A little taste of International Travel

Hey everybody!

This is kindof a weird post - it's written in three different parts. The weird thing is: What you are currently reading is the second part. I'm having quite the adventure this foggy Tuesday afternoon, and to think I'll have had McDonalds in three countries before 3pm is quite the accomplishment. I'm in the Ljubljana train station, about to head to Zagreb, Croatia for the next leg of my journey.

Underneath is the first part of this post - I wrote it a couple hours ago, and figured I might as well get a start on this post now as I haven't posted recently!

So, today has thus far been very eventful. I’m currently sitting in a café in Ljubljana, Slovenia, having one of the best (if not the best) espressos of my life.

So where to begin? I woke up today with the intention of going to Zagreb, Croatia, to get a stamp on my passport. Why? Because if I have a stamp from a country outside of the EU, I get another 3 months to complete my Residence Visa in Austria, which expires in 2 days.

So: Why didn’t I complete my Residence Visa before? Well, I thought I had. I was given, however, a conditional residence visa; meaning I still had to complete one part of it -  I needed 5500 EURO in an Austrian Bank Account.

So what do you need for an Austrian Year-long Student Residence Visa? (Yeah, I have to be that specific):
1. Meldezettel, registration of yourself in Austria as a foreigner.
2. Proof of Health Insurance
3. An Austrian Bank Account with 5500 EURO

4. A Studienplan (study plan) of your year-long studies, as well as proof of enrolment.

5. A passport photo for the application.
And to complete the application, you need to have the following information:

-Where you’re living in Austria
- Passport information
- Social Insurance Number.

So yeah, there’s a lot to do there. Well, I got a call over the weekend saying I will be unable to process a residence visa if I don’t do it in the next 3 days. I went to the residence visa office, and the advisor said Canadian residents have a certain advantage for extending the residence visa application process. And here I am! The waitress is giving me a weird look, being like “How long does it take to drink a shot of espresso?” haha. She can wait – it’s not all that busy today.

Ljubljana is way smaller than I thought it would be. Not in a bad way; but the streets are very quiet, which is kind of nice.
So why am I in Ljubljana? It’s actually not on the way to Zagreb, Croatia, which is where I’m headed.
The trip was supposed to be: Graz – Maribor – Zandani Most – Zagreb.
For reasons which make me shake my head, I missed Zandani Most. Needless to say, “Runs like an Austrian Train Schedule” is appropriately never used as a saying…
So here I am! 2:45pm until the train to Zagreb (for 14 EURO) which is perfect, actually. My train back home tonight is at 9:30pm, so I have lots of time still, and this way I get to experience a little of Slovenia.
Check out the pictures from Ljubljana, and see if you can tell a difference between Slovenia and Croatia from the pictures. I’m excited to sightsee two new countries today! People here are very nice, too. Kyle out!

(Of that quick note, I started 6 paragraphs with So)

Pictures below are from Ljubljana!

The Slovenian Embassy. The information desk isn't open on Tuesdays.

The setting up for the city center's big Christmas tree. As far as European cities go - Ljubljana is late getting this thing up!

You want to try on the clothes you find at the outdoor market? Just go to one of these Kabinas.

Want to know a fun photography trick? If your camera lens goes from cold to hot fast enough, there is condensation on the lens. It's the perfect way to soften pictures. This was taken three minutes after I sat down in the cafe. Unphotoshopped. Good espresso.

The way they built around the Castle on the Hill is amazing. This is the lift "station" on the hill, completely built around the Castle.

First priority for my Castle, too.

This particular piece of art (Good and Evil) is a famous display sculpture in Ljubljana, and is a point of pride amongst the people here.

Doesn't this book look old and sophisticated? Check below to see what's inside.

It's just a free comment space and "Guest Sign In" journal.

The main Galleria in the castle. All done by the same artist, all about the same woman.

The secondary Galleria. Yeah, that's considered art, I guess.

"Pinky, Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Uh, I think so Brain, but where are all the hipsters with dreads?"

I have come to the conclusion that every major city in Central/Eastern Europe has a river, canal, seaway or something that breaks up the city into halves (the "old city" and the "new city"). Zagreb, Ljubljana, Graz, Budapest are just the cities I've seen recently and they all have that in common. Weird, huh?

That building HAS to be haunted.

 Just in case you're not a fan of the Boeing 747.

Aaaannnddd:

This is the Part III: It’s currently 6:08am,and I’m we’re just taking off from Speilfeld on our way to Graz. And what an adventure it’s been.

Let’s go back to that 14:45 train from Ljubljana to Zagreb. I met a Croatian guy named Aidin, and had a good couple hour chat with him as we headed to Zagreb. He pointed out where to head when we got to Croatia, grabbed a cup of hot wine, and we said our goodbyes. The pictures underneath are from Zagreb; it’s an absolutely beautiful city. Have you ever wondered where all those models on the covers of magazines come from? Now you know. Walking down the city streets it looks more like a runway. They were already set up for Christmas in the city center, which was lovely.

The city center. All of Zagreb (at least what I saw) is repping the orange sulfur lamps, which gives it a really warm look, even at night.

Swarovski and the Eaton's Center does it better...

On a scale from "1" - "So romantic you want to gouge out your eyes" this rates about an 8.3.

The famous Zagreb hotel. What it's famous for, I have no idea.

Yeah. That's how Croatians roll.

As far as I could make out, it's an art gallery. or a museum. Or an art museum.

After my short tour of Zagreb, I hopped back on another train and headed to Maribor. I planned on doing Maribor - Spelfeld  - Graz within 3 hours, and planned on being back home for 11pm, midnight at the latest.

When I got to Maribor, I was less than pleased to find the next train to Speilfeld left at 5:18am. It was 9:35pm at the time.

And so I did what any sensible Canadian citizen would do. I went to McD’s to steal Wi-Fi and grab some fatty grossness to console myself until my train.

Well, in classic European fashion, the McDonald’s closed at 11:00pm, which left me sitting in the middle of a freezing cold train station with a phone that doesn’t work (because I’m still in Slovenia), a computer with 13% battery (in case of emergency), and a big smile on my face. One of the station janitors opened up a room for me and turned on the heat in there, with a power plug for my computer and a coffee machine, which was like heaven for me!
Well, it wasn’t long before the other stragglers who were left in the station for an overnighter came too, and it was a party. The weird old guy beside me snored for 4 hours, mumbling something about my computer every 25 minutes or so in German. I didn’t care. I killed a few hours sleeping, a few hours fooling around on my computer, and the whole time letting the coffee do its handiwork.

Well, I got on the train headed to Speilfeld  at 5:18am, and now it’s 6:19am and I’m probably a half-hour from Graz. Do I sleep? Absolutely not. I’ll shower and be at the Residence Visa office for 8am, get that sorted out, and then my performance lesson with Olaf, which I’m dreading. Between being sick, the stress from the last few days and this trip, I have barely practiced this week… I hope he understands!

So: to conclude. It’s been almost exactly 24 hours since I got on my first train of this trip. I am tired, I smell like a mixture of a McDonalds deep fryer and cappuccino, and I came out of it all having knocked two beautiful European capital cities off my “To See” list, came out with four stamps (two for Slovenia, two for Croatia) met a bunch of new people, tried (and loved) traditional European hot wine, and in total done more in the past 24 hours then most Austrians do in a week!  Thanks for reading! Until next time :)