It’s that time of the year, again…. 😀
Ljubljana on a December night (source)
From December 3rd to January 2nd Ljubljana’s Old City will be filled with fast food joints, čevapdžinicas, makeshift bars and stands selling generally useless stuff. Except for slippers, which are highly useful, especially if one has – like Pengovsky – only recenlty moved into his new appartement and has yet to buy slippers (or copati) for visitors and has to, when people come to see him, utter the sentence “no, please, don’t take your shoes off” thus defying decades of tradition and upbringing, whilst every fibre in his body reacts with utmost disgust and shame, yelling “is THAT how mother taught you???”
But upbringing aside, December is arguably one of the best months to see Ljubljana. Not just because the city centre is so lovely lit that people should actually be issued an emergency supply of insuline upon arrival, just to cope with the mooshines Ljubljana in December tends to bring up in an unsuspecting individual, but people in general go a bit bananas. Not in the Ausländer-raus-kind-of-way, but just beeing predominantly in a good mood and generaly drunk, with honney schnapps and kuhano vino being everybody’s favourite. (Yes, I still don’t know the English expession for “kuhano vino”… Michael, help!!!).
The lights will be officially switched on by Mayor Janković tomorrow at 17.30, and then the fun begins, so take a look at the programme and decide what’s your pleasure.
BTW: it has been unofficially confirmed to Pengovsky that Zoki has had a major say in the final outcome of the programme. Apparently he decided that Danijela, Petar Grašo, Gibonni and Oliver Dragojević should give performances, and so they will. For better or for worse 😉
I will try to report on the events in the Old City as they are within earshot of the Firm™, but don’t hold it against me if I don’t since I just might end up like on the bottom picture…
Pengovsky in his natural state – seriously drunk
It’s mulled wine, or so Wikipedia says.
We have Christmassy spots here, too, but it’s way to warm for the real feeling…
So sleeping from the title of your blog really means sleeping, because your natural state wouldn’t allow for anything else?
Thanks! Mulled wine… Gotta remember that one.
As far as sleeping is concerned, let me just quote Steve Guttenberg as Carey Mahoney in Police Academy I: “Sleeping is for pussies“…
Sleeping in the title is obviously meant in the utmost sexual way possible. Duh! 😀
About this “Ausländer-Raus-Club”: I’ve studied their homepage today and, apart from developing a strong dislike, I started to wonder about the following: much of it is really bad Slovene. Like, BAAAAD. Have you ever wondered whether such “verkrampft” fighters for… oh, I don’t know, for the purity of one’s nation, whether they really have so much knowledge about the culture and the language they want to represent with such force? Maybe there is a kind of natural/cultural law, along the lines of “Blagor ubogim na duhu, kajti z vso SILO bodo branili svojo nacionalno identiteto”?
On Friday, I participated in a debate on translator’s forum – of course it was about our command of Slovene, most of all, the language used inside the forum. I’m not going to repeat some stronger points of the discussion, it suffices to say that there are people everywhere who really need other people’s mistakes (favourite one: Look, I’ve found it! I’ve found it! An accusative in a negative sentence! Pfui!), so as to point them out and feel better about themselves (a good and fast medicine for those lurking inferiority complexes)…
But what really makes me sick right now is Piramida. I found it on the net and listened to it and also watched the bit in the end. I shouldn’t have.
Sorry I’m late to the party– I think something might be wrong with your feed, peng. Or wrong with me. It blocked me from coming here.
But I can see that the problem’s already been solved. And for the record: I had no idea that’s what it was called. I would’ve guessed “hot wine” or “cooked wine.”
Alcessa (as always) brings up a good point. I’ve noticed that a lot of right-leaning people who are obsessed with the superiority of western civilization don’t know much about western civilization. They don’t read its literature, or enjoy its languages or culture. They just want to beat up other people. It’s kind of odd.
Hm… feed seems to be fine – but I did have a lot of problems with it, so you might want to reload the feed.
As far as Alcessa’s point is concerned: I couldn’t agree more. Once there was an incident at the Town Hall, during the final debate on wether to build a mosque in Ljubljana, and a letter came threatning to kill any councilor who votes in favour of the mosque. The letter was replete with syntactial and grammatical errors. I call it the paradox of defenders of Slovene way of life, who – as a rule – fail to have sufficient command of Slovene language (Branitelji slovenstva imajo po pravilu težave z obvladovanjem slovenščine). Call it Pengovsky’s paradoxs of nationalism 🙂
As far as Piramida goes… Terrible. I find the concept as such repulsive (call me a media conservative), but the Croatian original at least has an authoritatve and forbidding host, while Erika Žnidaršič fails to make her presence felt, a fact Jenčičič used and abused.
Call were made to cancel the show, but the only was that’s going to happen is to force the sponsor to withdraw. And with the Strojan family back in Ambrus I’m sure the nation-wide amnesia is about to take place.
The discussion switched a bit; I just wanted to say that I absolutely adore decorated Ljubljana in December. With or without its mooshines. 😀 I went to the city center yesterday to witness the “big moment”. And I can’t wait to see the lights on the castle hill and the castle itself lit up with blue lights from my office today. 🙂
Yeah, I was there too, albeit doing my job rather than just enjoying the view. And the view is spectacular!!!
So you have an office overseeing the Castle too? I wonder where that might be… 🙂
You can see it here . I’ll try to shoot some pictures of the night view as well in one of those days. But I forgot my digital camera today. 🙁
Nice… But no worries. The castle will be lit all month long, and if you don’t mind I’ll take some pictures myself today and then we can compare the views 🙂
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