CEOI 2017
24th Central European Olympiad in Informatics
July 10th-15th
Ljubljana, Slovenia

Newsletter 4: Thursday, 13th July

On Thursday, our lovely contestants and team leaders took a little break from the competition and went on an excursion to the south west of Slovenia. The excursion was organized with the help from one of this year’s sponsors Postojnska jama.

After breakfast, the teams and their hosts boarded a bus heading towards their first destination – Postojna cave – where there was a guided tour through the cave’s tunnels. Caves such as the Postojna cave and many more in Slovenia are full of limestone stalactites and stalagmites a rare phenomenon in the world, but typical for the Karst region in Slovenia. The Postojna cave has a small integrated railway system which the visitors ride around the tunnels with for some extra safety and excitement.

When the tour of the Postojna cave was over, the participants had lunch, keeping their energy level high and ready for the last stop of the excursion. This last stop was situated a couple of minutes away from the cave, called Predjamski grad, which is a castle built within a cave mouth thus the name Predjamski grad, literally meaning a castle in front of a cave. The castle has many legends, the most famous ones are the legends of Erazem of Predjama, who was a knight in the 15th century and a renowned robber. He is mostly known for being killed after a long siege on the Predjama castle where he stayed. The reason behind why this battle is so famous is because Erazem used the tunnels in the cave to smuggle supplies into the castle during the siege. If it wasn’t for one of his man betraying him in the end he might have even survived because of the tunnels.

The contestants returned to the student dormitory at around 19:00 and then had dinner before ending the day. After dinner, the leaders of the team as per usual had a meeting with the organizers about tomorrow’s tasks for the competition.

Some of the hosts made a short interview on today's trip with one of the members of their team where they talked about today and about their visit in Slovenia so far. You can read the questions and answers down below.

 

 

Lea & Rebeka


Interviews

 

Orsolya Lili Janzer – contestant from Hungary

 

Q: Is this your first time in Slovenia?

A: Yes.

 

Q: What do you like about Slovenia the most so far?

A: I like that it’s so green and it also looks like it’s a really cool country.

 

Q: Have you learned any Slovenian owrds so far?

A: Yes, I have learned two words so far actually. One of them is “siri”, which I think it means cheese and the other one is “jama”, which is a cave. 😊

 

Q: So, cheeses and caves that sums up Slovenia perfectly in two word. Thank you for your time Lili.

 

 

Josip Klepec - contestant  from Croatia

 

Q: Where do you come from?

A: I’m from Croatia.

 

Q: Is this your first time in Slovenia?

A: Yeah, it’s pretty nice.

 

Q: What do you like about Slovenia the most so far?

A: Mostly the beautiful nature we see on these trips we take and the people here are also very pleasant.

 

Q: So, do you find Slovenians that you met this week very hospitable?

A: Yes, very and friendly as well. Oh, and the food is also really good 😊

 

Q: Well, I can agree with that. Thank you very much for your time.

 

 

Tamio-Vesa Nakajima – contestant from Romania

 

Q: Do you like Slovenia?

A: Oh, I think it’s beautiful! I really like Ljubljana for instance, I think it’s a very nice city. The historical part of the center for instance has really beautiful buildings and the scenery here at the Predjama castle is beautiful as well.

 

Q: Did you like our trip today?

A: Yes. It was a bit tiring but I think that’s a good thing. Between the two intellectually very challenging days, like yesterday was and I’m sure tomorrow will be as well, doing something more physically challenging – like walking through caves and such – was nice and very relaxing.

 

Q: Have you learned any Slovenian words so far?

A: Ummh… “Da!” (laughs)

 

 

Q: So, is Slovenia in any way similar to your country?

A: Well, except for the fact that we both use the word “Da” which means yes, it’s very similar in the fauna and flora. For instance, seeing the mountain at the Predjama castle today, made me feel as if I was back home, honestly it was very nice. Culturally, I think we’re also similar, both being in central Europe as the name of this competition implies (laughs).

 

Q: Thank you so much!

 

 

Florian Jüngermann – contestant from Germany  

 

Q: Is this your first time in Slovenia?

A: Yes actually, it is.

 

Q: And how are you liking it so far? Is it nice?

A: Yes, it’s very nice. I especially enjoy Ljubljana.

 

Q: Well what about the city nightlife? Did you go out to have some fun at night yet?

A: No, I haven’t experienced that yet.

 

Q: So, today we visited Postojna, which is famous for its caves and castle. Apart from the cave being very cold, how did you like it?

A: It was very impressive and big. I’ve never been to a cave like that before, I’m not even sure if we even have caves in Germany.

 

Q: And after that we went to the castle, what do you think about that?

A: It was interesting because it was built in a cave, not on a hill like usually.

 

Q: So, if your mother was to visit Slovenia which one of the two sights would you recommend to her?

A: I think the Postojna cave, because we have a lot of castles in Germany as well and they’re not that different, except from the part where this one is built in a cave.

 

Q: Well, thank you very much for taking some time from the busy schedule to talk to us.

 


If you'd like to see some snapshots of this week, scroll below.