Traveling Around the World - Grosuplje, Slovenia

After all our goodbyes, hugs and kisses with the rotaractors from Celje, we were greeted by rotaractors from Grosuplje. Boris and Mojca...!! My "Papa" and "Mama" from my Portugal trip. Gosh.. I miss them so much. They are a really cute couple and they are really awesome and fun to be with sort of people.



To start of trip, we went for swim at a pool, and FYI, the weather was rather chilly even though it was summer. I am glad that the water was actually warm but not after you leave the water. Hahahaha.. Somehow after the swim you have to come out of the water, and be in the chill weather right? It was freaking cold...!!! I was shivering like no ones business.. But then we had lots of fun..~~ The pool water was actually natural water, meaning no chlorine. So you won't have the sticky kind of feeling after your swim. It's actually very relaxing to be in the water.





Here, there are more green to be offered. You can see mountains and mountains of trees. Greeneries of mother nature is everywhere here.



Later that day, we went to Mojca's family's vineyard. Here, she prepared lots of homemade food for us.. MMmmmMMmmm.. They are all so yummy.. Thank you so much Mojca, you are the best "Mama" anyone could ask for.



Well, besides the food, we tasted Mojca's homemade wine. They are delicious, sluurpp..~ Mojca's family have a huge collection of antiques, ranging from cloth irons to typewriters to sewing machines. It's quite an eye opener. They really should start considering having a mini museum to display all this items.









The next morning, we took a tour around Dolenjska. We went to have a stroll around Castle Otočec. What a way to start a morning, walking around a beautiful castle with the calm waters of the river, and the morning sun shining above you. It gives you the feeling that today is definitely gonna be a good day.





After visiting the Castle, we went to Kostanjevica na Krki, Monastery. The monastery was once one of the biggest buildings of its kind. It was closed after Joseph's reforms, and renovated after World War 2. Today, it houses the gallery of Božidar Jakec and other artists. There is Forma Viva in the vicinity; an open- air exhibition of sculptural art. (I did not wrote this, I won't know all this facts - the power of Google, ^^). Regardless of all the facts, the sculptures there were amazing. They were huge and "unique", sorry I don't really know how to admire them. We were fortunate enough to meet an artist who is preparing her stuff for her next project. Cool..~~



The monestry was surrounding by a stream with a nice touch of green scenery around, beautiful place.





After lunch, we went for kayaking. Pure fun.. We end up having a race among ourselves and tired ourselves out. We never miss out any chances of having fun. It was a hot summer day, after all the rolling, some of us just can't resist the cooling water of the river and went for a swim.





Nothing beats chilling at a wine yard in the evening, having a glass of wine with the company of great friends. Great wine, great view, great company..~





Later that night we had a bowling night, freaking awesome..!! We had the whole bowling alley for ourselves..!! So let's party..~~ And the whole bowling alley glows in the dark.. Damn cool~~ ^^



After having a party last night, this is how we wake up looking like. (^^") Sorry Nikola~~ Just can't help it.





Our next destination, Bled Castle (Blejski grad), a famous castle here with a breathe taking view over the lake of Bled. Look at the water and the surroundings, you could just melt here.







Oh ya.. Almost forgot.. This is where I wrote all my postcards people, a huge bunch of them, hope you all loved it..



To be continued~

Traveling Around the World - Celje, Slovenia

My first city in Slovenia, Celje.. My best friend's hometown. Celje is the third largest city in Slovenia (in terms of population). It has a small town with greens and vineyard outside of town. Celje is surrounded by hills and greens everywhere. A nice place to relax and chill.

Since my arrival is around 5pm -ish, we headed to one of the rotaractor's summer home to have lunch/dinner. It's a common things here for people to have summer homes, a place where they visit during the summer or when they want to have a holiday.

We had barbecue and it was delicious. We had sausages and salad and Slovenian Beer-Lasko and Union. This was the first time for me to have taste pumpkin sauce, the first bite was sort of weird, but later on, I find it pretty good. It's different, but it's all good. It is very common here to see people putting pumpkin sauce in their salads.





