Final Thoughts

Today is my last day of work at Komunaprojekt and its also my last day in Slovenia. Looking over all my other blog entries I've realized the majority of them are about adventures and trips out of the country. Granted, there's not much that's exciting about my daily life here, but I have enjoyed the simplicity of my life a lot. Maribor has been a great city to live in, maybe not a tourist destination, but a place to enjoy the environment and go at a slower pace for a few months. At least in the summer. I've been told that when the university students return in October, the city completely changes and its a much busier, more lively place. The last 10 days have been cold and rainy, not quite the parting memory I wanted to have of Slovenia, but I will definitely return here. Afterall, I didn't get to climb Mt Triglav and Ljubljana is a fantastic city that I didn't get to spend enough time in.

I will repeat what all the tourist brouchures say about this place, that its a small, chicken-shaped country that has a little bit of everything and its all beautiful. Well, except the coast, go to Croatia to go swimming. I'll miss the river and the red tiled roofs and the pink toilet paper and the bakeries and the bike lanes and the park and all the small cars. I'll miss the mountains here, even Maribor's Pohorje which isn't as dramatic as the Julian Alps, but its the idea that the mountains and outdoors are so well used and enjoyed here that makes it so nice. Whenever you go for a hike, there is a mountain hut along the mountain somewhere so you can stop for a beer or goulash or ice-cream. I think in America we hang on to this idea of pristine nature such that people either cant touch it at all and its kept as pristine as possible, or it becomes like the top of Mt Washington, with so many cars and people, it no longer feels like you're in nature. But going for a hike, stopping at a mountain hut and then seeing cows and sheep along the mountain side reminds me that people can have a sustainable, even beautiful, simbiotic relationship with a landscape. Slovenia has figured all that out.

I am definitely ready to come home, but I think my readiness comes more from the amount of goodbyes I've said to people in the last 3 weeks more than anything else. I came to Slovenia not really knowing what I was getting into and absolutely prepared to be traveling and living day to day by myself. Then when I began doing everything after work and on weekends with the other IAESTE interns, I realized how lucky we all were to be part of a group that got along so well. It's not like we were all perfect soulmates, but we were all openminded and willing to try new things and get to know people very different than ourselves. I know, I know, I should take some wine with my cheese here, but it's been great to make some good friends and have shared so many things with them, its this group of people that has made this summer so great.

I spent all last night baking cookies for my office with Helena and Andreja. Not being able to find chocolate chips or brown sugar at the store, I had to improvise a bit, but as long as they have butter and chocolate, they'll be fine. So that'll be my goodbye to the other folks in the office, milk and cookies. But I'll see them all in October when the entire firm goes on vacation to New York City and Washington DC for 5 days.

I am meeting my parents tomorrow in Budapest and spending a few days there with Andreja and Helena before the Klains move on to the Czech Republic and Prague.

So, 2 amazing cities and 12 days between me and Pittsburgh.


Here we go.

Croatia part 3 - Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik was the one place I was able to find a room in and book in advance, but it turned out to be not the greatest place since we were a bus ride to the old city. Oh well. We made it into the city the first night for a late dinner and I think the entire population of Italy who were in Split had moved down to Dubrovnik as well and brought with them lots of Americans and Japanese too. Crowded, but such an amazing city.

Somebody a long time ago dubbed Dubrovnik ' the pearl of the Adriatic' and rightly so. Its a small, Venetian walled city that sits on a peninsula with the walls of the city running into the cliffs that end in the sea. The interior of the city was much more dramatic at night, but during the day we walked along the 8th century city walls and seeing the white limestone of the buildings and walls contrasted with the blue cerulean water, the red tiled roofs and the green of the trees around the city was incredible. I just would never expect to see colors as simple and brilliant as those in a city.

