The Much Anticipated (and highly delayed) Inaugural Post

Well since I've been away from home for a month already I guess its about time I actually got the blog going.   I guess the rather mundane tasks of getting settled in a new place and starting at a new university have kind of taken over the first few weeks of my time in Ljubljana and now, in what seems like the blink of an eye, a month has gone by.  In all honesty its a little scary that its gone by so fast. I feel like I haven't yet accomplished anything noteworthy in my time here which makes days like today feel especially wasted.  You could've ran a marathon before I was up and moving today (literally though, today was the 18th Annual Ljubljana Marathon).  But I guess thats the difference between living somewhere and just visiting somewhere, there's no need to run around and do everything right away.

  Looking down the Ljubljanica River to the main square with the pink Franciscan Church of the                    Annunciation.

  That being said, I have explored Ljubljana extensively.  Its not hard to do as its a fairly concentrated city, but I have done a lot of walking in just about every direction, through the more touristy centre and many of the more residential outlying areas.  The Old Town is particularly interesting.  It is a network of mostly pedestrian streets and winding alleyways set in the shadow of the hilltop Ljubljana Castle.  Exactly the type of thing you imagine when you think of a Eurpoean city.  The slow moving Ljubljanica River flows through the Centre and is crossed by several foot bridges and lined by innumerable bars and cafes on both banks.

View of part of the Old Town from atop the castle.

Last weekend I took the bus out to the nearby town of Bled to check out the lake and castle which together make up one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country.  It ended up being a great day to go as it was one of the rare sunny days I've had over my time here and I got to use my new camera and took some good pictures of the impressive castle and the nice scenery.

The church on the small island in the middle of the lake.

The impressive castle on the sheer cliff overlooking the lake.

So yeah.  Other than these few touristy things i've just been busy getting settled and adjusting to school and life in Slovenia.  Having classes with people from all over the world, while interesting isn't exactly new to me thanks to my time going to school in Kuwait.  Even UBCO for that matter has a fairly diverse population.  The overwhelming majority of the other international students are from other European countries and are here on what is called an 'Erasmus' exchange.  It is a program where citizens of European countries get government funding to do a semester in another EU country.  While just about everyone I've talked to tells me that Ljubljana was not their first choice (everyone wants to go to Rome, Paris, London, etc) they all seem to have a positive attitude towards being here and aim to have a good time regardless.

I guess thats all for now.  I'm not sure what i'll use the blog for or how often I'll post, but I think I can set it up so that you can subscribe to get email notifications when I do make a post.  Also, feel free to comment and know that even If i don't reply your comments will not go unnoticed nor unappreciated.

Thanks for reading!
Mitch