yesterday we went to austria for a night balloon festival, which was going to be great: 40 or so balloons in a little village in a mountain, lighting up their ‘fires’ in the night to the sound of music. just dreamy… but when we got to the hostel we had booked, we realized it was actually 20km from the festival, far up a hill… it was dark already and snowing, and i was afraid we would get stuck somewhere in the middle of the night. so… yesterday we went to austria and instead of seing a balloon festival, we spent a night in a hostel.

and it was well worth it, if only for the trip! :) just two hours away from here, austria is this snowy fairyland, filled with monochromatic sceneries and people who don’t speak english. so intriguing.

anyway, pictures. this is the view to which we woke up in the hostel, which made it all worthwhile:

and the road we had to go on for over a kilometer to get there:



it doesn’t seem as menacing in the morning, but at night, i was pretty scared. it’s all the way up a steep hill in what looks like just a path someone drew in the snow!

on the highway, mountains and pine trees covered in snow and mist all the way there and back:






and the tunnels. we made 20 km in tunnels in this trip *gulp*, the most menacing of which being the karavanke tunnel:

(pardon the specks in the pictures, the water in the windshield was frozen most of the trip… :))

the muted colors outside :)

today we woke up to a white city! i feel like a kid in a candy shop! :D






glad we got those winter tires last week! now i need to find some clothes that are a bit more appropriate for this weather…

friends have been asking for piiiiiiictures, but i’ve been laaaaazy to take them. truth is, we really like it here. we’ve visited lakes, castles and thermal spas, drank gluhwein, done some geocaching, and even went to austria! slovenia feels easy and relaxed, and that’s how we’ve been enjoying it. i plan to report on ‘our life on slovenia’ in more detail… but i’m postponing that to 2010 since we’re leaving for portugal next week :)

i took some photos of the karavanke mountains though, because they were the first thing that made us go “wow!” when we got here. on nice days, you can see them a bit from everywhere in the city, and if you climb all the way up to ljubljana’s castle, you can have a really good view at their snowy peeks in the distance.



last friday we had a close encounter with them, while crossing the country on our way to austria (ikea!). they’re magnificent, like a children’s drawing of the perfect mountains!




what was not so magnificent was the 7.8km tunnel we had to drive through to cross them…

walking around with the holga in the park, freezing my fingers and toes in the cold. more here.

i’m might be seriously falling in love with this camera.

“the snow outside looks like someone is sprinkling powdered sugar on this pancake world“.
the phrase is not mine, but it fits perfectly to the kind of weather we have been enjoying here in shanghai. white skies, soft snow, freezing cold and icy roads and bridges. it’s fun for us, while the power supply is still stable and we can use the ac to (mildly) heat the house.

today though, when we entered the elevator, it didn’t move! instead, we heard a guy talking above us… no idea why the elevator wasn’t out of order if someone was fixing it, but it managed to scare the hell out of me – i’m not too fond of malfunctioning elevators.
we managed to get out, i calmed down and we walked the 31 floor downstairs since the other elevator was quite busy and frankly, i didn’t really feel like using it.

from what we hear though, all around china the weather has been giving people a much harder time – especially now, on the week before the chinese new year, the most important holiday week on the mainland. it’s the time of the year where migrant workers return to their home villages to spend the holidays with their families (their “christmas”), so it’s kind of sad that this is stopping people to get where they’re headed. adding to the usual seasonal shortage of train and bus tickets, there are also people stranded in train stations and airports all around china, because of delayed or cancelled flights/trains.

and it has just started snowing again…