Rest in peace my dear Erasmus blog

My sweet dear blog, how I abandoned you! Explanation for this horrible act I really don't have. For a longer time I was behind with my post and had/wanted to write about stuff that had happened months ago. For example my xmas trip to Vienna, my Finnish holiday and then my last two months in Ljubljana, including one more adventure to Austria for a skiing trip. I just ran out of time and interest to keep things up, which is sad cause it would be lovely to read about those last days. Especially about the feelings I was going through. Also about what happened after the Erasmus.

I'm a little between if should bring back those happy memories after a year or is there really no point. Then again I always wrote this blog my own enjoyment so I'm free to do what ever (including having a one year brake)

We'll see :)

Ps. I should, shouldn't I? Especially since I should be writing my thesis anyway, this would be so much more fun!!

Memories from Bosnia

I was going through my stuff when I  found these two small receipts full of writing. They were notes that I wrote in Bosnia. I remember writing them when we had just arrived to our hostel in Mostar and everyone else were enjoying their smart phones and wifi. I was writing my thought down to only white paper that I found from purse.

30.11.2013
Bosnia has been quite on adventure. We departed on Friday morning before sunrise and started our journey toward Sarajevo. The closer we got to Bosnia, the more we saw snow. I'm glad they did have snow because otherwise the view would have been miserable. On the side of the road you could see deserted houses, more or less destroyed because of the war.
Bosnian border was actually the most scariest border I have ever been in. Cops and guards were all over the place and our documents were checked twice. No one spoke English but with basic skills on Russian and Slovenian language was helpful.
The landscape itself was beautiful. I hadn't seen snow this year yet so I was super happy! I actually cuite enjoyed feeling the cold on my cheeks.
The drive went almost without any trouble except when we arrived close to Sarajevo. One wrong turn on roundabout led us to traffic jam and the GPS was not helpful. First of all it couldn't find our hostel and second, it navigated us to street which did not exist, the streets were very narrow and the drivers and the people were crazy. There was no traffic rules and for a Finnish girl who is from a country where people follow the traffic rules 100%, it was hard to deal with. After several wrong turns we gave up trying to find the hostel and focused on finding a safe parking lot for our car. I can tell that traveling to Sarajevo with your own car is not the most pleasant option. Finally we found a parking hall with the help of our idiot GPS. The lot seemed safe enough. We esteemed that hostel wasn't that far away. Turned out it was...   
Mostar - Sarajevo

It was fun to read this after such a long time and I just had to write this down so I won't forget it. Next time I will write about my adventures in Vienna vol.1.
xx

The last week before xmas holiday

After stress free weekend at Kranjska Gora, I was not motivated at uni work at all! I thought I was going to die for my one last presentation and 3 assignments. Start of the week was only focusing on Uni and killed my social life for a moment.

On Wednesday I had a happy reunion with Nika! I hadn't seen her in forever since she had been sick. We went for mulled wine together with Phillipp. I have great friends! Maria had also invited me to crazy hair-theme birthday party in Cupiteria and I really really wanted to go! Unfortunately I was not finished with my assignment until 12pm and I gave up. I was pissed off and wrecked because of the work. I really should learn how to start my assignments earlier! I am a horrible roommate since I didn't remember that Dashas birthday was on Thursday not Friday. I didn't realize it until she laughed that her friends from Australia were already wishing happy birthday to her. I sang happy birthday to her after midnight. Chrissy was dear and talked me over to still join them to K4. It was her last night in Ljubljana before she was going back to Germany for xmas holiday. Her best argument was tho that she was wearing a see through shirt!;) That women is one lovely package! And I was so glad I went out. Dancing is the second best way to release stress. Number one is to have sex ofcourse. For my surprise Kenda was also out that night! Its ages that I had partied with her. We send happy birthday photo for her, but her reaction was not as great as we expected. She wanted to come out that night aswell! I felt horrible, I was sure I told her that I was going to K4... I have no idea when did I got home...
Successful night 4/5

Just because it was our last Thursday we had to go to Companieros. We were going to catch the bus together to center with Erika. That pretty Finnish gal was late though(I don't blame her a bit, I'm the one who is ALWAYS late!) and we missed the bus. There is always thing that turns everything better. As I was waiting Erika a guy came to the bus stop and asked something in Slovenes. He wanted to know if the bus had went already and he was willing to share a taxi with us since the next one was coming in half an hour. Great to share the taxi with someone since the taxis are soooooo expensive in Ljubljana(not)! He was going to medicine party at their faculty. Sounded way better than shitty Companieros... Pre drinks and Andreas place and then to everyones number 1 favorite club!
Successful night 3/5

@claire

I was extremely proud of myself the next morning since I actually made it to horse riding! Amazing! Alenka's face was priceless: "What are you doing here??" She had expected to see everyone else but me. I told her my crazy Thursday stories and she couldn't stop laughing and called me horrible. I am, I know it. It felt great to be on the horse again after two weeks brake. God I love riding.
After the lesson Alenka gave me instructions for future: "Ella, now on you are only allowed to drink only two beers Thursday nights, okey?" Yes, Alenka... but she said nothing about wine and vodka ;) Two beers and four shots!

