I am writing this from the Milano airport. Right now I don’t know the time… because my mobile phone has no battery but last time I checked the time it was 3.15 am. Our flight is at 7. My GoOpti driver was named Milan; being named Milan and working driving (sad Erasmus girls who finish their experiences or excited ones who start their Erasmus in that moment) to Milano must be something similar to being Celia and to live in Celje. Ah, Celje, Celje, that Slovene village I never went to.
At the end (yes… this is already the end) I had things to do left. And that’s one of the points of the Erasmus, and of life in general I guess: that you’ll always have something to do. Last time I wrote here was eighteen days ago, and since then I’ve thought about pasodesopa in different situations: those days I was on trip, in the new lake on the south of Ljubljana, in Velika Planina or in Smarna Gora (some hours before I left Ljubljana), because of thinking that I was in the most beautiful places in the world with an incredible beautiful company and because of my wishes of sharing it with you; those times in which the mix of feelings of happiness, sadness, excitation or nostalgia almost were stronger than me, because of wanting to use the blog as a diary; and also those days in which due to the hot weather, I didn’t want soup at all (paso de sopa means I don’t give a fuck about soup).
These eighteen days have slowly passed away, and I haven’t written anything, so now it’s hard for me to write something that could define somehow how I’ve lived these last weeks. Today, when I was on the top of Smarna Gora, which is a hill where you can see whole Ljubljana and its surroundings, Ania and Jurij knew for the first time about the existence of this blog. When they came to say me goodbye to the station, they asked for the last post being in English. I think I’ll try.
There has been happening all kind of things in these eighteen days. There have been hot days and rainy ones; extremely hot days in which we had to open the windows of our room during the nights, hot days in which Marco (Lenzi… nowadays we should distinguish between him and Marco De Angelis) came to live his last days at our place, hot days which we fixed with Cacao’s icecreams or some bath in the lake… sunny days and the first burnings (ask to Ania or Marco De Angelis), and cold and rainy days… it doesn’t matter being already in summer; throat aches and closed windows during the nights, puddles and wet feet, cold weather which forced us to use the scarf again, and more than one jacket and rain… rainning in every goodbye. After the sunny day of yesterday, that by the way, it started in Rozna, followed with a lunch by the river and carried on with the sweaty rise to Smarna Gora, after the sunny day, a rainy Ljubljana said goodbye to me.
Well… yes, everything happened in these eighteen days. We finished all subjects we wanted to do in Ljubljana, I passed cardiology without knowing a shit about it, and we’ve been going out with a rhythm I would have never imagined. We’ve passed the hangovers in Tivoli under some tree, we’ve taught popular Spanish songs to our polish friends and finally I’ve learnt how to say from one to nine in polish, we’ve eaten so many Haribo bears… and I’ve used the “ne govorim slovensko” and I’ve used “bye”, “ciao”, “adijo” or “nasvidenje” as I’ve wanted to. My italian language level has also improved and I think I say "piacere di conoscerti" pretty well. We’ve been doing more turism, and we’ve discovered new bars, we’ve seen a peacock in the middle of the centre of Ljubljana, and we’ve eaten pizzas and we’ve drunk Laskos in an advanced speed. We’ve listened to jazz, enjoyed ROG and we’ve been passing incredible nights in Metelkova.
These have been days of wondering: “why not?” and asking ourselves: “because of…yes!”Everything happened in these eighteen days and nights; goodbyes, reunions, friendships which got deeper, meeting new people until the last minute.
My last night in Ljubljana, I went to the goodbye party of Martynas, a Lithuanian guy who I had never talked with, and who I ended hugging as if he was my best friend in life. But yes… you’ll always, always have something to do and someone to meet (more). It is never too late (isn’t it?). Actually, after the emotive goodbye to Weronika, there have been slowly more and more goodbyes; Fede, Marco and MJ after a wildness night (ibuprofen in the morning), Gianmarco with his car and Marina, who came back to Spain before starting her Thailand trip. And nothing to say about the Rozna’s goodbyes, every night. Hard days for the dreamers in Rozna, Amelie could have said something similar. Or rather, dreamlike days.