As crowded as the city itself was, we walked up to a fortress that looks on to the city and had the place to ourselves. It was the one place where we had a view of the city from the water side (since the ferry terminal is 10 km north of the city) and that's where we had the most stunning views. It was a short stay in Dubrovnik, but long enough to know I want to go back, preferably by sailboat.

Our plane and train connection didnt quite work out as planned, so we spent our last night in Zagreb and walked around a bit the next day. But we were both exhausted from the previous few days and, no offense Zagreb, but the city during the day was quite boring in comparison to turquoise water and idyllic walled cities on the rocky Dalmatian coast. Also, I think 80% of the important buildings in the city are being renovated, and who wants to take pictures of scaffolding?

So the moral to this series of giant long blog posts, if you've made it this far, is to go to the Dalmatian Coast. Probably dont go in August, as its the month that all of Europe goes on vacation and most of them go to Croatia. But any month of the year is going to be gorgeous. I promise. And if you're going by boat, take me with you.

Again, all the photos from Croatia are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/CroatiaWithStu

Croatia part 2 - Korčula

We took a ferry from Split to the island of Korčula, about 3 hours on a fast catamaran passenger ferry. We get there and did the same thing, went to a tourist office, the girl calls a guy, the the guy comes, we walk 100m into the center of town and he shows us an amazing room with a view of the water in the house where he, his father and sister live. The picture on the left is the view from our window.

Being an island, this town is much smaller, and even though there's no city walls, the town is placed on an oval penninsula so the sea acts as the limits to the built environment. Once again, no cars on these sidewalk sized streets, just an amazing tiny old town surrounded by the sea on 3 sides then more modern developments (like cars) towards the land side. We took a 20 minute bus ride to the other side of the island after the reccomendation of a sandy beach from the guy whose house we were staying in. We went through 20 minutes of a hot, sandy, Mediteranean landscape with lots of dark macchia trees and woods to arrive at another town. We walked towards the promised sandy beach only to find a beach about 100m long and maybe 12 feet wide. And it was very occupied with lots of people. So we walk along the rocks further down, trying to avoid places with lots of sea urchins in the water and find a great place next to a small pier to enjoy our day of swimming and reading.

The whole coast there is gorgeous and we saw yachts, small and large, from all over the world cruising around. With all the old cities and beautiful islands, I would think the Dalmatian Coast is a sailor's paradise (Dad- hint, hint).

The seafood, wine, prosciutto and fresh cheese kept us (or maybe just me?) happy during the time we weren't on the rocks by the sea, but that wasnt very much time in the 2 days we stayed on Korčula. Our second day there we walked along the road in the other direction to find a place to swim and found a place to spend the afternoon.

We found an amazing spot with views of the mountains on the mainland and the boats going into the island's harbor. It was another great day in the ocean but we had to abbreviate our stay with the threat of dark clouds overhead. We got back t o the town fairly dry, only to have the rain start pouring down when we were moments away from our next ferry to Dubrovnik. It rains in paradise too, not just Pittsburgh.

Croatia part 1 - Split

Heeding the advice of my elders, Stu and I went to the southern coast of Croatia, the Dalmatian Coast, for a (very) long weekend to see the cities of Split and Dubrovnik and stop at one of the many gorgeous islands between the cities. We took a train to Zagreb, the captial of Croatia, then flew from there to Split in all of 45 minutes. Sure beats a 6 hour bus ride. According to my guide book, Croatia's selection of hotels and hostels was pretty weak from the recent war, so the way to find a room is to go to your destination city and find a tourist office to book you a private room. People rent out rooms in their houses to travelers and this is typically the cheapest and nicest way to go. Still, it sounds a bit dodgy, right? Staying in some random person's house while on vacation? We figured that since there was 2 of us, we could handle it. So when we got off the airport bus right outside the city walls, we walked around a bit and found a sign in a vacation rental shop that said it had private rooms, so we went in and this girl called another girl who showed us rooms she had about 100m from the old city walls. Good price, amazing location and the room was perfect. Apparently this system works...