Tonight was the party aka Dasha's I am old-birthday party! I was really looking forward to since I hadn't seen Dasha's friends in such a long time. Dash had bought a lot of wine, Gin for drinks and some salty food. There was no empty seat in our house. The party was great except one down side, everyone spoke in slovenian and ofcourse I don't blame them! Everyone else were Slovenian but me. Dasha was apologizing all the time and told her not to worry, it was still grand :) Later our destination was Metelkova. The moment we reached that great place I cut myself from rest of they party crew and joined the Irish who were out that night(ofcourse) aswell. That night my favorite thing about those lads was that they spoke English! Or close to it at least ;p We just hanged outside, drinking wine and having a laugh. I didn't see Dasha or the other the rest of the night.
Successful night 4/5

Saturday, time to pack my stuff and start my travels toward back to Finland via Vienna. I was going to see Cathy my Austrian sister from NZ'08 after 5 years! I was also going to meet up with Buse(Turkey) who did her AFS exchange in Finland in 2009-10. Hadn't seen her in years ether, it could not wait! And I was going to see Vienna's Christmas markets! One of the tourist sites to see and I have always wanted to experience, but I will go back to that later.
Anyways, the least favorite thing about this day was that I had to pack! That is one thing I really really dislike. How am I supposed to know which cloths I want to wear during my holiday? Arg! I didn't want to take my huge suitcase so I stuffed everything to my small training bag. I managed but I was very late and I barely made the train!
I was so lucky that I didn't have to travel alone tho. The Mouldy Crew aka the Irish Rachel, Gilly, Sam and Jordan were on the same train to Vienna. They were starting their Christmas holiday rail through Europe: Vienna-Praha-Bratislava-Budapest. Conor was the only one who was missing but he was going to join them later in Bratislava. Anyway I joined the lads to their train cabin. It was just like the one in Harry Potter, haha! On our way to Hogwarts then. The train trip toke over all around 6 hours. Original plan was to drink the whole way to Vienna but everyone were more or less wrecked and were just hanging and laying around. Jordan was the only one who almost finished his vodka bottle on the way.
The last an hour a half our cabin turned to a club. The lads had brought speakers, and two disco light, it was awesome! Got to love these people.
Cathy was waiting for me on the train station and I literally screamed when I saw her! I said good byes for the lads. I was not convinced at all that they were going survive their trip alive...

@jordan

I'm in Vienna with my Cathy!!

Never going back to Kranjska Gora

Kranjska Gora...probably one of the most craziest weekend I have had in Slovenia!

The trip was organized by our schools student union or what ever. A weekend trip to ski resort Kranjska Gora. I hadn't been skiing this year yet so I was very excited! Also knowing that there was going to be 3 buses full of erasmus students was predicting no good.

I woke up after crazy companieros xmas party night to a phone call from Jules. "Ella are you sleeping? Get up we are leaving in one hour!" Followed by phone call from Erika "Where were you Ella? Alenka was really mad for you not coming to horse riding." Oh dear, horrible morning! Very very disorganized I started looking for some cloths to pack. I looked like a mess and Dasha and Kenda had a laugh following me trying to get my shit together. What would I do without Dasha! She borrowed me skipants, jacket and glows cause I didn't have my own.
I left from my flat late and raced to Julias flat around a corner. I was speed walking when I heard voice behind me: "Ella?" It was Chrissy, I hadn't even recognized her in hurry. Turned out that she was also coming to the trip and asked if she wanted to join us and share the taxi.
I was wrecked when we reached the parking lot. My head hurt, I hadn't eaten anything, I forgot my water bottle and I felt sick and horrible headache. The irish were in great mood, they had started drinking on their way. Juha-Matti was my savior on the bus with his fresh Slovenian water. I felt sick. Amin was trying to wake peoples party mood up by inventing some fun/sick games such as cookie race. Both rows had a cookie and you had to pass the cookie from mouth to mouth without touching it. The loosing team had to heat those two drooled cookies. Luckily/unfortunately the race was never held because of lack of excitement.

The other bus entertained us tho, we are bunch of little kids! @corlalie

We were going to stop in Lake Bled for site-seeing. My plan was to fine Mercator buy some Radler to kill the hangover. I was also graving some greasy food. It was such a beautiful day! After shopping some alcohol we all went down to lake and enjoyed the sun. The crazy pare of Belgians, Florian and Jim jumped to the cold water. The lake itself wasn't that cold really, but getting up from the water all wet and stuff was horrible cause obviously they didn't have towels. The guys were shaking. They also got some disapproving looks from elder people enjoying their afternoon walk when guys changed out from their wet boxers! The Belgians were not the only crazy ones jumping to the lake, later I heard that Gilly also had a swim with ducks.

@coralie

The journey continued after an hour brake. As we were getting closer to Kranska Gora you could start seeing a little snow! Awh snow I miss you, winter is not winter without it. But it wasn't much. I shared the room with Coralie, Zemra, Simi and Marin. We were really lucky with the room. It was right next to the showers and toilets and it was on the forth floor.
The programme of the night was dinner, games organized by tutors and paaaarty. Some people started drinking naturally already in the bus, some immediately after reaching the cottage.
I had to buy some credit on my phone since I had ran out of it already last night. I walked alone to the center of the town. Luckily it was so small it was easy to find. Trafica kiosk was already closed but the nice owner still sold me 5€ Tus mobil card. The center was small but lovely and it really looked like an old mountain village. You could feel the Christmas around you with all the Christmas lights and decorations.
Back at the hostel the dinner was...I don't really have words to explain...the soup was mushroom soup was nice but tasted more like garlic than mushrooms. The main dish was cabbage with pork and potatoes. I could only eat the meet and part of the tatoes. And dessert was no better... it was some cakeish thing. No. Because we had a lot students not all of us fit in the basement for dinner at the same time. I got really lucky that I was in the first group couse the second group enjoyed their dinner a little different. These young crazy adults actually started a food fight! Crazy people are crazy haha.

