2011 Slovenia, Croatia: 25 unforgettable days in Slovenia (and Croatia!)

First of all I must say, that this trip is now fighting for the title of being the best trip of my life (its a battle between Lions exchange in South Carolina!). Im not going to write about each day, but some of the key things that happened. Lets start right from the beginning.

After landing

From the airport to Ljubljana (this is maybe 20km outside Ljubljana)

Taken from train, Ljubljana - Zidani Most

In Zidani Most, waiting for continueing train in the middle of nowhere :)

Taken from train from Zidani Most to Brezice

Finally in Brezice! Walking to MC Brezice youth hostel

The journey to the first destination - city of Brezice in eastern Slovenia

Previous evening I came to my friend's place in Helsinki, because the flight was going to depart so early there was no chance to reach it from home (which is 400km from Helsinki). I probably didnt sleep more than 2 hours - I had an alarm clock at 7 but after waking up every hour I finally refused to try to sleep at 5 o clock. Its funny, I feel like never been so nervous before going abroad. Anyway - after many restless hours I was finally sitting in air plane. I had spent so many hours dreaming of Slovenia but when I saw it first time, it was even prettier than in my dreams. All that green and mountains and fields and.. I was speakless! The airport was so small and cute and the 45min drive from the airport to Ljubljana drove through very narrow roads past idyllic small villages. And it was very clean and nice, I didnt expect that. Finding a right train to my first destination, Brezice, was not that easy, because on my ticket it was not told which train I should take or at what time - it was just a ticket to Brezice - any time, any train. After asking few times (and most people didnt speak English) I found out that I have to take a train to direction of Maribor and change train in Zidani most. Luckily one local guy came to same cabin with me and we were actually talking all way to Zidani Most, where he advised me to get out (of course there was no announcement where we are). Then I faced more problems, which train to take next. Again after few questionaries one man asked me to take a train to Dobova, and so the journey countinued and I was finally in Brezice! But man, I loved that journey through fields, small villages and mountains, and the trail was following a river all the time.

The city about 5 minutes walk from camp site

Camp site and teaching to play guitar

Camp site

Camp site

Making some traditional Romanian food

Cooking facilities

Wake boarding at First WakePark (Borst)

Agi doing wake boarding with a surf board!

Making a "Locals Only" sign for our surfind spot in Sava

Hiking trip to st. Vid

Hiking

Building a cable constraction across Krka

Surfing..

I did it!

Cooking some traditional Bulgarian dish!

Introducing the first work camp: Confluence Surf Camp

All in all there was 20 of us: 2 participants from Polland,  1 from Romania, 2 from Bulgaria, 1 from Czech Republic, 2 from Serbia, 1 from England, 4 locals, 2 camp leaders, 2 EVS workers + 2 dogs.. and ME! Not every one of them was sleeping at the camp site all the time because of bad weather, but they were pretty much around us all the time. And yes, our accommodation was in a tent by river Krka. I shared a tent with a Czech girl Sárka. Lunch was provided in a nearby restaurant (very good food and you can choose what you want!) and dinners were made ourselves on the camp site. Every evening we made different national cusines and I must say I didnt eat a single bad food! Especially Polish and Serbian food were delicious. Each day we were able to go to MC Brecize youth hostel to take a shower and use computer. About the work.. well, we didnt really work. Our work was having fun! The name of the camp was a surf camp so of course we surfed a lot, and they taught us how to surf in a river. We also used our creativity to find out ways to mark the anchors and to build a cable constraction. In my opinion, this cable constraction was the best way do to surfing. I was really proud of myself for managing to surf every time but maybe it was because Im a small girl and I have a nordic stubbourness! One day we were also cleaning the shore. We had a lot of leisure activities, for example the leaders intruduced us to their hobby - search & rescue dogs, we went wake boarding few times (thats one of the best things Ive done actually!!), we hiked on mountain nearby, we went bowling, we had wine tasting in a traditional local wine cellar, we were introduced to local nuclear power plant.... And every night continued at least until mid night, not forgetting the wine.

Some of the funniest & happiest things that happened during Confluence..

