- Tuesday may 10 journey
On Tuesday we, the Dutch students, left for the airport in Weeze after school. We were all very excited. We had a week holidays before the exchange. I was already making plans for the trip to Slovenia, I couldn’t wait to go there.
When we arrived in Weeze, my first big adventure was about to start. The flight to Trieste was my first flight in a airplane. At the check in, of course some people’s luggage was too heavy: Lotte’s suitcase weight seventeen kilo! After switching luggage we finally could start our journey to Ljubljana. We checked in, our plane departed at 18:55. It was kind of exciting, but after we took of, all my nerves disappeared and I enjoyed the trip.
The view from the airplane was really great. We landed in Triëste somewhere around ten o’clock.
When we arrived at Triëste, professor Manica was waiting for us. We all greeted her and we drove by bus to Ljubljana in approximately 1,5 hours. We arrived at Gimnazija Šentvid around 11 pm. When we were near the school, it was really exciting. I already knew Klemen, and I knew he was a great guy. But I didn’t know what to expect from his home situation. I hoped his family would be nice to me.
When we arrived in Ljubljana we met our foreign exchange partners, who were already waiting for us: our first night there started. After saying hello to everybody, me and my exchange partner, Gasper, drove to his apartment. I was welcomed very warm by his parents. When I stepped out of the van I immediately saw my Slovenian partner, Lea. At her house, she asked if I wanted something to eat and showed me around the house. It was really nice, the family was really kind to me.
My partner Tanja showed me her house and I met the rest of the family. I gave them the presents I brought from Holland. Because it was already late and we had to get up pretty early the next morning, I went to bed right after that.
- Wednesday may 11 tour through Ljubljana
We had to be at school at nine forty. I woke up around half past six. We had breakfast and then went to school. It took us a while to get there. We went by car and three different busses. At school I was reunited with the rest of the group. It was nice to see everyone again. I noticed that the busses in Slovenia really work, in Holland the busses always come late.
When we arrived at school, we went to a classroom, ‘R1’. Manica and Vinko were there too. Headmaster Erker welcomed us and wished us a pleasant stay.
At school we got some information about Slovenia. We also learned about the activities that we were going to do there.
After lunch, the Slovenian teachers showed us several classrooms and told us about some activities here. We went to biology class and physics class. The geography teacher showed us Ljubljana on a map and told us that the Slovenian coast is 27 kilometers long. We also watched a class doing an experiment for biology and we went to the school library. We visited the sport facilities, which are much more and bigger than ours, because Gimnazija Sendtvid also has sports classes. It was very interesting to see that they actually keep animals in the biology classes. And the sportfacilities are nice, and the athletic field is huge! After the tour we ate our lunch. We ate macaroni, soup, salad and strawberry’s. It was really nice.
After lunch, we left for a sightseeing tour all around Ljubljana. I liked the city, especially the big square in the middle of Ljubljana and the three bridges. One of the Slovenian teachers told us about the history of the places we visited. I really liked the part near the river with the older buildings. Some buildings, like the St. Nicolas cathedral were so big, that I felt very small. Klemen took me around to see the Dragon Bridge, it was also beautiful.
The teachers took us to an old part of the city which was build in the Roman imperial time. Seeing the center of Lubljana was very nice. There where a lot of things to see and do. We visited the church of Saint Nicolas, this church looked better than ours. The roof was totally decorated, and there was a lot of gold.
We also went to see the main library of Lubljana. This library is very old and it looks just like in the movies. It was too bad that we weren’t allowed to walk through the whole complex. Afterwards we walked further to the city hall, where the mayor of Lubljana was talking to journalists. The funny thing was that we passed behind the mayor, so my partner Gasper was pictured on Lubljana television that evening.
Ljubljana has a lot of sightings to see, like bridges, churches, museums, political buildings and lots more. The most important and famous architect in Slovenia is Joze Plešnik. After the tour in the centre of Ljubljana we went with a small train to a castle that is located on a hill in the centre of the city. I found it very interesting, because I didn’t knew much of the cultural things of Slovenia. Only the walking wasn’t that great, because I had 3 blisters after that..
At the first evening at my partners house we ate pancakes.
We ate a strange meal which contained rice and milk with strawberry sauce.
In the evening we went to a students festival in Ljubljana. The event was free and almost all our participants were there.