With all respect toward our tutors but they were horrible at organizing anything... we were supposed to have some games, to get to know to each other something. They had a great idea how to divide us into the groups. On the bus everyone got bracelet where you had a letter and a number. The letter showed us which group you were in to. If I recall correct I was in F-team. Two teams had same task at the same time, the problem was that for our and our companion team didn't have tutors to do task with!? No idea where they had disappeared. We walked to every floor asking if we were supposed to be there, nobody knew. After hanging around quite some time we got to our first task outside which was a race. Fun fun fun! Our team won in the end cause the other team cheated! That was the only game we played that night. Rest of the night we just drank. People were hammered as hell already at 9pm. The time didn't matter in the hostel. In the basement we had our own private disco and music. Unluckily the music was shit and no one wanted to be there. The third floor was the party floor. In one point of the night we were hanging out in one random room, people were smoking etc when suddenly one guy wanted to show us his man vagina and started taking his cloths off. This how I met Jordan aka Naked Jesus. That was both disturbing, random and hilarious at the same time! Oh god those crazy Irish...

One of the only photos I toke the whole trip...

And the winner is...

Little party never killed nobody!

Photos by @coralie

My dear friend Zemra got drunk that night for the first time and she almost finished the whole bottle of vodka! She is such a sweet girl and the cutest thing when drunk! She was just giggling and smiling all the time. At one point when I went to our room I found Zemra half laying in her bed, her shoes on. I toke her shoes off and put her in the bed. Sebastian came to me later and asked if it was possible for him to sleep in our room that night. He's room was directly on top of the disco and it was the same if he slept in the disco or in his room, the volume was the same. We didn't have that problem because our room was on the forth floor. We had an early wake up for skiing the next day.

I hadn't seen so many zombies in a while as I did on breakfast time. Only a few hour sleep was shining on everyones face. I don't know where they got the food but it tells a lot when the best part of breakfast was water and I did not have a hangover. I was glad that I didn't drink coffee.
One of the tutors had a van and he was driving us to the resort. The slopes were not that far away so some of us decided actually to walk there. Fresh mountain air was brilliant! We had to wait forever the rent our skies and snowboards. I got a brand new board, it was beeeautiful. Because lack of snow there was only three slopes open and you got bored to them quite fast but it was still alright. Besides it was the first skiing trip of the season and it was nice to take it easy. The day was absolutely brilliant with blue sky and sunshine. And the landscape was beautiful, surrounded by mountains. You got to love it. Zemra, Sebastian, Gilly and Caro were beginners and Tina taught them to ski. It was so cute and funny to look at them to struggle on the slopes for the first time. Caro was natural talented and got hold of it pretty fast.

Later in afternoon my mussels started saying no no for skiing and I was really tired. After falling down twice I decided my day was over. Slovenia is crazy, when I rented my stuff they didn't ask any contacts and you didn't even have to pay before! My first thought was 'it would be so easy to steal the board', not that I would ever do that, not like some other people(Marine!!). And the rent itself was so cheap: board and boots for the whole day 18€. I even got 3€ discount after small talking with the rental guy! Turned out he had been skiing couple times in Finland, Ruka and also been in Helsinki. Random!
I walked back to the hostel with Ludi who had the worst hangover, I felt so bad for her! She was completely and utterly wrecked. I didn't have key to our room so we went Ludis and had a lovely nap in their double bed. I really really needed it and we woke up for dinner. That evenings supper was not half bad actually. It was eatable but I don't actually remember what it was other than it wasn't enough for the guys to kill hunger.

After the dinner and before the main party of the night we had a organized torch walk to the lake near by. On the way me and Erika brought some take away booz with us, a bottle of wine, some beers and Slovenian blueberry liqueur. For finns the blueberry liqueur is a little bit like mustikkashotti but not quite. The liqueur actually has blueberry berrys inside the bottle and for people who haven't tried it before it comes as a little shock. So as I offered the bottle for Sam and said 'watch out for the blueberries' he didn't quite get it and almost spit the liqueur out of shock. The lake itself was pretty cool, it was all frozen, the night sky was clear and you could see all the stars. But for a person coming from the country of thousands of lakes and hard winter it was nothing I hadn't seen before, although the mountains around it was pretty special. On our way back to hostel Sam was still hungry after the dinner and we stopped in small kebab place for a hot dog. That was probable the most pathetic hot dog I have ever seen! It didn't even look like one to be honest! Too much bread and one tiny sausage looking thing inside. We had crack!