There's so many things why I can say I loved this camp. We had an amazing group that had no conflicts. Everyone had a role in our group: one was the funny maker, one was building conversations, one was taking lead while things didnt work out.. But no one had a negative impact. One of the best feelings are when you find out you succeed in something - and I did it in surfing! I had never tried but I still remember the level of adrenaline after I stood up first time and when I finally learnt to direct the surf board towards stream. Not mentioning the wake boarding which was even more amazing! It wasnt hard either, but so so great. Im so going to try that again! Also some of the memories that I will never forget are the evenings when we were singing some songs until late in the night. It was even funnier when no one was really good in playing guitar and we didnt have lyrics either. One day a really skilled guitarist Dare came with some lyrics and it made it "a bit" easier. A song "I would walk 500 miles" was sang quite many times, thanks to our great personality Mihai for introducing this :) And I learnt to drink red wine, because there was no other options, lol! And we actually drank red wine every night.. A special memory of Slovenian red wine is when we visited this wine cellar and we tried actually 8 different kind of wines, and I felt a bit drunk after I got out of the cellar :D Some nights we were just sitting by camp fire and having a deep conversation until there was nothing left of fire. Those are the memories that will keep me smiling while thinking of this camp..

Hungry Slovenian and hungry Romanian!

Experimentation of making some traditional Romanian food

"I would walk five hundread miles" featuring Mihai and Dare! And everyone else..

A pyromanic cutting wood.

Slovenian style sun tan! But lotion only on your sholders.

Wine tasting

Too much rakija...

Flood in our tent...

That day the stream was too strong because of heavy rain and we couldnt surf..

Some of the more unfortunate happenings during Confluence... 

Now that Im calling these "more unfortunate happenings" I must say that now that I think, they are just funny. If there is more good than bad things, the bad things turn out good as well, or thats how I like to think. Well, anyway the biggest thing is probably the weather. It did rain a lot. I would say 7 days out of 9, and the temperatures were below 20 as well, at night closer to 10. This came to me by surprise, but I heard its very unusual. I didnt bring any warm clothes with me so especially at night when we had to stay outside I was pretty much freezing all the time. Only warm food, camp fire and atmosphere were warming me up :) I also brought a very thin sleeping bag so I was freezing at night as well even I wore all the clothes I have. I didnt bring a mattress (or a roll-up) because I thought they will provide one, so for the first 2 nights I didnt sleep at all. Im not so used to sleep in a tent and the cars were distracting me in addition of hard ground and cold weather. Few nights it was thundering as well. But after that I got used to it and 3 last nights I borrowed a sleeping bag & mattress from one local girl and then I was sleeping like a baby! Heavy rain caused that our camp site was nearly flooding and we were evacuated to our camp leaders appartment (it was crowded, yeah!). The rain also made surfing impossible because the river was flooding as well and the stream was so strong that it would have been a bit dangerous to try to put anchors there. For two days we were incapable to surf or do anything that was in our schedule (picnic, canoeing) but fortunately our camp leaders were really creative and it didnt turn out a big problem! Also, our only toilet was a toi toi about 100m walk in complete darkness - it was very scary to go there at night! In a group we survived + we used nature ;) What is a trip without few drawbacks?

Leaving Dobova

Zagreb!

Our favorite pizzeria: Nokturno.Good Italian-style pizza, 4€!

My hostel! I recommend.

From the market place you find fresh fruits & berries.. yam yam!

These cars are actually trying to pass us.. No chance :)

On top of Medvednica. We did it!

Between the two camps.. Exploring the capital of Croatia!

