Daves Of Our Lives

The train tracks run out from earth, exposed only a few meters before being swallowed by pebbles. Fish dart past the wood and rusted metal engulfed in swaying moss. It was like a dream. What were train tracks doing underwater?
On the shoreline of beautiful Lake Bled, a thousand year old castle looms over the side of the cliff. Its something from a fantasy novel, despite being a short drive from Ljubljana. What was I doing there?
Months earlier in Barcelona, I was awoken from a jetlagged nap by a hand thrust into my face. It belonged to The Baci. His friends were Leon, Vlado and Rok – “like Rock music.” They drove 14 hours from Slovenia. The same time in the car back home would take me through four states, not four countries.
The Slovenians and I became fast friends. Mostly it was me learning about Slovenia, which earned the highest number of Olympic gold medals per capita that summer (4, including Judo). We were all eager to explore Barcelona for the first time. We played catch with an imaginary ball on the beach, acknowledging that goofiness is as universal as math. We danced like idiots at a night club foam party and I almost lost my glasses when they slipped through my hands like a cartoon fish. Parc Guell had me mystified, but they were underwhelmed. I had nothing like this in my home country.
Days later, their weekend getaway to Barca was over, while I was only getting started. They invited me to contact them when I was near Slovenia. That country wasn’t on my agenda, but I said why not?
My two best friends from the States met me in Amsterdam and sometime after Oktoberfest I sold them on Slovenia. They were skeptical that random dudes from a hostel would invite us to stay with them, but when Rok picked us up at the bus station they were convinced. That night in The Baci’s tiny apartment, we drank beer and ate pizza (delivered through the window because The Baci knew the guy) in awe as Felix Baumgartner leapt from space back down to earth. The next day at Lake Bled, I had been transported to a world not my own. I had the epiphany that this wasn’t a fantasy land, this is Earth, and that’s even better because its real. The Slovenians could have left me sleeping in the hostel, but instead they brought me out to a place I’d never imagined.
Would the workers believe that their tracks were now traveled only by tiny fish instead of trains? They’d be scratching their heads, thinking it was all a dream. It may be hard to believe, but it’s real and its ours.