2. Primoz

2. Primoz

Hi there! My name is Primoz Novak and I was born 37 years ago, on the 7th of January 1985. I was born in a little village of the Slovenian mountains called Plešivec, close to the city of Velenje. 

The wonderful mountain place where I was born…

My mother is called Marjana and my father is called Tomislav. I also have a lovely but sometimes-annoying sister, :-), Ajda, born a bit after myself. 

Family holidays in Croatia, 2016

Both of them are High School teachers in the professional school of Velenje, my father on the area of Physical Education and my mother focusing on Biology and cooking classes. So far we have been blessed with good health for everyone and they love hiking and skiing when work is allowing it.

My sister, who studied Quantitative Finance, lives nowadays in Ljubljana with her long-life boyfriend Vid, where the family has a nice small apartment. Both usually come to visit us in Berlin at least once per year and I go to Slovenia at least 4 times per year. 

As a family we do spend a lot of time on the phone along the week and we visit as much as we can, but obviously living abroad has a price we cannot forget. It is a bit sad sometimes, for us a tradeoff we need to endorse. 

We have a wonderful house in the village, around 12 km from the city, cos my parents love to be in touch with the nature, the forest, and the small community where everybody gets to know each other. They have a garden where my mother cultivates fresh veggies, and honestly nothing can compare to my mother master-craft of the kitchen (apologies Pablo). She bakes a lot for us, for the neighbours, and in occasions she even sells things in the local market of the village. 

Both of my parents love to bike and as long as the weather permits they will go everyday to the school go and back, so 24 km! that allows then to keep in shape as well. On the other hand, they also love to spend some quality time relaxing in the spa. 

From my parents and early times in my small village, where we were only 6 kids in school (all ages mixed) I learn the perks of living and growing in trust, in a small community where everybody know each other and support each other. It was really regarding and exploring time, feeling always in a wonderful environment close to the forest and the nature.

My parents are hard working people, they study both in a time when that was starting to be common, but neither the norm, and they really taught me the importance of making efforts and understanding that life is a wonderful place, but things do not come alone the way randomly, it is our responsibility to help them happen by effort and willingness. But without forgetting the importance of family, friends, time to relax and enjoy a good food. Focus when the work is needed, but learning to relax and enjoy on the appropriate time. Balance is they key I learnt as a kid. 

From my mother I would say she thought me the importance of the little things, how details can make a difference and how to focus on the long term perspective. And obviously how caring, protecting and loving she was all my childhood. My father belongs to men generation where talking about feelings was a bit more complex, being his major lessons for me the importance of hard work and dedication, but also his push to explore the nature around us. That is why I always used to have dogs and others pets in the village, and that is something I still miss today from living in the city, as you can see below 🙂

My sheep pet

I would love from our future child to get to know the nature, and specially the forest. Pablo and myself love to go hiking outside the city during the weekends, and this is something we will make sure the baby can enjoy from early times. From my early childhood, I would also love to transfer the notion of close family support and discovery, how important it is to explore the world around you and learn as much as you can from the daily things. 

I major in Law and finally a Master in Economics in Berlin After several years working on the venture capital world, I moved to a major global company for food delivery where I was the global compliance manager. I also did, during the last 4 years, a second Master in Laws in International Banking & Trust Law. It sounds really boring but actually is all about making companies more ethical, preventing them to move into more dangerous ways of doing business and ensuring the working climate is free of bulling and harassment. Actually, it is a pretty cool job and I like quite a lot!

For fun I love still love to play my video games. I also love to watch documentaries and interesting talks, there is so much fun and information that the internet provides to us in these days, it is just never ending. I also love to go out for a good dinner and long walks in the city, meeting our core group of friends but also the small community of Slovenians here in Berlin, one of the few chances I have to talk my own language! Pablo is learning it, but he is just terrible at it.

Languages are also one of my biggest passions. I speak despite my mother tongue fluently English and German, and cos of Pablo strong cultural influence (Spaniards can be really talkative and social dynamic for north-European standards) I decided to learn Spanish. I am fluent in it, and thereby talking to Pablo’s family is not a problem at all. 

As mentioned before, I love to go out for dinner in the weekends and meet friends, having a nice wine or beer, without overreacting as that will hit my sports training, another of my passions, that I try to practice as much as I can. I am also lucky enough that I never smoked when younger and so no need today.

I love the spring and the autumn cos is not so cold but no warm, lets say I am a person who tends to escape from extreme situations, really good for hiking, balance at the center. But I enjoy a week of skiing per year and a couple at the beach. 

My favorite holiday so far has been Iceland, cos of the amazing landscapes, the brute nature, the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere and just Pablo and myself alone. 

Thanks to our jobs we do have a calm and secure situation that we would love everyone to have. If we were to win the lottery and split some money around, I would do so for agencies focusing on child education and protection, cos only creating generations that are well educated, aware of the environment and the importance of living socially is the way we will all progress as a society. 

I believe in respect the others, the order and the law (I am a lawyer) and put a lot of importance in not hurting the people around me. Those values are something I would really like to share with my future kid. But for the future, please click here as this is what I, with Pablo, envisioned…