After the camp I had 4 free days so I was pretty much "going with the flow" as everyone went to Zagreb! My plan was to spend only one or two nights in the hostel but after all I enjoyed it so much that I stayed all 3 nights in Ravnice! It was pretty much just sight seeing, lying by lake and one day we "climped" on Medvednica- mountain. The funny thing is that our aim was to take a bus up there, walk around a bit and then take a bus back, but the return bus went after 3 hours so we didnt even get out of the bus - we went down in a same bus! It was a bit failure trip but at least I can say Ive been on top of Medvednica. While coming down there was a big problem because the road was so narrow that a bus and car could pass only in special places, and we faced a queue of cars in a very narrow spot. There was a lot of shouting but finally a queue (that had grown to 20 cars) managed to hardly pass us. This took about 30 minutes. So 2½ hours trip in a bus for nothing, lol! This Polish girl I met in Conlfuence had two friends from Zagreb, Igor and Goran, who were showing us around. It was actually pretty awesome to have local guides, they took us to places I wouldnt have gone otherwise. It was amazing they had so many free concerts going on during night! One night we went to free gig of a Japanese band Yamato which was great even it was raining. One night we were in some really crowded place where they were serving beer and some band was playing (and everyone dancing), I remember the bar tenders were drinking as well (one shot to customer, one for themself!), thats something that would never happen in Nordic countries! I guess I love Croatian way of living, pretty relaxed. I wonder how is it in real Balkan, have to find out some day! A thing I love in Zagreb is that its filled with small bars and cafeterias in narrow, medieval streets. In Finnish perspective its also pretty cheap (a good quality pizza about 4€! and burek 2€, my everyday food there!). The hostel is also something I would really recommend, even it was a bit aside (20min tram ride + 5 min walking, I wasnt really happy to do that alone at night, fortunately someone was always with me). Every night there was a bit of party and I spend nights having random conversations on balcony with some random people! The owners were really frendly and I felt homelike (the place is called Ravnice youth hostel). So all in all, I enjoyed my 4-day trip to Zagreb a lot.

This is it: Kamnik!

Some creative games and plays to get to know each other and to get to creative mood!

Our team at work!

Our first works: Kamniska Veronika!

 Our second work: A tent where we could put something interesting to attract children

One of our works, a flying pig!

 Putting scales to Kamniska Veronika

On our trip to Velika Planina we made a stop in Kamp Alpe where I took a nice nap (last night took quite long..)

 The next pictures are from our way to Velika Planina in the mountains. It is an amazingly beautiful alley in 1500m where nomads live with their cows during summer. We took a condola to 1000m and from there we took a ski lift, because we were lazy and didnt have so much time. I had never been in mountains, so this was very special for me! :)

 Our whole group: Maciek, Atilla, me, Can, Dunja, Daria, Mimi, Katja, Natalia and our "mentor" Miranda

 Can's new friend!

 Back in Kamnik: Improvised plays in the park

 The ready Kamniska Veronika!

 The first trip to Ljubljana. This is the famous Tromostovje- bridge!

 Again improvised plays in the park.

 Ljubljana

 Ljubljana.

 And again Ljubljana.. Isnt it beautiful!

 First day actually working for the festival. We carried all that stuff from the spot the picture was taken to the stage.

 Last piece coming - the beer serving table!

 This picture might show the difficulty of the place where the festival is held, but at the same time the beauty of it.

 And so the stage is almost ready, after a couple of sweaty hours under burning sun!

 The second trip to Ljubljana.

 Walking to the castle - Ljubljanski Grad

 Ljubljana skyline - the old part of the city

 And the new part of the city, not so nice. As you see, the city is very tiny to be a capital. But so is Slovenia :)

The beautiful Ljubljanica river bathing in sun

 The city was extremely clean - only few graffitis. Cleaner than many cities in Finland.

 The jungle boy Can in his natural habitat :)

 Taking a rest after working day in Mali Grad, our work place #2

 One day we made a trip to huge garden close to Kamnik, where was an orchid exhibition going on

 ... and cactus exhibition as well

 We saved a butterfly from a spider web and the butterfly was so grateful that it decided to rest in Dunja's hand for a while

 Checking the schedule of the festival - and we are also mentioned in it!

 First show in children's stage

 We made a trip to famous stalactive cave "Postojna Jama". Its was huge and cold :)

 Some old singnatures from 1824 in Postojna Jama.

 After Postojna we headed for seaside in Portoroz!

 Tanning and relaxation after long weekend was just what we needed!

 It looked exactly like in Italy. So weird that only 2 hours from the mountains we are in different climate by Adriatic Sea.

 In the evening we went to sip few drinks in a cozy but expensive place (I have paid half that much for a long island in Finland)

 The second day by seaside we made a trip to Piran, which was such a beautiful mediterranean city!

 In the back of us you can see Trieste in Italy

Again sun bathing.. and relaxation.

 Is this Italy or Slovenia?! I dont know :)

 Perfect day in Piran reguires on local Lasko (or looks like this is Union).

