Wednesday, 1st August 2012

At 5.45am we left Portoroz to take a 3 hour bus tour to Maribor. As most of us didn't get much sleep we continued to sleep in the bus. At 9am we arrived at Maribor and at 9.30am the presentation about the European Capital of Culture ECOC and their volunteering work started. We also had a short presentation of 3 of their volunteer who shared their experiences with us.

After that we had a little sightseeing tour through the city. As the city isn't that big, it didn't take us that long ;) We also have noticed that the buildings in Maribor look very similar to the Austrians, so we felt like beeing home again! At 1pm we had a delicious 3 course menu at a traditional Slovenian restaurant where they also served green beer!!

From 2 to 6pm we had to do a survey about MARIBOR 2012 with tourists and also locals. After finishing it we had a nice walk through the city and enjoyed an ice coffee at the river.

At 6pm we started our journey back to Portoroz which actually took us 4 hours in total. In between we enjoyed a great donut.

Thank you very much for this trip which we really enjoyed even it was a long day.

See you tomorrow,

Jasmin & Stefanie

Guys thank you very much for the great party at Alaya Club, we danced a lot and had a lot of fun :)
After the club some of us decided to have a swim in the sea.
Thank you for the free day which we spent in Croatia exactly in Umag. We spent our day at the sandy beach and enjoyed the sea.

Monday 30th july 2012

As usual our day started at 9am at Turistica, we had a really interesting lecture from Goretti Silva (Portugal) The topic was Social Media, we really appreciate it that she was sharing her personal experiences on becoming entrepreneurial.

After daily lunch we had a little siesta till 3pm. In the afternoon we contunied with our workshops, every group did some research and worked on their presentation.

Now we still have some time to enjoy the sea and look forward to have delicious dinner at 7pm.

Jasmin & Stefanie

Saturday 28th July 2012

Today we met at 8:30 am at the bus station to get to Piran. After a short bus ride we arrived at the picturesque town. At the beginning a cute old lady introduced us her volunteering work in slovenian, which was quite difficult to understand but luckily our tour-guide translated the important things. The old lady was passionate and convincing.

Afterwards we had the opportunity to discover the market in the middle of the main square, which was quite interesting. We found some nice jewelery which we couldn't resist to buy. Than it was time for doing some volunteering work, the first group was doing some restauration work and the second group folded a lot of post cards in form of boats.That was quite funny :) Especially our song-performance of "Maja the bee" in different languages.

Later we had to pass a challenge, where we had to answer some difficult questions and search after that in Piran. We went through the city and asked some lokals, but unfortunately they didn't know the answers. So we went to the Museum, Aquarium and Tourist Information to get the answers.

After the game we had two hours left, which we used to explore Piran :)
At 2:30pm we had lunch at our usual restaurant, today we had lasagne. Now we are going to the beach and have a swim in the sea and in the evening we are going to party.

Jasmin & Stefanie

Thursday 26th July 2012

Our day started at 9am at Turistica with the introduction of Voluntariat SCI Slovenia. Unfortunately the first presentation was too quietly and theoretically. After that the first workshop included some statements where we had to decide if we agree or not. They also showed us some pictures and a video about their last big project and told us a lot about volunteering. The workshops and teamwork covered some very important topics for our society e.g. globalisation and racism.

As usual we spent our lunch break at restaurant Burin where we had some delicious "Wiener Schnitzel" with potatoe salad. We spent our afternoon with painting and decorating some used jar glasses. Before that we had a presentation about recycling. In the end the team asked us for feedback.

The few minutes of leisure time we spent at the beach and in the sea where we refreshed our energies.
At 7pm it was time for the pizza party :)

See you tomorrow,


Jasmin & Stefanie

Wednesday 25th July 2012

Lectures started at 9am today, the first lecture had the topic "EUROBASKET" which was really interesting and informative. We heard a lot about how volunteers are included in such big sportevents, how much work, time and enthusiam is necessary.

The second lecturer was a british guy who talked about volunteering as a way to enrich one's life. He encouraged us with the sentence: You can do anything in your life what you want to do! The AWF (Atlantic Whale Foundation) is running some very exciting projects e.g. save the whales and elephants or plant a tree, fund a dream or improve the rights of women in different countries.

We went to our usual restaurant and had lunch with the beautiful seaview.

In the afternoon we had our first opportunity to work together in our planet groups. Every group has to prepare a final presentation at the end of our Summer school. Each one has a different topic to prepare. After that we used the short break to refresh ourselves and jumped into the sea. What a great moment!

Dressed up we went again to our restaurant where we had delicious dinner :) At the restaurant we sit always together in our planet groups e.g jupiter, mars, mercury and venus.
Having eaten too much some of us decided to have a walk to Piran. The promenade and also the city itself are very beautiful and impressive. We are looking forward to go there again on Saturday :)

Jasmin & Stefanie

International Day

2nd day of our Summer University started at 9.00 a.m. with very interesting lectures about the Olympic Games in London 2012 and Couch Surfing, followed by the lecture of the imporant topic sustainable and responsible tourism. Afterwards we had a very nice lunch at the seaside where we had the opportunity to get to know our workshop groups better. Unfortunately no break was included!

After a 2 hour preparation time, our International Evening started at 5 p.m. Every country did a great and creative job and we really enjoyed the time and the possibility to get to know the other countries better. Especially the games were quite funny and encouraged the team spirit.

After the preparation, we moved to the beach and we had the possibility to try the typical food of each nations. Many thanks to Rumania, Portugal and Slovenia for the delicious buffet and the alcohol ;)

See ou tomorrow,
Jasmin & Stefanie

Welcome all of you to our summer university in Portoroz!

We had a nice welcome from Miha and Mitja and all members of SWT 2012.
Furthermore playing the introduction game was quite a nice way to have a first chat with you.
Our task was to find another person which e.g. is an only child, has a tatoo, can speak more than 4 languages, is taller than you, plays a musical instrument, ...

This allows us to get first impressions of each others and all different nationalities. This is the 3rd summer university in portoroz, last year there were 5 nationalities and this year there are 7 nationalities participating: Portugal, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Rumania, Slovenia and Croatia. In total we are 24 students.

Besides Miha giving us a short overview of our programm, he also explained us what we are expecting to do during the next 2 weeks which includes various lecutres, workshops, panels and case studies. On Friday we are going to visit the Fonda Fish Farm, where we also have the possibility to eat delicious fish. The team of SWT 2012 also prepared some other excursions where we are going to visit Piran and Maribor. Every day we also have to write a blog about our experiences during the day.

Now we look forward to having a delicious lunch at the Turistica! ;))

Jasmin & Stefanie