wonderful tour guide Tina, just turned 1,000 years old last month. I just about died when I saw this castle. It looks like a replica of Hogwarts from Harry Potter. We get to go up there tomorrow and I couldn’t be more excited. The entire city of Bled itself is 1,100 years old. THAT’S INSANE. HOW DOES EVERYTHING STILL STAND?!?!?! Nuts. If I wasn’t sold already, The view from our hotel room topped it off. We got in right as the sun was going down and the lights all around the city were just turning on. The view from our balcony literally made me catch my breath. The only time that has ever happened before was game 6 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals when Dave Bolland scored the game winning goal with 59 seconds left. I honestly have been wracking my brain for the past seven hours trying to figure out a way I can come back here. It is that amazing. Unfortunately, we had to leave the hotel and the views, but it was for a good cause. We made our way to an outdoor rink to get our gear on and play hockey with some little hockey players and finish off with a small game against the older guys. This really warmed the heart because you can see how much the kids really loved being on the ice with us. Tina, our tour guide, told us “they will be talking about playing hockey with ‘the American’s’ for months”. The entire experience was a lot of fun. Afterwards we stopped to grab some dinner at a local Italian restaurant called Panorama before heading back to the hotel. Tomorrow we have our first game of the New Year against supposedly the best team we will have faced so far, the HDD Jesenice. Below are not even half of the pictures I took, but some of my favorites and they don’t even do the views justice. It is one of those things you truly have to see for yourself.