Archives for August 30th, 2005

The key to surviving floods is to stay calm.

There
were a
lot of rumors earlier this year that this was going to be a hot summer
in
Slovenia. Looking back, it’s safe to say that those rumors were doubly
wrong:
first, it never got hot; second, there wasn’t even anything resembling
a summer. It was like a long, drawn-out
autumn, except not nice and crisp, but muggy and rainy with brief
moments of full-blast sunshine. It was kind of like a Slovenian
version of 1816.

I
remember everyone (myself included) hoping that June would be better
than May. When that didn’t happen, we hoped that the real summer would
start in July. And when that fell through, we put our faith in August.
And of course, August turned out to be the biggest disappointment of
them all. It even added injury to insult, by flooding large parts of central
and eastern Slovenia. The damages around Celje and environs were estimated at around 23 million euros.

Not that the foreign press really noticed. Anything east of the Oder River or south of the Karavanke mountains is terra incognita when it comes to European news. Reuters kept their focus
on Germany, Austria and Switzerland — happily ignoring the fact that
Romania was the worst hit. The AP
did a far better job, at least mentioning everyone (except Slovakia) but still focused most of their attention on Austria.

Either
way, here’s hoping you enjoy what remaining days (if any) there are of
this summer. The Glory of Carniola will return to normal in bleak December sweet September (specifically: Sept. 5) with all new fresh goodness. See you soon!