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Bled, a resort town where Nan and Henry stayed during a Slovenian Chemical Society Spectroscopy Conference.
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Henry had rowed us over to the small island in Lake Bled and wanted his picture taken with the castle in the background. . |
| We were in the boat for this picture of the island in Lake Bled. The day was beautiful, sunny and breezy. There is an old church and bell tower that are open for visitors. It is also possible to have coffee, tea or soda at a cafe. |  |
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This church is on the island. |
| A side view of the church on the island. |  |
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A new mayor was installed for the city of Bled. |
| Ms. Dana Rencelj is receiving an award in recognition of her accomplishments and service to Bled.. She is a ballet teacher and choreographer in Bled. She has lived and worked in Japan, Iran and Croatia. She still does collaborative work with a ballet group in Dubrovnik, Croatia. |  |
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There was a reception after the awards ceremony and. Nancy had this picture with Dana and a student, Eva Jensterle, taken. Ms. Dana Renclj has had an eventful life. Her parents were from Gorica originally, but moved to Ljublijana because of Mussolini and then to Jesenice where she was born. She settled in Bled after living in Japan and Iran(which she left because of the revolution that brought down the Shah.in the late 1970's). She has a daughter and son-in-law in Zagreb and a grand-daughter who is a liason with the Japanese embassy in Zagreb. |
| This picture shows the two young ladies that introduced us to their dance teacher Dana Renclj. From left to right are Vilma Kersnik, Dana, Ana Marija Kovac and Vladka Tonica. Vilma and Vladka are sisters. The girls had come to congratulate Ms. Renclj on her award. They had roses which they presented to her after the ceremony. They had been sitting in front of us, so later at the reception we introduced ourselves and asked for details about the program we had seen. We could tell that it was an award program but were not certain about the nature of the awards. Even though the program didn't have as much music as we had expected, we had a great time anyway. |  |
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Nancy , Mr. Bozo Benedik and Henry at the reception. Mr. Benedik is "the most Honorable Citizen of Bled or the Grandfather of Bled." He worked to bring international events to the city that would provide work and notoriety for the city. Nancy tried to speak to him and found that he spoke Slovene, German and French, but her French was too rusty to make herself understood. We were introduced by Mr. Rado Jensterle, father of Eva . |
| Three dancing friends who were kind enough to talk to us about their teacher Dana Renclj and their future plans. We hope they will forgive Henry for taking this cute picture. An even cuter and more flattering picture will come. They are Eva Jensterle, Tina Mencinger and Anja Preseren. |  |
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The next day, Nancy went to a ballet class for the older girls. The man in the white shirt is Andrew Stevens , who comes from Ljubljana to assist Dana in teaching ballet . This a studio in the round. It is in the bottom floor of a theater. The lower area of the ceiling is part of the stage area above. It is a beautiful light blue and cream color. |
| Again they were practicing some dance steps. Tina Mencinger was dancing with Andrew . The other girls watched. |  |
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Eva is stretching while talking to a younger student and Andrew is critiquing Tina's brother and another dancer. |
| Andrew and a student , Tina, and Eva with her brother Luka. |  |
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Dana asked Andrew to show Nancy a sequence from their last dance recital . Here you see Eva Jensterle and Andrew. Andrew is from Great Britian and is married to a Slovenian woman. He lives and works in Ljubljana. |
| Here you see the entire class of Dana's dancers. Dana does the choreography for her troupe. The Bled troupe also collaborates with a troupe in Dubrovnik. |  |
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Nancy was not able to get the names of everyone. It was late, 8:30pm or after, and they had school the next day so they were rushing. They are a really nice group of young people and Nancy appreciated being included in their class. For interest sake, Eva and Tina are working toward being professonal ballerinas. They both want to come to the United States to see New York City and compete for a place in the ballet troupes. Anja wasn't prepared to give Nancy her life plan yet since she is only 16. For now she has her friends, family, dancing and Ms. Dana R. |
| Friends: Eva, Tina and Anja! |  |