Författare: eena17a

Day 5: A Day to Remember

Today was the last day of our trip and we woke up to One Direction so we knew this was going to be a good day. We went down and have a good breakfast as usual and took the bus to the school one last time.

We got to school and was greated by our Slovenian friends, we got together in our groups again and started with working on our panels of invasive species. Each group received one IAS to work with so we started working together as separate units on the computers.   

When the groups had finished their task and goal we all went outside to the entrance of the school and everybody ate apples and pieces of cake. 

Later we returned to school and joined everybody in the PE hall. First, we all received a paper and a pencil and we got the task to first draw a picture of ourselves, the second was our best memory in Slovenia, the third what was best in the entire Erasmus and the last was simply to write our names. Thereafter the Slovenian leader students took our pictures and mixed them all together, there on we received one random paper and had to present the person and ask a question. 

When the questions were finished that we were soon going to take part in the traditional dance of the country-side in Slovenia. Half of the participating countries got paper where there were names which was the Slovenian partner each one of us was going to dance with. So everybody had a dance partner, first we just trained the simple technics so everybody understood the basic moves. A little time later we did a dance competition against one another around a circle made of chairs. Instead of having a phone with speakers as music the school brought in two students who played the accordion. Nobody knew when the music went completely silent.

We got the sweat and moved to the cafeteria where we had the weekly picture competition in Erasmus. Every student had three votes on 24 alternatives, there was a third, second and a first winner. 

After the competition, it was time to have the official Erasmus ceremony, we got to hear a lovely speech from Christoffer and from the mayor of Naklo. We got our well-deserved certificates and to finish it of Christoffer cut the cake. The cake was delicious and we had a great time. When everybody was full of the lovely cake it was time for the Swedish surprise, Swedish candy! We started with the liquorice and as we went around we got mixed opinions about the taste. Some thought it was quite good and even liked the taste but for the most part it was a mix of disgusted faces, weird noises and comments on how sweats can eat that sort of candy. Then after they had recovered from the experience we brought them the real gems of Swedish candy which brought better reactions from those who tasted it and ss a perfect ending to a great Swedish fika the Belgians brought som delicious Belgian chocolate. We began saying goodbye to our new Slovenian friends and exchanged contact info so we can keep in touch. 

As the last goodbye, we took a group foto to remember this great week we have had. We finished saying goodbye and took the bus to the hotel. It has been an amazing week and an amazing project to be a part of. To contribute to the EU and to the beautiful nature we have in all the countries as been an experience we will never forget and we are endlessly happy for the opportunity that is given to us by the people that make this possible. There is no words to describe what this means to all of us. We can just thank you and make sure that the opportunity and effort doesn’t go to waste.

Slovenia day 2

8th of October 201, Slovenia ERASMUS.

Around seven AM we woke up in a nice hotel room with happy smiles on our faces. We prepared for a beautiful bright day in lovely Slovenia, by taking the elevator to the breakfast. We all ate a big breakfast because we didn´t want to go hungry during the day and the other aspect is that it tasted excellent, especially the bacon and the chocolate serials. When we only had 15 min left we rushed up to the rooms to brush our teeth and we were then by the edge of making it to the bus. 

On the way to the Slovenian Forestry Institute, we observed the wast countryside and saw the beautiful green mountains with there snowy summits. We were fascinated with the vast differences of the terrain to our own at home. At home the are few quick altitude changes and even rarer with that are sharp and pointy, they tend to be flatter like the shell of a  Galapagos tortoise. But here they were seamed to appear from nowhere and go straight up and straight down as if someone had pored the mountain out of a giant bag of dirt. And the speaker began crackling and took us away from the mountains back to the road and onwards to our destination.

Soon we had our first encounter with the alpine forest, the bus arrived a walking distance to the Institute and on the way to the building our teacher took the opportunity to teach us all the species we encounter by the roadside. And by the time we had become experts at identifying the common species of the forest we arrived at our destination. We went into lecture seats and had a very interesting, giving an important lecture of invasive species of the alpine forest. We learnt about different alien species like Japanese knotweed that has infested the forest and is out-competing the local species and brown marmorated stink bug that causes millions of euros in damage to crops every year. 

Then the topic moved over to a very important matter, the prevention and eradication of invasive species. We were taught that many of the invasive plants actually came from gardens and spread from there. We also learnt about the important work the EU project Life Artemis does for the forests. They have created an arsenal of weapons to fight the enemy of the forests and protect them with the help from both other EU countries and every day Slovenians that can report an observation of an invasive plant in minutes with the help with the app the project have develop. And with the help of the neighbouring nations, the have created an alert list of species that could become invasive. This alert list acts as a safety net in the case that one of the species does get invasive they can be easily identified and eradicated. After the lecture, we had at last, a well-deserved snack with some bread with melted cheese on top with an apple to finish it of. 

After some snacking and an interesting conversation about Swedish history with one of the Belgians, it was time to head out for some fieldwork! Our lecturer taught us more on hands about how to identify invasive species. We hade a pleasant walk through the forest learning about different species and taking in the forest. After the lovely forest, we went for some food in the local school cantina for some food and then onwards to the main city of Ljubljana

We walked to Ljubljana centre after we had done the invasive species tur, we walked together and we had a guided tour waiting for us in the middle of a giant square. He informed us a lot about Slovenia’s history, first the Slovenian people were conquered by the Romans during the 200 B.C. We could really see that the city is a roman city by the architecture even though it was originally burned after the Romans we destroyed by barbarians the Huns and Atlas. Even though the great town was gone they “recycled” the materials and build a new one, the one which we have today. 


Later on Charles the great took power over the Franks and made the Holy Roman Empire which included modern Slovenia today. They were forced by law to communicate in german instead of their mother-language, so they were forbidden and their rights were taken away from them. The poor citizens couldn’t understand because the education level wasn’t high and treatment wasn’t fair. It wouldn’t be until the french emperor Napoleon I controlled all of Europe in the 19 century and he laid power over the Slovenians and he actually allowed them to use their language again and as their first language. He also gave them more rights and the citizens got their identity back, on the other one could argue that Napoleon didn’t act all well for the Slovenians because he enlisted plenty of soldiers to his Grand Arme towards Russia and none came back. 

After Napoleon I:s fall the Austrian Hungary empire took back the control and made it law again to speak german. In ww2 they resisted bravely against the overpower germans but it came to a great cost of lives. Yugoslavia was formed when the superpowers carved up Europe between east and west. The state had an election on two alternatives either restore monarchy or a socialist republic. The people who watched the citizens looked after people who wanted to restore the old monarch, it was a lack of freedom in the country because of communism. Yugoslavia was influenced by the soviet but left when Tito had enough, according to the guide he is viewed as both great leaders who made the country modern from his seat in the Serbian capital Belgrade, though the opposition was persecuted by the government.

After the interesting of the cultural and historical perspective of the city, we received spare time and some went to eat kebab and other students were looking for souvenirs. We met later up and went together up to the castle of the capital with a sideways-elevator cause taking the steps would have to take too much time. We had fun at the top by taking more lovely pictures and group photos. Watching the great mountains outside of the city was one of the main sights of the day. 🙂

When we went back to the ground we found a restaurant, everybody ordered pizza and thereafter we moved to the bus station and catch the bus back to our hotel in happily Kranj. 😉