For the night, we went to a bar in a ranch, ya.. A ranch where there are horses and all. This place is cosy and you will get to feel the sense of being in a country side sort of bar. The band that night was awesome, the selection of songs and the singer was simply perfect with the setting around. They really did a great job in setting the mood for the crowd.





This was the first night where all the participants of the trip met, everyone was talking and asking about each other's country and all. Well, it's the formality of meeting for the first time right? ^^ And we get to meet the participants who were already here before us on Rotary Camp. All I can say is that we are a bunch of beautiful people gathered together under the name of Rotary, just fascinating.





And of course we had beer, a lot of Slovenian beer. ^^



I love the morning in Slovenia, it makes you feel so much closer to nature.





After breakfast, we had a tour around Celje town. We walked around the town, moving from town halls to churches. The town is simple and not crowded. You can feel that people are simple here, they know how to enjoy life for a change, instead of moving around in a hassle.





We visit a place called "The City under the City". Cool name right? Sounds so mysterious and all. Well, it's actually an ancient city found by archaelogist which was buried under the existing city. We get to feel how the city was back in ancient time. The tour guide explained to us on the structure of the city, that main roads are from North to South and East to West. And from the findings here in the musuem, we can intepret how life was back then.



After the tour, we went to have coffee at a cafe located by the river. A nice way to enjoy the afternoon. A hot cup of coffee with a beautiful scenery around you, being accompanied by awesome friends.



We visited Josip Pelikan Photo Studio, it's a complete studio of an early 20th-century Celje photographer. This place housed the original studio of this photographer and also his cameras. Here we get to experience how portrait photos were taken back in the old days. We get to actually try using cameras used during those times.







We visited Celje Castle, Slovene Celjski grad, the highlight of the day. The castle is located on the hill top and it offers the best view of the whole of Celje.







This night is the installation of my darling friend, Tea as she takes into office in her presidency. We had a Cocktail Party with a band and a dance floor, cool~~ It was a blast, we were having fun dancing and talking and laughing, and of course drinking.



In the middle of the party, we went out for more food.. Wow.. We had Turkish Kebab in Slovenia.. Pretty awesome.. To make it even better, we have a Turkish here too.. Bora..~~





I had my very first tequila here. In fact, it was 5 tequila shots. It's just for you Tea. With the jetlag and the shots, I fell asleep like a baby within an hour.



I love Celje, a small town with much to offer. And Tea, thanks for the lovely t-shirt, love it so much.



To be continue~

Traveling Around the World - Arrival at Slovenia

I feel sLOVEnia..~~

Wow.. Where should I start? 14 long days.. 14 incredible days..

I love traveling, and I love visiting countries where my friends are..

Started the journey on KLIA Transit from KL Central, I would seriously recommend people to take this train to KLIA, it was superb and you will feel like 'Wow.. I'm so proud of my country.' Making it a good start of my trip, being impressed with the development of my country.

The flight there was Kuala Lumpur --> Bangkok --> Frankfurt --> Ljubjana.

During the flight from Bangkok to Frankfurt, I was seated beside a mother and her adorable daughther. You can see that she is a child of Thai-European. She was like holding my hand while she was sleeping in her mum's arms. Just love her.. ^^

Arrived at Frankfurt at 6.30am. My transit at Frankfurt was seven hours.. Freaking SEVEN hours...!! Gosh.. What the hell can you do for seven long long hours at the airport? I tried sleeping, worked for awhile, yet how well can you sleep at the airport? I tried shopping at the duty free shops, hmm.. not too impressed (we are talking about airport some sort of domestic flight duty free shops since Frankfurt and Ljubjana are Europe countries, not international flights). I even tried going to the bookstore flipping through magazines which are mostly in German. Gosh..!! And to top it up, my flight was delayed for another 2 hours, I was about to go insane...~~

Well, after all the commotions, I did finally arrive at Ljubjana, Slovenia. I can't wait to walk out of the airport. The first step out of the gate, I saw my friend, Tea.. Emotions start running wild~~ I missed her so much...!! It's been like a year since we last met in Portugal.. Missed her too much..~

I felt in love with Slovenia the first time I laid eyes on it. It's green everywhere, the air is so refreshing, and the weather is just perfect. I love it here, am I allowed to stay here for the rest of my life? ^^''

To be continued..~~