After shower I went down stares. Tonight there was going to be a special ATET(rental car company) party where you can win 200€ gift card for renting car. Sebastian and Florian were totally in and ordered me, Marine and Simi to our team. We had no idea what was coming up. A moment before the competition started Florian came to me and said "Ella prepare yourself and think horny. Think horny!" Wtf... The contest was 'Best sex positions'. I was dying inside. We had no plan at all and we just went all in! To be honest I can't even remember what we did other than I jumped on Sebastians lap at one point and later Florian chaired me... No kisses exchanged from my lips. The crowed liked our performance. Unlucky they also liked the Irish teams show. We were on finals against 4 guys and a Naked Jesus. How do you compete with that. We gave our all, I kissed both Simi and Marine and when Sebastian tried to kiss me I was on shock and said dude ey no way! One point we all just fell on the floor and we got at least three cans of beer on top of us. That was dis-fucking-gusting! I just had a shower! I'm censoring and I'm not even going to share what they did other than everyone adored Naked Jesus. In the end the crowed was the one who chose the winner. It was very very even. At one point Simi jumped on one of the chairs and lift her shirt up. That did it and we wont to price. I don't like to admit this since we have been fighting over this many times whit Gilly who was supposed to win that night I will admit that the only reason the Irish team didn't won was because they didn't have any girls in their team even tho Jordan has long wavy hair and gorgeous legs. There Gilly, I admitted!

I ran to the shower after the contest, my hair was, I have no words how yakky I was, ey. Goes to same category as category as a year back in Urban festival cruise I got a can of energy drink on top of me. Overly sweet sticky stuff all over my hair and body is not something I recommend to anyone! Anyways I didn't quite think my plan through with the shower thing. The thing is there is only one key to our room and I did not have that key. One random Spanish guy came to our floor and begged him to borrow his shampoo and towel to me. True gentle man. The shower was heaven but afterwords I still faced the same problem as before: I still didn't have the bloody key and now I had no cloths at all. Thank god Marine happened to come to our floor and I ashed her to go hunt the key for me. Thank you my angel!
Rest of night was chill, partying, hanging out, playing silly games and dancing. People went crazy, at one point Simi and Marine were poring shots from the bar. Nicole stole a bottle of something from the bar, Grega puked in Jules room and broke one of the bed and a lot more. Tina had her birthday in the middle of the night and we sang happy birthday to her. Ou god I almost forgot to mention the most important person who I met this weekend! Jaakko! I had heard about this Finnish guy both from Erika and the Irish and now I finally got to meet him. Such a great guy and we had some really awesome and deep drunk conversations together. I can't believe I hadn't met him before! Erik was not part of our Kranjska Gora trip but he had rented his own hut with bunch of his friends who came to visit him. Obviously the party place was our hostel and they came to visit us. There is always a party when Erik is around! At one point of the night we were hanging on the 4th floor with Marine. She had opened one of the windows and was enjoying a cigarette. There was a small stream behind the hostel and we were listening the sound of the flow, both happy and drunk when an upset guard come over. He was sweet and concerned about Marines safety since she was sitting one the edge of window. Marine was singing with her clear voice and trying to explain that she wants listen the stream its so beautiful and then started flirting with him. She made smile on his face and he told that he has a wife and family. In the end Marine got down from the window and everyone where safe. The party in the hostel lasted until the morning.

The next morning it was time to leave Kranjska Gora, finally! I could not have taken that madness any longer! We cleaned our room packed our stuff and headed out. We were THE luckiest with the weather cause it was another brilliant day! Everyone were hanging around the buses and enjoying the sun. On the way back to Ljubljana it was nice and easy, people looking at the photos they had taken during that weekend, sleeping or enjoying the view. Some people went out for dinner afterwards but I was too wrecked. Home sweet home, Dashas bed and Sex and the city marathon was waiting for me there.

Ou yea I almost forgot one of the most hilarious part! On our way to Kranska Gora everyone had to pay 10€ deposit just in cause if something gets broken etc. After the trip we received this email from our tutors:

Hi,

chef of Hostels checked all the rooms and said that you left complete mess.

Walls were completely covered with wine stains, some of them have even holes in it, chairs were broken (some of you also threw them over the balcony). Also a lot of tables and lamps were broken. You broke 2 toilets and destroyed all the flowers, both of the hostels and also the neighbors. You have also emptied some fire extinguishers, so they must buy new ones.

All rooms were completely dirty and spilled, so they must do chemical cleaning...

So no one will get deposit back!

Oh my oh my... I can promise our room was in perfect condition when we left. The lock of our door was a bit broken but that was before we arrived. But to be honest I did't mind at all that we didn't get the deposit back cause I never paid it anyway, haha! I didn't have cash by the time they were collecting the money and afterwards I just forgot. Marine and I secretly high fived each other. And I totally understand they didn't give our money back. Some people were very upset about it since they had not broken anything but the thing is, even tho they hadn't some people had destroyed the common area and everyone had to pay for that.

Room 24 @coralie

Kranjska Gora

I'm terrible sorry about the lack of photos I have to be be honest there are none! I didn't take any photos during this weekend. You just have to use your wild imagination!

Chrissys comment after the weekend: "I actually like how crazy you are, I didn't expect that!" Thanks sweetie :*

All in all one hell of a weekend, absolutely brilliant! A lot of great memories and new people!
Never again tho Kranjska Gora! #slovenialainenhupellus
Successful weekend 5/5

More photos, less text

This and that, there and then and something.

Photo shoot with my lovely Erika and afterwards lunch in BTC

The last Tarok game 

It was horrible to realize afterwards that this was the last time I played Tarok with Dash and Kenda. The photos where obviously taken after our forth player(Dashas school mate) left. Aww Tarok, I'm gonna miss that horrible complicated card game and especially my game mates. I'll see you girls in the future on Croatian seaside sunbathing and playing Tarok.

