AWAY

I'm going back to England tomorrow for a few weeks, so won't be updating the site for a little while.
Will be back on around July 15th.
So, until then.............

RedBull evil bastards

Yesterday was a Sunday, and if there's one thing that I like to do on a Sunday, it's spend the morning sleeping. Not least of all because my Saturday night didn't finish until about 5 in the morning!
So, imagine my anger and annoyance when I was woken at 10 o'clock to the buiding-shaking sound of loud cheesy disco music.
"What the fkucing hell is going on???"

It was the guys from RedBull hosting their annual SoapBox racing parade-thingy up on castle hill. Castle Hill is just outside my window!
So, I spent the whole day listening to the annoying bloke on the loudspeaker and the hundreds of people who had come from all around to enjoy the day in the sun. Did they not know that there was football on the telly????

It finished up around 8pm, and i was a happy man again.

I could't be arsed to take a stroll over there, as I was more interested in the world cup. But I did take a few pictures from my kitchen window. Here you go, above.

Football time

I'm guessing that most of you know what today is.
And love it or hate it, football is going to take centre stage for the next month. Here at ljubljanadailyphoto things will be no different!
Hopefully there will be times when I'm sober enough to even switch on the computer to update the page, time will tell!
This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago when you will remember that I told you about the game my team played in the ex-national stadium.
This is the view from just inside the players' tunnel, around 2 hours before kick-off.

COME ON ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tourist information building

Here is a building that I have discovered hasn't changed a bit probably in over 100 years. How did I discover this? Old postcards.
This building sits on one of the corners of 'three bridges' and is now home to the Ljubljana Tourist Board.

It looks exactly the same today as it does in any old black and white picture, and really makes you appreciate the city a little bit more. I don't even know why, it just does!

Bookshop

I'm currently involved in a bit of business that I hope will be quite profitable. Say no more ;-)
One of the things that this 'work' involves is taking a large amount of photos of many different establishments in the city.
Today I'll share one of these photos with you. It was taken inside a decent bookshop here in the city, Knjigarna Vale Novak. This is the place to go for all your literary needs, and offers a huge selection of English-language books on virtually every subject.

Another balloon

Yesterday evening from my kitchen window I spotted this balloon flying above the centre of town.

Castle and Fransiscan Church view

This picture is taken from one of the main streets in the city, Slovenska Cesta. It shows the castle sitting up on her hill, and also in the forefront you see the pinky colour of the Fransiscan Church in Prešeren's Square.

Interesting house

Went for a walk and found this interesting-looking house sitting next to the Finish embassy. Thought I'd share it with you.

Rain rain bloody rain

One thing that I am sick of hearing from Slovenians is 'Oh, you are from England. You must be used to the rain then.' or 'It's always raining in England.'
True, maybe in my home town of Brighton we get the odd shower, but nowhere near as much as foreigners are led to believe. What makes it even more annoying is that it actually rains more here in Ljubljana than it does at home.
It finally stopped raining here last night after about 48 hours of constant downpour. This wasn't your average rainfall, this was a monsoon.
It meant that I couldn't get out with the camera. So I took this shot from my balcony of the low, low clouds just above the trees. Actually, they weren't as low as they looked, they were in the distance between the mountains, but it looked quite good from here.
Also, don't be fooled by the picture, they are definitely clouds, and not smoke.
Quite a boring picture, I know. But it's all I've got!

Bravo in Slovenian

Bravo is a German magazine that is read here in Slovenia by a big number of early-teenage girls. Basically it's the usual crap that girls of the same age are reading all over the world.
Well, now it will be read here by even more as finally it is being published not just in the original German language, but also in Slovenian.
Here is a billboard exclaiming that fact. The sentence at the top of the billboard reads; 'Finally also in Slovenian!'

Sunday market

Every Sunday morning along one of the banks of the river, there takes place a huge market.
Not your usual clothes or food market, this market specialises in mostly memorabilia from the Communist days, offering millitary badges, hats, weapons, etc.
You can also find lots of old postcards of the area, and also many religious items (mostly pictures of the Virgin Mary.)
The market is definitely worth a visit, as you never know what bargain you might find. Also, it's very interesting, you can learn a lot about the history of the place witha visit here.
I was passing by yesterday but not stopping in, but I did have time to take this picture from the 'entrance' to the market.

Brass band on Čopova street

There I am just walking down the street, wondering what to take a picture of for the website, when I hear an extremely loud noise coming toward me, extremely loud!
I look up and see this brass band making it's way up the street. Problem solved.