Split is the second largest city in Croatia, it sprawls away from the old city which is right on the Adriatic. The old city consists of the walls of Diocletian's Palace that was built in 305 and then 400 years later, when the palace had long been abondoned, the surrounding villagers moved into the palace to protect themselves from the Turks (or someone else who was attacking). They built their village into a castle, like they took the palace walls and put houses and churches amongst them.

Its this crazy layering of architecture and history and ruins that still completely function as a city today amazingly well.
Walking around the city felt a lot like Venice just because of the age and type of the buildings along 'roads' which are nothing more than sidewalks. There's no order or grid to the layout of the streets (it was, afterall, a palace orginally) so you'll just wind your way down a street, it'll turn left, then go up a staircase, funky cafes and trendy shops abound, then turn right and you're in the main square. And also just like Venice, there were tons and tons of people there. I had figured that because I had never heard of the city, it couldn't be too touristy. But I think the entire country of Italy was in Croatia while we were. It was a big enough place though that the crowds didnt detract from it, Split has a great nightlife with something for everyone. Lots of restaurants and bars and cafes and clubs to embrace the throngs of people. We found reggae night at a local bar that had cushions on the stone wall and bean bags outside in its courtyard and barrels with stools for sitting on. Then we went back to the main square, attracted by live music, and found a singer and guitarist playing in the square thats bounded by the tall church tower, the old Roman columned entrance to the city and then town buildings on 2 sides. We were sitting along a row of columns and steps that must have led to something important at one time, but now just made a semi permeable wall in the middle of town.

Anyways, as we sat and listened to the music we started to see lightning all around us. Probably the most amazing setting from which to watch a lightning storm.
It was much easier than we expected to escape the city and people to find a nice place to swim, just a half hour walk through a park along the edge of the city. Of course, swimming in Croatia means finding a nice flattish rock to lay on and jump or climb in- no sandy beaches here.

Castles and Beer (aka Salzburg)

We made it into Salzburg and found a hostel by about 10:30 that night, only to find that the best beer hall was on the other side of the city and closed at 11. So we went out into the town in search of a place to eat and drink a bit, finally finding a restaurant that was still open and enjoyed first Austrian beers and sausages and goulash. We spent Sunday walking around the city seeing all the sights, climbing to the castle that overlooks the rest of the city (more impressive from the outside I think) and walking by the river to the other side of town where this famous beer hall is. After filling ourselves with beer, meat, potatoes and sauerkraut in the beer garden there, we slowly made our way back to the car and made it back to Maribor. There were tunnels we had to go through on the highway that were 8 miles long, that was weird. But just driving through Austria made us want to return. There were castles or ski lifts around every bend, the beer was excellent and Im beginning to really enjoy good sauerkraut....

Salzburg photos are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/Salzburg

Julian Alps

I know these posts are a couple weeks late in coming, but better now than never...

The plan was when Stu came to visit, that we were going to climb Mt Triglav, the epic mountain thats on the Slovenian flag and that every Sloveneian has to climb sometime in their life. It's a 2 day climb so we were going to take the weekend to do it and stay in a mountain hut halfway up. But then the forecast said it was going to rain, on Friday and Sunday. Ugh. So change of plans. Stu really wanted to go to Salzburg while he was here, so we made plans to spend (rainy) Friday in Maribor, then a day hike in Triglav National Park Saturday (with our fearless Slovenian guide, Andreja) then to Salzburg Saturday night to spend the rest of the weekend there.
We left at 5am Saturday to make sure we would have time to make all the detours necessary for the many sights in and around Triglav. We drove into the park a ways and hiked for 15 minutes to get some great views of the North face of Triglav.

