"The World According to Oja" oja's Profile

First of all.... thank you! I was quite shocked as I logged on today to find I'm the talk of the global town. Oh well, I let Utttz spill the beans, but never expected to become a cover girl ;))). So thank you all for your words of congratulations and support. I'll do my best to represent my tiny country in Mantova, and invite you all to pop by, not because of me but because of the lovely world of literature opening there. Of course, if I get to meet some of you that'll be just great!!!

<body bgcolor="Lightcyan">Now back to the world as you know it... my favourite image taken from the CD 'One World' by Putumayo. My dream is still to see these faces live... Till then, let me take you to the pages I'm proudest of:

<center><a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1052/?s=T">Berlin<a>

<a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/919/?s=l">Antwerp</a>

<a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1545/?s=g&">London<a></center>

As you might have noticed, I'm not around as much as I used to be. Yesterday - on 23th April - I finally managed to log on after almost three months. To find many lovely, encouraging, funny and heart-warming comments on my neglected pages (thank you!), heaps of ratings (thank you very much for generosity - many tips are unfortunately outdated by now!), greetings (cheers all!) and questions (many of which couldn't be answered on time - SORRY!). Yes, having a baby is mostly fun, surprisingly uncomplicated compared to expectations, but time-consuming too... Well, let's hope I can believe MYSELF when I say I'll try to be around and helpful more often. Building and updating VT pages has always been a great joy, and I was always flattered to be considered helpful by others. So dammit - I will carry on, sooner or later, more or less frequently! This much I promise!

The good old FAQs:

What's your best venue to watch <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/919/?s=l">silly walking?</a>

Where is my <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1241/?s=K">favourite hostel?</a>

Which Croatian city has <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/959/?s=X">best looking boys?</a>

Where is <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1213/?s=L">the smallest brothel in the world?</a>

Where can you <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/939/?s=i">get fat </a>most quickly?

Is there a nightlife spot consisting of <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1052/?s=T">three walls and a roof?<a>

Which city serves <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1400/?s=B">the weirdest drinks?</a>

Which nation is a <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1562/?s=V">synonym of lazyness?</a>

<a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1196/?s=j">How could Pavarotti get so fat?</a>

<a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/.137577/1184/?s=j">Where</a> does every Italian road lead to?

All this and more - exclusively on Oja's pages!
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Some FAQs about the author, i.e. me:

What kind of traveller am I?

Definitely a backpacker. Give me a train ticket and a hostel map and I'll say, Thanks, that's great. If I flew somewhere and then got transferred straight to the pre-paid hotel, I'd feel that a part of the fun is missing.

If you see someone looking like me stepping out of a higher class hotel with a suitcase in her hand, will you be terribly wrong if you go, Hey Oja, how's things?

No, that's probably me, but on a business trip.

Where did I get that funny name?

It's my actual nickname. One evening some six years ago I was sitting in my favourite club when this guy came up and said, Hi, I've seen you around, what's your name? When I told him, he said, No way, three syllables is much too long. So he came up with Oja, and I've been Oja ever since. (BTW, the word has many meanings in different languages - ditch in Finnish, brook in Lithuanian and Estonian, to complain in Swedish (verb, yes!), milk tea in Ladakhi, a dialect of Tibetan, o ja in German and dutch, and orange juice in Aussie-ish. If you know any other, please tell me! And of course, a big thanks to all who did so far!)

In what languages am I able to reply to your messages?

Besides my mother tongue and English, I am fluent in Croatian (Serbian, Bosnian), and literate in French and German. You can also try and contact me in Italian and Macedonian, but I won't reply in these languages (unless you want a good laugh!).

What are my top 5 places?

No clue. All are great!

What do I look for in a page?

Most of all, the author! Yourself! I'm more a text type than a photo type, so a page consisting solely of photos with captions is likely to leave me cold. I'll appreciate useful info, but what will truly melt me are stories of 'how that funny Italian lady pretended she was our grandma just to get us a bargain rent for the neighbouring villa' or 'I nearly died with shock when that German toilet stall started talking'. And if you think closely, you'll find that dozens of such intriguing things actually happened on your trips! So why not share them?

Which part of Europe is the best?

South and East.

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Some things that just have to be said:

1. My pages are made completely by myself unless stated differently (I've got some borrowed photos because I'm not such a great photographer).

2. I am strictly against copying any existing pages. If you have to copy, please give due credits. But my hearty advice is not to copy at all. There's really no need for that.

3. My credo: to provide information which cannot be found in guidebooks. Therefore no hard data on country size, population and similar, but solely personal experience.

4. Before putting you on my friends list I'll get to know you a bit better and exchange at least a few mails/notices/chat sentences with you. I'll appreciate it if you do the same.

5. I've got a strict anti-spamming policy. No postcards or invitations to pages please, unless I ask you to. It often happens that I rate someone's page and find my mailbox full of postcards from this person at the next moment. This is very likely to be counter-effective. Please let me have the pleasure of discovering pages myself.

Intro Updated Jun 15, 2003
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Comments (99)

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lmkluque Sep 24, 2012 at 8:37 AM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY POLONA! Hope you are well.
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Belsaita Sep 3, 2012 at 11:10 AM

Hi Polona, it was so nice to meet you and in Israel. Please keep in touch! Hugs, Isa
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pieter_jan_v Aug 4, 2012 at 9:09 AM

Polona, It was great meeting you. See you around. PJ
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lmkluque Sep 24, 2011 at 7:39 AM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY POLONA! Hope you come back to VT soon!
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shrimp56 Sep 24, 2011 at 6:42 AM

Happy Birthday!!! We miss you!
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matcrazy1 Sep 25, 2009 at 7:29 AM

Hi Polona, happy belated birthday to you + great travels. Greetings from Poland :-)!
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Sjalen Sep 27, 2006 at 2:42 PM

Belated happy birthday! Hope it was everything you wanted :)
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mikkie50 Sep 24, 2006 at 4:26 PM

hi polona :-) hope you have had a wonderfull birthday :-)))how is tania? soncrica. well we are of to turkey in the morning 6am Istanbul kindregards mikkie :-)))
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ARoman Sep 21, 2005 at 4:07 AM

happy bd :)
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aaaarrgh Dec 6, 2004 at 1:18 PM

Hi - I like your five rules, wish more people followed them. By the way, ditch the HTML :-)