Paris

I've been back at school for awhile now, but I thought I'd write posts about my trip to France and Italy. I'll start with my trip to France. Favoring Italy over France, my mom and I allocated less time to look around France. So, we pretty much stayed in Paris for the majority of the time we were there.

Paris was nice and really clean. We took a quick boat tour on the first day.

Finally got to see the Eiffel Tower! Though it would've been nice, we didn't actually have time to go up there. But I got to stand under the tower.

The fact that you could see the tower from just about anywhere in Paris helped me to realize the magnitude of it. 

Contrary to my expectations, I didn't really fall in love with the place. It was an impressive city by all means, but I didn't feel an emotional connection with the place. But I did love the ceiling art in France far more than the ones I saw in Italy. We were so pressed on time that, I probably didn't have time to enjoy the place. I hope I have a chance in the near future to travel back there.

Went up the Arc de Triomphe. The view was amazing. It was awesome to see all the streets stretch out from the arc. 

    

   

We visited the Louvre Museum 

    

(My mom enjoying Pygmalion et Gelatée, 1819)

I was looking at this painting and fell in love with the sandles. 

   

and the Palace of Versailles. Though both places were incredible, I preferred the design of Louvre over Versailles. 

    

Right after Versailles, we headed over to take a quick tour of the Notre-Dame Cathedral. The details were incredible. 

    

We also visited Monet's house and Le Mont-Saint-Michel. I'm not a big fan of Monet's paintings, but we just didn't have the time to go all they way to van Gogh's town (it was sad, 'cause my mom LOVES van Gogh). But it was nice seeing Monet's beautiful garden.

    

Le Mont-Saint-Michel reminded me of the castle from one of Miyazaki's animations. I heard that he actually used this as a model for one of his animations. Anyway, the place had a great view and looked so magical. 

    

Well, that's the gist of my trip to Paris. Will update about Italy soon.

Linda

Last night in Novo mesto

Zdravo! (means Hi)

Tonight is my last night in Novo mesto. The two and a half months have flew by. I can't believe it's already time to go. I'm really going to miss Novo mesto, Hostel Situla, and, of course, everyone I worked with all summer. Thank you, everyone for being so wonderful and friendly! Tomorrow morning, I'll be heading to Ljubljana, and early Monday morning I'll be taking off. 

I've truly had an amazing experience here. Slovenia is a beautiful place, and it's a shame that it is not yet well known. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to come back soon. I would very much like to get a better look at Novo mesto and Ljubljana. I saw photos of Piran (by the seaside) and Bled (by the alps), and they were sooo amazing. I didn't have time to visit those areas this summer, but they are now definitely on my list of places I would like to visit in the future.  

I started getting used to the Slovenian keyboard, so I keep making mistakes. On the Slovenian keyboard, the "Y" and the "Z" are switched (along with alot of other differences), so I keep switching the two letters. 

There was a jazz festival this week. The festival, called Jazzinty, is a workshop/festival where students can learn from mentors (famous jazz musicians) during the day and and hold jam sessions every night (and a final concert at the end) to show off what they have learned. Most (if not all) of the participants and the mentors are staying at our hostel. I went to two of the jam sessions with my coworkers and had some drinks and enjoyed my last few days in Novo mesto. 

    

Photos came out fuzzy....

One of my favorite things about Novo mesto was the Krka River. It looked so peaceful. I frequently took walks along the river (in my futile attempt to lose weight...)... I'm going to miss doing that... 

   

     

While working at the reception desk and at the restaurant/bar, I have picked up some Slovenian words. Apparently, Slovenian is very complicated... (for instance, there are separate grammar rules for when the subject is composed of two people). Anyway, here are some words/phrases I have learned/found useful during work:

1. Zdravo = Hi

2. Adijo/Svidenje = Bye/Goodbye

3. Prosim = Please

4. Lahko počakate trenutek? = Can you wait one moment?

5. Hvala/ Hvala lepa = Thank you/Thank you very much

6. Moje ime je Linda = My name is Linda

I know several more, but I'll stop here. :)

I'm so happy and grateful that I got a chance to go abroad. I've so wanted to come to Europe before I graduated, and I still can't believe my wish came true. I'm going back home with lots of wonderful memories, new friendships, and new hopes. 

Adijo, Novo mesto! I hope to see you again soon!

Katja's family vineyard

I accidentally pressed some button halfway through writing this post and everything got deleted. This happened during my last post... SO ANNOYING. It's more aggravating to know that I have no idea what button I pressed. Anyway, I'm going to take a deep breath and start over. Need to establish the habbit of pressing the damn "Save Now" button. 

Anyway. Katja and I stopped by the Šmarješke Spa (famous spa resort in Novo mesto) just before arriving at Katja's family vineyard. We walked around the garden surrounding the spa and had ice cream and drinks at a nearby cafe. There was a small pond that was filled with Indian lotuses. Such pretty flowers!

  

After our quick rest at the spa, we headed on over to the vineyard. Apparently, most families own vineyards/weekend homes. Wish my family had a vineyard we could escape to during the weekends. I didn't actually get to go down to the vineyard, but had a good look at it from the balcony.  

   

Below is a picture of a mini wooden train that they use to easily ambulate through the vineyard. I guess it's not visible from the photo, but the green rail stretches all the way to the bottom. It looked like a small roller coaster ride. 

Katja's family's weekend home was a charming place, built on a hill overlooking their vineyard (Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the actual house...). The view from the balcony was incredibly picturesque. I could see all the neighboring vineyards and all the nearby towns. You could also see the grand, mountain-like hill that served as a border between Slovenia and Croatia.  

   

Cviček (shown in photo) is a very famous wine produced in the Lower Carniola region of Slovenia (and Novo mesto is one of the towns in that region). 

   

   

Lastly, we visted the town's church. Each town (with exceptions of very small towns) has its own church. The church had already closed for the day, so I didn't get to take a look inside. So, we just sat down and took in the amazing view.

All in all, it was a great day. Hvala, Katja, for a wonderful day!

Adijo (bye), Linda

Castle Otočec

Katja, my coworker, took me around to show me a bit about what Novo mesto is about. First, we visited Castle Otočec (pronounced otoshets). It's a castle turned into a five star hotel. As you can see below, the castle is surrounded by the Kirka River. It was really beautiful and relaxing. 

         

      

While crossing the bridge, we spotted an adorable swan family.

   

You can't tell from the photo (below), but there was big group of swans at the far end of the river. It sorta reminded me of swan scene from The Notebook. 

After walking around along the path by the river, we decided to take a look inside the hotel. The hotel was going through some renovations in the garden to set up an outdoor bar. So, we quickly took a look around and left for our next destination~ 

   

-Linda :)

FOTOS Para Ti

Pictures Finally, JAcked them from other people. Jaja. the bottom pictures is the view from the plane. The lake picture is from the beach Algarrobo, where we went for Orientation. The one with the people is the school, Campus Oriente, where we are doing our intensive language program.