About Me
Home away from home.
Hello,
I am Philippe. I am French and I used to live many years in Paris. I was born in Africa and spent 8 years of my life there. In 2014, I met my partner near Paris. She came from Slovenia and went to work 3 months in Paris at the end of her studies. One year later, in 2015, we were expecting our first child and she wanted to come back to Slovenia because she was homesick and she wanted to come back in Slovenia, surrounded by her family, to give birth to our first child. Since she made the effort to stick with me in Paris for more than a year, it was my time to return the favour. I followed her in Slovenia. I quitted my job in Paris and I arrived in Slovenia in july 2015. We now live on the countryside near the border with Italy. Uuuhhh what a change ! It was really not simple. A cultural change, new language to learn, a new family to get used to, new food, another mentality etc …
I am very curious, I like to meet new people, learn new languages and I love to travel abroad or visit different regions of the country where I live. In 2016, my girlfriend was fed up seeing me texting and sending loads of pictures to my sisters and friends living in France and others countries … explaining them that “I have visited that city, it was beautiful …I have seen this castle and it looked really nice, here are the pictures and bla bla bla …”.
One fine morning, she looked at me and she told me : “You know, instead of spending hours every months sending pictures and writing advises about where to go or what to visit here and there, you should create your own blog/website and write about it instead of sending stuffs to your friends that they probably won’t read. I answered, “Yeah, good idea. I will do it one day!
Then a friend from the USA came to visit me in Slovenia in 2016 and I showed him around for 2 days . He told me that he was thinking about creating his website and he told me that I should create my own website and write about good places to visit here, in this part of Slovenia and Italy (it is called the “karst region” or “kras” in Slovenian). I was like “Damn, I heard that before. That make twice!”. But once again, I answered, “Yeah dude, good idea. I will do it one day!
But guess what, at the end of 2017, I felt I was being challenged and I said to myself, “mmmh, maybe they are right” and I got fed up of always dodging this topic by answering “Yeah, I will do it one day”.
I changed my mindset a bit and I started slowly working on it. Now I don’t just talk the talk, I walk the walk. I am doing it. I will do a lot of writing about nice villages and cities here in Slovenia and try to bring an insider look from an outsider. But I will also write about other countries later (France of course, Germany, Belgium etc …). It might be helpful for people who would like to visit one of these destinations one day.
Maybe that way, some of my friends who are planning to visit Paris or visit Slovenia won’t ask me anymore “Yo phil, I am going to Paris next week, what should I visit, give me some tips about nice parks, good museums, good restaurants etc…” or “hey Philippe, I would like to go to Slovenia next summer and visit the country, Where is Slovenia by the way ? This is near Russia, right ?”.
It is the first time that I create my own website so it will not be easy. But that’s all right. I will take my time. For the next 12 to 24 months, I will try to do something that is useful and not too ugly. It won’t be perfect but at least it will be mine.