The spectral wonders...

On Tuesday evening, just before sunset Ljubljana got its fair share of weather related phenomena. At dusk, as we were heading home the thunder storm that lashed the city for some 2 hours passed over the city. It's clouds were crossing almost in complete straight line- hard rain on one side and clear skies on the other. Because of the rain and the sunset the skies were colored in this strange dark-yellowish glow. In fact the horizon of rainy sky was just of the right luminescence so that rainbow that appeared had the secondary bow visible. And on the clear side of sky few clouds that were there were colored red because of the sunset. The remaining of this side was this cool gradient of dark-blue to red color. At that stage I didn't have my camera with me, so all I can show here is the picture of the western sky I took as we got into apartment. Not as spectacular, but still beautiful, right?

Polish weekend

You might think (based on this and my previous post) that I travel a lot. The truth is I don't travel even near as much as I'd won't. Hope to improve that. So much to see, and so little time and €€€. :-(
Back to Warsaw weekend. Bought this promotion ticket for Adria Airways flight to Warsaw. Could you believe the promotion was that if you've bought anything in supermarket chain InterSpar, you could have purchased ticket for 100 € for various European destinations. Sweet, hey. ;-)
Why Warsaw? Well, why not? It's somewhere I wasn't before, not to expensive, rich culture, and (most important) not to near to home.
So, Vanja, Jernej and me decided to go on a 6 day break to Warsaw. And just to make things more interesting, we decided to visit Torun (UNESCO heritage site & birthplace of Nikolaus Copernicus) and Olsztyn (where couple of Polish friends Vanja studied with in Bayreuth live at the moment) by train.
I'm not going to write whole travelogue. But to make things short(er)- we had great weather, met some really nice and cool people (thank you Ana and Mateusz & this cool singer girl whose name I can't spell). If I had to rate this trip it would be just next to the best ones I took. Warsaw was great- from old statues, monuments, old city, hostel, all the way to jazz club & bars and restaurants we visited. Torun with its old gothic buildings has a great atmosphere and one of the best kept tourist secrets. What made Olsztyn so memorable were Ana & Mateusz, who showed us great hospitality and fun things to do in their city.
Dziękuję again!!!

Monument to unknown soldier

Decoration at the bar in hostel

Vanja, in our hostel "New Mexico" room after party night in Warsaw, and before 2-hour long phylosophical discussion about nature and religion and nature of religion :-)

Palace of culture and knowledge, Soviet gift to Warsaw

Palace on water, Warsaw

Lake near Olsztyn

Jernej, Ana, Mateusz, and Vanja at beer garden

After-party at And and Mateusz's flat

Testing the bed

View from train on the way back to Warsaw- FLAT!!!

Weekend in Bratislava & Brno

A week ago Alenka, Gorazd and me had a great extended weekend in Bratislava, Slovakia. Went there by train (which reminded me how I don't like long journeys by train). But apart from that- it was surprisingly good relief from every day fuss at work. Brings you into perspective. Anyway- went there on Friday, came back on Monday. On Sunday we took a short train trip to Brno, Czech republic. I was in Slovakia twice before, but wasn't in Czech republic before-hand. My impressions all-in-all were great. As with most East-European cities, the suburbs are made-up of this shabby Communist-era living blocks. But old city centre is great- full of old buildings, churches and things to do. I think I will definitively come back.

The weekend (as such things go) ended to soon. But I definitively decided I should do more of this city breaks. We often don't realize how privileged we are living few hours from so many capitals and historic cities...

1st night, Slovak pub- weathering thunder storm- IMHO roof needs some repairing ;-)

1st night, somewhere near Danube; the end result of the storm

Saturday- drinking a beer at 10:30 in the morning? Why yes, and I LOVED it. ;-)

Saturday, vista of Bratislava- Petržalka with Novy most & Danube

Hiding from journalists... ;-)

Best legs of Bratislava 2007- get your own pick

Dragon in athrium of Brno city hall

Eddie Cochran: Summertime blues

The basic proof that rock music is art, is that rock musicians too get full credit of their work only after they die. And if they die young, like Buddy Holly or Eddie Cochran the tragedy only brings them more fame (although it really doesn't help afterwards, does it? :-). I intentionally didn't write more names of musicians who died later (because of drug overdose / their own vomit,...), just because in my opinion these two are pioneers of this music, and their death really set example of how things would go after them.