It truly is a majestic mountain and Im so disapointed we didnt get to climb it. I guess I'll just have to return to Slovenia another time... Then we continued on our way stopping for breakfast at a mountain hut as we continued driving up these roads built by the Russians in the 1930s going through the park. Switchback after switchback, the tight hairpin turns were cobblestoned and the rest of the road was dirt or asphalt. Finally we found our trailhead, along with hundreds of other people. It was great to see the park so well used by people of all ages and as soon as we got on our trail, there was hardly anyone else in sight. Andreja said that the Julian Alps, the tallest Alps in Slovenia, differ from the rest of the mountain chain in their pure white color. The rest of the Alps are gray and brown, but in Slovenia its all white rock. The peak we came to had amazing views of the mountains all around us and even into Italy and Austria. Just before the top (vrh in Slovenian) we found a herd of sheep grazing in this beautiful meadowy area surrounded by steep rock going down. These sheep must be pretty talented to make it all the way up there. The sheep were perhaps a little too friendly but the meadow was a great place to take a little rest before going down again.

All the photos are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/TriglavNationalPark

On our way through Slovenia and Italy to get to Austria, we stopped at a famous farmer's hut to buy some cheese. It was very good and an amazing setting for a sheep farmer's house.

Graz

Turns out Graz is an incredible city. I didnt know anything about it previously, but Im so glad we stopped there. Its a pretty big city and sprawls for a while, but the city center around the river is really nice and walkable. The city has a lot of quirky things about it, like a funicular (similar to Pittsburgh's) but also a glass elevator that will take you up and down through the middle of the same mountain. Then there's some crazy architecture there too like the new art museum.

In the art museum(nicknamed the friendly alien) there was an exhibit of current Chinese artists, and it was one of the best exhibits I've seen in a while. A lot of the pieces were very spacial and 3 dimensional so it was very interesting to experience it all.

Then we went to a cafe in the middle of the river that had a playground and amphitheater as part of the island, it was designed be Vito Acconci and was very cool. I really had no knowledge of Graz before I went there, and Im so glad I did. And when we caught the train back Friday night, it was at just about the same time we would have been getting off from work. Time well spent.

Some other pictures of the city are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/Graz

Go Gunners!

Last week I took Friday off of work to see a professional soccer team play in Austria, and it was soooo much fun. I went with 2 other interns, John and Jon, Jon is a HUGE fan of the team we saw, Arsenal. So he knew all the players and just about peed his pants being so close to the players. I couldnt believe that most of the players on the team are under 20. One guy was born in 1989! What have I done with my life? I think my chances of becoming a professional athlete are long gone... It was just a training game and it didnt count for anything, so not all the best players were playing, but it was still so much fun to watch. Arsenal was playing a Turkish team, I cant remember their name in Turkish, but the translation is 'Union of Jueveniles.'






After the game, we waited for the players by the team bus and Jon got autographs and pictures with them. It was us and screaming 12 year-olds.


We werent really sure what to do since our plan had been to just go out to a bar for the rest of the night and catch the first train back at 6am, but this town was dead. It was a tiny little village anyways, and even though the third biggest football team in the world was playing there, nothing was open. We finally found a bar and pizza place just on the way out of town. We went and were able to find all the Arsenal fans so that was a step in the right direction. We realized that it was already 11 pm and there were no lights on in any B&B or hotel in the town, so we were preparing ourselves for finding a bed in the cornfields which filled the town.


We went in for one more beer and as we were at the bar, Jon recognized a guy that had just walked in. This guy, Frank Stubbs, apparently writes the team blog on the Arsenal website and he's never missed a home game in 20 years, so he's quite well known among the die hard fans. Jon starts talking to him, telling him how much he loves his articles, and this guy was obviously a little weirded out, but really nice about the whole thing. Then other people start coming over to talk to us and before we know it he's buying us a round of drinks. Frank turns out to be incredibly fun and since everyone knows him and he was talking to us, suddenly everyone in the bar is our best friend.
We ended up having an amazing night with all these folks, felt like I was a true and true Arsenal fan. At one point Frank asked Jon where we were staying, and when he replied a cornfield, Frank insisted we stay the night in his hotel room, and the floor of a 4 star hotel room is far better than any cornfield.
We got up the next morning, showered, put our clothes that smelled of beer and smoke back on, and got on the train back to Maribor. And since we had to change trains in Graz anyways, we decided to just spend the afternoon there.

