Postonja, Slovenia

On our way back to Lugano we stopped overnight in a tiny town in Slovenia. I thought it would be my least favorite stop of Academic Travel, but seriously it was THRILLING. I forgot how much caves play into my sense of adventure. I actually have long had a love of spelunking. It all began when I was in 6th grade; we took a class weekend trip to a giant cave in the middle of rural Wisconsin. We were given free roam and allowed to explore anywhere we wanted for hours on end. It was the best. We dind't get to explore this cave in Slovenia so freely, but that is probably because it is the largest in Europe, over 20km long! We had to take the train halfway through the cave before we even began our walking tour. And that train? SO FUN. I expected it to go pretty slowly but, it was speeding around tight cave corners like nobody's business!  With the wind whipping at my hair, it felt like we were on a roller coaster. Really though. It all was very "Gringotts"..  only minus the goblins and the bank vaults. But we did see albino salamanders that are supposedly baby dragons, so that is kind of close, right?

You're Going to Hear Me Roar

A quick update on my Academic Travel #3 adventures! I am currently in Zagreb, Croatia and headed to Belgrade, Serbia. We already had one traumatic border crossing (45+min at the border between Croatia/Slovenia we all had to get out and walk across the border having our passports checked on both sides) So wish me luck crossing the Serbia/Croatia border tomorrow! These two countries were at war with each other less than ten years ago.. so we will see how it goes! For the purposes of this post though, welcome to Ljubljana, capitol of Slovenia (not Slovakia!) and home  dragons, castles, and pillow menus. But really. You could order your preference of pillow at our hotel off of a menu AND the city emblem is a dragon. Why? Because Slovenia is down.

Confession: I only enrolled in this trip because I wanted to see the Croatian coast. But turns out that I love SLOVENIA! My only question is, when can I come back to Ljubljana? I was surprised at how clean, colorful, and quaint the city was! According to google translate, the Slovenian word for "love" is " Ljubezen" notice the "L-J-U-B" in the beginning? I think there just might be a connection between the word for "love" and Ljublijana.. makes sense to me! Full blog post on academic travel will be up in the coming weeks, but for now, stay posted for more quick photo updates! xoxo