Gorizia, Italy

Candy at Festa
Festa
Licorice at Festa
Julian Alps from Sveta Gora

Udine, Italy

Castle
Mountains from Castle.
Shadows on plaza.
Bob enjoying the sun and the sculpture.

Weeks of 5 & 12 December

The past two weeks have twisted together in daily activity. We have settled into a comfortable routine of work and adventure. I have been practicing 2-3 hours every morning at the music school, assisting at the Gimnazia with English classes and the American choir, attending Italian class 3 nights a week and studying Slovene. Bob often has pre-hour classes that begin at 7:00am and with the teacher’s English conversation group, after school student tutoring and his French language class he returns home some days as late as 5:00. We have been regularly reflecting on our week at Bob’s favorite Italian restaurant on Friday’s and they are beginning to expect us. The bike rides have become the norm and even in the winter weather we feel invigorated rather than cold. Neither of us is looking forward to returning to the U.S. where the car is our best friend. We do not miss the 30 to 60 minute drive we have to anywhere from West Salem. 30 minutes on a bike challenges us to notice the clarity of the sky, breathe in the moisture of the sea air that floats up the valley, and tan from the rays of the moon. I’m afraid that we miss much of the miracle of the natural when we go from our warm home through the garage to the heated car and then quickly into our destination and away from the weather.

We have had trips to Udine, Trieste and Ljubljana. The train rides to the Italian cities make Bob giggle every time. When he was growing up his family would go for rides to watch trains, they had train sets in the basement and his brother still has a fabulous train set up in his home. I think Bob really can’t quite believe that he can watch trains from his front window and ride trains whenever he wants to. We even can watch the work on the tracks on our way to school. They have been replacing wooden ties on the track along the bike path. All the work is being done by hand with pick axes, shovels and pitch forks. The men doing the work look like they are surprisingly close to receiving their pension and certainly too old for the physical labor required of them. They scrape away the stones with the pitchfork, dig out the tie, pry it loose, slide it from the railroad bed, replace the old with a new one that is laid by hand, pound it in place and then the rocks are replaced one shovel full at a time. And all this is being done between the scheduled trains on this single track. The Slovenian population is so highly educated that labor jobs are probably not in demand by the young men and very likely these older men are from former Jugoslovian nations who are desperate for work to free them from the poverty of the post Bosnian and Serbian wars.

The day we went to the Slovenian Consulate in Trieste there was a line out side the buildingof 7 men and one woman who served as their translator. The men wore practical sturdy clothing and carried their papers in folders. They projected the energy of need. They were all very quick to present the documents requested by the guard with the desire to please and the hope that their dreams will be fulfilled. The guard had the power to let us into the building, but make them wait outside in the cold. He could hold them off with a flick, a nod or open the door to their future. We wondered at their stories and if their desperation was as deep as it felt.

We certainly understand the frustration of trying to get the proper papers needed to stay in the country. We thought that this trip to Trieste was going to be the last stage of acquiring my residency permit. The lovely colorful visa was pasted into my passport and we were all set to leave the office to celebrate until the woman behind the glass wall said “You know this is only good until the end of December.” December? 15 days from now? There must be a mistake. Bob’s visa is good until July. But when she looked at his visa the expiration date [which we can’t read because it is written in Slovene – imagine that] said December 31. She could only tell us that she thought they must have made a mistake in Nova Gorica. So instead of enjoying the pre-Christmas festivities in Trieste we dashed back to Nova Gorica looking for answers. Apparently only a temporary 3-month work permit was issued in September because Bob had a 3-month tourist visa. That work permit made it possible to get a residency visa, but the visa could only be issued for the length of the work permit. Now a new work permit is being processed and when that arrives that will make us eligible to reapply for the longer residency visa. Of course it was 2:00 on Friday the week before Christmas and no one was working in the office in Nova Gorica. The next two holiday weeks will certainly offer an excess of coffee breaks, holiday parties and shorten workdays. We can only imagine how that will affect the work permit/residency visa and our 31 December deadline. Bureaucracy [3] – Bob and Kay [0]. The adventure continues!

