Dr. Filomena

Just a few photos from the opening of the Technology Park Ljubljana in December 2007 as correcty determined by Fotoholik in response to my “guess where” post.

I must say the opening ceremony was impressive and done in style. Way to go, Technology Park and the City of Ljubljana! This is exactly the type of an environment we need to secure for the future development of the country. The park’s vision is to become an internationally recognised support environment and commercial centre for the flourishing of globally competitive innovative technological entrepreneurship by ensuring a top-quality business support environment for the transfer of research findings and innovative commercial ideas to successful and internationally competitive technological entrepreneurship.

A new quiz might be in order: how many of the people in the pics do you recognize? Let’s see some names along with their titles… Fotoholik has yet to claim his free drink

Miss Slovenia 2005 Sanja Grohar performing semi-live at Ljubljana’s Opera Bar last Saturday night.

The video sound is rather poor quality, but it will at least give you a general idea of the singing performance. She did seem to rather enjoy it… and the predominantly male audience appreciated her attitude. I think she could easily make it to Mr. P’s Friday Foxies’ section Humm, maybe she already has…

Happy New Year from Srednja vas v Bohinju!

What beautiful sights while Ljubljana was exposed more to the “sounds” bit due to heavy fog setting in. See video blog report by Jonas for reference.

Lights for the Future

Anyone care to guess where this photo was taken? Shouldn’t be too difficult. The event was impressive with original performances in a playful combination of light, music and enthusiasm over Slovenia’s future development.

More photos on the way.

Yesterday, The Poušters threw one heck of a party at the Geonavtik Café. Thanks for the great time you’ve shown us, you guys!!! And to the Geonavtik team for making us feel at home. Seemed like a bit of a scene from Cheers.

If anyone is looking for the right band for a party or wedding for that matter, although the wedding-divorce ratio of their clients seems to match the general population statistics), these all-rounders (music, stand-up comedy, website programming etc.) will make a great choice. Just make sure you book them well in advance

Here comes the big bad ant:

Now sing along, everyone!

Last Saturday saw an eagerly awaited event come true. Denis a.k.a. človek came up with the idea and was the driving force behind the successful organisation of a bloggers’ Xmas season party. Shunning sponsorship funds, everyone gathered at the cozy setting of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum a.k.a. SEM, bringing some food to help ease the drinks served by the museum down thirsty throats. How appropriate a location, wouldn’t you say? Ethnographic history was being made on site. (Note: part of SEM mission statement: a museum “…about people, for people”, a museum of cultural identities, the link between the past and the present, between our own and other cultures, between the natural world and civilisation…”)

Since there was supposed to be a karaoke show as well, I decided, with some encouragement, to give it a go for the first time with “These Boots Were Made for Walking”. I even dressed… I mean… booted (?) for the occasion. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for the rest of the gang, Mr. Mojo forgot to bring my song. He (or whoever the saviour of blogger ears and possibly eyes may have been) is forgiven, however, especially since it turns out that I actually know mojo man from work-related ‘real life’.

Somehow, I managed to miss out on the karaoke performances of others and I am sorry for that although not sorry to have enjoyed interesting conversations with The Smokers in the plastic tent outside in the mean time (note: reference to the anti-smoking legislation).

I must say I never expected a bloggers’ party to be a place to reconnect with old schoolmates, either. Especially not ones from elementary school! (Yep, happened.)

Anyway, it was way cool to have seen the guys I’d met before at Pr’Skelet, reconnected with several people I’d not seen in a long time (and had no idea they were blogging) and met a bunch of new interesting people. Oh, and not to forget… thanks to Sigi at the bar! Even though they were officially not available, she made me as many caipirinhas as possible (i.e. limited by the number of limes available. They sufficed, thank you very much, and gave Seks a glimpse of the cocktail world.

When I hear music, I can’t help but move… and although I was slightly disappointed by the number of people who ventured out on the dance floor. But hey, the ones who did warm up to the beat sure did move You girls and guys know who you are…

I’m sure I’ll mess up by forgetting to mention a blogger pal, so I apologize in advance and blame it on my swiss-cheese memory. Heya, my long-lost grandson (we’ll have to talk about your drinking and sexual orientation someday, but granny loves you anyway and the talk can wait till after the holiday season), my favourite person from Krško who makes yummy rum-coconut-chocolate balls, the most blogestest couple in the room as far as I’m concerned who brought us a homemade blogelicious humongous chocolate jaffa cake. Burn, baby burn!

Morska is officially joining the witch club Binula and I had started a few centuries ago. Provided that Kobrowsky doesn’t wrap her in special plastic foil first.

Sunshine & Mitja, I enjoyed meeting the other half, especially since he comes from the best high school ever. I am keeping my fingers crossed that all your plans come to realization. Šuši, I remember! Yup, upside down, too.

Cheers, Chef (you can move!), Boštjan, Eirene, Saša (way cool to have come! and loved your smiles), Big Bad Wolf (so much younger and not as sharp-toothed as one would have presumed), Mojca the sunny one, Cyco the designer, Fotoholik (found your blog)… Hey Kašpar if Fetalij is my grandkid, I could always make you my great great great great grandson. MachineMan, we have to talk about the clubbing scene in Ljubljana… probably will come see you this week.