Croatia

This past weekend all the IAESTE interns and Slovenian students in Maribor went just over the Slovenian border to the coast of Croatia. Saša's family has a house there that we stayed in, about 500 feet from the water's edge. Having a weekend to just relax in the sun and go swimming was fantastic. All of my preconceived notions of Croatia were completely false. Granted, I only saw a very limited part of the country, but its beautiful and everyone says that you really cant see any of the effects of the war anymore. Im really excited to see the southern most parts of the country in August when Stu comes to visit.

As it turns out, the beaches in Croatia aren't actually beaches, they're more of rocks by the water. This is why all the visitors who know what they're doing bring lounge chairs and 2 inch thick beach mats. We managed to find reasonably comfortable spots on the 'beach' but spent most of our time in the water jumping off a fishing pier because who doesnt like to jump off high things into the water?

We got up way too early one morning to catch the sunrise and got to watch some fishing boats get ready and leave the pier. Check out the name of this boat, if you can't see it, its KRAP. And the city that its from, Pula, is quite a nasty word in Romania (so Im told).

Foreign 4th of July

In an attempt to gain popularity for and leave a good impression of America with all the foreign interns here, I decided to bribe them with food to like my country and forget about Bush.

It worked!

They were so excited about celebrating the USA's independence day (even though it was independence from England and they're all from the UK) that they even found sparklers to contribute to the event. They offered to get Budweiser too, but I thought that it would be ok to stick with Slovene beer. So after stuffing ourselves with potato salad, bean salad, bbq chicken, cheesecake, fondue (made by Helena and Catherine) and beer, everyone thought that the 4th of July was a pretty good holiday to have.

We enjoyed our 4th of July picnic indoors with pouring rain outside and were still able to use the sparklers on the balcony.

Mountains

There are lots of mountains in Slovenia.

































This is Logarska Dolina, looking at the Kamnik-Savinja Alps. And lunch.

Summer Houses

Friday night I went with Andreja to her friend's summer home out in the hills beyond Maribor.

The 'house' is actually just a wine barrel with a roof surrounded by vineyards.

Just a Day in Slovenia

Andreja and I started off the morning with Predjamski Grad, a castle that was built into a cave in the hills of Slovenia about an hour south of Maribor.

Some duke built it for defense in the 15th century and in the past 20 years it has been restored. It was crazy to see how the building and cave interact and support each other. There were all sorts of hidden caves in the castle itself then there was the cave part of the castle where the castle ended and there were just stairs and furniture in the cave. We walked around the castle and also to see the caves in the rock face below it and the stream that ran through it. The whole place was pretty amazing. Its just at the end of a tiny road going through these quaint villages, no big signs or billboards or parking lots or even 2 lane roads. Just an amazing castle in the middle of Slovenia.

The next place we went was the Skocjan Caves, a UNESCO world heritage site which is a series of caves up to 170 meters underground. I didnt really know what to expect, and you're not allowed to take pictures inside (I found these pictures on the internet), but this was definately one of the most amazing places I've ever been in my entire life.You cant even begin to imagine how huge these caves are and the incredible stalactities and stalagmites and the columns and spaces they have created in the 2 million years that these caves have been around. There were a few different caverns, each with its own style of what looked like dripping rock. The caverns were huge, some were over 100 meters tall (this is what Im told, I cant judge in meters yet) and there were stalactites bigger than cars. I wish I had words to describe this place. There were 2 caverns where when I first turned the corner to enter them, Iwas just awestruck by the beauty and size of the space. Think of the biggest, coolest looking drip castle you ever made at the beach as a kid, then think of what it would be like if those sand castles were actually the size of real castles.