Holiday shopping is just getting revved up in new and old Gorizia. In old Gorizia [Italy] they have laid red carpet on the sidewalks in front of the stores, the streets are blocked off for tents selling wares from many places in the world, smiling ladies in booths are giving away glasses of hot spiced wine and Italian Christmas cakes, the candy booths glow brilliant colors in the darkness, the women are cuddly warm in their fur coats and the streets are crowded under the blinking snow flake and star lights. In Nova Gorica [Slovenia] blue sheds painted with snow drifts and white snowflakes are being built in the town square for the Christmas market that opens next week. The tall pines around the city have been draped with white lights and white lights are strung across the roads all over town. Live Christmas trees are not sold until the 20th after the last Sunday in Advent. The tradition is for the children to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve and the tree stays up until 6 January. St. Nicholas arrived for the children on 6 December and the 25th is a religious holiday. No Christmas carols are sung in church until after Christmas and then they are sung following the Jesus story. New Years Eve became the day of greatest festivities during the communist years. They now celebrate with fireworks and parties and gift giving for those who do not celebrate the Christian holiday. We have been invited to the home of Silvanha and her daughter Valentina for Christmas Eve and then the choir will sing for midnight mass at Sveta Gora. Christmas day we will join Breda and Rajko and their family after we have all sung for Christmas Sunday mass. For the New Year we will stay in our neighborhood where they have a big party between the houses. If we have to be away from our families and friends at Christmas it is nice that our new friends are including us in their festivities.

We gathered with Silvanha and Valentina this week to tryout the blueberry product of their new muffin tins. 13-year-old Valentina is the proud owner of a new violin made by Paolo Vettori e Figli from Florence. Paolo arrived while we were there to do a simple repair on her beautiful instrument. Paolo spoke Italian and English. His wife spoke English, Slovene and Italian and Valentina bounced back and forth between the three languages like she was playing catch. The energy of sitting with this man, and his wife, who are following the violin making tradition of his father and passing it on to their children was a pinch-me-moment. There was so much laughter, joy and celebration of music that this one night would have made the entire trip to Slovenia worth the it. I am so delighted to know Valentina. She has a loving maturity, open heart with no projection of being at all precocious. She and her mother have spirits that soar freely and make my heart sing.

At times the longing for the familiar hits me between the eyes. We went to the Mercator Center grocery store to buy the items needed for Christmas baking. I was standing next to a crooked mannequin wearing a very sad Santa Claus outfit with a scraggly white beard looking at the tree ornaments and burst into tears. Nothing around me reminded me of home or family and friends, but the energy in the space was of anticipation. People were pushing carts with festive fixing’s, the chatter had the edge of excitement [although I couldn’t understand anything] and the spirit was of hope. Christmas and the New Year are times of encouragement, hope for our world and the desire for goodness and peace. These sentiments are a very present energy even in a place where the language is not understood. And during this time when so much of the world is reflecting on peace and love it is hard to be so far from those we adore. So all who read this join me in lighting candles this season to represent the desire to be linked as one body, one people in the Light. Merry Christmas!

Trieste, Choir, Knights of Wine

Choir party in the wine cellar
Serbian church, Trieste, Italy
Knights of the Wine Mass
Jo^sko, Andy and Monica in the wine cellar

Week of 28 November

We finally went to Trieste to get Bob’s residency visa. This colorful piece of paper taped in his passport with all the necessary official stamps states that he is no longer a tourist, no longer an illegal alien, but a legal resident of Slovenia. Unfortunately I am still illegal, I’m still a tourist. Apparently my visa had to wait until Bob was official before they would process my documents. Now that the male breadwinner head of household is legal, they can send the papers of his wife. So soon I get to return to Trieste on a sunny day when the shops are all decorated for Christmas and birthday money in my pocket to get my official papers too. With his visa Bob now needs to reapply for the work papers to carry him to the end of the school year. When we asked the woman at the Slovenian Consulate what the process would be should we return to Slovenia next year, she said that we needed to start all over again. We will need another FBI background check and the same copies of our marriage license and birth certificates with new apostils. Hopefully if we decide to return we will have a contract for the job and the apartment before we leave here and maybe we can do the process through the Embassy in Washington. Unfortunately since we will only be home for 6 weeks the FBI check will again be the document that may cause us trouble.

Sadly it was not a glorious coastal Adriatic day, but variations upon variations of gray. We spent the day in the rain on the Slovenian coast of Isola, Piran and Porta Rose and then crossed the border into Croatia so that we each now have another country stamp in our passport. Andy’s goal is to visit so many countries that additional pages for the stamps will be inserted in his passport. We drove to the hill top town of Buje and walked the narrow streets to the tower built in the 1400’s. The poverty of Croatia is evident the first step into the country and in real contrast to Slovenia. The pastures are overgrown, the roads are in disrepair and this amazing medieval town is falling to pieces. Torrential rain did not assist the image of the country, but despite that I have a great desire to return and experience this place in the sunshine.

