June and School's Almost Out for Summer

It's hard to believe June is here, chestnut buds have turn to small fruit, and I enter my final Fulbright month.  Classes finish up, final papers are due.  All my students have worked so hard; I'm proud of the way they have embraced me and my interactive teaching approach - so different from listen and cram for exams.  They started the semester looking at their shoes or desks a lot - now they smile and join in class discussion easily.  They started by asking me a lot of questions about requirements.  They ended by asking me if they could improvise an assignment. 

My Creative Writing class has been particularly rewarding. We are a small seminar group, and the level of honest and thoughtful critique has been extraordinary.  They have also produced some stellar words and some are even ready to try and publish a piece of two.  We also have a spot for a group reading at the Young Rhymes poetry festival here in Ljubljana during the last week of June; an ideal closure for our class.

Here we are have a meeting at Cafe Barabuk - even after class is over, they enjoy writing together and sharing our words:)

My Media and Literature class has also really impressed me.  We read - A LOT - a  text on Seeing and Writing (McQude and McQuade), as well as Ruth Ozeki's novel, My Year of Meats, and Inverna Lockpez, Cuba:  My Revolution, a graphic novel.  Students kept thoughtful reading journals, did exemplary group projects on Media making, and are now handing in some super last work.

I couldn't be happier with their work, and our rapport ~

Pot ob Vici: Celebration of Liberation

Each year on May 9th, is the Pot ob Vici, the annual walk around the city, enclosed by barbed wire and guard houses from 1941 - 1944.  Here's an abbreviated history, from a translated pamphlet:
The Germans invaded the former Yugoslavia on Palm Sunday, 1941, and the Italians took Ljubljana on Good Friday, later that week.
Various groups in Ljubljana, including the Communist Party, the Christian Socialists, and the Liberation Front,  organized to work together for the first time, against the occupying army.   This threatened the Italian Fascists enough to enclose the city with a barbed wire barrier, to prevent anyone from the countryside from entering, and vice-verso.

By the end of 1942, the fence was almost 30 kms long, with watch-towers and bunkers along the way - 206 fortifications of various sizes.  The citizens were unable to leave the city to walk in the countryside, as is their tradition and part of typical weekend activity.

The Liberation Army came on May 9, 1945, and opened the city.  The citizens celebrated their freedom by going to the countryside for walks and picnics en masse.  Now this tradition of "walking the wire" is done every year, on May 9.

My Fulbright buddy, Rachel Aumiller, Bella, and I picked up the path here, joining hundred of walkers at this point.  We walked through Golovec forest, towards Rudnic, and back to Ljbuljana,  just over 18 km.  That was enough for us!  We were three tired walkers!

But what a wonderful tradition for families and friends to celebrate the day...Feeling the love in Slovenia~

April 27, Day of Uprising Against the Occupation - May Day

This week is a holiday from classes, starting with Monday, April 27th, which is Day of Uprising Against the Occupation.  Formerly Liberation Front Day (dan Osvobodilne fronte), marks the establishment in 1941 of the Anti-Imperialist Front to fight the German, Italian, Hungarian, and Croatian partition and annexation of Slovenia.

There is an excellent exhibit about this time in Ljubljana during WW2, now at a Gallery at the end of our street.   Local writer and curator, Blaz Vurnik, and artist, Zoran Smiljanic, collaborated on Memories and Dreams of Kristina B, a graphic novel of a girl and her family living behind the barbed wire that surrounded Ljubljana from 1941 - 1945

 http://www.mgml.si/en/vzigalica-gallery/news-and-events-445/events-1295/memories-and-dreams-of-kristina-b
Here is an image from the novel.



 
May 1st is also an important day in much of the world, to celebrate the workers. Slovenia takes this seriously, and everything is closed except for a few cafes (how could we live without our cafes....?)

We took a short trip to Budapest, between these two holidays.  Just an eight hour train ride, for 49 Euros, it was a beautiful way to see the Slovenian and Hungarian countryside.  Bella was an excellent traveler, and made many friends on all leg of the trip.  On this train line, dogs are welcome for the fare of a child's ticket.

Aside from Bella's diplomatic skills, we enjoyed all the renown sites of Budapest:  the Parliament, the castle compound over the Buda Hills, Saint Mathias Church....all magnificent. 

I'll have to admit though, after all the hustle and bustle of a busy urban center, with sirens and taxis and trolleys and buses, traffic and congestion, returning to Ljubljana is a dream.  So quiet to walk home at night at 10:00 p.m., along the river.  The chestnuts are all leafed out and the air is spring fragrant.  It sounds like a cliche, but it doesn't get much better than Ljubljana.....

Happy May Day ~

Here are photos of my street and neighborhood now that Spring has settled in and all the trees have leafed out - And Bella has had her inaugural dip in the Ljubljanca River.

