Welcome to Slovenia 🇸🇮

· 5 min read

Two and a half months ago I moved to Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, where I’m spending two semesters studying abroad. It’s a pretty amazing journey so far. At this point I’ve transitioned quite a bit already from tourist to my definition of a local. During September and most of October I was in vacation mode and went on trips to the mountains pretty much every weekend. During the week I took a language course in September and in October classes at Univerza v Ljubljani started, but there was still time left to explore the hills surrounding Ljubljana with my road bike. Currently the ubiquitous November fog keeps a tight grip on the city, but soon the Christmas lights are going to lighten the mood:)

I’ve got lots of things to look back on already, but there’s even more to come. Here’s a collection of general infos and my experiences so far:

The Country

Slovenia is relatively small (from Ljubljana the whole country is reachable within 2-3 hrs by car), but very neatly situated between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia: Slovenia has it’s own share of the Alps as well as a short coastline at the adriatic sea. It’s also famous for having lots of Caves. Everything except the northeast of the country is quite hilly and about two thirds of Slovenia is covered by forests. It’s pretty cool to have alpine mountains as well as the coast in such small proximity, while at the same time living in a very nice city.

The City

In short, Ljubljana is one of the best cities I’ve ever been to. The highlights include:

  • Beautiful old town / city centre with a large pedestrian area
  • Very international cuisine
  • A river through the city
  • Surrounded by mountains => great views in all directions
  • Multiple viewpoints with an overview of the city
  • Very bikefriendly

Ljubljana also has a bike sharing system, but as far as I’ve seen (and without having used it myself) it’s just nice to have and nothing to rely on: Bikes can only be picked up and returned to specific stations, so when a station is empty you can’t pick up a bike and when a station is full you can’t return it, but have to go to the next nearby station. I like Karlsruhe’s NextBikes much better, which I can just leave and pick up anywhere.

Daily Life

I live right next to the city center in a shared apartment on the 7th floor and I don’t think the location could be much better. Everything that’s in the city center I can do on foot. The Computer Science faculty (FRI) is a 4km bike ride away, but my route goes right through some of the prettiest parts of the city, namely Prešeren Square and Congress Square. Something that was novel for me was that cyclists just casually cruise and zigzag through the pedestrian-filled city center - nothing like in a German FuĂźgängerzone.

All my classes take place at FRI (Fakulteta za Računalništvo in Informatiko) which is housed in a quite modern building and shares another building with the Faculty of Chemistry. Lectures are usually 3 hours long, but the first 15 minutes of every hour are a break, which I actually enjoy more than a 90 minute lecture without a break.

After a successful 10km race at Ljubljana Marathon I also joined a track running team. I’m really looking forward to running some races on the track next year!

One of the best things that come with being a student in Ljubljana is the student boni system. Students get a large discount at lots of restaurants and usually the meal also includes a small soup and salad. The meal must not cost more than 4,90€ for the student (5,90€ starting 2023) and the rest is paid by the government. Most of the time the price is anywhere between 3,50€ and 4,20€ though.

The Language

First of all, both Slovene and Slovenian are correct (I myself prefer Slovene). Before coming to Slovenia my motivation for learning the language was very high. It wasn’t easy, however, to find good (and free) resources online for learning the language. First, I learned the days of the week, the numbers and other small bits and pieces of vocab and grammar with youtube videos and then I found exactly 3 flash card decks on AnkiWeb for Slovene. Over the Summer I went through one and a half of them, which amounted to about 300-400 words and phrases, of which I could actively recall maybe 100. While the pronunciation of single letters is quite straight forward with very few exceptions, it is difficult to know which syllable is stressed in a word. I wasn’t able to find an easy to use Slovene text-to-speech tool, so it was good to learn some pronunciation in the 3 week language course that I took in September. The course also gave me a good introduction to the grammar, as well as 3 hours of daily exposure to the language.

Now I don’t have 3 hours of daily exposure to Slovene, but I can order at a restaurant, arrange a meeting with friends, and formulate some random sentences here and there. My motivation to learn is still high, but currently it’s not so easy to incorporate into daily life.

Random facts about Slovene:

  • Slovene has only 3 tenses: Past, Present and Future
  • To make up for this, most verbs have two versions to distinguish among other things between progressive and perfect actions
  • Slovene verbs have dual forms (in addition to singular and plural) for specifically two persons, i.e. “the two of us/you/them”
  • Slovene has 3 genders, but most of the time it’s very easy to guess the correct one

The Mountains and Lakes

I have yet to visit the slovenian coast, a cave or even a neighbouring country. But I have spent a lot of time in the mountains or on the bike or both. Trips I’ve done so far include:

  • Canyoning in Bovec
  • Rafting in the SoÄŤa
  • Hike to Hochstuhl
  • Daytrip to Lake Bled and Vintgar Gorge
  • 2 Bikepacking Trips to Mozirje and Lake Bohinj
  • Via Ferata in the Julian Alps
  • 2 Day Hike to Krn
  • Cycling up VršiÄŤ and Mangart