Life Lately: January

Dorm deco

Like many, I too have, upon finding out I'm accepted to my selected university, been most excited about personalising my dorm. In light of having at least someone/something remotely alive in the room, I invested in 6 tiny cactuses from Ikea (y'now, the tumblr ones), which I definitely named: Alejandro, Roberto, Fernando, Gianteo, Gianluigi and Gianpiero. Somewhere along the line I realised I don't like the smell of my dorm, thus a candle has found its place among the cacti. As I am a bookworm, I couldn't refrain myself from bringing a couple of books. My favorite is The Little Book of Hygge, which I turn to whenever I want to bring hygge into my dorm, or just want to reminisce on my week in Scandinavia. There were some dents in the wall, which I took the libery of covering with a lovely composition of postcards and artcards from my travels, film negatives, and polaroids. December came, and that section of the wall got a pleasant addition: the Advent calendar. The ultimate Advent calendar, really, it was Lindt. I taped it to the wall, and on a lovely December morning, as I was sleepily seeking my will to live in a large cup of coffee, it fell on my head, rattling me to my very core. I went to uni sans my will to live. My sister got me a branch to imitate a Christmas tree and made some decorations, so my dorm was more festive than I ever got to be. I also put up a large picture of the Blue Lagoon in Iceland (love me some Iceland), and a drawing I had to do for uni that happened to turn out nice. Now there's a calendar taped to the wall, I hope that one doesn't come after me. (Edit: It did come after me. I should invest in better tape.)

Ljubljana

I'd been warned before moving, that the city I like very much will soon become boring and annoying. That turned out to be true in terms of people, as I am having trouble listening to the wide selection of different accents the fellow students use. What's nice about life here, is that I go through the city centre every day, and thus get to capture all the beautiful buildings in lovely lighting. This especially paid off on the day we got snowfall, as I had the chance to stroll around the parks and alleys and photograph Ljubljana in its winter wonderland glory. I recognise the potential of the abundance of lovely cafés scattered all around the city, and my professors are constantly telling us about various exhibitions in all sorts of galleries, however, due to the lack of company and time, I haven't gotten around to see any of them yet. The other day I walked up to Ljubljana castle to see an old renovation done by Plečnik, and it was on that Wednesday morning I realised how very out of shape I've become, for the max. 15 minute walk had me panting like a walrus fresh out of water (not completely confident in the accuracy of the description but ok).

Travel

Obviously I hadn't gotten around to wandering about the world yet, but I do have some good plans for the future. My seminar has organised a week long trip to Southern Spain in March, so expect a lengthy post about that. This year, Venice is hosting the Architectural biennale, and you don't have to guess twice whether I'll be there.

Living alone has gotten me well in touch with myself, my mentality, my patience, my working habits, and my organisation skills. I've noticed that I'm fairly tidy, but can't possibly summon the time to sweep. Cooking is very nice, though it would be even nicer if I weren't on a clock to return to uni. I'm excited about this student meal program thing I'm applied for, where a handful of restaurants all over the country offer free or reduced meals to all students. Many take advantage of this and are very happy with it, however I hadn't yet found time to do it. It is highly likely I'll get to do it in the second semester, as we have seminar work that keeps us at uni all day. I do get a bit lonely sometimes, but as I am a deep introvert, that doesn't last long.

That's about all I have to say about my life in Ljubljana so far, I will to another check in at the end of the second semester. Until then, I desperately hope I can get myself to publish more. I already have one post written and two in the beginning stages of bullet points, but god knows when I'll get to edit them, add photos etc.

To be honest, this post was written over the course of three weeks, so there should probably more content here, had I not taken so many breaks between writing.