Dr. Filomena

Slovenia: It’s S’Lovely

Found at another blog (source, thanks Adriaan): Condé Nast Traveler asked six designers to each rebrand a country of his or her choice for its September issue, and Paula Scher selected Slovenia for her effort.
“I’ve been to Slovenia twice and loved it. But most Americans don’t know what or where it is, which is something I wanted to address” says Scher. By highlighting Slovenia’s proximity to Italy, she made the country appear both physically accessible and “like it has great skiing and great food, which it in fact does.”
Although, as she commented in the article, “I don’t think countries should have logos. Logos are for corporations.”

While it may be difficult to shake off the feeling of being categorised as Italy’s appendix and the “love” bit of the word Slovenia has been used a zillion times in various similar solutions, do take a look at Paula’s other ideas at the source.

The past two weeks have been a wild ride for dr. filomena, hence the absence of postings. My life is never boring, but recently it may have reached certain records. Running 12 km around Lake Bohinj (yep!), very busy at work closing a couple of difficult real estate deals, translating a set of contracts and a catalogue of cosmetic products, going to opera and concerts, trying to fit in some quality relaxation time and now for the cherry on the top, the project of expanding the kitchen onto the balcony has just begun. Enjoy some ‘real time’ footage 🙂 taken for a before&after.

divider wall out

new windows in

radiator waiting for the next step of remodelling

(photo source)

I’m becoming a fan. 170 cocktails on the menu and so little time. Apart from the drinks and the ingenious decor that I still have to take pictures of someday, there’s always someting going on… as I’m sure this cool waitress (hairdo by Mič) will confirm:

For an unknown reason, Ljubljana has either ran out of mint sprigs or bartenders willing to bother with fixing mojitos. Still plenty to choose from, though. A B52, for example:

I’m sure Jasna enjoyed her evening with the girls who’d just given her the birthday present. What good is a nice drink without equally good company 😉 This photo may serve to illustrate Michael’s pt. 2 on the 5 Best/Worst Things About Living in Slovenia.
EDIT: As was correctly noted in the comments, I was thinking of point 4.

These two guys from Solnograd in Austria love Ljubljana. Who could blame them.

At “Pr’Skelet”, they do also offer blow jobs. This is one of the ways you can consume them:

Cheers!

Thanks to Morska’s invitation, I saw the opening of Trnfest, the 16th traditional annual festival that sparks up Ljubljana beat every summer. The first art exhibition to be featured was by artist that goes by more names than Prince.

Her current favourite designation is Matilda M. Dobro (dobro = good) and the show is entitled Troedina, which roughly translates to Female Trinity, or the “Comeback of the Drawing”. The works are packed with symbolism and even if a few of them seem to be haunted by horror vacui, they manage to convey the message quite clearly if one takes enough time to appreciate them individually. The two-dimensional quality of illustration allows the focus to be placed on the subject matter. Quite impressive.

The fact that Matilda a.k.a. e.g. the Queen of Snakes, has known Morska for a while, has not escaped me or my camera. I wonder whose always perfect nails she had in mind when working on several of these:

It was great to meet a fellow blogger and such an interesting person, along with her friends. Here is our pic, which ended up also being the last one in which my hair is longer than hers 🙂

The company was great and we ended up spending chatting away the rest of the evening at the Skeleton bar in old downtown, renowned for its extensive cocktail menu and impressive decorations that are mainly… well, skeletons. We covered a variety of powerful subjects and I can’t wait for another chance to do this again.

The morning after

One of the major issues in my life has been resolved. As discussed here, my hair really needed some serious work. Thanks to my wonderful boss (yes, such creatures do in fact exist), I now have a hairdresser I actually like and might go back to sooner than in three years 🙂 Mare Filipič of “Dresura Frizure” is one of the best professionals in Slovenia and assistant to one of the current top artists in the world. What a treat to have your hair done by the same hands that handle supermodels and rock stars. Just as importantly, Mare is a fascinating guy who’s been places, which makes for good conversation and the new hairdo seemed to take no time at all. I told him he could do anything he wanted with my hair. I expected blonde, inch-long hair, but here’s the result.

