Hoping to study in Ljubljana. Looking for Slovenian friends!

Welcome to the forum Damjo

I hope you will establish lot of nice contacts via our web community.

Regards

Well this is discouraging :S

Hello, I'm Bostjan from a city next to Ljubljana. It's nice to see that Australians are also coming to Slovenia and not online Slovenians to Australia. Warm welcome!
You said you'll start at our university in october 2011. What are you going to study? Are you practising Slovenian already? It's a difficult language, isn't it?
Perhaps you should come one or two months earlier in the summer to explore Slovenia before your study starts.

Bosstjan! So good to see there's still someone else on this forum! I was beginning to worry

I am actually planning to come early July and spend three months travelling to other European countries while I am there. I'm aiming for central Europe and the Balkans, but I'll have a few weeks in Slovenia to settle myself in before I start semester.

I'm doing studies in Civil Engineering and I'm practising Serbian actually at the moment. I'm not starting on Slovenian until I get confirmation from both universities.

Can you recommend what to see, go and do in Ljubljana?

Hello,
I'm sorry you had to wait for my answer. You are planing a nice trip across Europe! In your situation I would do the same.

You said you are waiting for the answers from the universities. So it is not secure that you'll study in Ljubljana?
I hope the University in Ljubljana takes you as a student. Otherwise you cannot enjoy the beauty of our city and country!

It is difficult to recommend you something without knowing what your interests are?

Typical tourist points in Ljubljana are the castle, the old part of the city, the park Tivoli, the bridges and riverbank of Ljubljanica river. I specially recommend you to visit the skyscrapper Nebotičnik (also in the center), because from there you have a wonderful view over Ljubljana. It was reopened last year - by a Slovenian from Australia!

If you are interested in sports, you will enjoy at the new sports center Stožice. Thanks to the Australian soccer team, who played against ours on the opening game last year. Slovenia won 3:0

Ljubljana is full of shopping centers, for example Citypark at BTC City, Supernova at Rudnik, Mercatorcenter at Dravlje and so on. So there won't be no shopping problem, believe me.

For a nice drink in the evening I can recommend you the city center. Along the riverbank and in the whole center are many nice pubs and bars. There you can spend me a drink if we meet.

There is much more to write about our city and whole Slovenia. Maybe you need also some informations about other countries oder cities in Europe? Tell me what you want to know and I will answer everything I can.

P.s. Look at my profile picture - thats the view from the skyscrapper on the castle and city center of Ljubljana.

Bosstjan;

I am still awaiting to be formally nominated to Ljubljana from my university, so there is no definite answer yet.

I enjoy seeing historical places and how cities have grown over time. I'm only presuming I will see this as I get there, naturally. What I also like to do is spend my time at cafes and meeting new people on night outs. (I don't exactly want to travel to another country, spend my day in class and then have nothing to do or no one to see after, haha).

Do you have many Australians come to visit? What do Slovenians think of Australians? I'd certainly want to meet up over a pint when I come visit

Well, other cities I am hoping to travel to are:

Copenhagen (I have a friend who lives here, she will take me around Denmark to see Legoland. I loved lego as a child)
Berlin (It would be a dream for me to go see Berlin. I love history and to me Berlin has such a fascinating profile).
Amsterdam (No comment needed )
Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Barcelona and Valencia.

I do not know how much I can visit, but I am going to try and see as much as I can whilst I have the opportunity.

It is a lot, but if you have anything on these places (Maybe even where I can look for train and flight prices to these cities from Ljubljana?) that would be great.

Hello Aleks. Greetings from cold but sunny Slovenia!
It's interesting to find aussie coming to study in Slovenia (usually is vice versa as Bosstjan said). But anyway, in Ljubljana you can find many aussies travelling through our country.
What's with your approval from university, have you got it? Or still waiting? nothing new
What do Slovenians think of Australians?
Don't worry about that. Slovenians are very nice (maybe too nice) to people from abroad, especially from so called West (Australia, Canada, USA, Western & Northern Europe). Slovenian mentality has a complex of smallness or in other words, everything from West is the best!
A little advice... Slovenia offers much more than Ljubljana so you can discover many other places (I was in Australia so I know that distances between towns are huge, so for comparison, Slovenia is big as length of Hume highway from Sydney to Goulburn or maybe to Canberra - so you can discover seaside in western part of Slovenia in afternoon and then - on evening - going to pub to for example Maribor.
I study in Koper (west SLO) and I'm very happy here. We have 3 universities in SLO: Ljubljana (central SLO), Maribor (east SLO) and Primorska-Koper (south-west SLO - seaside, 20 km from Trieste).

but if you have anything on these places (Maybe even where I can look for train and flight prices to these cities from Ljubljana?) that would be great.
Here, check this site (it's a site from slovenian national airline, here you can get all information about travelling from Ljubljana to european cities):
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Advice about European cities: yes, Berlin is very interesting city (Vienna, Hamburg, Prague also, and of course: Belgrade).
In Slovenia: Ljubljana, Koper, Piran, Maribor, Celje.

Have a great time!
Marko

Hi everyone.

I thought I'd come back to update everyone on the story.

So it appears that I will be going to Slovenia as I was hoping - however I am now just waiting for an official acceptance letter from the university, so that I can take that letter to the Slovenian embassy here in Australia and apply for my residence permit.

Now that that has been sorted I am currently in the midst of searching for accommodation. Are there any good (English) sites where I can find as such?

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Hello Aleks,

If you don't mind traveling by train buying an Interrail Pass would be a nice option. Since you're below 26 it's cheap and you can just go anywhere around Europe.
I was in Ljubljana last year and it's one of the nicest places I've ever visited! The city is just like a village; you can simply walk anywhere and the atmosphere is extremely friendly. Like the guys here stated above the people are very friendly and it's a beautiful place with nice foods as well. I really want to go to Slovenia again sometime!

Hey quickcheese.. hehe..

Thanks for the suggestion! Yeah I've been looking at the Eurail pass (for people not of an EU citizenship). They look really handy! But it's a bit confusing. I don't understand for which trains I still need to pay for the booking and reservation and which trains I don't need to.

Do I need to do it for all trains? Is it compulsory? Can I do it at the station?