Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Slovenia's talking walls

Ok, we wrote about Argentina here, it's time to also post our ramblings concerning Slovenia and Slovenian walls. This is what we came up in class awhile ago:
Slovenia is a small but beautiful country criss crossed by many scenic roads. The landscape is very diverse - it only takes you a couple of hours to travel from the Adriatic coast all the way to the high peaks of the Alps (mountain range stretching across the borders in also to the neighbouring Italy, Austria and Switzerland) - we call our side of the Alps the sunny side of the Alps.
Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia
Another natural beauty is our Kras area with one of the biggest underground Karst cave system. Vojko said he heard somebody say if you ironed Slo it would be bigger than Europe. Nicely put, isn't it? :-)
Postojna cave - Slovenia
Landscape diversity reflects also in many different Slovene dialects, some are quite challenging to understand also for Slovenes not coming from the same region. We think we are reserved people, need to get to know somebody a bit before we get friendly with them.
Ljubljana
I think that some aspects of this are nicely shown on the graffiti on this train - with rainbow stretching above the beautiful green hilly landscape and fences delimiting people's property below. People here say 'čisti računi dobri prijatelji' - meaning people have to have their affairs in order (money, property...) if they want to be good friends - what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours.
rainbow land
Our country is on the territory where a lot of blood was shed during the WW1 and WW2. Older generations still tell stories of those times. Times and politics have changed now though, and some of the people who used to be national heroes are not everybody's heroes anymore. I posted this photo and the story to our Wallstalking site - not quite a graffiti on the wall, but the actions associated with it bear many resemblances to what we typically associate with graffiti art.
Naš Tito
As far as sports is concerned, many like football here too though we think it cannot be considered national sport, like in Argentina. The conditions for practicing it are rather poor, skiing, snowboarding and other winter sports seem to be more popular. Skiing has a long tradition here. It's interesting though that while football related graffiti are quite frequent on our walls, I can't remember seeing a single skiing one.
Our typical foods are meaty ones like pršut and kranjska klobasa, dishes like jota, žlikrofi and mlinci, and sweets like potica, štruklji and gibanica - the assortment of foods differs a bit according to regions, but these are usually listed as typical Slovene foods. Some of the Slovene regions are wine-producing areas. Wine and wine drinking has long been part of our culture, something our walls testify about too.
The wine country

6 comments:

Sarolta said...

This post seems so familiar - it sums up how we, Slovenes, feel about our country and how we define ourselves. Well done. Thank you.

Saša said...

Great to meet you here, Šarolta! Thanks. :-))

mary said...

well sasa I speak a little of japanese...
but just a little...
some words...
not much...
but I know completes songs...
n.n
ammm...
well...
yes gaara is a little scary...
but...
then he became more...
ammm...
How I say it...
more sweet...
jaja...
is because I love him...
even his cruelty...
jaja...
well...
I've got to go...
matta ne (it means see you later in english)

Saša said...

Thanks, Mary. Nice to hear again from you. My kids too like watching cartoons that seem 'violent' to me. :-(

Vance Stevens said...

I think I want to visit Slovenia, preferably during ski season

Saša said...

Hi Vance,
happy to know you like skiing - see http://www.slovenia.info/?smucanje=0
Whichever destination you choose is just an hour two or three away from where we live - small is ...'practical' ;-)