Hello again!

Today was Thursday, our fourth whole day here in beautiful Slovenia. It all started as it usually does, with a huge breakfast buffet, great as always. After breakfast we went to the school by bus, and we were greeted in a classroom by a man in a lab coat. We got divided into our groups whom we now know and love, and three groups went with the laboratory man, and another three with Monika.

We were led into a laboratory where the man who had previously greeted us told us about the uses of the Japanese knotweed. You could tell that he loved what he was doing, and it really caught on in us students. We were told about what you could do with the knotweed, you could eat the stems and it tasted ok apparently but nothing special, and you could use it as dye. We got to pick our own colours and cut the fabric in whichever shape we wanted, Edvard took the opportunity to make a whale. The groups we were in during the dyeing weren’t the same as they usually were, but it was great fun to speak and work together with some people whom you hadn’t spoken that much to before. We’re looking forward to seeing the results tomorrow!

After the knotweed dyeing experience, or vice versa for one half, it was tracking time. Monika told us about the art of tracking animals, and it was more intricate than we thought. There were so many layers to finding out about where an animal has gone and where it’s going. But the two things we were going to focus on today were footprints and faeces.

Now here comes the shitty part… Animal poops! We were asked to match the faeces and prints to each individual animal, it went WAY better than expected for both our groups since we had poop-talented people in both groups. One could say we knew our shit 😉. Monika was extremely knowledgeable and just as the day before we could tell she was interested in everything she was saying. We went out into the woods and looked at badger poop, we picked it up with small chopsticks to put it in a vile of pure ethanol. Most people were disgusted by it, but a select few were brave enough to play the claw machine of poop. Maja found a triturus alpestris, a black salamander with a orange belly, while on poop-scavenging. Edvard and Eric got to use plaster to create paw prints in the mud. Eric’s looked pretty but Edvard’s hadn’t dried yet so hopefully it will be finished tomorrow.

We got back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit before going to the canyon on which the town of Kranj was built. At the canyon we were asked to find any species that were native to all our countries, and there were some spruces, pines, beech trees and alder. While on the trail we joked around with the Portuguese, especially at the end with what we will call the “archaeological excavation”

Today was a great day and we’re sure tomorrow will be as well!

Bye from Maja and Edvard!

Hello!

We woke up at 7 A.M with with a view of the mountains peeking through the blinders. As Edvard went to have a shower, however, there were no towels! After a quick sprint to the lobby the showering was back on track. After the slight inconvenience we were a little bit late to the breakfast, but, it didn’t really matter as there was basically an unlimited supply of bacon and eggs. There was yoghurt, sandwiches and lots of fruits too, something for everyone. After breakfast we went to our rooms once more to finish ourselves up for a day at the school.

We went to the school by bus, as we saw a huge building on top a hill we asked a slovenian girl who sat what it was, appearently it was a hotel looking over the entire green valley inbetween the mountains. Then we arrived at the school, and went into a classroom with chairs in a circle. The icebreaking made us realise that it is not ”Slovenians, Belgians and Portuguise”, they are individuals who we simply haven’t spoken personally to yet.

We got a tour around the school, they showed us the different quirks that it had, like the cute baby cows, their own bees, horses and a complex watering system featuring fish and plants living symbiotic. We got to visit their store filled with the school’s own dairy products, and carefully selected local products fo the students to purchase. We got to experince their canteen, sitting with people from Slovenia and Portugal, talking about our everyday lives and school, we even tried to play some swedish quizes, however, not even us Swedes knew any of the questions 🙂

We went back to the hotel by bus once more using the bus cards that we got in the morning. We went to a local supermarket and bought some snacks inbetween the orientation and school. We went down to the lobby and reunited with our groups that we had during the discussion once more to roam around town. We followed the map we got around the old town to different historic monuments and places, it was supposed to take roughly an hour and a half, however,  we were finished in less than 45 minutes. (We hadn’t told the teachers we had been there the night before 🙂 ) As the teachers arrived we had already gotten to know eachother in the different groups, for instance the guy I (Edvard) had joked around with earlier in school, was in my group and we had a good time the entire day, which continued onto card games that evening.

As dinner came up we were faced with another buffet containing a popular carbonara, ”Belgian fries” and chicken. It seemed that we had really connected to a lot of people, and it was only our first day.

See ya from your friends Edvard and Maja