Switzerland.

As in every spring break before I went to Switzerland in spring 2011. It was a bit more technical trip, but because engineering is on list of my interests this wasn’t so bad for me. So our main goals was to taste some Swiss chocolate, try their cheese, and visit one of the biggest science laboratories in the world.

(Day 1 28^th of April 2011)Our trip started with bus, trough Slovenia to Italy and then trough Eurotunnel to France. This was my first time traveling through tunnel from Italy to France, all the way under the massive Alps. When we came out in France on the other side, we started our way to the city where the all-known collider is – Geneva. Firstly we had a short movie that showed us history of collider, and how it operates. Then we took a short walk to Atlas, which is a detector, which measures all the parts that are formed in high speed collision. There we saw the control room, that’s stuffed with computers and different devices, which are shoving different data to scientists there.  After Atlas we went to the facility where they are testing pipes in which the parts are traveling at speed of light. Again that was a lot of interesting information. 

Our next stop was Luzern. That’s the city where spent the night. We ended first day with nice walk by the lake in Luzern. (Day 2 – 29^th of April 2011) In the morning we went to a famous ski resort – Wengen. There is only one way to go up there, and it’s by train. We took the famous European “tooth” rail that took us strait up the hill. There are some amazing views on the way up. But when you come up there you cannot believe that there is a whole town standing. The rail road goes even higher, all the way to Juhgfraujoch (3454m / 11333ft). This makes it the highest railroad in Europe.  Later that day we also visited Bern, the capital of Switzerland. We took a look of their famous bears, some city infrastructure, and a house of Albert Einstein. I touched his working desk; some say that touching it makes you understand physics and math more, so let’s hope it works. After Bern, we took a bus back to Luzern, to spend another night in a hostel. On our way there we also stopped in an old cheese factory and tried some of original Swiss cheese.

Day 3 (30^th of April 2011). It was all the same in the morning, after a nice Swiss breakfast, we took a bus, only this time our destination was Zürich. The biggest and I think also most important city for Switzerland. In Zürich we had a lot of site seeing, we took a short walk by the river and then we went up the hill to a small park, where there was a beautiful panorama of the city. After that we went to the city train station, where we got an hour of free time. Everybody spent it differently, to be honest I used that time to grab a beer with friends, since it was legal there to order a beer if you are 16. So after that we again retuned to the Luzern and had a city tour. So I finally got to know the city I was living in it for 3 days. The biggest impression on me certainly did the old wooden bridge.

(Day 4 – 1^st of May 2011) And there it was, the day of returning home, on our way through the Alps we stopped in a chocolate factory and in Lugano, another city near to Italian border. After that it was just straight to my bed.

Mostar, Sarajevo

Famous bridge in Mostar

So my traveling in 2011 continued in March. It was a school trip to Bosnia. More accurately to Mostar and Sarajevo. The path took us through Croatia to Bosnia, where we firs stopped in Međugorje. That’s a small town in Bosnia where they believe Virgin Mary revealed itself. So many Christian believers make pilgrimages there. After that we visited a city Mostar. It’s famous by its large bridge over the river Neretva, and by the divers that are jumping from that bridge to the water. This place survived allot of wars between nations that lived there in past, so it has many consequences of the war. Crashed buildings are very easy to find there. After Mostar we went to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. We arrived there in late afternoon so we only did a quick bus tour around the city before checking in in the hotel.

Visit to the Bosnian house.

In the morning we went to see the tunnels that were built during the war in nineties. Trough that tunnel they smuggled food and weapons to the city, because it was totally surrounded by Serbian soldiers. After that we went in to the center of the city, where we visited typical Bosnian house, a mosque, and a store with traditional Balkan food called Čevapčiči. We have that food in Slovenia to, but it’s just not as good as it’s there.

That was pretty much everything, because the trip was only two days long with bus drives included, but even if it was short, I again enjoyed traveling on Balkan. 

Entering 2011 – Spain.

Cartagena - panorama picture

2011 is the year of traveling.  I started in January when I went to Spain; it was actually the next part of youth in action exchange that started in Poland. 

This was one very interesting travel with foul of complications. They started on our way there. We had our flight’s booked from Venice to Madrid and then from Madrid to Alicante. Because of poor weather conditions our first flight was delayed, and made us late for out next flight.  So after waiting for whole day in Madrid we finally got to our flight to Alicante and arrived there around 11pm. But the bus from there stops to drive to the city of Murcia at 8pm. So we could get to Murcia, where our hotel was, till next morning. But thanks to our great team, we putted together our money and renter a car. I had navigation system on my mobile and got us to the door of our hotel. 

So that’s how our trip started.  We were staying in very nice hotel, in very center in Murcia. Nice city in south of Spain. Topic there was very similar that in Poland. We were talking about inactivity on European youth. And found some problems that are in giving them information’s, and something to encourage them to become volunteers or something similar. 

We also got to see the town Cartagena, and off course Murcia, several times.  After all this there was still the third part of this exchange witch should take part in Slovenia. But because of some lack of communication I wasn’t informed about it.

My first youth in action experience

Nasutow

Youth in action is an organization that does youth exchanges, programs and all other similar things. Everything is sponsored by European Union. So that includes staying, food, and 70% of traveling costs. So all a participant has to pay is 30% of train, bus or plane ticket and his own spending’s on a trip. 

Main bulding

So my first experience with this organization was when I went to Poland, in november 2010, on a youth exchange titled »Active youth in adult world«. We were doing some researches with polls in our local communities, and then present them to other participant countries, that were Poland and Spain.  On our seminars we tried to find solutions to our problems. In Poland we focused on youth unemployment after finishing schooling, and question if is dialog with politicians and youth possible.  

