I have a little home! I moved out of Simona's beautiful little house yesterday... very hard to leave such a wonderful family I must tell you... and into my new appartment! It's very close to the faculty.,.. about a 5 minute walk if I don't get lost! I will be sharing a room, but right now its just me because the place was just renovated and I was the first to move in. Its a bit farther to downtown, but only like 7 minutes by bus so not to bad... (ps the buses here are wonderful... they don't really have a [View Full Entry]

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Man, one thing that is different about Slovenia that really catches me off guard is that service here does NOT come with a smile. Cashiers, waitresses, even customer service reps... they arn't forced into the humiliation of pretending to like their jobs as in Canada and the U.S. For me it's hard because I am so used to the friendly, chatty, smiley, "Oh Hiii... how ARE you today?" said with a whole lotta sugar on top... so when all I hear from them is a price I feel like they are mad at me or something... but that's not it at [View Full Entry]

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What can I say but I love Slovenia. I have had the most wonderful 24 hours, first with the party last night and then an amazing, culture-experiencing, death-defying, leg-burning hike today. Last night, after spending the day touring (see Beautiful Day entry) the city and doing a few errands, Simona took me out to a going away party for a student leaving for France for a year. The party was out at this little cabin/barn thing, and apparently the guy who was leaving invited everybody from his cell phone… even people he couldn’t remember who they were! Needless to say, th [View Full Entry]

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So today just got better and better... I spent the afternoon by myself wandering around the city. I started out in the main park again, and found out it is actually more like 25x the size of city park in Kelowna. That, and it includes a huge, lushly forested mountain that compares to Knox in size and has great walking trails all over it! So I hiked around for about half an hour, of course in my skirt and crappy shoes... but it was too nice to not go! Every hundred metres along the trail, there are signs that have different [View Full Entry]

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I've spent the last 2 days touring around the city with my wonderful tourguide Simona. Yesterday we were a little tired after partying all night, but we managed to get out and see Preserno Trg (the main square) and a little bit of the city. Today we saw more, including parts of the old city and this huge park that is kind of in the middle of the city that is very beautiful! Its been really nice having a tour guide, especially one that knows the city so well and has the same sort of interests as I do. While many [View Full Entry]

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I will tell you one thing... Slovenian's really know how to party! Last night I partied with Simona and all her friends from school until 6am!!! I am SO tired right now! Anyway, we had a blast at the popular club called "Global". Apparently Wednesday night is like "college night" here, so it was SUPER busy! Anyway, we drank a bit and danced a lot and just had a really good time! It's nice to go to a bar and not feel like a piece of meat! I havn't seen to much of the old city yet, but today hopefully I [View Full Entry]

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Hello all! I've arrived safe and sound!! It is so beautiful here... very lush and green and lots of mountains. I have yet to go exploring beyond the little home I am staying in due to harsh harsh jet lag, but tomorrow offers load of possibilities! Please pray a prayer of thanks for Simona and Mr. and Mrs. Pirih (her parents)... they are graciously taking care of me at this time and I am SO thankful for everything they have done for me! All my love, will post pictures soon! Mel. [View Full Entry]

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Hey all... Eighteen days and I am outa here! I'm going to miss everyone so very much, but I know the next 10 months are going to go SO quickly. Anyway, to keep up to date on my travels keep checking my blog and I'll try to keep it as up to date as possible. I will do my best to respond to e-mails too, but my mother does take presidence in personal e-mails so the rest of y'all will have to wait! Godbless you all and I hope everyone has a wonderful year at school and work! mel. [View Full Entry]

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