Every year, our branch in Ljubljana, Slovenia organizes a big motivational weekend in Kranjska Gora, the most famous skiing area of the country, located in the stunning Julian Alps. This year, five of our members joined 200 other EESTECers from all over Europe at this event. I’m Alex, the oldest active member in LC Aachen and I’ll give you my account of the event.
We all had slightly different travel routes to Ljubljana, from where our hosts had organized busses to take us to the event location. I arrived a day earlier, as did Philipp, and we joined the after party of the LC Ljubljana member meeting, together with a handful of other international early arrivals. I was hosted by an old friend who lives in Ljubljana with his parents.
The official arrival day of the event, my host drove me to the train station in the early morning, where I’d meet the LC Zurich party train that also carried the remaining three Aachen EESTECers. We spent the day in the city, visiting the castle and a street food market, until it was time to gather at Tivoli Park, where our busses were waiting. A short drive later, Slovenia is a small country, we found ourselves surrounded by gorgeous mountains and were dropped off at our hostels. Soon, it would be time for the first party of the night, though since I had grand plans for the next morning, I didn’t stay up for too long.
At 4:30 in the morning, I rose to find my hiking companions, meeting some last enduring party people along the way. We had a quick breakfast and then embarked on towards the mountain Špik, that we would summit within roughly 6 hours. After the descend, we met with the crowd at Lake Jasna for a very cold dip and the traditional group picture. We used the opportunity to discuss with our friends from Zurich and Munich about our joint event in November. You can also find a report from that event here!
I managed to join the party that night after a very necessary power nap. The parties take place in the basement of one of the hostels, but they tend to expand throughout the building, so I roamed around to reconnect with as many old friends as possible.
Not much is to be said about the return day, I was lucky to have made my train to Trieste, where I was hosted by another friend that I tutored at the IT Sprint in February.
The Kranjska Gora IMW is one of the most famous events in EESTEC and rightly so. Both to the experienced and the fresh EESTECer, this event has a lot to offer and can be enjoyed in many different ways. If you are interested in joining next year, keep the weekends in early-mid October as free as possible and hit me up! I should usually have some Intel about the exact dates quite early and some tips of how you can enjoy this event your way.
Alex Geiger