One really fascinating part of the place was how people have created the paths and stairs and bridges that gothrough the place. There's an old staircase that was just carved into the side of the rock and a bridge that is 45m above the river that runs through the cave. We walked 3 km through and I think we got as deep as 120 m underground. It was absolutely amazing.

After the caves, we went to see Slovenia's famous Lipica (pronounced Lipizza) horses. The breed is very famous, I think they're used as show horses a lot. The horses were beautiful and one thing thats pretty interesting about the horses is that as foals they are black and they turn perfectly white when they are adults.

Then, since we were pretty close to the coast, we went to a castle on top of a hill to get a view of the Slovene coast. Since the country's coastline is so tiny, you could see the entire thing.
We were only 8km from Italy, so we could see part of the Italian coast too.

Then we went down to the coast to go swimming at a beach that was reccomended, but Slovenia doesnt really have beaches. Its just rocks and concrete on the water's edge, so thats where we swam. I cant complain about being on the ocean, even if the beach isnt a beach. There were still people laying out (on concrete) and there was a beach volleyball court set up.

We walked along a stone path on the water's edge down to the town of Piran that juts out like a mini Florida on the coast. It is such a nice little village. It feels like a Tuscan hill town but its on the ocean and has lots of fishing and sailing.

Yeah, I would live there. So thats where we had dinner, sitting outside, 20 feet from the ocean's edge. The seafood was incredible of course and a great end to the day. The table next to us got a Croatian lobster and it was so funny looking. Instead of having 2 big claws and 8 little legs like

Maine lobster, It had 8 big legs, 2 of which were a little bit bigger and had claws. Next time Im at the coast here with an extra 65 euros to spend, maybe I'll try the lobster.

All of my pictures are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/1BusyWeekend

National Day at the Lake

Monday was National Day in Slovenia, the equivalent of our 4th of July. One of the IAESTE Slovenia students, Saša, invited us all to a lake with her and her friends for the day. The drive there took about an hour on these tiny, one lane (but 2 direction) roads through the mountains. It was marvelous.

The lake was small and there were a few other people there, but there were several benches on the lake's edge and even a float with benches in the lake. We swam, picnicked, canoed, got tipped in the canoe, played croquet (my team won, and that's always important in croquet), badminton, swam some more and lazed around a lot.

The canoeists interfering with the fishing.

The Mad Mex of Slovenia

Its called Takos. And it has great outdoor tables and chairs that cantilever off the stone wall running along the alley way its on which goes from the street level down to the river. Very clever.

But the place has the same type of rusted metal light fixtures and decorations, and a yummy looking menu, so I was really excited. I mean, this is Slovenia, so far from Mexico and I hadnt seen a Mexican, black or otherwise non-white person since I've been here, but I thought hey, white people can cook Mexican food too, right? Wrong.

I ordered a margarita and a burrito and when I got my drink, it was yellow. But hey, maybe their lime juice is just different or something. Actually, they make margaritas with pineapple juice, ice and a tiny little bit of tequila. Ok, fine, the margaritas are a bit different, but its tough to screw up a burrito. Another intern, Catherine, had ordered enchiladas and when our plates arrived, they were identical. Granted, both were good; cabbage, chicken and melted cheese inside a rolled tortilla with piles of refried beans, rice, corn and salsa on the plate, but no enchilada sauce on the enchilada and no rolled up and folded-ness of the burrito.

After talking with the other 4 interns from the UK, I was the only one who actually knew what Mexican food was supposed to be like since they dont really have any in Ireland or England. I had never really thought about that, but its true, almost all of the US has tons more diversity than most of Europe. Makes me appreciate our country a little bit more...

I'm sorry Stu... but I found someone else

Look at that plate of meat!

This guy cooked our dinner Saturday night at the festival, what a man.

