City restavracija, BTC, Ljubljana, Slovenia

City building in BTC City. These 13 floors are Slovenian HQ to some prominent global brands such as Microsoft and Nike. Besides the restaurant on the top floor and restaurant Pri Stricku, employees working in this building don't really have much choice to go for a decent lunch in the near vicinity.

Miha Modic is working in IT department at NLB, biggest bank in Slovenia. After successful switch to EUR currency, he took a well deserved longer break in Brazil and upon return got himself neck deep involved in Temenos Globus project. He lived 10 years in Germany where he studied at Mannheim University, worked as a freelance programmer and also for Ciao.de and Deutsche Boerse, before coming back to his homeland. Wikinomics and Good to Great were the latest books he's read and with extra time and money he would set up the best cooking portal on the planet. It's easy to guess that he is an avid cook - practicing most of the time making lunches and dinners to his Brazilian wife and young daughter as well as to his many friends. IT an cooking go well hand in hand. According to Miha, Genius Bar in Apple Retail Stores is a severe overstatement. What's really so Genius about it?

From the restaurant there's fascinating view over Ljubljana toward Kamnik Alps. And you are not allowed to take photos. Where did this one came from then ...

Kitajska Šmartinska, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Chinese restaurant near BTC in Ljubljana. You cannot find anything about it on the web, but if you insist, this is where you can find it on Najdi.si map. No name. No marketing. Yet, still surviving.

Matej Lavric (Lavrič) - experienced Java developer turned IT architect and project manager at SRC.SI. Born and raised in Postojna, lives in Pivka, graduated at FRI and worked also at Parsek. Avid tennis and golf player, this year he ran his first 10km at Ljubljanski maraton, while sport motorbikes remain his biggest passion - currently he rides with his wife on Honda CBR 600F. As sailing is getting more and more in the picture, his latest book was Learn to Sail by Dennis Conner, the famous American yahtsman. Batagel(j) from Postojna is considered famous by Slovenian measures and he is definitely moving his own cheese. Good service deserves la mancia.

Red. Green. Round. Chinese. Do they really look all the same?

Gregori, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Stegne is part of Ljubljana with commercial connotation, crowded with companies and cars with parking problem being the common denominator to all of them.

Gregori is a small restaurant catering to employees of nearby companies. No trail of it on the net whatsoever. If you don't find yourself there already, you have no special reason to go there.

Kristjan Golob, CEO of Medistar. Managing growth and expansion of this predominantly neurophysiology oriented company into other adjacent areas. Born, raised and living in Menges, graduated at EF, climbed his way through Medis and KonicaMinolta to his first general management position where the view is nicer and reaches further. Two year old son, AirSoft, Mountain Biking and reading books such as Clinical Neurophysiology are filling up his seriously limited free time now. Money limitations out of sight, he would still stay in business management and growth business. On a bigger scale and more game like. Among other roles he is also my brother.

Another sighting of Cvicek. Affordable for masses.

Pizzerija Botana, Cerklje, Slovenia

Botana is a popular pizzeria, frequently visited by skiers returning from Krvavec. This time it was visited on our way to Airport Brnik, recently renamed to Airport Joze Pucnik, after one of the founding fathers of democracy in new Slovenia.

Krzysztof Kluszczynski, regional sales manager for IBM's telco service performance&quality management software solutions, that IBM acquired with company Vallent. Kluszczynski is a common Polish name and it is also the name of a Polish publishing company. Kris was born, raised and lives in Skierniewice - half way between Warsaw and Lodz. He held several jobs in telco solution provider space, the latest ones being ComArch and IBM. His current reading remains faithful to his surname - historical books published by Kluszczynski publishing house. Tomasz Gollob is a famous Polish zuzel (speedway) driver and when he wins you can hear Polish national anthem, that has almost the same melody as did former Yugoslavia - Hey Slavs. Poland is still situated between Germany and Russia. Historia magistra vitae est.

Pri Stricku, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Pri Stricku (Stričku) - very good and popular, hence crowded restaurant in Ljubljana, near BTC shopping city.