Teasing Rai, because you can!

Marias xmas party

These two lovely ladies threw us Christmas party. Sangria, snacks and gift changing. Lovely evening with lovely people! Thank you girls xx

Mystery gift was pack of condoms

Shitty shit shit Companieros xmas party

Oh dear Companieros you are ruining me! One of my only reasons I decided to go to Companieros this Thursday was because I had bought a new dress and it deserved to be taken out! This was another never drink vodka with Erik! Seriously man, when we have predrinks together something goes wrong. Predrinks and Rozna yey yea fun fun fun etc. Came to Companieros and start drinking shot. I'm sure you have all heard the sentence you should only drink one type of alcohol per night for example if you start with beer stick with beer the rest of the night or wine or vodka. Well my story: start with bottle of red wine, drink some shots of vodka, then a shot of tequila, jagermaister, rum and two other shot that I can not quite now recall. Equals horrible messed up Ella, puking on Jules shoe, been taken home by Franzy(thank you so much dear<3) and some how finding myself in my own bed.
Memories from this night: pre drinking, taxi, enter companieros, dancefloor, shots...then nothing...a glimpse from the bus to Bezingrad and then nothing again.
Missing nothing from my bag! Missing horse riding again, second week in a row. Heard from Erika that Alenka, my teacher, was not quite happy with me...I don't blame her. And last but not least the lovely lovely hangover.

Successful night 1/5.

The one from predrinking at Rozna with Erik and Andrea. You boys are fun but I hate your vodka Erik!

December - one great month

Haha oh my... looking back to December... that was some crazy fun times :) Where to beginning!

Ljubljana Christmas lights

I am so gutted that I wasn't actually there when the lights went on! It was Tuesday evening when I have that only one class that I don't actually want to skip: Tourism management. The course that has actually something to do with what I'm studying in Finland. Dasha was trying to convince me all day that I should just skip and go the center, but I didn't. After the class tho me, Ludi, Marina, Franzi and Rune(sorry if someone else was there aswell whom I don't remember to mention) headed to the center. I think I was crazy enough to actually bike to center cause I didn't have any money on my bus card.
Anyways the Christmas lights this year were UGLY! Haha no but seriously I have no idea who designed them but they were not my cup of tea. They had some space theme. Shooting stars which were actually mannequins and at Presernov square there was some neon red, blue, green lasers(?!?). It actually reminded me a lot about laser tag! Maybe they had a nice idea but it just didn't work out at all.
Other than that it was great! Really chilly night but mulled wine made you warm again. There was a lot of people. My friends who were there when the lights went on told me that it was impossible to move or walk anywhere because of the amount of people. So I guess it was good that we came 2h late.
That night I also met someone very special person and I had no idea I was going to like this ginger head person this much. Chrissy Weasly this was the night we first met, man!

White mulled wine and 102 photo of Ludi

Okey these were rather pretty lights

Winter Barbeque Tivoli

It's totally normal that on average Wednesday evening, pretty much in the middle of the winter, a certain Belgium person wants to arrange Winter Barbeque in Tivoli park. Florian Buekenhout, legendary man who has entertained us through whole semester was the mind behind this even along with his Belgium colleague. And of course we were crazy enough to follow this mad man. At least 30 student gathered around the parking lot that evening and followed this crazy guys to the forest in Tivoli park. When we arrived to our spot everyone started gathering firewood and set the fire. Just to clarify for all the kids who are reading this is very much illegal. Just when the guys had started the fire I spotted a light from flash light heading up hill to our direction and told Florian immediately put the fire down. A moment later a young couple enjoying their romantic evening walk, walked past us. I'm sure the view rather odd: 30 something students, hanging out in the woods, drinking beer. Sweet! The fire was light again after a moment and people gathered around the fire, drinking and chatting. Some people misunderstood bbq and brought whole chicken breasts etc which were not in million years going to cook on open fire.
In one point I sat next a pretty dark hair girl with beautiful face and cheerful voice and started chatting about random stuff like traveling etc. This was the first time I met Rachel and the rest of the Irish lads. My life would never be the same.
At midnight everyone suddenly burst singing happy birthday. One of the Irish had his birthday. After singing Florian, ofcourse, dared the guy to jump over the open fire. This idiot was crazy enough to do it. His name was Sean Gilligan. I was sure something bad was going to happened but he jumped successfully and everyone broke to cheers.
Let me tell anyone who has not been in winter bbq one fact: its actually pretty bloody cold if you don't sit right next to the fire. Seeing the Irish heading out I asked if I could join them since walking in the dark forest alone is not one of the things I like to do. There has actually been a bear in the Tivoli park couple years ago! Tho in the winter time the beers are sleeping I suppose... Anyway I was the only one who actually had a flash light which was quite a savior since it was really really dark. Tho we did get lost but found our way eventually to right track.
My adventures were not over tho. I was first planning to walk home since it was too late that any buses were going to run. I saw Simi on my way and asked if she would join us when we saw bus number 8, we had been saved! We ran to the bus and sat down, happy and warm. The bus started moving and drove completely wrong way. Simi and I were still hopeful, maybe it turns to Bezingrad later. It didn't. We dropped of on random bus stop. We knew Bezingrad was somewhere on the right so that was the direction. We were tipsy and happy with no worries, just laughing at our bad luck. We crossed a railway and ended up in warehouse area. This was the time freak out, we were completely lost. There was hardly no street signs, not that they were going to help us. Later we found a bus stop and they always have a map there but we could recognize our location. We walked a little further to the warehouse area thinking about our options: a) calling, taxi b) stealing a car or c) keep walking. We decided to walk back to the one cross road with street signs and Simi called her taxi driver. Even the driver was a little confused where we were but promised to try to find us. After waiting 10 minutes the knight with white horse came, we were saved! Turned out we were not that far away from Bezingrad but we were still glad we got a taxi.
Successful night 5/5!