Ok so not quite the supermodel, but happy with my new cut.

Generally speaking, civil servants don’t enjoy the best rep to say the least. We don’t have to think hard to find one thing or another that irritates us. So it is with that much more pleasure that I found some things really are improving a lot.

I am thrilled with the new e-government service that allowed me to extend my car’s registration certificate online. I’ve been filing my tax return online for the past few years and now this new service has come in very handy as a major time-saver. I simply extended my insurance policy online at my chosen insurance company, and then ordered and paid for the new certificate of registration at the Slovene e-administration site.

The certificate arrived in a couple of days complete with an addressed, priority mail postage paid envelope to return the old certificate in.

Impressive.

I C U

Inspired by another blogger’s account of his day, I wrote a recap of one of mine. This is Sunday, 22 July 2007. Not too dull a day. Can imagine what Adriaan’s comment will be. (Click the links to view photos.)

00h – Went out on the town. Met a group of old college mates celebrating a birthday, and ran into a couple of Brits-turned-nearly-Slovene, one of whom I’ve known for 9 years. Yikes, time flies! Almost claimed a mojito a certain sombody owes me, but the otherwise lovely Cutty Sark with enjoyable music had run out of spearmint. The improvized cocktail was Ok since the company was good 😉 With the birthday party girls, found a place to dance that wasn’t completely desolate and even had a lovely view of the city from the terrace. Belgrade native confirmed his home town being alcohol+party.

7h – Damn that bio clock that won’t sleep even on weekends! Off to Šmarna gora we go. Got a bit of sun and fresh air. This is where Ian would probably love to go (think flying). Took some photos of butterflies. And of a golden retriever (Hera) who wouldn’t let me take more butterfly pics unless she had some attention first.

10h – What does one do on a hot day? I had it from a reliable source that one goes to hell. Pekel (literally translated as “hell”) is a gorge near Borovnica south-west of Ljubljana. Rambling alert! I had never been to Borovnica before, which is not very nice since one of my grandmothers was born at its railway station. Don’t worry, this is not as dramatic as it seems. Her father was the railwayman in charge of the Borovnica station and they lived there. Literally. Just a few days ago, she was telling me how her father used to take her on rounds checking the arches of the famous Borovnica viaduct when she was three or four years old, before they moved. At the time the second largest railway viaduct in Europe was built in 1856 on the Südbahn or Southern Railway, the first railway line linking Vienna to Trieste and was considered one of the most imposing bridge structures the world had ever seen. It was destroyed by Allied air raid during the World War II. Today only one surviving pier shows where it once stood.

With a stream and a set of five waterfalls, the narrow and steep Pekel gorge protected by a mysterious, dark forest, provides the welcome freshness even on the hottest of summer days. I took more photos of butterflies, ants, insects I don’t yet know the name of and… a freshwater crayfish! This was so exciting! I had hurt my finger climbing (this is not a sprehod, P! ) up one of the metal ladders (think finger caught between metal and rock, not nice) and was chilling the pain in the water, had camera ready for a tiny butterfly and out from under the rock crawls this guy.

13h – Off to a village in Vipavska dolina to visit family. As this includes (my other) grandmother, pass on the recommended trout at Pekel this time around (where there is a grandmother, there is food… lots of food). Spent time with her sister from Sicily, a real character. We have lots in common. I will share a letter she’d been given over 60 years ago, called “Ticket to Heaven”. And a photo she took of a tree being destroyed by lava during one of Etna’s mischiefs.

