Eva Mørtsell
Summer 2011 IAESTE traineeship in Ljubljana, Slovenia
I arrived in the afternoon Saturday 4th June. I got picked up by one of the local IAESTE members and he drove me back to Ljubljana. The student dorms offices are closed during weekends, so I could not get a student dorm until Monday morning. However, the IAESTE guy was very kind and said I could stay in his apartment for two nights since he would not be there anyway. His apartment was in the Šiška area, which is 30 min walk (or perhaps less) from the old city center.
Later that day I got my first tour of Ljubljana, the IAESTE summer receptionist came to meet me and told me the basics. At first I got a little stressed because of all the paperwork he said we still had to do, but it all worked out fine somehow. There turned out to be a lot of restaurants serving student meals. This means that the government will pay a part of the bill for you. Basically the price for a student meal varied from 1.7 – 4 Euros, which is a very reasonable price for a Norwegian student! I guess I ate out almost every day during my stay in Ljubljana, and I cannot say I missed cooking a lot.
The weather changes very rapidly in Slovenia. I experienced 38 degrees in one week and then it went down to 15 the next one. So it is a good idea to pack clothes for a wide temperature range. Also there are often thunderstorms in Ljubljana, so if you are going out it is reasonable to unplug your computer just in case.
Work
Even though my work was not very challenging it was quite interesting and useful. It did not seem like the employers expected a lot from me, but as I kept on asking for work they started to realize they should have more stuff prepared for the next intern to come. I was constantly asking for work the first two weeks and after a while I got a project. I was to work with non-oriented and grain-oriented electrical steels. I basically spent the rest of my stay working on these types of steels and writing a report at the end. The tests we did were light microscopy, tensile testing and hardness measurements. Some of the equipment was very impressive at the IMT institute, which was quite surprising as the outside of the building makes you expect something else.
My supervisor was always very friendly and helpful although he was quite busy from time to time. I also got an additional supervisor, but this was more unofficial. The second supervisor gave me the assignment about the electrical steel sheets and helped me a lot with the report. All in all I really had to study quite a bit since I did not know much metallurgy, but I definitely learned many useful things during the summer. There were no other trainees working at the institute when I was there, but the regular employees were so nice that this did not really matter. There were also several PhD students who showed me what they were doing on the SEM and TEM microscopes. In July I got to see how cold and hot rolling of different metals worked, in addition to tensile testing at room - and elevated temperatures. The lab engineers let me perform the hardness measurements myself, which was quite nice.
Weekends and where we went
Škocjanske jame
This is a cave system which is on the UNESCO world heritage list. It is less crowded than the more famous Postonja caves, and you have to walk yourself instead of sitting in a train during the whole tour. It is chilly down there, with 12 degrees in the bottom parts. There is also a river which has to be crossed during the walk. However if you want to see the human fish you have to go to the Postonja cave system. I really enjoyed this trip, it was amazing to see how the water has carved out these huge caves! We walked for about 2km under ground.
Piran
Piran is a small and cozy little town located at the coast of Slovenia. It takes no time at all to walk through the whole city, but it is definitely worth a visit. You will find that people talk both Italian and Slovenian in this area. The restaurants are a little more expensive if you want to sit close to the sea, but I guess this is not a problem for most Norwegians.
Koper
Another coastal city (or town)! We did not really spend a lot of time here, but it seemed to be a nice place. We spent some time at the beach and on a playground, they also have some shopping possibilities here. However, the other coastal towns are better choices in my opinion.
Izola
We went to this small town to go swimming, sunbathing and celebrate the birthday of a local IAESTE guy. It was all very nice, but most of us managed to get a sunburn on this trip. Don’t fall asleep in the sun! Izola is like all the coastal towns in Slovenia, not very big. But the place has a certain atmosphere that makes you want to stay there for a while. Perhaps this was because of our friendly hosts who took care of us.
Trieste/Trst in Slovenian
Trieste is an Italian city very close to the Slovenian border. They have some ruins from the roman time and many nice buildings in the city center. We had a good time there, but as it was on the hottest time of the summer I was actually thinking more about drinking water than sightseeing. Definitely a nice place to go if you like Italian cities though. We decided to take a tram-ride up on the closest hill/mountain which gave us a great view of the whole city and ocean.
Mira Mare
This is a castle close to Trieste, only a 15 min car-ride away. All the interior was very impressive and in addition the castle had a huge garden where you could go walking. They have student fares here, so it was 6 Euros to get in. I think everyone agreed Mira Mare was a good choice in the end.
Laško
15-17th of July we decided to go to the beer festival in Laško which is called “beer and flowers”. We stayed there for two nights at a tent camp for festival people. The town was crowded with beer lovers and the streets were full of stands where you could by the famous Laško beer, both dark and regular. There were different scenes where bands were playing music to entertain the party people and on Saturday evening there was a huge firework and laser show which seemed to go on forever! Great place and people!
Venice
My last weekend in Slovenia I actually spent in Italy. The majority of the trainees wanted to go to Venice, and so we did. Venice is actually a lovely city, but there are just too many tourists. The streets were so crowded that you couldn’t decide how fast you wanted to walk yourself. We decided to buy a day pass on the boat busses, and went to Murano. Murano is a small island in the Venice complex, which is famous for its glass manufacturing. I guess some souvenirs were mandatory to buy at that island. The second day in Venice we went on a round trip and looked at a cathedral. It started raining though and a lot of people got extremely cold. Tips: bring all sorts of clothes to Venice just in case.
