jawnbc | 4 lovely men from a lovely place

I awoke this morning with jet-lag induced torpor. The sort that fairly paralyzes one's reasoning and locomotion. Should I....or should I....or maybe I should...?

You get the idea.

But thankfully I had visitors around whom to build an active day. Tomaz (

paterson_si ), Igor (not on LJ), Viki (

vksi ) and Mitja (

mitjablazic ) took time out of their busy, rich lives to drive a couple of hours from Ljubljana to Zagreb. Tomaz and I have been online friends for many years: he and Igor hosted me for a weekend a couple of years ago. I have admired Mitja and Viki's activism for many years. Almost single- double-handedly, they have agitated for anti-homophobia legislation and challenged family law to allow same-sex marriage. They've been assaulted for their work and still experience harassment. But recently they won a huge victory in Slovenia's Constitutional Court, one that is forcing Parliament to deal with same-sex marriage. Mitja also works as a journalist.

It isn't every day you meet people who are veritably changing their world--for the better.

As often is the case with moving from 2 (online) to 3 (F2F) dimensions, it takes a bit of time to warm up to one another; today was not exception. But there were so many things I wanted to ask Mitja about his work...and it's easy to make a connection when that sort of spark is there. Like many European men they have a sophisticated, nuanced understanding of English. Including humour. That helps too.

We wandered around the town, chatting, and eventually found a nice italian restaurant for lunch. Jet lag has buggered my appetite, but this was the first hungry-at-the-right-time moment I've had on this trip so far. The meal was good; the company wonderful.

In the end we spent more than half a day together, which was really nice. As I get older I find it in some ways harder to travel on my own. A wee bit of loneliness and jet-lagged circadian rhythms aren't a great combination. Good company makes it all go away. The lads were even so gracious as to offer some gifts. *wipeschocolateoffface*

Hvala guys!