Hi from Zadar!

The last 12 hours have been CRAZY! I learned how to make Helva from Mediha, had some fun conversations with little old Austrian ladies while we waited for our 40 minute late bus, got my passport stamped by the Slovenians while the Croatians only glanced at it, and stumbled off of said bus at 5 am this morning in time to hike into town and see the sun rise on the islands near Zadar. So lovely here!
More to come- Ana has invited me to stay with her in Zagreb tomorrow night!
Miss you all, leave me a comment!

Vacation!

   This travelling and semester abroad stuff is hard work- so what better way to escape it all than with a vacation! The Fakultäten (departments) at TU Graz have a tradition of taking interested students on Excursions during the semester to show them applications of what they are learning. I signed up for the Wasserbau (Hydraulic/civil Engineering, paid €25, and was swept off on a 2 day, all inclusive tour of water projects:
Montag, 23.05.2011 (click read more)

Diagram of the dam- we were inside!

• 7:00 Abfahrt: TU Graz, Institut für Wasserbau und Wasserwirtschaft We were given a sack breakfast of fruit, snack bar, and two Austrian-style breakfast sandwiches (cheese and meat on fresh rolls) and loaded onto the bus. I sat next to Rosie, a girl who I had met at the Wasserbau stammtisch a month or so before. She preferred to speak German, so we did! Fantastic!
• 8:45 Ankunft Speicher Koralpe (1) A rock fill dam with asphalt cutoff wall in Kärnten/Carinthia 
• KW Lavamünd (2) The power plant (KW is short for Kraftwerk) is part of a project which pumps water up to a series of reservoirs and then lets it down through turbines. Relatively green energy storage!
• 12:15 Ankunft Mittagessen, Lavamünd A video presentation of the construction of the KW that we had just toured at a Gasthaus. Schnittzle and pommes all around- the lady didn't understand vegetarian and brought Rosie a mountain of french fries. I took the schnitzle plate and gave the meat to the guys :)
• 15:30 Ankunft KW Moste und Zavrsnica (3,4) Slovenia's oldest dam. The origional powerhouse is still there as a sort of museum- reminded me of Grandpa's shop, somehow!

Cremeschnitte- my weakness

• Einchecken im Hotel Krim (Bled), Ljubljanska cesta 7, 4260 BLED Three star hotel on the main drag, short walk from the water, and I scored my own room. I also scored at a store sale in downtown Bled- 3 shirts at 60% off

• ca. 19:30 Abendessen: Bar und Restaurant Chilli Big fantastic dinner with my friend Lars and a couple of Austrian guys, finished off with Cremeschnitte and and sitting out on the patio with KWB classmates. 

Dienstag, 23.05.2011

• 8:30 Abfahrt Hotel Krim (Bled) Woke up early to sunrise over the east edge of the alps and went on a stunning morning walk around Bled. Breakfasted with department chair Prof. Zenz, Geog, Johann, and another Cremeschnitte. We talked in a mix of english and deutsch- Geog told me that if I really liked staying here so much I needed an Austrian boyfriend ;)

• 9:30 Ankunft Universität Ljubljana (5) huuuge model that Prof Zenz laughed at me when I spashed through the huge  model river with my rolled up jeans and chacos. 
• 12:15 Ankunft Mittagessen in Ljubljana MORE amazing lunch. Strudel for dessert. Yikes!
• 15:50 Ankunft Grenzmur (6) Basically the waterway had been heavily straightened, they put it back in a natural state. and then built a huge double helix tower so that people on the bike path could check out their work.

• 19:20 Ankunft TU Graz, Institut für Wasserbau und Wasserwirtschaft  the bus was sooo hot... 

It was really hot, but for me the vacation was just what i needed. I spoke more deutsch in 2 days than I do normally in a week, saw so many cool engineering things, ate too much really good food... My body was exhausted and stuffed, but my mind was refreshed :)

Slovenija

   This weekend has been a whirlwind tour of the two largest cities in Slovenia! I met the Petras at the train station and we caught the 10:36 train to Maribor. The town was pretty quiet since it was Sunday afternoon (and Palm Sunday at that!) but really lovely. The region of "lower Styria" was connected to the Austrian Steiermark (Graz's state) for much of the last 300 years. We wandered around the beautiful old town and enjoyed the riverfront park, espresso in the town square, and linner at a Serbian restaurant near the water. 

   At 6:00 we caught our next train to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. We walked through the dusky old town and crashed at a hostel just long enough to re-charge for another day of exploring. The city is about the same size as Graz but has a different feel. The parts of the town are so different- there are pockets of counter-culture graffiti art, Venitian style bridges, Art Nouveau decorated buildings... all overlooked by a medieval castle. It is a real hybrid of old and new, urban and natural. There are huge green parks and a central market bigger than Graz's. To the north you can see the last of the alps. (click read more...)

The Dragon Bridge

   First impressions of Slovenia: Beautiful! Natural beauty in its mountains and rivers, so much ancient and recent history documented in buildings, memorials, and artwork spread throughout the cities. The people were so friendly- we were standing on a corner looking at our maps, trying to figure out where our hostel was, and someone just walking down the street stopped to offer directions. As a bonus, everything was less expensive than in Austria- Kava (espresso) for €1,20 instead fo €1,80!

   Something that definitely made the trip: my travel buddies were even better than I could have hoped for. Both are from the Czech republic and study at Karl Franzens Universität in Graz. The Petra from the northeast CzR is the one I went home with in February and to Vienna with a few weekends ago - I told her that by the end of Easter break she will be completely sick of travelling with me! The other Petra is from Prague, and we met on the Weinstraßenfahrt. The three of us got on famously, traveled at about the same pace, had similar interests, and spent most of the weekend laughing with each other. We had a great time communicating with our mash-up of Czenglish (Czech/English) and German, although it was great to be travelling with Petra (from Prague) because she is studying Slovenian (already conversational in Polish, Ukrainian, English, and majoring in German).

All in all, a really wonderful weekend. Pictures are in the Photo Gallery. Tomorrow off to Salzburg!