I hadn’t done any event with EESTEC, not even a member meeting, I didn’t know anybody there, so, to me, when I heard of it through friends, it was just the opportunity of a cheap trip to Slovenia. And now I’m just thinking “Can’t wait until next year, how to be sure to get a spot?” (please don’t steal my spot)
Our journey started on track 10 at Zurich HB on Thursday evening. We got to meet LC Zurich and LC Aachen there, waiting on the train. A boring 12-hour night train, would you think? Not for EESTEC. The first experience of this trip was the so-called ‘party train’, where I could taste for the first time EESTEC’s cocktail speciality, the Ricola-Vodka (I’ll stick to beer though, sorry). This train trip was crazy, you could get from compartment to compartment and get to know everybody, play a communist variant of Monopoly, Stalinopoly, or taste different variations of Ricola-Vodka. The award of this party train definitely belongs to the two members who, trying to get a little sleep, went too far in the train, not realising that it would split, and ended up in the middle of Austria.
Anyway, we arrived in Ljubljana at 8 a.m. on the next day, except for our two members. We first went to eat “Burek”, a delightful local speciality consisting of 90% of fat. We then went to the castle. Following a harsh ascent, the panorama offered by this castle, ruling the city on its hilltop, was stunning, enhanced by the autumnal sun. Ljubljana’s skyline, a unique mixture of a magnificent ancient city centre, a few relics of the brutalist architecture of communist Yugoslavia, and ground-breaking modern houses, emphasised our humbleness in front of History.
After lunch at the cosmopolitan Ljubljana market, whose culinary offer is as eclectic as its city’s charms, we headed to Tivoli bus station. We met there the rest of EESTEC, before getting on the bus to Kranjska Gora, an idyllic village in the Slovenian Alps. EESTEC rented two full hostels here just for us. We then had dinner in the hostel, and after a short waiting time, the first themed party began. It was a crazy night, but what happened there, stays there.
On the next day, after a harsh awakening, some went hiking, some went biking, and some stayed at the hostel, but in the afternoon, we all went to the highly Instagrammable lake Jasna. The bravest of us took a dip in the cold lake, and we simply chilled on its shore, taking a few group pictures.
In the evening, again, after the dinner we had another themed party, on all the different floors of the hostel. Some of us used their whole engineering talent and experience to prepare their disguise. After another short night and breakfast, it was time to leave. We took the buses back to Ljubljana, and there we split, it was time to say goodbye to our other LC friends. LC Zurich headed to the thermal baths, for a well-deserved rest. When the time came, we had a last EESTEC meal and took the night train back to Zurich.
What is the Kranjska Gora experience in the end? A trip to another country? A weekend of partying? An occasion of seeing beautiful landscapes? A multicultural stay where one can meet other cultures? It is a mix of all of that, and that is what makes it unique.