At the student event were two podia and drinks. We danced like mad man that night.
We had a great time together. After the festival we went home, very tired of the whole day with long walks we had behind us.
At the student event were two podia and drinks. We danced like mad man that night.
We had a great time together. After the festival we went home, very tired of the whole day with long walks we had behind us.
- Thursday may 12 lake Bohinj, Savica, Bled
In the morning we prepared our self for a very active day. We gathered in front of the gym. After a few minutes our bus arrived. The bus took us to Bohinj. Bohinj is one of the prettiest lakes I’ve ever seen. Several sport activities were planned for us. One half of the group first went mountain biking and the other half went rafting. When the groups returned from their biking and rafting activity, they exchanged the activities. The canoeing was fun to do. Of course nobody came out of the canoe totally dry... We had to wear swimming vests for canoeing on the lake. I was in a canoe with Monica, we had a lot of fun. Canoeing is even better on a strong river. Now we had a competition who was the fastest, and of course Klemen and I won. Haha.
The second activity we did, was mountain biking. This was a little bit to soft for me. The downhill parts where nice, but it looked more like a sight-seeing tour than a mountain bike activity. But the environment was very nice, and there was a lot to see, so I wasn’t bored at all. At one place we were on a road that went down hill, so we gained a lot of speed. This was a little bit scary. After our sport activities were finished we decided to cool down, so we went swimming in lake Bohinj. That was pretty cold, the water was only 14 degrees, but I loved it.
Afterwards we changed our clothes again, and went back to the bus and departed for the Savica waterfall. We arrived with the bus and had lunch before we went up. We climbed all the stairs, and what we saw at the top of the mountain was really impressive, especially for us as Dutchmen. I had never seen a waterfall before, so I really liked this activity. It was very beautiful. If you stood close, you were actually able to feel some waterdrops in your face. Again the weather was beautiful. I really, really loved slap Savica. It was huge.
Then we went to lake Bled, this was also great. The lake was really beautiful and we were also lucky with the nice weather.We climbed the hill up to Bled castle, which we saw from the outside. The view upon the hill was amazing. We took some pictures there and then we went to the city Bled. We ate a typical Slovenian desert, called kremšnita. It was a desert with vanilla cream and powdered sugar. We enjoyed this special Slovenian treat, it was delicious.
In the evening Lotte and Lea came to Katja’s place. We had fried chicken for dinner. We watched the Eurovision song contest together. At the end of the day everybody was very exhausted from all the activities and we all went to bed early.
- Friday may 13 salt fields
After a peaceful evening and a good nights rest, we went to the salt fields near the small city Piran. Friday was the day that we had a separated excursion. The Slovenian students had to go to school, and the Dutch students went to see the saltpans near Secovlje. The trip with the bus took a while, but this didn’t matter, because we had a lot of fun.
In Secolvlje, even the air smelled like salt. We went to the saltpans it was really interesting, there was a man with a big beard, he told really interesting stuff about the saltpans.
In Secolvlje, even the air smelled like salt. We went to the saltpans it was really interesting, there was a man with a big beard, he told really interesting stuff about the saltpans.
The sun was very strong. We measured the air temperature and it was about 28 degrees. It was wrong that I didn’t brought a cap with me, and I was really lucky that I didn’t get ill from the sun. The Saltpans were pretty old looking, and I didn’t knew that they were still in use. The information our guide gave us was pretty nice to listen to.
It was nice to see that there was put a lot of effort into winning salt. We did an experiment to caculate the solar constancy and we learned why the Slovenian salt is not bitter. The guide also showed us the plants that are typical for that area. There are a lot of rare species of fish, plants and birds at the salt flats, because of the high salinity. We also saw a movie about the Salt pans and different kinds of salt crystals. I didn’t even knew that there were so many different types of crystals.
After we had our lunch, a ham sandwich with tomatoes, we went to Piran. We walked up to a church there and we had a nice view. I also loved the fact that it was near the sea, you had a great view there. Tim showed me Italy and Croatia from a higher point.
Piran is an old city, and has a harbor. There were a lot of nice places to sit down. The strange thing that I noticed was, that almost every terrace had a stairway down into the sea.
