EEET2012 – Day 19 – Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia. You’d think it’s big right? Well… 220 000 inhabitants. That’s not much. That’s quite little actually… On Friday night, after arriving from Munich and Salzburg we went straight (or as straight as we could: luggage, not knowing the directions and a couple of beers later) to the Dic Hostel where we both fell asleep right away. On Saturday we got up around 9.30A.M. to have breakfast and then go to the city centre for another Free Walking Tour. I don’t know who invented this system, but the guy was a genius. Basically, a guide walks a group of people around the city. After the tour he just puts his hat, a bag or something down and if you think he did a good work, you can pay him whatever you want. This is perfect for people with a little budget and the guide needs to be very entertaining and funny to persue people to pay him more.

The guide told us all about Ljubljana and Slovenian history (I know even know where the name Tito comes from!) and learned us that basically one guy was responsible for the whole development of the infrastructure of this city: Unfortunately I have already forgotten his name. The only thing I remember is that he like pillars. There are tons of them all over the city…

After the guided tour we went to a supermarket and had lunch. At that point it started raining. Not just raining but really raining It rained for about 4hours straight. We had planned to go to the castle, on top of a mountain right next to the centre of the city, but it was just raining too hard. Instead we went to the bus and train station and organized our trip to Pula the next day. As on Monday, the day after that, we had to pick up our girlfriends from the airport there.

We tried to find an activity which could be combined with the trip to Pula but to be honest. The main train station office, the main information office and the main bus station office were all as unknowing as a child when it came to international trips or travels. So after some hesitating we simply booked a bus straight to Pula and stayed there for a night in order to be on time for the girls to arrive.

On the way back to the hostel, it was still raining, we bought a typical Slovenian dish called barvu(orsomethinglikethat), which we didn’t really like to be honest. Back in the hostel I started organizing the next few days in Croatia and although we don’t really know exactly what we’ll do, I have some ideas already which will prove to be helpful in the following days, I hope.

We went to bed and the next day we took the bus from Ljubljana to Pula at 9.30A.M. That’s exactly where I am writing this post now. I am sitting in a small bus, with 29 seets. Toon is on the seat behind me, as a lot of people (the bus wasn’t even half full though) have already left at other stops. We will arrive in Pula in about half an hour and I will try to put this post, just like the Salzburg one, online as fast as possible. Actually, me writing this is quite useless because if you are reading this, it probably means that I found a wifi spot and posted my experiences already. That’s it for Slovenia, it was barely 36 hours, but we had to keep on moving. Next stop: Croatia!

peace out_

Toon&Thibault

EEET2012 – Day 0

This. Is. It.

Now this is not ‘It’, the famous last shows supposed to be presented by Michael Jackson, before he died, this is something way different.

This is the start of the EEET 2012.

What-the-fuck is that, I hear you say?

EEET 2012 stands for: Eastern Europe Eurail Trip 2012.   

Stuff to be packed.

A 27-day trip, on 2 planes, through (at least) 5 countries, (at least) 12 cities, on (at least) 12 trains and without a doubt endless experiences, meetings and stories to be told after this life changing event.  Well, life changing… Will it be? I don’t really know. Let’s be honest here, I’ve already travelled through 21 countries during my 21 years on this planet called Earth. I’ve had plenty of experiences, meetings and story-telling. My goal to visit at least 50 countries before I die is almost in its half. After July 2012, it will actually be over its half. Maybe I should adjust my dream... But let’s just see where we are when we reach 45 countries, right?

Enough said about how fabulous I am, how great my life is and how amazing the people I meet and make friends with are or have been. Let us look at the future... what will tomorrow bring?  No one knows. The only thing I know is that tomorrow, July 3^rd 2012, I’ll be leaving, together with Toon, one of my best friends, and Liesbeth, my girlfriend on a trip to Eastern Europe.  We’ll be going here:

The Trip.

Leaving by Ryanair from Eindhoven (NL) to Gdansk (Poland), heading for the Heineken Open'er Festival, meeting all my Polish Erasmus friends in Warsaw, Poznan –where German Mädchen Anja and Spanish chica  Laura will join us- and Krakow, travelling through the Czech Republic, meeting some of my best Argentinean friends and my German Erasmus roommate in Munich, travelling through Austria and Slovenia before enjoying a last week in Croatia visiting nice cities, beaches and hopefully with the occasional party.

I decided to do this trip after missing a visit to Argentina in January and after failing to find an internship in the United States this semester.  This trip is more or less as well the conclusion of my Bachelor studies of Business management with minor Marketing and Spanish at the Catholic College of Leuven, of which I graduated June 2012.

What’s next? What will the future bring? Where will I end up? Honestly, I don’t really care at the moment. The only thing I am going to do the next few weeks is enjoying my trip, enjoying my companions and trying to discover as many new things as I can: Europe’s biggest wooden pier, the world’s best know concentration camp, Croatia’s most beautiful cities… I’ll enjoy them all in different way.

For my followers or casual readers, I will try to update my blog as often as possible. I don’t know whether I’ll have internet every day, every other day or even once a week. But you may be sure that I’ll write down as much as I can, to keep you updated, to maintain the memories for me and also a bit to make y’all jealous! Haha

Let’s just say it the way it is: IT’S ON!