 Piran main square.

 Piran main square

 Piran.. small but awesome :)

 On our way back to Kamnik after a succesfull 2 days trip to seaside!

 Festival continues with a car show and painting afterwars.

The road I walked everyday when going back to Domkulture (where I lived). I miss this scene...

 Finally something happening in the park: we painted bricks with kids and made a Twister!

 The stage is ready and its my time to guard it. What could be better, than lay on ground, listen to music and watch those mountains while securing, that no one unwanted enters the stage?

 Painting. This Slovenian girl spoke amazingly good English!

 One of our works: a chess table. At least we used it a couple of times. I found some empty snail sells and invented that they would be awesome chess pieces!

 Taking a nap, which we did very often.. siesta time :)

The last day and the Kamnik team!

Introducing the second work camp: Kamfest festival!

Early in the morning I took a train to Ljubljana and then continued to Kamnik, which is about 50min ride from Ljubljana. Kamnik was probably the most beautiful place in Slovenia, if I can say so! The city was really old and medieval-like, and there was a small hill which offered an amazing view to Kamnik Alps. I could have sat there day after day watching the scenery. Anyway, the camp consisted 10 persons: 3 from Poland, 2 from Turkey, 2 from Serbia and 2 (or 3) camp leaders. This time we had a roof (!!), we were sleeping on floor in culture house, and yes, we had mattresses! I slept so perfectly these 2 weeks, it was also really hot inside so I didnt have to fight with coldness either. And inside toilets and a shower!! Also pretty good cooking facilities. Lunch was provided in a school and I would say that food is a lot better than food in Finnish high schools. Dinners we prepared ourselves or we ate outside (in our own expense). Most of the evenings we were busy or we were not in Kamnik so we couldnt cook ourselves. About the work.. well, at least now there was work! Our main task was probably a "creative work" in a park. Nobody used the park except drunkards and youngs during night. We had to figure out how to make it a nicer place, because it was an okay park. In the beginning we made some decorations out of leather and cardboard and a huge snake head (that goes with an old Kamnik legend of Kamniska Veronica!). The last days we got some paint and we painted bricks with kids! Other work was with the festival. 3 days before the festival we were carrying things on hill where the stage was going to be, and that was seriously hard work! It was burning hot and you had to walk up and down. But in group we made it fun. During the festival we were guarding the stage so that one one unwanted would enter there. Also there was many little things that we had to do for the festival. We had a lot of free time as well.. and a lot of activities.. and a lot of fun, I can tell you! We made a trip to Velika Planina in the mountains (overnight), to seaside (overnight), to Postojna Caves and we went many times to Ljubljana. Those are just few examples. And during the festival we were enjoying the bands every night - and even there was no band at all, we were still enjoying. This one particular pub (probably the only one in Kamnik) became really familiar! Or we just played some games in culture house or had conversations until 4 in the morning..

Some of the funniest & happiest things that happened during Kamfest.. 