Day Time Adventures

The Lent Festival kept us busy at night, but during the day we also kept busy. And by busy, I mean we slept every day this weekend until 11 and found something to occupy us in the afternoon. Saturday Moore and Harper (they're both named John, so we're trying to differentiate them) and I went to Pohorje Mountain which is the ski mountain 5 kilometers out of the city. They have all sorts of (expensive) summer activities like a driving range, ropes course and mountain bike park. They also have this thing called the Pohorjet. Its a rail that runs down part of the mountain going back and forth across the slope and into the trees sometimes. You ride up in a chairlift and then ride down in a little car thats somehow attached to this track down the mountain. It looked mildly dangerous and really fun so we had to try it.

This is Moore waiting for the green light about to go down.

It was amazing! I ended up going so much faster than I expected and the turns were quite sharp in some places but luckily i had a seat belt on so you cant fall out. It was really fun, and there was a great view of the city from the top of the chairlift.

Then we found 2 semi-professional football (soccer) teams practicing and watched them for a while. I think they were on summer training, one team was from Croatia and the other team was speaking 4 different languages but I think they were a Greek team. That was pretty fun too.

Festival Lent

Friday was the start of the Lent Festival. Lent is the name of the old city area down by the river, nothing to do with Easter or anything. For 2 and a half weeks Maribor is FULL of people and there are concerts and performances every night, its been a lot of fun so far. The street along the river is just full of people and little tents set up selling Slovene fair food which is basically tons of meat in any form possible. There's also cotton candy (which the British people call candy floss) and popcorn and crepes and lots of beer. The main stage is actually floating on the river and there's a huge seating area set up just on shore, its pretty amazing.
We saw a band called the Fool Cool Orchestra on Saturday night, it was a jazz orchestra playing very unique music that was a blend of new age, jazz, and rock using all sorts of different instruments. The featured soloists were an electric guitar and an accordionist.

I've never seen an accordionist jam out on a solo before.... quite interesting.

Sunday night we saw a French group called The World Upside Down...Feet on the Ground. They had a stage set up in the park that wasn't actually a stage at all but metal scaffolding on four corners that went up probably 60 feet. In between all the corners were vertical sheets of heavy duty clear plastic and the performance could be viewed from all sides. There were probably 12 people on trapeze swinging and dancing on both sides of these clear, vertical stages in various costumes and acts. It was really amazing to see a performance not limited to 2 dimensions on such an alternative stage area.

I think we'll go to see a jazz/flamenco group tonight perform in the 'judgement tower'. Its a little cafe/pub that looks like a former grain silo or something, but much wider. It looks really nice and cozy and the stage supposedly always has the best performances.

I need a Hero

To give a little background, there's a radio station here, Radio City, that is played EVERYWHERE. All the restaurants, bars, the bank and everyone in my office listens to it. Its all American pop music from the past 30 years, everything from Im too Sexy to the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys and Africa. The song Larger than Life from Footloose was just on and I was walking down the hall of the office and there's an older guy, who doesnt speak much english, singing 'I need a hero, I need a hero till the end of the night....' walking behind me.

Quality.

I have an address

Acadia Klain
Studentski Dom. 5
Gospesvetska C. 85
2000 Maribor
Slovenia

Observations

No exciting stories yet, just a few more interesting things I have noticed.
All the cafes here have great outdoor seating which is really nice. Dinner is eaten early, generally before 6, then everyone goes out for a drink and a walk at 6 or 7. Walking down the street in the evening, there will be the outdoor tabes and people sipping their cappucinos or wine and then there's a playskool slide and other kids games on the street... Most of the places here have kids toys outside. Going out after dinner becomes a family affair when you can get beer, wine, coffee and ice cream all at the same place.

If they also served pie, I would probably never leave.

Call me!

It may cost you your first born child, but its free for me to receive calls. My new cell phone number is 386.040.565.722. But if you want to call me from the US, then you would dial 011.386.40.565.722. Also, texting isn't free, but super cheap (for me).

