Body Paint

Busra and me were working on our personal project, body paint! I hope you enjoy the photography exhibition. Thanks!

Postojna Cave

On Monday, I went to Postojna Cave, it is the most famous cave in Slovenia. We visited the cave by train wich goes through it and there the guide showed us the Russian passage. It was built by Russian soldiers in the First World War. The Russian bridge was built by prisioners. In the cave there are different halls. There are two amaizing halls: the White hall and the Red hall. In the White hall all the stalactites and stalagmites are white because they are made of calcite. But in the Red hall the calcite is mix with iron and clay so the stones are red.

 The most beautiful 5 meters tall stalagmite is called Brilliant. It is famous because water pours down

on the stone and is always made of pure calcite, because of this it is so shiny.

The Postojna cave is also famous because of the Proteus, it is a neotenic animal that is called Human

Fish. The legend says that Human Fish looks like a small dragon. You can see this special aniaml at the end of the visit in the aquarium

After the cave, I visited the Predjama castle. it is close to the caves only 10km away. There you can

see the castle that was built in the wall of the hill. I havent have the chance to enter the castle since

it was closed.

Later we retourned to Ljubljana, it was a really nice day and I learned a lot.

   

Balkans Trip

This week I was traveling across the Balkans, beginning my trip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. The first impression is crossing the border, this is the end of good roads and then starts the narrows and bit dangerous road, but with beautiful views, in the middle of breathtaking scenery, these roads go through villages of Bosnia, very small and with many houses in ruins, abandoned after war.

 Well, we finally arrived to Sarajevo, a city of contrasts, the old town is separated into two parts, the Ottoman and the Austrian, very different and surprising.

Ottoman Era is awesome, with small houses full of restaurants where you can eat delicious cevapcici and bureks, smoke shisha on a terrace and you can visit some mosques, this part is charming and magical. In the center of the neighbourhood there is the water fountain: The Sebilj, is a pseudo-Ottomanstyle wooden fountain in the centre of Baščaršija square, one of the major sights. Also you can listen 5 times per day sounds in the street, than invite people to pray, they call it ezan. It was also the time of Ramadan, so you can see during the day restaurants were empty and then when night falls the streets are full of people drinking tea and eating.

The Austrian side is totally different, with newer buildings, full of bars and clubs, but also places like the Old Bazaar and bridges and fruit market

We visited the tunnels, to learn more about the Bosnian war in 1992, Sarajevo Tunnel was constructed by the Bosnian Army in order to link the city of Sarajevo, which was entirely cut-off by Serbian forces, with the Bosnian-safe territory on the other side of the Sarajevo. Construction of the tunnel began in secret, and the purpose of the tunnel was allowing food, war supplies, and humanitarian aid to come into the city. The workers were paid with one packet of cigarettes per day and the construction of the tunnel was completed on 30 June 1993 when the two tunnels met in the middle.

Also we visited a old local market outside of the city, it is a second hand market, but local people called "gipsy market", it was full of people buying and selling and you can find almost everything and very cheap.

This city is full of contrast, there is really old part, destructed buldings and then a new part with modern buildings around you, also one thing that surprised me was that lot of small cemeteries everywhere, if you walk around the city you can see many of them and even go inside.

This was a really good experience for me, I learn a lot about Bosnia as a country and as a lifestyle, we met with locals and it was the best part to improve my knowledge about their country.

We continued traveling, now the next stop was Mostar, it is one of the most important cities in the Herzegovina region and cultural capital. The Old Bridge, built by the Ottomans in the 16th century, is one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's most recognizable landmarks, and is considered one of the most exemplary pieces of Islamic architecture in the Balkans. A monumental project to rebuild the Old Bridge, which was destroyed during the Bosnian war, to the original design, and restore structures and historic neighborhoods was initiated in 1999 and mostly completed in 2004.