We went swimming to cool down, and again, it was pretty cold. After drying ourselves, we went for the market stands. We bought ourselves some nice things, and after that we sat down on a terrace. With the good care of our teacher and her sunscreen lotion factor 50, we had a splendid day.
In the evening we enjoyed the cocktails of a bar named: New Castle.
After dinner, Gasper, I and some other students went to the concert named: Vickstok. This was really nice, there was a band which was playing some good rock music.
- Saturday may 14 cultural day
On this day we went to the eastern part of Slovenia. On Saturday we had planned an cultural tour trough Slovenia. We started at Kostanjevica to visit the former abbey, where there was an art exposition of the impressionistic painter Bozidar Jakac and other famous Slovenian artists. The paintings and sculptures didn't interest me very much, but the wooden sculptures outside, that are created during the Forma Viva festival, looked good standing outside in the grass together. This was a very nice looking place. We saw some art inside the building. There were different kinds of compositions inside the building. Every room had a different type of art in it, for example, there was a room with religious paintings and sculptures in it. It was too bad that there was a little commotion about something offensive that was written down in the guest book.
First we went to Kostanjevica na Krki, which is on the Krka river and visited expositions.
After looking around, we departed with the bus to a city also near the Krka river, a place called Novo Mesto. This was a nice city, the Krka river flowes around it. I wanted to jump of a bridge into the water, but the water seemed very dirty so I didn’t. Here we had some time to drink a cup of coffee and sit down a bit. Me, Peet, Kevin, Kasper and Gasper went to play pool on the billiard, the other ones rested out. After the free time, we moved on to see a church on the top of a hill. The church wasn’t as beautiful as the other ones we already had seen, but it was still pretty good looking. We went in, we made some pictures and I lighted a candle.
The third activity was visiting an archeological museum. I was a tired of all the walking and the strong sun, so I just walked a bit around and watched all the old stuff. It was to bad that the descriptions were mostly written down in Slovenian language. After visiting the museum, the bus brought us back to Gimnazija Sentvid.
In the evening we went to Tim’s grandma’s place. Tim told us that there would be a party and a sleepover. It was the best night of the week.
That night we had a sleepover at Tim’s grandmothers house. This was a really great night, we made some music together, the same as we did in the Netherlands. I had a lot of fun with the group, we were dancing and singing all night long.
- Sunday may 15 family day
On Sunday we woke up at Tim’s grandma’s place. We cleaned up everything and we had breakfast with the other students, and after that we went home. It was family day. It was very annoying that it was raining. Because of the rain, Gasper had to cancel his hot air balloon trip. This was very bad, we had planned to go on a hot air balloon that afternoon, but because of the weather, the balloon didn’t depart. So, Gasper and I decided to make the Sunday a very chilly day. We just listened to some music, watched some movies and I had a dinner with Gaspers family. After dinner, we watched the final of the Eredivisie. I was very lucky that they showed the final on Slovenian television. It was the final game of the Dutch league, so it was excited who would be the champion. AJAX Amsterdam won the game and so they were champion, I was really happy. After the match, we went to Klemens apartment. Together with Klemen and Kasper, Gasper and I watched a movie. Both of us were very sleepy, and it was good that we had this day without activities, we both needed our rest.
Lea and I went out to dinner with Chris and his Slovenian partner, that was a very nice typical Slovenian meal.
We watched a movie at Katja’s place with a few other girls from the group. After that we went to a party at Ana’s house. We weren’t with the whole group, because many people were still tired from the day before. After the party Tanja and me slept over at Katja’s, because of the distance. We had to be at school pretty early the next day. Katja’s mother had prepared risotto for everyone.
- Monday may 16 school and reports
We were expected at school at eight o’clock. The first lesson we had was an English lesson, where we had to talk about our expectations and first impressions of Slovenia. The assignment was that we needed to socialize in English with other Slovenian students. After the first lesson the Slovenian students had a regular day of school. The Dutch students were supposed to do their own homework. Our teachers gave us an extra assignment. We had to prepare presentations in couples. Our teacher would film us while telling about a given subject. In classroom R1 we had time to make some homework. I used this time to get a start at writing this report.