Rok Zaloznik (Založnik), Technical Service director at Simobil, Slovenia's second biggest mobile operator. Born and raised in Ljubljana, graduated at FRI where he used very open-source-like nickname Xfree, before joining very not-open-source-like Microsoft business. IT director position at Sparkasse was his first taste of being on the other side of the vendor-customer equation. Wife, two daughters and a lot of sports. An injury lets him do less running, but more biking and swimming - also as a member of 3K Sport. Someday his own Scuba diving center in Maldives will fill up his agenda. Stumbling on Happiness.


Cvicek (Cviček) - genuine Slovenian red wine. Not for everybody. Some would even argue calling it wine. But there are good Cvicek wines to be found. This one was good and it was accompanied by Janković water = tap water. Zoran Janković is present mayor of Ljubljana, hence the water in Ljubljana pipes is jokingly called Janković water. Fits right in the age of bottling and labeling all sorts of water.

Druga pomoc, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Druga Pomoc (Pomoč) is a popular bar near Ljubljana Medical Center. The name of the place is a word game: Druga pomoc = Second Aid as opposed to First Aid. They are sponsoring Futsal team. Futsal is indoor version of football. IKEA chairs.

Igor Borojevic (Borojević), native Croatian, raised in Zapresic and recently moved from Zagreb to Ljubljana where he works at IBM as IT Architect. There was a famous general Svetozar Borojevic from Banija region, as was Igor's father. His intensive involvement in BEST brought him for a while also to Stockholm and a Swedish girlfriend to him. For a while. Graduated at FER.hr, worked for Nove Tehnologije, Combis and IBM. You will mostly see him mountain climbing, sailing, swimming and playing badminton in his off time. Nase malo misto by Miljenko Smoje. According to Igor well worth watching and reading. Not to mention The Economist itself. If I would mention Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA at this point it would not make much sense, but it is a city with very high density of bright and highly educated people, thanks mainly to Harvard and MIT. When will there be Toastmasters in Ljubljana? One of the earlier members of Zagreb Toastmasters might know the anwser. Keep the ball of favours rolling ...

Sofra, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Sofra is a well known Bosnian Sarajevo style restaurant in Ljubljana. Well worth a visit.

Alenka Planinc - being her own boss and managing her own company Planinca - active in the area of workshop facilitating, mentoring, coaching and market research consulting. Born and raised in Kozje, has lived in Ljubljana, Smartno pri Litiji, Menges and is now settled in Zdusa (Zduša), a small group of houses near Kamnik - population of 94. Among other things Zdusa is known for the fact that some people drive their cars in garage through the roof. After graduation at FDV she worked for Kanal A (helping roll out first Television Audience Measurement systems from AGB Lab), for Allied Domecq (market, brand and trends research and analysis), ADD and iGEA, before deciding to go on her own. She is CPF = Certifed Facilitator by IAF and she can break bottom-right glass of your Johari window. She likes biking but only if she doesn't ride the same path twice in a single trip. She also developed slight addiction for Catan & Citadels board games and cooking. Her latest books were High Performance People and Wikinomics. One day her focus might change more into helping (coaching, mentoring, ...) marginal groups, such as invalids - influenced by her brother that had an accident. She might also go traveling around the world with her brother and observe (possibly change) the conditions for traveling of hindered people.

Distinct Sarajevo atmosphere ...


... and superbly served Turkish coffee. Thumbs up!

City restavracija, BTC, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Bar and restaurant City on top of BTC City high-rise. Small, functional, great view and kind waitress.

Matej Caf - software engineer and IT architect at SRC.SI where he is continuing to accumulate already rich set of IT experiences, that he acquired among others while studying and working at FERI, on LabVIEW development for National Instruments and many involvements in projects in the area of J2EE, Enterprise Java in government and banking, distributed, real-time, mobile technologies and network management. Besides his passion for IT in parallel he also developed passion for stock market, golf and sailing. His all time favourite book would be Victory by Brian Tracy. Some day he will own at least one golf course and help good business ideas flourish.

Igor Rendulic (Rendulič) - software developer at SRC.SI with lots of skills in security and "ethical" hacking area. FERI graduate, he managed to break into several systems and wouldn't mind too much being labeled as a hardcore computer geek, whilst year 2007 is marked as his enter into bright golfing career. Trading stocks and options is also something you would be able to talk about with him for quie a while.

River House, Ljubljana, Slovenia

River House is a relatively new place on the bank of Ljubljanica river in Stara Ljubljana. And a fine place it is. A definite recommendation.

