A semestr in Maribor

Student coupons are heaven

You’re reading this, so you’re a human. You’re a human, so you have to eat. Probably you also enjoy it, because who doesn’t. Let me tell you this: Slovenian students do not have cafeterias / bufés / whatever you call it in the university. “What? That sucks!” – you’d think. But wait! There’s more! Student coupons. It’s a system called subsidized students meals. Let me explain – students are able to eat in specific restaurants, where a part of the meal is subsidized by Slovenian government. On average, you have to pay about 2,5EUR extra – but there is a variety of restaurants in the range from 0 until 4EUR. You get your coupons monthly, depending on the working days.

Your full time job during the semester is to meet people everyday, who join you on the journey to become fat – so you basically spend like 2 hours daily just enjoying a meal together and sending photos of the food in its large quantities to less lucky people (like my roommate, starving on her Erasmus in Belgium LOL). If you are wondering, you usually get a soup, ameal of your choice, salad, fruit and sometimes ice cream. Still not jealous?

Slovenian language is confusing

One would say that nothing can really surprise you if you are at least a bit prepared for it. I was prepared for any kind of experience, but the fact that I will be sharing my dormitory room with someone unable to understand English was definitely not on the list. However, surviving the first few seconds of shock was the only negative thing about it and thinking about it now, it was an amazing experience. I got to know a hard working girl, her family and closest friends while practicing my Slovenian language (actually, we had a Slovak-Slovene conversation and we understood each other). During my stay in Maribor I got “fluent” in understanding what the hell is going on when someone spoke this language, however, there are few words which I still find really tricky. Let me share you some of the best ones.

• OTROK – in Slovenian “child“, in Slovak a “slave“.
  • I knew about this one before I came to Slovenia, but it always made me laugh. Just imagine these posters like “otrok in the car” or “bring your otrok to the church with you”
• SLOVENSKO – in Slovenian “slovene“, in Slovak “Slovakia“.
  • Yes. This one is brilliant. You know how every nation is already mixing us, why would you create an adjective which basically means someones homeland? And we call our native tongues “slovenčina” and “slovenščina“.
• DUNAJ – in Slovenian “Vienna“, in Slovak “Danube“.
  • I found out about this one while telling my roommate that the river Danube is going through my city. It took me some time to find out why is this freaking confusing her.
• JED – in Slovenian “food“, in Slovak “poison“.
  • The feeling of choosing what kind of poison I will have for my lunch was great.
• FÚKAŤ – in Slovenian “#@!*“, in Slovak “to blow“.
  • I don’t have to tell you how awkward this is. Cause when you want to say the wind is blowing, it will only blow their minds…
• CHLAPEC – in Slovenian “servant“, in Slovak “a boy“.
  • When I was talking about boys to my roommate she had a weird face expression.

People are the most important part of the experience

I was so so so lucky with the people I surrounded myself with! When I arrived, the hardest part for me was to imagine that I will have to approach some strangers. Could you imagine standing in front of your home university while someone comes to you and starts a conversation? Weird, right? On Erasmus it’s the daily life. Everyone is in the same life situation. That’s what they signed up for. So getting to know people has never been easier. When I came back from my stay it made me a bit more open in these situations, but I still have some progress to make. I think English is a big part of crashing the barrier, it’s much more open than speaking your native language.

First of all, the ESN section in Maribor is bunch of hard working motivated people, who do their job really well. No doubt they are among the best teams in Europe. Probably everyone has the greatest memories tied with the welcome weeks. For the three week period, we were able to join multiple events each day, getting to know more and more students all around the world. The variety of them was incredible – doesn’t matter if you are an introvert, a party animal or something in between. I went through the museum visit, wine tasting, hiking on a hill with torches, gala night, polyglot cafés, pub quizzes, buddy rally’s, pub crawl, Slovenia trip, social erasmus activities, karaoke, Slovene night, international dinner… oh God I can’t even remember all of them.

Maribor is a small town so we all became a family. The time in the town felt frozen and there was no hurry. You could find yourself walking down the street and meeting some of your closest friends. That’s how you ended up at a café, pub, sitting next to the river, playing board games at someone’s flat or buying pizza at 3AM.