After the lunch, we listened to a history lesson by professor Vinko. Slovenia’s history is very complicated, and it was pretty hard to follow, but it was interesting. This was pretty hard to follow because a lot of things occurred in that area. Even though, I made some notes in my notebook. It came down to it that there has been a lot of wars in the Jugoslavian countries since the era. So there have been many changes for these countries. I also remember that the countries that speak Slavic are named ‘Slav’, which originally means ‘slave’.
In the afternoon, Klemen’s father, Klemen and I went to the Skocjanske caves. We planned this to do on the family day, but then the weather was bad. The history lesson from professor Vinko took longer than expected, so we really had to hurry to get on time in the caves. the caves were really beautiful. It was really big and overwhelming, I loved it. After the caves we went to a viewpoint where we had a great view over a valley and a waterfall.
Back home I had a really great dinner: cevapcici, burek, French fries and some other meat. We spend the last night of the exchange in a bar called New Castle. That was really nice, but we realised that we had to leave the next day, that wasn’t a pleasant idea. When we came home, I had to say goodbye to Klemen’s mother because she had to leave early the next morning. She has been very kind to me.
After we were dismissed from school, my partner took me to Ljubljana to buy some souvenirs. Afterwards we went mountain biking trough the woods and we returned home at eight o’clock. After a quick shower, we went to a bar named New castle, a nice cozy Irish pub. Here we had our last drinks with the other exchange students. We didn’t go home late, because I needed to depart the next day.
In the afternoon my partner and me went to the Smarna Gora hill, which is located close to Tim's house. When I got home I started packing my bags. Katja gave me loads of presents to take home.
- Tuesday may 17 leaving Slovenia
This morning I said goodbye to the rest of the family. I had a really great time there so it felt bad to leave. The last day of my exchange. First we had to come to school, with our luggage already packed. It wasn’t that easy, because there are a lot of stairs in the building, that we had to climb with these heavy suitcases.
We stayed in a classroom to prepare the presentation. Thijs filmed our presentation and the rest of the day we played hearts. We had time to make homework, this time we were able to use laptops. That was very nice, because we could contact home.
At school we had time to work on our report. And we also prepared for the little talk we had to do in front of the camera. Mathijs and I had to talk about the nature in Slovenia; this was easy because Slovenia has a really great nature.
That day we also prepared a video presentation. We used the laptops to work on our reports and we went outside to record our presentation on film.
We had lunch in school again and after that we went to eat Ćevapčići in a restaurant. Ćevapčići is Serbian meat. It tastes a little like hamburgers. We had to be back at the parking place at 16:50.
After lunch at school, I had my last dinner with Gaspers mom and stepfather. I thanked them for everything and we went back to school. There I saw our bus, and I realized that 'this was it'. The week had ended. I must say that it wasn’t easy for me to say goodbye to everyone. In two weeks I had made some new friends, especially Gasper.
In the afternoon we sat on a terrace and had a drink. This is when I really realised that we would leave in a couple of hours. I didn’t want to leave, I had such a great time. But unfortunately we had to. The farewell was really hard, but I’ve planned to go to Slovenia next year..
Luckily, our plane was not delayed. But when we arrived at Weeze, Aafke’s and Kevin’s suitcases were missing. The teachers decided to let a couple of student go home already, while the others waited for their suitcases. Luckily the suitcases were found really quick.
Kevin: Leaving really sucked. And I had a hard time not to cry. I loved the exchange: it was so much fun.
Mathijs: I have had a really good time in Slovenia. It was a really nice experience. Gaspers parents were really, really nice to me. Sometimes we really needed to rush, because the program was so full with visiting things, but it was worth it. Slovenia is a really beautiful country. The strangest thing is that I had never thought about visiting Slovenia, until I had this exchange. It is for sure that I will return to this beautiful country!
Monique: It was a wonderful exchange with lots of activities and good weather, but I was also glad to be back in our small, little country. An experience to never forget!
Monica: The idea that we probably never see our partners again made us sad. But some people are already making plans for another visit!
Peet: I did have a great exchange and I will surely come back someday!
Kasper: In Holland everything just switched back to normal. It was nice to see my family and friends again, but I miss Slovenia. The nature is much more beautiful than the nature in Holland. And I really miss all the Slovenian students, Klemen and his family. But I’m sure I will see them again.
Susan: I had an awesome week in Slovenia. I’m gonna miss my partner and all the other Slovenian students very much!
I will never forget this exchange.
I will never forget this exchange.