Thanks Florian and Simi for making my life adventures!  

Pivo Race

Haha ou yes... This night was fun! Or was it? Who knows cause I don't quite remember.

The night started dramatically. I was eager to join Pivo race, this was the third race in Rozna dormitory and I had never taken part of it. Sebastian promised to be my partner. The rules are simple: the guy feeds the girl beer and the person who is drinking is not allowed to touch the bottle/can. After finishing the the drink the person has to run the corridor, down stares, another corridor, back up stares and back to the drinking spot. On earlier races everyone had to drink 3 x 0,5l beer, but this time(luckily) the girls had easier rules and they had to drink only 3 x 0,3l.
Later that day Sebastian told me that he was not sure if he wanted/was able to join the race and said I should look for another partner. I was annoyed about the late warning and asked if Phillipped wanted to join me and luckily he was up to it. Not long after Sebastian announced that Florian and Simi were attending aswell and he was back in because we had to beat Florian and Simi. At this point I had already made a deal to play with Phillipp which then made Sebastian annoyed that I had replaced him when he himself told me to look another partner. Long story short, Florian baled and Sebastian and Simi became partners.
I had never been in Rozna before and the stories were true, there is only Spanish people! It was a really Spanish race itself but a lot of fun. And the people were proper dressed up. I had casual cloths, t-shirt, jeans and normal shoes when all the people from Rozna had proper running shoes and gear on. Some even had a team shirt. I felt over dressed.
I am not a huge fan of beer(at this time) and I had no idea how was I going to succeed the beer drinking. The drinking part was not as hard as I had feared and I was able to drink pretty fast. The running stomach full of beer was not that great and the girls were really competitive I was going pass one Spanish girl when she proper elbowed me. I fell back gladly, I was not into fight and I wasn't THAT eager to win. This is supposed to be fun and not to take so seriously bitches! We didn't win but we sure did had a lot of fun and me and Phillipp were great team!

After Pivo race, before vodka

Later there was a distribution of prizes and (surprise surprise) Spanish team won. The prize was a bottle of bubble wine and a xmas tree decorated with beer cans and rubbish. Not long after Jakob Nodrinking came to kill the party because of the noise. Our party ofcourse didn't end there and we went to Erik place for pre drinking. I learned important lesson that night, never ever drink Polish vodka with Erik-Jan Mol.
The things I remember from that night was: the taxi to Companieros, the empty other dance floor, Simi blowing soup bobbles and when the Companiero closed and I had no clue where the hell my bag was.
Result of the night: wallet empty of cash, missing credit card, missing ipod, missing phone and missing memories. The next day missing horse riding and huge hangover.
Successful night 2/5

Simi, you make my life so much more fun<3

Finland Independence day party

The day all the finns had been waiting for: Finlands birthday party! We had reserved basement for our party, everyone were allowed to invite certain amount of guests. We had provided Finnish playlist, food such as makaroonilaatikko, blue cheese and ginger breads and glögi. Yum! We performed our national anthem, danced letka jenkkaa and drank salmiakki liqueur. The asshole guard came to and our party at 11pm! Everyone were really unhappy about that, especially since we hadn't made that much noise. After preparty at Erikas flat. I had no idea until when did we continued drinking but ended up going to a Bunker party at Stara elekrarna. Dasha told me that the last year was amazing but this year it was very calm. People were a bit older, the music was good and drinks were ok price. And you returned the cup you got some money back. We danced until the party ended which felt like pretty early even tho I'm sure it was already at least 3 or 4am.

The only photos on my camera and they were not even from the official party...

Jules Birthday

I don't want to drink no more... after Thursday I started feeling little sick but its Julias birthday so I needed to go out! We were debating if we should go to Cirkus(no no nooo!) or Top6(yes!). I have already wrote what I think of Cirkus on my Keep up with your blog lady-post --> (first-day-at-school), so I'm not going there. The result was to go to Cirkus cause we got a free enters with Grega. Julia, as my best friend, deserves at least one dance on her birthday so I promised to join them but not to stay. Pre drinks at Jules and then to Cirkus. The place was as horrible I remembered and I headed to the bar immediately, I need a drink! Drinks were expensive but I decided to go with caipiroska since I knew I liked it and it was strong. As I was ordering it I was wondering if the c was supposed to pronounce in English way or Slovenian way. I ended up going with Slovenian so 'ch'. The bartender had to ask me twice what I wanted, gave me a weird look and went to prepare my drink. To my shock he came back with cup of tea. He had understood that I wanted Cai=tea in Slovenia. I just laughed and paid my tea. Obviously everyone else also laughed at me and Caro was kind enough and tried to talk the bartender to pour some rum to my tea or something. It didn't work out. But to me honest I didn't mind at all since I actually had a pretty sore throat.