Well my impression of Mostar is different, is a nice place, really beautiful, but also full of tourist and they are taking thousands of photos, is doesn’t matter what is there, full of street shops with tourist souvenirs, even you can pay with euros, so I think it is a pity because I can feel how they are losing the real essence of the city.

After that we decided to go to Dubrovnik, Croatian city on the Adriatic see, we spent all day there, walking around the old city, it was really nice because Dubrovnik is among the 10 best preserved medieval walled cities in the world, the streets are very narrow and you can feel the smell of the see in everywhere.

Looking for a place to sleep, we arrived by accident to Kupari, a small city only 10km away from Dubrovnik, and there we found “the bay of the abandoned hotels”.

We arrived to Kupari and we don´t know nothing about it, and then, suddenly in front of us, near the beach, big and luxury hotels abandoned looking like ruins, I was very surprised by it, it was not a house or a small hotels, was full of buildings, older and big hotels totally destroy. Then I need to check what it is and why is abandoned and I found that Kupari is a bay on the Adriatic Sea in an area considered to have the best beaches in the country. In the 1960s, Croatia was part of the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia, and under the rule of Tito, Kupari underwent a major transformation into a luxury holiday resort for the military elite of the Yugoslav People’s Army and their families.

The wars started and the Yugoslav naval ships also began surrounding the bay around Dubrovnik, and they shot to the Hotels of Kupari.

Croatians successfully gained independence and were back at Kupari but years of looting and plundering left Kupari as not much more than a skeleton of the luxury resort it once was.

And finally to end our trip we visited Split, It is the second-largest city of Croatia, also on the Adriatic sea, it is a beautiful roman city, with a nice old part of the city, roman style, and good and large beaches. There we saw the center and a roman show like a theater with actors dressing old roman style, even you can see them walking by the streets.

This week I have experienced, I have met new cultures and traveled to different countries, as you can see, I have learned a lot from this experience

After a week of traveling, crossing many borders, with some problems, driving a lot and looking for places to stay, I have realized that I'm glad to see “Slovenia” written on road signs, see the flag and cross the last frontier, and then feel like I'm at home again.

Weekend on Žiri

This weekend I went to Ziri, a small town in northwestern Slovenia. There was party with differents sports activities during the day like football or volley and concerts at the night, with groups like "HELP!" a beatles tribute or "S.A.R.S." a serbian alternative rock band that they was awesome!

In Žiri I stay with Dare and his family, there are a really friendly people, they host me like in his house like one more of the family. Words aren't enough to thank everyone for their hospitality, his father and the pictures of travels and so many interesting stories, his mother is a sweet woman and the brothers that they are awesome!

Big huge and hope see you soon again!

INmusic Festival

This week I've been in Zagreb, in the international music festival INmusic, in this event I could enjoy the concerts of Black Keys, MGMT or Pixis among others, the festival was around the lake of Zagreb, it is a really beautifull place for concerts, was full of young people and older people with young spirit. Also I went to my first Silent Party,  was great and very good experience. I want to go back the next year! 

Non-verbal Communication

I remember when I arrived to Slovenia, my English was really bad and I even didn’t understand one word.  In this case non-verbal communication was very useful for me, then the body language was one of the most important things that I learnt because I couldn’t express myself with words, talking was something that I was improving step by step.

Let me explain you how complicated it is to work as a team if you don’t understand anything, because in a teamwork you can be left out of the conversation. Even when I wanted to talk sometimes I felt that I couldn’t because it wasn´t enough to explain myself, so I preferred not to talk and I learnt that smiling is much more important in a situation like that

Triglav

Yesterday we went to Tiglav, it is a National Park, we prepared some sandwichs for lunch and we were ready to take a walk around the mountains.

The Triglav National Park is the only Slovenian national park, the highest mountain in the heart of the park, which is also the highest summit in Slovenia (2864 m) Triglav ( three-headed )  is a true national symbol and is featured on the national flag.

There we saw the soca river, is amazing and the water is deep blue color, I couldnt resist to take a dive, of course the water was freezing!