Kamenko Kesar - a long time successful Microsoft PR-marketing-mash-up person turned into founder of his own corporate-communication-in-a-broader-sense agency called Adrema. Maribor native, moderator of Blogres - recent bloggers' gathering in Ljubljana - has significant online presence, also due to his Ideja blog. Although he is already consistently beating Filo at tennis, with loads of time and money he would still get himself world's top instructors for tennis, guitar, golf and many other activities where he would go beyond his limits. His last book was The Art of Rhetoric and his all time favourite is Gladwell's The Tipping Point - both of them most probably bought at Amazon UK. All of you time-strapped out there can always get the taste of these books at getAbstract dot com.

Very stylish toilet. For the rest of the interior you are "kindly urged" to come and see the place yourself in person.

Joe Pena's (again), Ljubljana, Slovenia

Joe Pena's by day. Significantly less smokers outside than during evening hours.

Nana Korosec (Korošec) - just starting her career at IBM in Slovenia. Raised in Grosuplje, educated in Ljubljana, EF study just about to be finished. For some reason she does not feel very comfortable with foreign languages - learning and using, that is. She is perceived as quite orderly and systematic and always wants to know things that she is dealing with very well. She worked for Oikos and is very good at putting together business plans - she was part of the team that won Golden Business Plan award. She's also very good with children - she earned considerable amount of money as a baby sitter - and one day she will have a successful chain of private kindergartens.

(Primož) Primoz Zupan - also just starting his sales career in IBM. Menges is his hometown and he was president of his class every year in elementary school. He speaks German, Italian and French. Is able to discuss Astrology, Reiki and other related meta-subjects to a significant extent. Being part of Global Business Challenge in Seattle was one of his important achievements so far. Among other things while in USA, he's got a chance to see Microsoft HQ and Gates' house. He is active in Social Networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Hi5, ...) and thrives at PR related opportunities. He can also teach you how to walk with stilts.

Less crowded, less drinking, more sitting, more eating.

Horse Pub, Ljubljana, Slovenia

I borrowed this really good photo taken at Horse Pub in Ljubljana from user Martin (E-400) on Flickr. Martin's approval is at the time of posting still pending. His beautiful photos are made with Olympus E-400. Why I borrowed it - because the debate with Marijan Brvar was so intense, that I forgot (again) to take a snapshot of the place. Horse Pub is a good place - a recommendation.


Marijan Brvar is the man in charge of sales at ReaEDS, predominantly engaged in Xythos solutions. Born in Belgrade, he had a variety of jobs - starting with McDonalds and latest ones being Genis and ReaEDS. He is an expert in Document and Content management solutions and also has the necessary drive to develop strategy for almost any kind of business. Dark picture, bright person :)

Joe Pena's, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Joe Pena's - Cantina y Bar. Popular Mexican place. By day and by night. The crowd in front of the bar does not represent waiting line, but poor smokers who are forced (by Slovenian anti-smoking law) to indulge in their vices outside in the cold. Cheers! Austria failed to pass that same law. Imagine that.

Andrej Novak - Sales manager at Avus oglasi. Novak is the most common surname in Slovenia - there are 11337 people in Slovenia that call themselves Novak and that number might go up with an additional girl-to-become-wife. Andrej is not married, in fact he is single, wanting and needing. Slyvester Stallone is his brother, but Andrej's mother will not admit it. His study at EF is still an open chapter, he worked for Collegium as a tourist guide and now manages sales at his family business Avus. On top of his engagement in tennis, football and golf, he managed to run 21km half-marathon in Ljubljana by accident - came too late and then took a wrong turn. He also likes to walk to Smarna Gora - he likes to do it with friends who are at that very same time in Romania. It happened to me once. If Avus would be sold for 200 million EUR he would go travelling and have a family with two kids -two more Novaks. The Power of Positve Thinking. Most of his life (this one) he will probably be seen in the vicinity of beautiful Balkan-ish girls that can be found in places like Klub 12. One needs to be careful not to be shot.

What do BMW and Joe Pena's have in common? They keep supply always a little lower than demand and demand always high - just like prices. On Friday night they don't have nearly enough bartenders to quench the raging thirst in Ljubljana.

Hector Lorenzo cocktail made with Southern Comfort.