Catch life pieces and travel ^.^

Living in a foreign country involves not only learning and adapting to the cultural differences, but also facing a foreign language. Speaking at least some Slovene is possible thanks to various opportunities available to everyone interested. There are reasons beyond   beautiful landscape that make it worth to use the language in order to connect better and more easily with the country and the people. The official language used in spoken and written communication in Slovenia is Slovenian. For a foreigner living in Slovenia it is useful to learn at least some basic phrases and words, which are used in daily communication, especially when using public services such as Slovenian railways (Slovenske železnice), Slovenian post (Pošta Slovenije) or some other public services. Namely, the employees in the public sector still rarely speak English, German and other foreign languages well. I have experienced a language barrier with both above mentioned services, once as I was buying a trai...

Similar like the landscape, Slovenian food is also quite diverse. Some of the Slovenian foods are more international and they don’t come as a surprise, but some are special and have specific names. Many elements have made an impact on Slovenian cooking. Slovenia borders on four other countries and has an extremely dynamic landscape. It has a stretch of the Pannonian Basin in the north-east; the hilly greenery of the Dolenjska region in the east; the picturesque Alps, the Ljubljana Marshes, as well as the wine producing hills of Stajerska in the north-west; whereas in the south (-west), you can visit the Kras and the Adriatic coastline. Each region has their special dishes. The most popular and widespread dishes in Slovenian cuisine are soups, meat and potatoes. Slovenes love soups, mainly beef or chicken. For vegetarians and people who are not fans of meat soups, there are also other kinds of soup. One soup that is influenced by the Hungarian cuisine is turnip peel soup . The t...

Located in the heart of the country and surrounded by mountains, Ljubljana is in a good spot to relax and enjoy. Many people live in Ljubljana as it offers more education and job opportunities than elsewhere in Slovenia and naturally if there’s not much time to travel outside the city, people search for places suitable for spending free time inside. For non-natives, it’s not only useful to read about possible places to enjoy but also to learn some phrases that could come in handy in communication or showing respect by trying to use at least a few Slovene words. Below are four of my favourite places for spending free time in Ljubljana and some basic phrases in Slovenian. Ljubljana’s top places §   Tivoli park (Park Tivoli), Rožnik and Šišenski hill (Šišenski hrib) The park is located near the city center and a big student dormitory complex Rožna dolina and thus attracts hundreds of people every day. It is not only the bigge...

The size of Slovenia is 20,273 km 2 and ranks the 153rd [1]   place in the world. However, despite its smallness, it offers much to explore and see, starting from the population size to the most popular foods. As we all know, it’s best to see things with your own eyes and form your own opinions. In the next paragraphs, you can find different points of view of non-natives who have spent some time in Slovenia or simply people who have their own stereotypes to briefly show different perceptions about Slovenia and its national language. One way how many people might get to know about a country is from what they hear from other people, which results in forming stereotypes that can be true as well as misleading. For a country that has a population of 2,062,874 [1] people, Slovenia has a lot of tourists and thus different nationalities have different views on this particular southern European country. On the other hand, comparing to other nationalities, there aren’t that many stereot...