Here’s a test to see how to put pictures in the blog:
This guy is Prešeren. He is a poet.
Sreda, julij 12, 2006 – Picture Test
Month: July 2006
Sabota, julij 08, 2006 – An outing to Štajerska
This weekend we had an excursion to the Štajerska region. Štajerska lies primarily to the east of Ljubljana and its largest city is the ancient provincial capital of Celje, where we began out journey. Traveling by bus we passed by many farms growing hops for beer. Apparently hops is big business in Slovenija and the quality is reportedly very high.
After about a forty-five minute drive we arrived in Celje and headed straight for the castle above the town. The counts of Celje ruled Štajerska for several centuries and at one time their power rivaled that of the up and coming Hapsburgs. The dominion of the counts (later raised to Dukes and then Princes) is memorialized on the Slovene coat of arms in the three stars above the silhouette of Triglav mountain. 
The emblem of the counts was this three star motif. But Celje’s history is much older than that. Celje was first settled by the Romans who named the town Celia. At the castle we were greeted by a woman impersonating Barbara a famous countess of the realm. The view from the castle is impressive but unfortunately the castle in in the middle of renovation and our busy schedule did not permit us to visit the museum.
So it was back onto the but for a trip to the glass factory, … . The factory produces fine (and expensive) glass and leaded crystal. We saw men blowing glass goblets. OSHA would have had a field day. These guys were wearing nothing but shorts and flip flop while they handled the molten glass. Most of them were smoking while they blew the glass and none of them ever put down their cigarettes, no matter what they were doing.
Next on the agenda was lunch at a wine vineyard in … . Until now we had been pretty much your typical annoying tourists, getting on and off a bus, taking in only a cursory look at things. In that way it had been somewhat disappointing since I think most of us were here specifically not to be your stereotypical tourists. We had a typical traditional Štajerska lunch beginning with a delicious mushroom soup, followed by roast pork, potatoes and vegetables. Along with the meal we had refreshing local wine. The restaurant was in the middle of the vineyards and the view was magnificent. This was definitely the best part of the day so far.
After lunch it was off to the thermal springs of … . A bit of a disappointment since the springs are basically a pool that happens to be filled with water that comes from a thermal spring. But it was hot and the swim, was refreshing. (Unfortunately by compact, our mutual vanity precluded any us from taking any pictures.)
Our last stop was the old Carthusian monastery at Ž… . Although it was the first Carthusian monastery located outside of France and was for a time the home of the prior of the order, it has long since been abandoned. (There is a Carthusian monastery that is still functioning in the country and I hope to visit it.)
The monastery is slowly being restored today and the medicinal herbal schnapps that made the monastery famous are stil produced here. We were treated to a tour of the monastery and then a sampling of various schnapps. The monastery is situated in an isolated and steep valley surrounded by forests. It is extremely quiet and peaceful so it is obvious why the monks chose this location. This was the highlight of the trip. I wish I could have stayed here a bit longer.
Ponedeljek, julij 03, 2006 First Day of School
School starts at 9:00 AM and goes until 12:30 with a half hour brake in the middle. I am in the first level class, i.e. the class for those who have absolutely no previous exposure to the language. Our teacher is Marjana Lavrič, a very pleasant woman who very much appears to enjoy what she is doing. She has a way of adding a lot of energy into the class and I am looking forward to the weeks to come even more now. The class is composed of eleven students with varying knowledge of foreign languages.
Although we are all starting off in the same boat, it is clear that there are varying comfort levels in the class. Those who know at least one foreign language or have at least studied a foreign language seriously seem to have a major advantage. Those who have not appear to struggle immediately. It is an interesting and very sad commentary on the American education system that the majority of those having problems in the class are Americans. Some students, although they may be putting the most effort into the class are also the ones having the hardest time.
The class is an balance of vocabulary, grammar and conversation. Slovene is basically an inflected language, meaning that there are lots of “endings” to words, word order is a little more relaxed, and in translation many English words (such as the subject of a sentence) are implied.
One interesting peculiarity of Slovene is the existence of a “dual” number. In most languages one has singular and plural forms of words (man – men, cup – cups, octopus – octopi) Slovene has and additional form for when you are speaking of precisely two of something. (This is a form that has dropped out of almost every other language today. It is an extremely rare.) For this reason Slovene is sometimes described as a “language or intimacy” since there is a whole different construction for saying we, i.e. “you and I” do something as opposed to we, “all of us” do something. One can readily see that this naturally lends itself to certain poetry and prose (especially love poetry and romantic prose) that cannot be easily or accurately translated into another language.
Nedelja, julij 02, 2006 A new home
So today I moved out of the Pri Mraku hotel into the Dijaške Dom Poljane, my new home for the next four weeks. But first mass at the baroque church down the block (sv. Jakob.) I didn’t understand a word. The teacher is really going to have her work cut out for her. I then checked out the sunday antique market. There are merchants all up and down the Ljubljanica peddling “stuff” (some interesting, some not so interesting.)
The dormatory is about a 15 minute walk from the town center. As one would expect with a dormatory, it is spartan but also clean and adequate. I checked in, unpacked, took a short rest and then went down to dinner. Unfortunately there is no internet connection at the dorm. (Or perhaps fortunately there isn’t one!)
The students are of all ages and from all over the world: Germany, Austria, France, Macedonia, Sweden, The Netherlands, Australia, Finland, England, USA etc. After a light supper a couple of us decided to go back into town to get to know one another. People are taking this course for many different reasons, some for job opportunities, others are married to Slovenes and many (especially those from North American) are here to learn a bit about their roots. Everybody I met has been very pleasant. After a few beers it felt like we had all known one another for a long time. I am looking forward to class!