I think I noticed Pengovsky carrying on a political debate in a dark back corner of the room. A rather heated debate. Ok so it may have been on sex after all.

Again, thanks to all for a fun fun fun night. I was shocked to see it was 3.30 when leaving… Seemed more like pumpkin time to me.

Some photo material:

OK so admittedly I was more focused on the quality of the caipirinhas than that of the photos. I knew I could count on the other 75 cameras in the room to take better pics anyway

…

Človek, you da man!

Blog on!

Celje fairgrounds hosted an exhibition this weekend they tagged as the First Erotic Fair in Slovenia. To be honest, even having gone with less than high expectations, it let me down. I’d been to a similar show in Amsterdam a few years ago and though I didn’t hope for anything quite as diverse, I thought they could muster up more than:

1) A stand of the biggest Slovenian sex shop chain (I pass one of their shops en route to my regular lunching place almost every day);
2) An obnoxious Hungarian (sales)woman with signs in German selling (or rather not selling) potentially sexy garments - customers were a nuisance to her;
3) A tattoo/piercing stand;
4) An anti-aids / safe sex campaign stand;
5) (my favourite): Scratch-your-head (ok, was supposed to be massage) for free stand, selling a head-scratching/massaging contraption.

And a few of the plastic blonds on the stage. One of them was even kinda cute.

Apparently, it was a mistake to have come on Sunday as reportedly, some of the exhibitors were removed from the fairgrounds on Saturday by the tax authorities. I had both my cameras with me, but unfortunately, I saw nothing really worth photographing, so no photos to share this time (humm now that’s a first!).

OK so it was interesting from a certain point of view, but not something I’d recommend going to. And certainly not something I’d ever have called an Erotic Fair. Hey, if you do a show like this, at least do it with STYLE. I’d venture a guess that this particular fair satisfied a very specific target audience, namely the 17-year old male population. Give or take a couple of years.

On the upside, it won’t be difficult for the next one to top this event.

Here are some sources of photo material from people who apparently felt more inspired by the event than I did. The legendary Seks hasn’t let us down. Irena sirena has a good shot of my favourite stand. Veliki mož was as enthused as I, but at least took a few pics. Dejan could find no satisfaction, either, and Had took photos of one of the potentially attractive blondes. Again, though, may I suggest reading up on the terms erotica and… porn? She said, ever so non-anal-retentively. But I digress…

Ljubljana Lights

Every now and then it really feels good to simply take a walk. If you happen to be in a great town like Ljubljana, even better for you! So after just another fun-filled day at work (BTW, the website is being refurbished completely by a great angelically devilish team as we speak) and an uplifting cup of coffee with my beloved sister, I decided to take a stroll downtown that had just been lit up with a zillion colourful lights and extras, a cheerful reminder of the shopping season that spreads love and wrapping paper all around us.

Exhibition at Mestni muzej

So as not to succumb to the shopping spree completely (whoops, one does require a certain type of paper for that purpose… or plastique plastic), a visit to the museums seemed in order. The artefacts above were excavated at the site of the museum, from the Roman period when this city went by the name of Emona.

Copper Age; style truly is timeless, eh?

Mestni muzej (City Museum) has interesting exhibitions year-round and one of the amazing rooms, at least to me, is the one featuring some of the objects found in the Ljubljana area going all the way back to the period of the so-called pile dwellings (mostišča) at Ljubljana marshes during the late stone age and the copper age (4,500 - 1,800 B.C.), such as the one pictured above.

The many faces of Ljubljana

One does tend to discover many interesting bits and pieces… and people at museums, but one’s uncle is rarely among them. My eye caught a familiar pace and when the monk on the wall projection turned around and gave me that big all-knowing smile, my jaw dropped so low I had to struggle to pick it up. I wasn’t sure if it was just my eyes playing games with my brains on account of the delicious mulled wine I’d just consumed at one of the stands at the Three Bridges as part of the December tradition… Confirmed with a follow-up phone call, yep, that’s my uncle up there, featuring as one of the “many faces of Ljubljana” through the ages. Also re-confirmed, he never really was a monk. Phew.

The new exhibition at the School Museum

Desperately in need of some enlightenment, I swiftly entered not the school, but the next best thing. The Slovenian School Museum where a new exhibition was just presented. With lots of wine available, but in view of the as yet unconfirmed sighting of uncle at the other museum, I decided to pass on that particular temptation. The exhibition “The Teacher in a New Social Reality between 1945 and 1963″ makes for an interesting addition to the regular pieces.

We build schools, we build knowledge, we build socialism
(replace with an -ism of your choice any time)

One inscription that stuck was that “any system, anywhere, always wants to claim the society’s children”. Kids, you’re all we’ve got, guys!

Hey, it was time to get some more fresh air.

The festive Three Bridges

What better way to finish a day than to hang out with interesting people. I think the guy in whose honour admission to museums was free of charge yesterday would have approved. Especially if he’d had a chance to share a glass of wine with us. Mulled or otherwise.

Fetalij, the star blogger

Fetalij showing off (ok, so I sorta forced him to) with his own image in the very first printed blogger publication in Slovenia, Blogorola. Grayscale photo per his request

Happy birthday, Dr. Fig!