In 15min time on dance floor I got hit on or grabbed by at least 4 different guys which made me really annoyed since that never happens in any other bars/clubs. Leave the fuck me alone and let me dance! I don't know if it was the place or dress. I didn't last long and soon I had kiss Jules for good bye and head out.

I knew other people were out aswell so I gave Phillipp a text knowing he was in Top6 and there was a House party. He told me that the music was shit and no worth to came and that we should go to K4. Man that guy was hammered. The walk from Top6 to K4 is about... 5 to 6 blocks I think and during that time we had only 3 topics that looped over and over again. 1. I can't believe you went to Cirkus 2. Top6 was shit! and 3. You are going to have so much fun in K4. Brilliant! K4 was greeeeat. The music was smooth, people and the place was great and the Irish were there aswell. The only thing that was wrong was my outfit. Coming from Circus all dressed up white fairyish dressed and glitter made stood up a lot from other crowed. Rachel was sweet and adored my outfit tho and to be honest, I didn't care what I looked like and I'm sure no one else did. Maybe someone got a really good kick out his drugs cause he thinks he sees fairys in K4!
My absolute favorite and horrified moment of the night was when I was chatting with Sean and Phillipp came over to tell me that he wants to go home. I protested cause I wanted to stay but Phillipp said he is too drunk he has to go home. I called him a bitch and slapped him playfully and Phillipp automatically slapped my back because that's our common stupid came. I laughed. After that everything happened really fast. Sean got really mad and grasped Phillipp from his shirt and yelled 'what the fuck man you don't hit women'. Phillipp didn't say anything but he had 'I don't give a shit'-smirk on his face. And jumped between the guys to protect Phillipp and calm Sean down and explained it's okey where he replied angrily that it's not okey! I agreed that ofcourse its not okey but explained him that its a slapping game and we do that sometimes when we are drunk and there is no harm done, its only a joke. Still pissed of Sean released Phillipp and I walked him out. Rest of night continued without drama. Only good music and a lot of dancing.
My night was crowned with hot pizza burek after K4.

Complacently lost in Bosnia!

I knew before I came to Slovenia that I was really looking forward traveling to different Balkan countries since this is such a great opportunity for it. Nevertheless after our trip at the beginning of the semester to Italy, I hadn't stepped off Slovenian borders. So I was more than thrilled when Margarida (Portugal) asked me to join her and the other girls for an adventure to Bosnia!

Our journey started  on the freezing cold morning at the end of November. It was probably one of the coldest morning I had experienced since I had been here. The plan was to leave from Ljubljana at 5am and drive through Croatia to Bosnia. We had such a beautiful mornings to drive! Then again I don't think I have been driving around with the car at 6 am that often :)

The closer we got to Bosnia the more e got snow! Finally some sign of winter over here! I did regret missing snow and cold when we got to Bosnia tho, cause it was freezing! Yes I am from Finland but believe it or not, I feel cold aswell! And I didn't bring my proper winter jacket along with me cause I didn't think it was going to be that cold. Stupid child.

When we finally reached Sarajevo I was the one who was driving. I toke one wrong turn and got stuck in to traffic jam. I had no idea where I was and I was hating the traffic and bosnian drivers. I was hungry, tired and completely lost. The street were small, there was cars everywhere and the navigator was not useful not so ever! It was taking us to street which did not exist or you could not simply driver there. I was completely furious so Margarida had to take over the car and find a parking for us. After many wrong twist and turns we finally found a garage to park our car to and went look for our hostel. Unfortunately we thought the hostel was a bit closer to our parking place that it was and we ended up walking 20 min to get there.

As a student you want to save money when you travel right? Well so did we and what would be better way to cut cost than choose the cheapest hostel in town. Hostel Ljubicica 4€ per night, right in the center and that place was really worth the price! The reception was a like a small smoking room filled with smoke and it was cold inside the hostel. One hostel guest told us that the hostel is illegal and that's why it was so cheap, not sure what he meant by that. I didn't take any photos inside the hostel but this is what our front yard looked like:

The day continued with lunch and sight seeing which basically meant walking around the center, town hall, visiting mosque, catholic and orthodox church. And it was so cold! But how can one country be so cheap! I bought super cute glows for 2€, loved them!
The visit to mosque was actually very interesting. We had to do it all proper way, take our shoes of and wear a scarf over our heads. It was very spiritual. One gentleman was kind enough to show us around a little, talk about his religion and tell about his role in mosque. It was really special.
Finally we also had to buy some bosnian beer for the evening. When we got to the hostel earlier that day it was completely empty but luckily in the evening people found their way back. Meeting new people in the hostels are the sweetest thing really. I had an interesting conversation with an american 30-something jazz artist who support himself with music. Also met a canadian pack packer, 17-year old norwegian guy and group of polish erasmus students from Zagreb. They were no fun tho :p

Dasha told me before I left that Bosnian food is great and it sure is! For lunch we had some Bosnian burek. Burek is originally from Bosnia and other countries have made their own version of it and now my Slovenian burek has been ruined forever! I loved it before but now that I know what the REAL burek taste like, its hard to go back...it was delicious! And again, cost like nothing. In the evening we had dinner in another Bosnian restaurant and had another Bosnian typical dish ćevapčići. Can I just say yum yum yum!

