Slovenia Day 4/Work & Working Dinner

Today was work all day again but this evening we had a 'working' dinner in Bled. It was so beautiful up there.
Bled has the only island in slovenia and it has a church on it.

There is this castle on the cliff on the lake shore.

The surrounding area was so lush and green. It was rainy still so we couldn't see the alps in the background but it was still gorgeous. I was sure to touch the water in honor of my sister who has to touch every major body of water she ever comes within 100 miles of (even if it means sleeping in the car at the new hampshire airport just to touch to ocean).

We ate at Vila Bled which was the Vila of former Yugoslavic President Tito. I didn't get many good pictures of the Vila.

In the room where we ate there was a large mural of WWII for Yugoslavia. Some parts were a little bit more graphic and didn't set quite the right ambiance but they were proud of it.

The food was quite good. These were the appetizers. The seafood cocktail (bottom) was not to my liking. Once I tried the tentacle I was done with that one. The moxarella balls were to die for though.

The dinner and dessert were delicious but we never got to the buffet table at the right time and they were always out. The desserts the completely ran out of so what you see above is not what was on the menu.

In other food news. At Brett's requrest I tried Doner Kebaps twice.
This is the man shaving the meat.

These are the two doner kebaps. They were both quite tasty. I couldn't however find the Ula Dag which is the drink Brett asked me to bring back for him and his brother. I have grown very fond of the Shwepps Bitter lemonade. It's delicious.

Last night we went out for dinner.
I had risotto and apple strudel. Both were very good
Tomorrow it is more work.

Slovenia Day 3/Work

The next few days will be all work. Not very exciting and so I don't really have any pictures.

Slovenia Day 2/Tour Day

Today we went on a tour of the southwest part of the country. We went to a cave in Postojna, a castle in Stanjel (there is suppose to be a thiny on top of the S), and the shore in Piran. Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

The Driving was gorgeous. Of course it was har

Our first stop was this cave. The bottom picture is John and me by the sign for the cave. There is also a picture of all the people I know at the meeting on the train that goes through the cave and then some pictures of the cave

This is the castle we visited. We had some tastings there. The stair case is for my mom's interests

This is really creepy looking but really good chocolate given to us by a man from Russia here at the meeting.

This is a picture from the bus. Churches with tall towers like this were all over the place.

Sorry about the pictures not being rotated. These are all from around the castle. The views were breathtaking!

This is the town square at Piran.

A beautiful tree in Piran

This is me with my feet in the rather codldadriatic sea.

Again, sorry about the not being rotated. I liked the sail boat in the picture. The land in the back ground is croatia.

Because it was cloudy you could barely see Italy. In the horizon you can barely make out the coastline that is slightly darker than the sky. That is Italy. The peninsula is Slovenia on the side you can see and Italy on the other.

That was my day. After getting back we went out for a quick dinner of pizza and then came back to the hotel for the night. I talked to brett on Skype for a while and loved every minute of it.

Slovenia day 1/Travel

~5:00:
I made it to slovenia. I left salt lake at 5:00 pm on Friday the 30th and arrived in Slovenia Saturday the first at 5:00 pm. The flight from SLC to Paris was good but long. I slept okay on the flight and got a little work done. I got to see bits of england, the english channel, and france through the clouds. The french countryside is beautful. It lookes like a patch work of greens, browns, and yellow. After a short stay in the Paris airport it was off to slovenia. I'm suppose to meet some people in a few minutes but I wanted to share some pictures with you real quick.

Paris from the air.

Policemen on actual horses in front of our hotel and my hotel room.

It took me a while to figure out how to turn on the lights. I freak me out a little that none of the switches did anything. Turns out the box by the door that I didn't notice... You have to put your room key into it and all the lights will turn on. Pretty neat eh? Well I'm off to find food.

~9:00
Well I'm back from buying food. Brett was logged on to his gmail account and I'm very happy to be chatting with him through gmail as we speak. Instant messaging/online chatting does make me feel like I'm in Jr. High again though and I don't like it. We are working on getting it so we can talk over Skype. Here is what we did this evening...

This is the view from my hotel (not part of what we did this evening but still cool)

Outside the Hotel


The hotel from down the street



The center of the touristy downtown.


Dinner: Gyro Pita and a Banana Nutella Crepe

After dinner we wandered around down town. There are a ton of beautiful buildings that are in stark contrast of the buildings from the communist era.

The castle overlooking the city is in the background atop the hill.


This statue was rare because... he is fully dressed. Or at least more dressed than most the other statues.


Okay this guy was/is fully dressed and awesome!


The park was so green and beautiful there were tons of flowers I've enver seen before and some I have. The amusing part is that the flowers are so well kept but the grass not so much. The grass is longer and has dandelions in it. Not a bad thing but different from parks back home.

Today is the day

Today I have to finish the last of the coursework I will ever complete at the University of Utah. I graduate next week. It seems that not that long ago I was graduating from high school. I have said goodbye to most of my friends and will probably never see most of them again since I won't be in the country to walk at graduation. I'm going to take this space in the cyberworld to toot my own horn for a moment.
-I began at the University of Utah summer 2006 with a full tuition scholarship. The scholarship required the maintaining of a 3.7 gpa or higher and only lasted 4 academic years. I have managed to keep my scholarship and finish in just 4 years.
-I'm graduating near top of my class in chemical engineering, not a cake walk major.
-I am graduating with deans honors (top 10% of the college of engineering) and magna cume laude.
-I think the greatest achievement I have to share about myself is that last week my peers voted me the chemical engineering outstanding senior for 2010. This one I'm proudest of because it means that not only did I complete my course work and complete it well but I made friends and gained the respect of my peers.

I was hoping to hurry and set out some graduation announcements to family and close friends this evening but it is snowing outside right now so I don't think I'm going to get the graduation picture I wanted taken taken and I have to pack for my trip tomorrow. So consider this my graduation announcement to the world.

And I'll leave you with the silly song that has been running through my head since one of my young woman brought Vitamin C (the singer) up last week. This song came out when I was graduating from elementary school.