Anyway we also lived reunions; Marina had left to Balkan trip with Marina but they came back just for saying goodbye to Marco and MJ, eating the pregoodbye croissants and going with them to the station… goodbye in which there was a huge mix of feelings as sadness, hangover, tiredness, nostalgia.
Besides reunions and goodbyes, these eighteen days have been days of getting deeper in a lot of relationships; both Monikas (thanks for that last sandwich minutes before I left the city), Derya (whose bureks I didn’t finally tried even though she prepared them kindly in her ramadan’s days) and Ana, all of them always ready to talk and talk and to spend the hours in the jazz bars with Gianmarco. Ania and Dawid, who I shared lots of things I didn’t share at the beginning of the course with; lunches, beers, talks and laughs. Goran, that 30 years old Macedonian guy, detective, and with the best Spanish accent ever found. And Marco De Angelis. And his way of pronouncing my name. And spending more and more time with Ale, Pablo and Jurij. All of them still have time in Ljubljana. Tonight there is a Macedonian dinner in the kitchen (“the kitchen?” I say the kitchen as if there is just one kitchen… As if it is mine, ours, part of our home) of Rozna. It is 4 and something am so, probably most of the people in Rozna already went to sleep. But surely Ale, Marco or Goran are still through the corridors. The night that Gianmarco and Marina left, we stayed Ale, Marco and me late in the night in the kitchen. And they cooked the most exquisite dish I’ve ever tried (I don’t care the percentage of subjectivity of this last sentence): a kind of fried dish with red, green and yellow peppers, onion, cheese and eggs. Eggs which Marco carefully cooked just the white one, not the yolks… The yolks stayed like that under the astonishment of Ale and the hungry look of mine. And it was great.
Right now MJ must be coming here with Marco, so I moved from the floor I was sitting on, and now I am waiting for her in front of the police control in order to say goodbye to Marco (who I’ll see luckily in august) and for passing together the control. Again, reunions, goodbyes.
Our room in Ljubljana was completely empty when I left it; the good of Jurij will have to put some washing machine with plenty of sheets. Gala Málaga is moving to Ljubljana and Jurij promises to visit us. We were the luckiest ones finding him.
We were the luckiest ones finding all of us here. Coming with MJ was one of the best decisions in my life. Coming, generally… I remember when I was thinking about which name to put to the blog, and I wanted to name it: lost in Ljubljana. Now I am glad I didn’t do it; the only thing I didn’t do coming on this Erasmus has been losing myself. They have been ten months of findings. Everything has been discovering, finding. Yesterday I was with Marco De Angelis when I had ten hours left in Ljubljana. Ten hours left after being there for ten months. And then, after closing and opening my eyes and after some hugs that I will keep forever, here I am… I already did the check-in and I’ll be eating my biodramina in a while.
After so many goodbyes, there are reunions waiting for me in Spain.
After these ten hours, after these eighteen days, after these ten months… it’s impossible to write a clonclusion post. “Go on Erasmus, go there without thinking about it”; that’s the advice that everyone told me when me, so undecided, didn’t know what to do one year ago. And now I understand why the advices were so clear. Without doubt… go on Erasmus.
I’ve been sleeping since I was sitting on the airplane (before it started to fly), I’ve been sleeping before lunch and a huge siesta… and I’ve been dreaming. After that I didn’t know how to talk, I didn’t know what to think or how to speak, I was sleepy, confused. All this I’ve lived in last ten months has been a dream in life, dear readers, and now I am without words, like being after a rollercoaster, like being after an overdose of biodramina that makes you deeply sleep, deeply dream, disoriented, thankful. Thanks, thanks.
(video made by Cristina Morales.)
(video made by Cristina Morales.)