After a long day of traveling we had big plans to go out and all. We asked from reception for good place for drinks. Unfortunately I can not recall the name of the place, Popular it was for sure since the place was packed! But since we couldn't find a place to sit we decided to change our location to another pub across the street. I could not help myself but order a Sommersby since I saw it was on the list, god I miss cider! We were all really tired after long day even tho I really wanted to go out we decided to go back to the hostel after one drink. Tomorrow was a new day!

Plans for our day 2 was to check out the Tunnel of war. Before that 5 girls could not help but to do some shopping! Christmas presents, souvenirs for family etc. I for example found gorgeous bright orange Urban headphones. They made me too happy and I just had to buy them, even tho I don't actually have an ipod thanks to Pivo race and Companieros.
So the day started well but didn't quite continue the way we had hoped for... First of all when we eventually got back to the parking lot to get our car, we were not quite prepared the amount we were supposed to pay. Pretty much everyone had already ran out of cash but after turning all our wallets upside down for every penny we had, we managed to pay. The second obstacle we faced was finding the Tunnel of war. We cursed our GPS several time during our search and we ended up driving the same streets up and down so many times. We knew that it was a little bit outside of the center, about 15min drive or so but it was impossible. We asked directions from locals but the could not help cause it was so complicated to enplane. Out of some miracle we finally found our way to the tunnels but I tell you this, if you want to go to the tunnels, just take a tour guide. You will save a lot of time, effort and sanity.
My expectations of the place was that its a big bunker tunnel but it was surprisingly small... Just a short tunnel really. But they had some other cool stuff. In one room there was a short document about the war in Sarajevo and how the tunnels were build. On the other room they had some original stuff from war such as uniforms, boxes, bags and etc.

Destination Mostar, one of the most important cities in Bosnia! Everyone were starving on our way to Mostar. The receptionist had told us that we should definitely stop in small town on the way for late lunch/early dinner. She said that the restaurants have the best meat and they are really popular. We were looking forward to it! By the time we reach this small town it was abandoned, there no one around and no restaurants ether. We were really disappointed and extremely hungry and ended up having dinner at pub/restaurant some really cheap food. It was nothing special but it was food. As we continued our drive after 2 minutes outside of the town there were three great looking restaurants packed with customers. We knew immediately that these were the restaurants the receptionist was talking. Next time then!

I think the motto of our trip is fucking lost all the time cause that is what were the most time! It was impossible! We reached Mostar and we hadn't actually booked a hostel. It was already dark, there no street sign, seriously I'm not kidding, not one! The GPS was not helpful and I don't know, god it was a mess! We stopped a taxi driver who promised to drive us to one of the hostel which was great! I'm not going to any details since this post is going be ridiculously long anyway but lets just say it didn't quite go they we had planned it. No surprise tho, it seems nothing goes the way we had planned in this trip! The first hostel we found was a summer hostel=closed but we got really really lucky the second one: Hostel Miran. It was cheap, I think 10€ per night(?), clean, warm and great staff. The owner of hostel was Miran was very helpful and great at his work. He really made us feel like immediately, asking who we are, where are we from and telling about his stories and history of the city of Mostar. Mostar was seriously damaged because of the war, a lot of people died, including Mirans father, grandfather and uncle. He was only 16 year old when the war started. The way he told his stories made chills run down to my bag. Ofcourse I have been studying history at school and everything but actually hearing the stories from personal point of view is quite something different.

On our third and final day of the our trip we attended to war walking tour organized by Miran. He toke us places where we would not have definitely gone without a guide. Abandoned houses and apartment-building ruined over bombing and bullet holes, hearing all the stories what had happened and I don't know...it was overwhelming. I can highly recommend Hostel Miran and his war walking tour, it's really worth it. After the tour we had lunch together and I have no idea what I ate but it was heavenly delicious. After the lunch we had to say good bye to our new friend and continue our journey. There was still one stop before starting our journey back to Ljubljana: holy Catholic place where Virgin Maria appeared.

Lost lost lost LOST AGAIN! I could just through the bloody GPS somewhere were sun is not shining, seriously how hard is it to work it was supposed to. And really it was so frustrating cause obviously we didn't have a map or a clue where we were supposed to go and we didn't know if should or should not trust the navigator. After reaching Croatia and driving highway everything started going wrong AGAIN! Part of the highway was closed so we had to take detour and mother fucking detour it was because we made another wrong turn ending up on Croatian cost and there is only one road there. On top of that it was stormy and very very windy. All of us where more or less freaking out over the weather. We actually stopped in local police station to ask second opinion if it was safe to keep driving. The only positive thing was that we had more than enough gas.
After hours of drive we did reach Slovenia alive. But Slovenian people have a sick sense of humor. They had a warning sign 'watch out for deer' beside the road, yes that's normal, but after driving for a while I got heart attack cause there was a deer near the road and I hit the brakes only to realize that the deer was actually fake! And there was not only but at least two of them! Seriously, not cool.
We dropped Kata to Koper, south of Slovenia, and headed up to Ljubljana. The trip would not be perfect without one last problem which was that highway from Koper to Ljubljana was partly closed. Of course it was I should have seen that coming up. At that point I was too tired to care cause it was so so late. I think around 3-4am or so. My bed had never as lovely as it was when I finally got home. 
Oh now I actually lied it! It was not the last problem we had. The final one was that I forgot my phone in the car! Amazing. Margarida picked my phone tho so it was all good all good.

Thank you girls for amazing trip! It was definitely not perfect but as I was traveling with such positive people it didn't matter. Looking forward to our up coming adventures together xx