Pictures!!!

Check it out...

http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak

My first time...

Yesterday was my first day of work, my first taste of traditional Slovene cuisine and my first experience of not being able to understand ANYthing that people are saying around me. It gave me this odd paranoid feeling that they must be talking about me for some reason. Maybe thats why Americans have such a bad reputation overseas, because we can never understand anyone else and then we always act paranoid when other people are talking.
After I met everyone in the office (˝this is the American student, A-cah-dia˝...˝Aahhhh˝ was always the response with raised eyebrows) we talked about the project I would be working on, a gymnasium addition to a school. So to give me an idea of what I would be doing, we went to see a school addition that was under construction around the corner from the office. It was pretty cool seeing it halfway done, the shell was complete with a few interior finishes. Then we saw a giant hole in the ground where they were building foundation walls which will soon be Maribor's courthouse. And then Andrej (the guy in charge of me) showed me a 150 unit housing project that they did which was pretty nice. All of this was within a 2 minute walking radius from the office. While we were on the construction site, Andrej didn't stop smoking. at all. It was chain-smoking like I've never seen before, one would finish and he would use it to light the next for an hour straight. Another guy I was with asked incredulously why I didnt smoke and before I could answer, Andrej says, no one in America smokes. Obviously, we're not cool enough.
Andrej took me to lunch at a local restaurant where they serve lots of traditional, Slovene food. Every meal starts off with a beef soup, which is actually a beef flavored clear broth with noodles. Andrej had meatballs with tomato sauce and mashed potatoes and I had a turkey roulade (?) with pasta and vegetables. I guess there's lots of potatoes and meat and cheese in the diet here, pretty heavy, and I think parsley is their only spice.
I have a pretty nice office space on the 5th floor of a building, huge windows overlooking the city and the mountains (hills) and vineyards beyond. And its right in the city center, just a 20 minute walk from my dorm.
I still need to figure out centigrade temperatures because people keep on saying its going to be over 30 all week. Thats hot, hotter than I thought Slovenia got, but Im not really sure exactly what it means.
All in all things are really nice here. Nothing terribly exciting, which makes for kinda boring blog posts (sorry! I'll try to find or make up good juicy stories) but I cant complain.

Arrival

Saturday afternoon I was picked up at the airport by an IAESTE Slovenia student and dropped off at the dorm I will be living in on the University campus. She told me that food stores arent open on the weekend, so if I get hungry, I should go to the gas station across the street. Luckily, gelato shops are open on the weekend.

This is the view from my window after it rains

The dorm is exactly what I would think of when I think Eastern-bloc housing.

Mine is the one in the middle, I took the photo from the hill in the background of the other picture, so its a bit fuzzy, but you get the idea.

Tall, square building with a tiny tiny elevator that brings you to the common area of each floor, then there are 4 (always closed) doors leading to dark hallways with 4 rooms in each hall. Apparently I have a roommate who's an actual Slovene student (not a fake one like me), since her bed is made and there's stuff in her closet. But I havent seen her yet and I think she's probably gone for the summer. But I dont actually know. My skinny room is fine for 1 person, but I cant imagine another person in there. I dont think we could actually stand and walk past each other shoulder to shoulder. One side of the room is the closets and desks, the other is the bench for the beds, so we sleep toe to toe, very cozy. And there's a giant east facing window with a wonderful view of the city and mountains, so its quite nice. I think the most popular nightclub for students is also outside my window, there was dance music going until 7am sunday morning. Awesome.

Things that there are a lot of in Maribor

bicycles
bike lanes
blue hydrangeas
rat-sized dogs (on leashes luckily)
large trees
large numbers on buildings
old people on bikes
families
vineyards
red tiled roofs
gelato
pastel colored toilet paper (I havent seen white yet, just eastery pink, blue and yellow)