I dont know how to start, theres so many things... Again I must start with the group, which couldnt have been any better. I felt like I had been friend with these people for my whole life, we had inside jokes, own songs, dances... Probably the thing that you have to be together 24/7 makes a group bond so fast. Working together was great - even it was hard we made it fun. For example we had to carry maybe 100 cases of beer to cellar on this hill, so we made a line of people and gave one case to another (like this firefighting thing), and in the end we made the distances longer and were throwing the beers (more risk makes more fun!!). No beer dropped on ground and exploded, even it was close. The second night we were in this pub until it closed (well, at 12 o clock) and I was dressed up in "burka" because it was so cold! And made some funny pics of course.. The second night was spent in the mountains, and it didnt go as we planned! Our plan was to drink only one/two beers, but then the owner of the restaurant asked us to come in and he started to give us free shots (good for stomach he told!), and many many Slovenian shots.. In the end we were dancing on a table and teaching each others to dance Tango (and for sure this restaurant was closed long before this..). The next morning I just woke up in my cabin feeling still a bit dizzy, but for sure that night was too funny! Not mentioning many other nights when one particular person :) drunk too much and I will never forget the comparison between Istambul and Izmir. Or learning this particular Turkish dance I will not mention. Turkish people.. they are crazy but awesome! Then I must point out the first gig I went, Edo Maajka, a rapper from Bosnia. I couldnt understand a word but I was probably as happily dancing as our Slovenian fellow Blaz who knew all the lyrics and lost his voice! Fortunately I was with Serbian and Slovenian so they could translate me some. Also other gigs I enjoyed a lot were Ana Popedan and of course Siddharta (whos songs I really enjoy, because its my kind of music, even I cant understand lyrics!). After gigs we usually stayed on stage "guarding" it (as if we wouldnt have enjoyed staying there otherwise). Drinking some traditional Slovenian Lasko :P (as you may see, this "traditional Slovenian" was one of our inside jokes!). Also one night I must point out was night when we returned from sea side, got some wine, then some rakija, raki, beer and what else.. I dont want to know! Pretty epic night though! So, it is not a secret, that we did drink a lot during this camp. Only the last 3 days I didnt drink (probably because of the horrible hangover on Wednesday). "But sometimes it happens, what can I do?!". Also thing that I liked in this camp was that it brought as closer to the local peole because we were basically working with them, and they were very interrested in what we are doing and who we are. We even had volunteers one day! It was great to see them working. After all I felt like that was my home town - the streets were familiar, many faces were familiar.. Only the language was not. And I have to continue telling how beautiful this place was, I could sit on this hill for hours looking down at Kamnik and the Alps. It was like a postcard. Because of these facts it was very hard to go back home, which could be added to unfortunate happenings - at some point it must finish, you must go home.

 After Edo Maajka gig with the artist himself :P

 Before Edo Maajka concert!

 After a night in local pub we felt extremely hungry and decided to eat cold spaghetti...

 Guarding the stage at night.. hard work!

 In the mountains in Kamp Alpe the owner of the restaurant asked us to try "few" traditional Slovenian shots.. it turned out more like dozens of them!

 Tequila time at the local pub!

 Again guarding the stage.. with Lasko, of course.

 In Kamp Alpe sipping few "Lasko Club" before the night turned epic..

 First night at the local pub!

 Again in Kamp Alpe (sorry for the pictures are not in order)

 Edo Maajka


Some of more unfortunate happenings..

I could say that there was none, instead that I had to go home. Well, no that I think, there was few. Days were warm and sunny but nights were bitter. Some nights we had to guard the stage and it was almost 10 degrees and windy. The person who was going to free us from our duty at midnight forgot us and we found him later drinking beer in a pub. Other thing I must mention is our work in the park. In the beginning the only material we had was rubbish. What ever we did the teenagers destroyed or stole at night (well at least they were interrested in them). One night we hid our sprays so that we wouldnt have to take them back home but of couse some vandals stole them and made graffitis. Last days painting with the kids was very nice though. Also I must mention the night be the seaside when we were sleeping in a tent. Again we didnt have any mattresses and the ground was very rocky and again I had my thin sleeping bag. The night was very hot so it was nice UNTIL the storm started.. We had all the doors open so the wind came right through the tent, but we didnt understand they were open until the roof was almost flying.. It was so windy I thought the whole tent will fly! It was shaking so bad.. So, I guess I slept like 1 hour during the whole night. But still its quite funny memory. :D We were waiting for this trip to seaside so much, to dance all night in a club, but in the end we found out that monday is the only day when the clubs are closed. :P There was no more bad things to say - and then again, I dont find them so bad memories now that I think!

 Sabotage in Kamnik park

 More sabotage. What an idiots can teeganers be??

 Fixing and cleaning.

Summing up my feelings

I must say that Slovenia and working in a work camp impressed me! The country was everything I was looking for - friendly people, warm weather (should be), mountains, beautiful nature, a lot of countryside, good living standards and the prices were at least a bit lower than in Finland. Im seriously considering this a potential option for my Erasmus year! Also its bordering many interesting countries and has a lot in small area. And about the work camps, Im definitely attending a work camp next summer! Im planning to do it in Serbia or anyway somewhere in real Balkan :) Ive told my experiences to my friends and hopefully they will get interrested in this kind of travelling as well. Its almost a free holiday and you gain a lot more than in a casual holiday! I loved my month and I cant stop listening some songs I heard there or I listened a lot during during my trip!