Palace in Warsaw

Team in Lublin

So program activities took places in small village called Nasutow near city Lublin in Poland.  This is a very nice place, build in the way the old polish farms were build.  Now it has a purpose to host programs like ours was.

So besides living in these nice houses we also got to see city of Lublin, tried their warm beer, which has nice taste.  And on our last day of traveling we also got to see Poland’s capital Warsaw.  We went there on our last day in the morning by bus, and did some site seeing till our late departure. We went on top of the biggest building in Poland and enjoyed the view over the city.

A traditional spring break trip – Italy

Inside the coliseum.

My school usually organizes trips in spring break, so that’s why this one can be called traditional. Last year I went to Paris and this year (2010) I went in to Rome, Italy. Trip was by bus again, but this time it was not so hard because Italy is right next to Slovenia, so the drive was quite short, comparing the one to Paris.  Included in this trip was also the visiting of the Napoli, and volcano next to it that is called Vesuvius.

So our trip started from Slovenia, to the border with Italy and then right to the city Rome. There we used metro to get in to the city center. We saw the coliseum, old roman forum square, and all the other ancient buildings that are there. There really is no sense to write them all down.  We spent sightseeing most of the day. At the end of the day we went to the small city, witch name I really don’t remember, that was on the half way from Rome to Napoli, where we spent our first night.

City Pompeii

Picture with old crater behind.

The next morning we went to the Napoli. We started our day at dead city Pompeii. That was the thing that I most liked in the whole trip. I was surprised how developed the citizens of Pompeii were. That kind of landmark, with a great tour guy, can really make your day better. Really there is a sad story about this great city, that it was destroyed in a massive volcano accident. The ashes from volcano and parts that flew on the city buried it all. So all the tourist can see today had to be dug out again.  To understand the disaster more we went on the volcano to see the old crater, and its remains.

Route to the volcano was steep and very hard for the bus. When we came to the place from where we should walk on, we find out that the track to the top is closed due to rain that damaged the track last night. So we had to go back down. On our way back to city Napoli, we stopped the bus at one place from where you can see the old crater.

Coast in Napoli

We finished that day with the tour of Napoli, and after that we went to our hotel again. In the morning of third day we went back home, we stopped in one city on our way, but his name also jumped out of my head already. 

The first Balkan experience!

Skopje

As the title says, the next trip was my first real Balkan experience. It was a school trip again, as a part of recycling project we traveled to Macedonia.  More precisely, it was an exchange program, se we were returning a visit to our friends in Skopje that traveled in to Slovenia some moths before.  The exchange happened during my winter school brake in 2010. So I went to Macedonia in the last week of February. There was another exciting thing about this trip. This was the first time for me to travel with an airplane. But I consider myself as a person who loves adrenalin and stuff like this so the flight was nothing to me.  

Ohrid

When we arrived in to the Macedonian capital, Skopje, our host families were expecting us already.  Mostly through the week we did some training courses about recycling in local high school. (Gimnazija Josip Broz Tito-Skopje). We also did some site seeing around the town, got familiar with their culture, and spend some free time with our host families.  One day we went to the Macedonian biggest tourist place; Ohrid Lake. Now I know why it’s called the Macedonian pearl. It’s just totally different from the rest of the country. Everything is so clean and tidy; we visited one of the churches near the lake.  After spending the night at one of the hotels we went back to Skopje where we had our final event at the ending of our project.

Departure from Skopje to Ljubljana

When returning home, I can tell you that hospitality on the Balkan is just great. I learned one thing that you should remember when traveling there. Your host will give you everything that he has, even if he’s poor, and everything you are given from them you should accept and appreciate. I just adore their hospitality.  So thank you Adam Gligoroski.

City of love.

Houses in Strasbourg ( picture is symbolic)

That’s what we’re going to call my second big trip. It was a school trip to Paris – city of love as many of you could call it. This trip was little bit longer than previous to Brussels; it lasted for a whole week, so five days all together.  A trip took place in my spring break in May 2009, so quite fast after the first one.

Elfel tower (picture is symbolic)

The whole trip was by bus. I know, that sounds awful. And driving from Slovenia to Paris really was hard. Luckily we had some sightseeing plans on our way to Paris. Our first stop just as we came out of Germany was the city Strasbourg. Very important city for European Union.  There is a “second” European parliament in Strasbourg. Of course city itself has a lot more to offer that just parliament. Just the style in which the city was built in is very special, for me it looked like that old German style with a lot of wooden decorations.  After Strasbourg we also visited the region Champagne, the place where real French champagne in made. Of course testing champagne was included, but not for me, I was underage.

Versailes ( picture is symbolic)

About the Paris I wound be able to tell you every single detail what have we seen, because it’s just too long ago to remember. Our trip started at Versailles, the mansion build my Ludwig XIV. One amazing building if you ask me. It is huge. With all those gardens and other places it’s bigger than my home town. Seriously.  After Versailles it was four days of Paris, visiting everything. Form Eifel tower, its huge and beautiful too, to all the museums, if you are wondering, yes I got lost in the Louvre museum. I saw the Mona Lisa picture, and my opinion was “it’s so small!”  After seeing all the churches, and parks, visited numerous French restaurants, we went to Disney land for the last day. I finally saw Mickey, he waved to me. It would be much better if I would be there 10 years earlier or maybe not because I would probably get a heath attack of all that stuff.

Louvre (picture is symbolic)

That’s all I remember right now, on our way back, there were no major stop overs so I tried to sleep most of the time, and I somehow succeeded. And now when I think back that I have already been to Paris, it just doesn’t sound real; I bet I was too young to realize where I have been. 

Sorry I just didn't find pictures so all of the pictures are sybolic and taken from the Google.