Grass Routes - Green Lifestyle Blog

Just before the roads on the highway splitted, we came to the idea of going to Slovenia and visit some friends there, so our trip to Slovenia was really a last minute decision. We had the idea to go to Vienna and then to Slowakia, but friends in Vienna did not have time and the ecovillage we contacted we could only come to a week later. So all of a sudden we were in Slovenia!

First we visited Irena in Lubljiana, who is organizing a big event in autumn, around martial arts and ecology. Next day she left early and we stayed in het house and worked a bit in turns while the other went with Gaya into town. It was really nice to have some time to work on our things, because we left Berlin with some unfinished projects. But yeah, why wait till you are ready when you can work on the way…

Ljubljiana is a nice, friendly town with a beautiful old centre, and we liked being there, but we felt more like being outside, and so we left Lubljiana on Friday and took small roads up in the mountains again, to visit our friends Simon and Palona. They live in a small cottage on top of a mountain village with a nice view over the valley and the mountains. If you climb up for 20 minutes, you can see the snowtops of the Alps and Ljubliana. It is such a great place where they live, everything is so silent and peaceful, and time is going a bit slower there. Their house is perfectly sufficient without any unnecessary luxury. I think such a way of living is quite to the ideal, because without all the extra´s you can enjoy the simpleness of life much better. We slept in the wooden summer room, and it felt like being in a little mountain hut. In the mornings we sat on the balcony to enjoy the sunshine. We made hikes in the forest and played games till late in the night.

They were fixing things in and around the house and I realized how good it is to have your own place to take care of instead of a rented place that is not really yours. It is kind of ineffective with the ordinary renting model, while this is absolutely making people less responsible and caring for their living environment. If you do or fix or clean something in a rental house, you know you are quite crazy because no one will care anyway. Some new ecological living projects take involve more responsibility that is carried together. For a sustainable living you need a place that you carry responsibility for, otherwise you just consume a place without any care.
Something we had in common I guess was a relatively unboundedness to duties. They were planning to move to Brazil in a few months, and it was nice to be with people crazy at us, not caring too much about life structures, but living the life they want to live.
We just left our daily routines behind to travel, while they were planning to go to Brazil and see how long to stay. Oh, we had a good time there, and it was hard to say good bye! Also Gaya had a lot of fun with them, and we hope to meet soon again.