Mystery hat in hedge

Walking home from work yesterday, I saw something that made me say to myself; 'that's a DailyPhoto opportunity if ever I saw one.'
I don't know where it came from, who put it there, why it was put there, or when it was put there, but somehow this hat had come to find itself seated on the head of a hedge.

balloon from living-room window

I was swamped under with work all day yesterday and so was unable to get out with the camera. I did manage to take one picture though, from my living-room window. It was early evening and I spotted this hot-air balloon up in the clouds. Thought that it looked quite nice though with the trees underneath.
Anyway, that's all I've got for you today.

A half-decent view

I'm fortunate enough that one of the pathways leading up to castle hill starts practically right at the door of my block. Even more fortunate, it's not one of the routes used by tourists, meaning that it's nearly always peaceful.
On your way up this path, it's possible to branch off a bit and find yourself in a small field that offers a nice view of the part of the city that I live in.
So, because I'm such a nice guy, for those of you who can't get to that field for yourself, I'll share the view with you now.
To the right of the picture you see the church that wakes me up early every Sunday morning with the incessant ringing of bells. In the background you can see the snow-capped Alps.
And over to the left off the picture you are going in the direction of the centre of town.

Strong working man

Let's not forget that for almost half a century Slovenia was a part of communist Yugoslavia.
Still today we see remiders of those ideals all over the place.

Contemplating life in Prešeren Square

I was out again capturing some of the locals going about their daily routines yesterday, and these two took my attention.
The bearded one on the left made me smile, maybe because of the contrast between old and modern, as in the beard and cross mixed with the Nike trainers.
As for the guy on the right, who knows? Could be a tourist, could be a local just taking a break, could be waiting for someone.
Thanks to the zoom on my camera I was able to get these 2 shots without disturbing them, they didn't even feel the need to pose as they were completely unaware.

Big footballing day

I haven't mentioned before, but one of the things that I do here in Slovenia is play football. Not at an exceptionally high level, actually it's the 4th division of the national league.
At the end of last season two of the country's top teams, actually the only two first division teams from the capital, were relegated down into our league as a punishment for financial irregularities.
One of these two teams is NK Olimpija. A team that just 3 years ago held Liverpool to a 1-1 draw here in the UEFA Cup. A team that played Champions' League football against AC Milan. A team that was one of the big boys of the Yugoslavian league back in those days.
This team would be playing against us now, in the league.
Their stadium was, until just a year ago when the venue for big matches got moved, the national stadium.
Just a couple of years ago France came to this stadium for a World Cup qualifier.
It's the holy ground of Slovenian football.

Well, this past Thursday was our turn to play in this stadium against this team.
Unfortunately for me, I injured my knee just a week before playing in a tournament, so I was unable to play a whole match this time around. Although, I was brought on with 10 minutes to go, just for the experience. It was something else!

I won't bore you with the details of the match, we lost of course. But one funny story.
Olimpija is well-known for their support (hooligan) element, The Green Dragons.
Despite their team playing in the 4th league, these guys still turn up for every game to sing and support their team throughout. This day was no exception.
They were being their usual boisterous selves, when one of the fireworks that they let off came straight onto the pitch and hit one of their players on the leg. He was ok in the end, despite being down on the ground for about 5 minutes. Ridiculous. I loved every minute.

Here is a picture of the Green Dragons on the day.

My place of work

It's Sunday and I don't have any graffiti for you.
Instead I will show you the building that I have to work in every day. It's an internationally-known language school, but I won't mention the name simply because I'm not too fond of my bosses so don't want to give them any free advertising.

schools out!

Yesterday was a loud one in Ljubljana. All that could be heard throughout the day was the constant, annoying, infuriating, make-you-wanna-kill-someone, blowing of whistles.
This was the last week of school for the kids doing their final year, and so to keep in with a recent tradition, that meant all of the leavers from both Ljubljana and Maribor gathered here in the city, all decked out in orange t-shirts, to attempt to break the Guinness world record for the most people dancing, or something like that, to be honest I don't know exactly what.
Anyway, the record was successfully broken in the morning, but then for the rest of the day, the whole day, these orange people walked around the city centre blowing whistles. Why? Who knows!!!
In the evening they all gathered for a huge outside disco, whistles still being blown at full pelt, and all I can say is I'm glad I don't have the misfortune of having to live too close to that party location!
Anyway, I don't wanna put just a downer on the day. Slovenia has one of the toughest education systems in the world, and these kids have worked hard to get through it all. So letting them have a day to let their hair down and annoy the rest of the city I guess is fair enough.