Other places
Bled
Very nice small lake with a church settled in the middle on a small island. Bled also has a castle on the top of a hill next to the lake. This is a good place for walking, perhaps on the path around the lake. It is possible to swim here, but the water is probably cleaner in the next lakeBohinj. There are busses leaving for Bled every hour during the week, so there is no problem getting there. The café next to the lake sells the famous kremšnita, which is worth a try! You get a great view and a nice cake in addition.
Bohinj
Bonhinj is another nice lake to go swimming in! It also has a very nice surroundings are if you are into hiking, this is a great mountain area. For nature lovers, Bohinj is definitely a better choice than Bled. However both lakes have gotten a little touristic. The pictures you find online look a lot more deserted than it is in real life. One Wednesday a Polish trainee a Slovenian IAESTE member and I decided to go on a road trip to Bohinj after work just to cool down. This was one of the best ideas we had I guess as it was insanely hot that day! Definitely something you should do when the thermometer shows 35+.
Katarina
To get to Katarina you take bus 5 from Hotel Lev, direction north. Leave the bus at its last stop and start walking towards Toško čelo. At the hill top of Toško čelo, you follow the signs towards Katarina. The walk is about 18 km long until you reach Katarina, but it is a very nice walk if you would like to get out of the city for a while. I would estimate 4 hours of walking for the whole walk, even though I spent 5. I was quite tired when I started and did not walk very fast. Do not get worried if the local Ljubljana people haven’t heard about Katarina, it does exist and the bus ride does not take long at all!
Šmalna Gora
Here comes a typical walking destination for a lot of local Ljubljana people. If you want to go there by bus, number 8 should be the best choice. I have not been there, but it should not be more than an hour to the top even if you walk slowly. Many of the IAESTE Slovenia members recommended this walk.
Rožnik
This is the small hill next to the Tivoli park and the student dorms in Rožna Dolina. The hill has a pink church on top and also a café. It seems to be a very popular area for running or walking your dog. I was there a few times and must say that I agree with the locals on that part.
Kranjska Gora
To get to this place you drive through the town Kamnik and further into the valley. The spring of the local river is located there and the surrounding nature is very impressive. The water is not for swimming though, as it is used as drinking water. But I wouldn’t be too disappointed about not swimming there as it cannot be more than 12 degrees in the river. If you follow the river from the spring, you can see where the river dug itself far down in the ground. The water has an awesome bluish color, which perhaps comes from the sand underneath.
Triglav
If you want to go for a real hike, Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia, is the right place to go! Unfortunately the weekend IAESTE arranged a trip to mount Triglav my traineeship was over. If this mountain is too high, they have a lot of other nice possibilities! Go hiking!
Practical information/paperwork
In general: When you are going somewhere to do paper milling, always bring a folder containing ALL the official papers just in case. They often want to see a lot of your papers before giving you what you want!
At first, go to the student office in the Rožna Dolina student dorms. You will get all the papers in Slovenian, but the staff will tell you what it all means. In order to stay there it is necessary to get a residence permit from the foreigners’ office within 3 working days from the day you move in to your dorm. The residence permit you get at Oddelek za Tjuce, which is also written in some of the papers you get from the student office along with the address and so on. The residence office is open Monday-Friday, Thursdays they are open until 7 in the evening. However, many people seems to go there after 16, so if you don’t like queuing for 2 hours, you should be there at 8 when they open. To get a residence permit you will need to fill out a form with your application and you also need to bring additional papers. The additional papers are: passport photo, copy of passport and your real passport, copy of travel insurance, your contract with the student office saying you live in the student dorms, valid contract with your working place or acceptance papers and a Slovenian tax number. If you do not have all the necessary papers you are likely to be sent out again for another few hours of cueing. In order to stay in the student dorms, you get a temporary paper from the foreigner office, saying that you applied for residence ship. After about 3-4 weeks (in my case) a letter from the office will arrive. The letter is in Slovenian, and it just says that you can pick up your residence permit card at the same office for 2 Euros. I got some people at work to translate it for me. The whole residence permit project will cost you 10.50 Euros.
You also have to go to the student office to get your student ID. I did not do this myself, for some reason they were fine with the summer receptionist doing it for me, but this might change. In order to get the student discount on meals, you have to sign in on the internet pages of the student service. When you have done this, note the number that appears and go to the student service. They will then fix up your phone (which has to be a Slovenian phone) to the network. Every time you want to use your student discount you have to call 1808 and put the phone on a special device the waiter brings you. After confirming that this is you by showing personal ID, you get the discount.
To get a tax number: go to the tax office in the north of the city. Bring information like passport, copy of passport, passport picture, working contract/acceptance, student card.
When you have a tax number, you can create a bank account. I did this in NLB, which is located in the two tallest buildings in the center, they are impossible to miss. The people there are friendly and quite good in English. You need to bring your tax number, passport and 10 Euros at least to deposit into your new account. If you are staying for less than 2 months the residence permit is not needed. The card will probably arrive after 14 days. You pick it up in the same place as you created your account. They will however need to see the contract and your passport again. If you want to withdraw money from an ATM it will all be in Slovenian since you have a Slovenian card, so perhaps it is a good idea to have a native speaker with you the first time you want to use your card. I was really happy to have someone with me to translate for me.
In order to get internet access in your dorm you only have to pay 1 euro per month, however you will probably need a cable as they do not have wireless there. The set-up takes a while, but should be quite straightforward.
At last, to receive your payment, you need a Slovenian tax number, a Slovenian bank account and residence permit. I did not think a residence permit would be necessary since I was staying for less than 2 months, but it seems like it was after all. It is also very important to go to the student service in order to get a “Student napotnica”. You basically have to give them all info you have about your stay, personal information and working permit. This should be sent to your employer, and then you are good to go! Hope this will be a little helpful and not too confusing.
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