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Hello again friends!  Long time no update! I figured that I could revive this blog for my short trip to Slovenia. So keep reading if you’re interested in the hectic next 10 days of my life~  

I’ll be here, based in the capital of Ljubljana, for 10 days to do linguistic research on a phonological process in a dialect of Slovenian!  My partner and I are working on nasal harmony, another group of two is working on secondary palatalization, and a fifth student is working on vowel harmony.  We’re all working very closely with our prof, doing fieldwork in rural locations to gather data to then analyze when we get back to Toronto on the 13th!

I still can’t fully process that I’m a part of this team.  We’ve known for a while we would be coming, and we’ve been meeting weekly since the beginning of June, but it didn’t really set in!  Even now, at our Airbnb in Ljubljana, I’m still in awe.  I’m so lucky to have been given the opportunity to study here and do cutting-edge research in the field!  

Each of our groups has to give a presentation tomorrow during a linguistics conference at the university here, and I’m more than a little nervous for that. I think that after we get that over with, I’ll be more at ease for the rest of the trip. I am also a little nervous for actually gathering data with the participants, because I’ve never done research before let alone with actual participants.  All in all I’m sure it’s going to be an incredible experience personally, professionally, and educationally! 

Traveling here was a smooth journey - an 8.5 hour flight, leaving at 7pm on the 2nd and arriving 9am the 3rd, but ultimately pleasant.  It’s so different traveling in a group, compared to my solo trip last summer!  I was much less stressed, partially because I think our prof Peter was stressed for us. We flew from Toronto to Venice and then drove to Ljubljana, stopping on the way to stretch and get lunch.  The rest stop was so fancy compared to in Canada?? It was a buffet of hot and cold food, sandwiches, desserts, and with a coffee bar too! I didn’t take any pictures of the foods but found some good ones online. I tried a burek, phyllo pastry filled with spinach and feta (but they also come just cheese or with meat), and we shared a few Slovenian style cakes, prekmurska gibanica (left) and kremšnita (right). Both were so delicious!! I have a feeling my sweet tooth will be treated well while I’m here.

After settling in a bit at the Airbnb we all sat down to finalize our presentations for tomorrow, and will likely go out for dinner tonight (maybe ice cream after!) because we’re too tired to cook. Tomorrow is when the trip truly begins! A day-long conference to give talks and listen to those by the Slovenian university members, then right off into fieldwork the next day.  

I hope that I can have time to keep this updated!  I think it will be a nice way to remember it all when it’s done, as I’m sure it’s going to be very busy. Here’s to doing something way different than I’ve ever done before! Ekipa Slovenija!

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