17h – Knight Tournament at Predjama Castle. A colourful event with attention paid to detail in many respects. Reinactment of battles of days gone by along with the trades of that time represented by craftsmen selling everything from food to clay pots and fur. Observing the more or less elaborate yet undoubtedly effective tools and methods humans once used to kill one another left me slightly less than enthused, but the scenery and costumes were beautiful. And horses are always a nice sight.

21h – The latest Harry Potter came to town, ergo I took my cousin to see it. The book has been my traditional end-of-school-year gift to him and seeing the movie is a must. This one is LONG.

00h – Home sweet home. Thinking finger still hurts, but the photos of the crayfish were worth it 🙂
And here is another favourite: Can you see the damselfly grin as he caught his lunch?

damselfly’s happy meal

Carpe Diem

I heard a most interesting interview on the radio yesterday morning and it stuck on my mind. The guy being interviewed was Srečko Rože, collector and owner of the Military Museum Tabor in Lokev village in south-western Slovenia, near Lipica, the cradle of the White Horse of the Karst, Lipicanec. You may know some of them from their place of work abroad in the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. Whoops, rambling in progress. Back to subject.

A miliraty museum is not something I would normally advertise, but I loved the way it was presented. This enthusiastic ex soldier, while fascinated by the items in the collection, says his goal is to exhibit the articles as a reminder of what humans are capable of doing to one another. With this premise in mind and listening to him go on and on about the project, I think I might drop by the museum and see all the uniforms and arms by myself as well. And try not to think too much about their purpose, but more about their message.

This quote does not entirely fit the subject, but I like it so here you go.

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.
-Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

To illustrate the point from the original Hair post, Sabina used Nikki this morning and proved that I have floor-length hair. Consider this the “before” in a “before and after” series 🙂

My sister and I are not among the most gigantic of people. To put it otherwise, she is the same height as Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith and Kylie Minogue and I’m just a half an inch taller than Shakira.

I’ve just gone through something I’ve last experienced in kindergarten and did not quite know whether to be surprised, appalled or indifferent.

The sales are on and neither my sister nor I could resist, so on Monday afternoon we turned shopping into a sister-bonding event. We spent some time together, got some hopefully rather cool outfits and by the time we were all shopped out, we felt like eating junk food for a change. It kind of goes nicely with the whole sales concept so we stopped at a McDonalds. It turned out we were not the only ones with that bright idea and we ended up waiting in line for 10 minutes. Which would have been fine. Maybe. Though it sort of defeats the whole point fast food? Anyway, it would have been Ok had a certified idiot not chosen to stand in line behind us and try to upset us with remarks about our heights. Well let me tell you he got his own. These two girls can make a stand. Trust me, my sister alone could take him and his friend anytime 🙂 I’ll take him on verbally and she can act as my bodyguard.

Anyway, this primitive guy whose parents I don’t know whether to pity or detest works for Mobitel. I’d say here I’m really glad my company and I have chosen SiMobil, but must admit I have some good friends working for the competition so will try to refrain from doing so. Here’s the possible future Darwin Award winner who’s possibly learned a valuable lesson in picking on those /seemingly/ weaker than him.

In any case, the guy actually made our day even more fun than it was before as we had a fresh bone to chew on (Slovenian expression I guess) and it made for great further sister bonding.

Dottie Persson made a remark about me many years ago and it sort of stuck among my friends. Today, I solomnly pass the warning on to my sister as well:

Don’t Piss off the Peantus!

Ok so hair may not be as important to some as it was to Samson, but still. Facing a dilemma right now. My hair is pretty much like this at the moment (honest):

Needless to say I need to go see a hairdresser. Question is, do I
– just trim it
– cut it short
– go blonde
– whatever

I’ve done the long-to-really-short before and Marjetica’s post reminded me of that option. Audrey Hepburn was cool! So was Catherine, actually, but that’s beside the point. Only problem here is that my hair seems to grow at slightly above-average speed and I’d end up seeing the hairdresser more often than some family members. Again.

Oh the tough dilemmas we face…