The city of Ljubljana is very beautiful and picturesque and feels quite cosy. It is not the biggest city, but it has all you could possibly need plus it is well connected to many other places around.

The city always felt quite welcoming, although I'd say maybe it is better for people who don't travel solo, just because it offers so many group activities, spots to hang out etc. There's a lot of restaurants, cafes etc. - personally i would recommend chekcing out the museums and galleries, not only are they great, but you can oftentimes find leaflets with other interesting events and things to check out there :))

The great thing about Slovenia is that it offers a great variety things to explore - different types of landscape and nature, super rich culture, amazing seaside + mountains, a lot of gastronomy and cultural events to explore... There also an oppurtunity to take a bus to the neighbouring countries - everything is surprisingly close. I reccommend visiting Trieste in Italy, which is only something around an hour/hour and half away, but you can also easily access Venice from Ljubljana (this has been reccommended by my coworkers a lot!) or go further south to one of many Croatian cities. A lovely trip is also to the austrian Graz - there's a direct train connection which is super convenient (and also the ride in itself is an experience because of the beautiful scenery!)

I was working at Studio Kalamar d.o.o., which is an established architectural office with a huge portfolio of projects of various scales. I consider the work experience the most valuable and important part of my stay in Ljubljana. I was able to see how an office of a bigger scale works, how the people there interact, how everything is organised etc., which gave me a new perspective on the field, as I have previously been working only in smaller studios that dealt with different scales of projects.

The work with Mr. Kalamar was very pleasant and inspiring - I had been assigned multiple smaller projects (from interior design to more urban scale ones) and in the end of my internship I worked on a bigger project of a design of apartment buildings with underground parking from scratch. Through all this time the work had a good balance between me figuring things out by myself and a very good mentorship by Mr. Kalamar - I was forced to push myself to new limits, but also gained a lot from his experience - he showed me how he works, we had long consultations of my own work and he also shared his experience from the more business side of the field. All in all I have learnt a lot more than what one might expect from just a two month internship.

The salary was 800EUR netto and it was enough for me to cover all my expenses, rent etc. and have a very comfortable life in Ljubljana, judging by my own standard.

You can generally get around pretty nicely with english and for czech speaking people it is even more easy, as slovenian is quite easy to catch on, especially if you have experience with other slavic languages. It was not very hard to get the jist of some basic phrases and I feel like if I stayed for longer and put in a bit of effort I would learn a lot more of the language.

I have arranged my own accommodation in Ljubljana.I have been living in a co-living house called Kiviju in Dravlje, which I have found and arranged myself. The owner was very friendly (also he is originally from Czech R., which is a nice bonus for czech interns) and involved and the living was clean, cosy and generally very pleasant and of a high standard. I also had a very nice terrace/balcony just for myself. It was a bit pricier than what you could get via iaeste (I paid 330EUR+100EUR for utilities), but I would say it was worth the price (also I was living alone in a room for two people so that's on that). The only thing one would have to consider is the distance, as Dravlje district is about 15 mins by bus/25 mins by bike away from the city centre (my office) - this for me seemed like a normal commute, short even, but by Ljubljana standards it could be considered far away. The district in itself is quite calm and definitely safe, but it isn't very dynamic per say.

Upon my arrival I was picked-up by my landlord, however I met with IAESTE members later to arrange administrative things later on. IAESTE also organised weekly meetings and events during my stay, however I haven't been to many of them.

I was mostly hanging out with my coworkers and didn't meet many foreign students (except for those from IAESTE).

I was in Ljubljana for the summer months, which means peak tourist and cultural season. One thing about Ljubljana is that there was something always happening - open-air movie projections, cultural events, concerts, food markets (Odprta Kuhnja is a great place to visit for ex.)... All of those are easy to access and oftentimes you have english descriptions/info as well. What I did was while visiting galleries and museums I would always stop by the info leaflet place and get those info booklets about events, exhibitions etc. You can find out about a lot of fun stuff this way, if you don't have the social connecctions yet. My favourite event that I discovered this way was Poletje v Šiški - a series of free concerts that took place every Wednesday in the urban centre Kino Šiška and focused on more niche/local/indie music.
Also there's a suprising amount of czech beer around the country!

My coworkers were reccommending me some local foods and places to eat, we even went to a lunch together to try some of slovenian food. Interesting thing that I think is worth mentioning is pumpkin oil that is produced for example in the Prekmurje region close to the hungarian borders. I would also recommend getting some fresh figs.

It is possible to communicate in all the way I was used to from before (social media, whatsapp, etc.).

if you're going to stay for longer it is nice to get your own bike (you can get a cheap one for 40-50eur secondhand etc.), Ljubljana has a nice bike infrastructure and it's not too big, so having your own bike is super nice

there wasn't anything that I wasn't able to buy in slovenia that i needed, but if you're gonna be near water I surely recommend bringing a bug/mosquito repellent and also definetely an umbrella + raincoat, because Ljubljana is suprisingly rainy (despite this being a hot and dry summer)

experience in an established studio, work on various projects, good mentorship from the employer

the cooperation was smooth and lovely, they were very helpful with anything that I needed. I would like especially to thank Tit Zdravlje for helping me to figure out the administrative process and solving the issues that came up with it.