Happy Spring Everyone!

Pox and Spring in Ljubljana

Spring in Ljublana - the willows along the river are vibrant green, the chestnuts are budding, and apple trees blooming.  I thought Ljubljana was pretty in the winter, but now she's really even more lovely.

I had an unexpected encounter with the medical facilities here, due to a spreading rash that I hoped was allergies.  It wasn't.  I escaped Chicken Pox as a child, only to get it as an adult.  The first clinic I went to was a lesson in waiting...almost three hours to be seen by a doctor who told me I had Small Pox.  "Don't worry," she told me, "it's very common here."

I must have looked very worried, so she went on to assure me.  "Most children get this, but we can get you medicine."

Then I realized she must have meant "Chicken Pox."  From this clinic I was sent to the Klinika Za Infekcijske Bolezni, where I was put in isolation for a few more hours, until another doctor confirmed my diagnosis.  One week of anti-viral medication and two weeks of antihistamines later, I think it's gone.  Because it's highly contagious, I had to stay away from my students and any enclosed spaces where I could spread it, but now back to class and life as usual.

Just in time to enjoy Spring and get back into the swing of classes and mid-semester.

One lesson (of many) of living abroad:  Expect the Unexpected:)

Cafe Culture

One of the joys of living in Ljubljana is the cafe culture, that's so embedded in the lifestyle here.  We live along the river, which is literally lined with outdoor seating, but this is true all over the city.  I admire the tenacity of those outdoor cafe patrons, who sit out in all kinds of weather, but the set up invites it:  sheepskin on the chairs, blankets for laps, heat lamps above.  It's not too hard to take.

The city is very dog friendly as well, so where ever I go with Bella, she's sure to get a bowl of water, and sometimes a treat - a felafel, a slice of ham, or, at Le Petit Cafe, a bowl of whipped cream.

Prices are reasonable at just over one euro, so why not stop for a cappuccino every afternoon, or even twice?  No Starbucks prices or ridiculous sizes...just straightforward, good coffee in white cups, with frothed milk and a few packets of sugar if you wish.

Here are a few photos taken early in the morning, out with Bella for her morning walk.  Tables and chairs just being set up for the day.  Later they will be filling up with Ljubljanans, and we'll be among them.....

 Here we can see the attention played to a spring palette for chairs and blankets.  Below, Bella looks for some leftovers somewhere.

Heat lamps ready here...but soon we won't need them.  Spring is feeling stronger each day.

Hostel Celica

Hotel Celica (www.hostelcelica.com) is a former military prison that was deserted after Slovenian independence in 1991, and ultimately taken over by artists and activists in Ljubljana.  The result is stunning.  Where once men (and some women) were incarcerated for their beliefs and ideologies, locked up in barred cells or even thrown into a dungeon for solitary confinement, now is a sun lit building redesigned for travelers to sleep, share meals, listen to music, and rejuvenate.

As an educator who works in the Maine State Prison, this place interests me on many levels. First, it shows the power of the human spirit to reclaim a space and restore its energy.  It also shows how political ideologies can, and do, shift, and good can prevail.  Finally, it shows the important work of artists and activists.

Below is the brightly painted exterior of the building.  You can still see the bars on windows.  These cells have been made into sleeping quarters (more photos of this below).

 The metal bars have been incorporated into the renovation - here a visually inviting doorway.

 Here is a room for sharing coffee with friends, reading, or just enjoying the peace.  More than 80 artists contributed to this project, which involved architects, painters, and poets.

 This cell is the closest to the original furniture, except for clean linens, extra windows, and removed bars.  On the left side of this room, a square has been preserved where we can see prisoners' writing on the wall, doodles, hatch marks (perhaps for counting), and initials.

Here color is banded around the former cell, chairs placed next to the window, with a table for writing.

This cell is an example of how materials from the area were recycled.  The bricks that form this platform were found outside the building, and the artist reconstructing this room used them to elevate this bed, set under an oval window.

The photo below shows the stairs that led to solitary confinement.  This is controversial practice in the U.S, though still widely used (likely not in dungeons such as this).

We shone a flashlight down the stairs to take a picture down here.  There is very little light, except coming from chinks in the walls.

Walking in the total darkness, feeling the cold damp stone, hearing very little sound, really illuminated for me the importance of the transformation of Celica Prison to Hostel Celica.

This is a model, not only for architects and painters, but for life.  Dark places can be reformed and revised.  As we see here, they can become vibrant areas to restore body and spirit.

Recyling in Ljublana

Ljubljana has got this just right - True, coming from Maine where I have to drive 12 miles to a transfer station that's only open four days a week, my comparison is weak.  Here, there are recycling stations every few blocks:   one receptacle for household trash, one for Biologic (natural materials), one for packaging (that's the bulk), one for paper, and one for glass.  Notice Bella helping:)