The cultural dynamics between the Slovenians and all the surrounding nations is something we do not yet grasp. There must be dynamics in the relationships between countries that have occupied the same land or have shared a government. The personality of this country has to be the result of never claiming their own country before 1991even though they have always had their unique language and culture. We were surprised to learn that between the wars this region, the Primor^ska Region, was the only part of Slovenia that was under Italian rule. The rest of the country was a part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and each state spoke their own language. The people of the Primor^ska region were required to speak Italian and attend Italian schools. People were reported to the government for speaking Slovene or singing traditional songs. One of the teachers tells the story of her grandfather who was heard speaking Slovene and he was sent to Sicily to work leaving his wife and 9 children at home to care for them selves. The only place safe to speak Slovene was in church. Although the mass was in Latin, the fascists never came to church so the gatherings after church were safe times to speak their native tongue. I can’t imagine having one’s language, songs, culture stripped from you. The thought of it makes me tearful. There is concern by many that the officials of the current government of Slovenia are the children of those who escaped the partisans after WWII and they are attempting to rewrite history and present the partisans and Tito as a force of evil and erase the positive aspects of the past 50 years.

The Sveta Gora choir was invited to sing for a mass blessing the wines. The Knights of the Wine hold an annual gathering in a freezing church guarded by towering Roman pines on top of a hillside that rises out of circled with vineyards all around the base. This knighthood has been in existence since the times of the middle ages and the mass was cloaked with ceremonial presentations and decorations. The members are among the most active wine makers in the Primor^ska region and they bear their membership with great ceremonial dress in matching double breasted suits, matching ties and red, gold, and green ribbons bearing a medal around each neck. The largest wine producer in the area adorned himself in a black velvet cape while the standard bearers wore white gloves to carrying the red seals of the knighthood. The priest who performed the mass was adorned in a gold cassock lined with red with large a silver necklace hung with his medal spread over his shoulders. The mass is the annual celebration of the harvest, the camaraderie amongst these growers and a protection of a dieing agricultural art form. The government wants to close these vineyards and no longer use this land for growing grapes because the market can’t support the number of small producers. Unfortunately an economic decision like this will drastically affect the local culture and regional pride.

Following the mass we were invited to share in the wine tasting and food at the local tourist farm. We sampled 8 different wines from 8 different growers. Each stood up and told how his wine came upon such a distinctly different flavor. The wines of this area are not aged in barrels, but bottled as young wine giving the flavor a mildness that is different than I am accustomed to. We did drink a 10 year old Merlot that had a little more kick to the flavor, but most of the flavors are very gentle but neither really sweet or dry.

Monica and Andy shared the “after choir rehearsal celebration” with us. [Sometimes I think the celebration is more important than the rehearsing]. Jo^sko, the conductor, is a round scruffy looking man who oozes with passion for music and wine. The littlest thing can send him into a ten minute huffing and puffing tirade that I am thankfully unable to understand. The choir smirks at him a little, but in his defense they tell me to ignore his explosions because he has such a love for music and a warm heart. He proudly took Monica and Andy on a tour of his wine cellar and shared the flavors of all his wines with them. It is a feeling of doing something really sneaky to tiptoe into the wine cellar and fill your glass with the wine made by someone else. Yet nothing pleases Jo^sko more than sharing the liquid fruit of his vines. The celebration was the saint day of St. Andreas and the name saint for Andy too so he was warmly embraced with many, many glasses of wine, songs and genuine friendship. We so enjoyed having Monica and Andy visit. They were easy guests to have in our little apartment and they were bold about wandering the countryside on their own. We hope there will be many more family and friends who come to join us on our adventure.

Week of 21 November

November 22 is the saint day of St. Cecelia, the patron saint of music and art, and the perfect saint day for my birthday. The priests at Sveta Gora presented a special mass for the choir in the small chapel to celebrate the gifts the choir offers the church community. After mass we were invited into the dining room of the monastery to be served dinner by the Franciscan priests. The priests dressed in their dark brown hooded robes belted with a white rope and sandals on their feet served trays of pru^sut, cheeses, noodle soup, salad, lasagna, wiener schnitzel and strudel along with “the wine of angels” and home made ^snops that took the lining off my throat. As is the tradition in this choir, the food was received with song, the toasts were sung and when requested everyone, including the priests, broke out in traditional songs. There are songs for everything, hello songs, good-bye songs, birthday songs, thank you songs, songs about singing songs and anything else you can imagine, and this choir loves to sing them all in 4 part harmony. The wine of angels with the voices of angels.

The person with the birthday is responsible for the food after Wednesday night choir practice. I made pumpkin and pecan pies, pumpkin, banana and corn bread to go with a vegetarian “4-way”chili. Fortunately the Mercator Center [which is like a large U.S. grocery store] has a small international food section where I was able to find Mexican style kidney beans, salsa and chili powder. The canned tomatoes come as whole skinless roma tomatoes floating in a tomato puree and the tomato paste is so thick it doesn’t want to come out of the jar, the baking powder comes in little envelopes and the sugars are crystallized and unrefined. I am starting to be able to adjust our favorite recipes for the differences.

We served the chili on macaroni with crushed crackers and grated cheese. They have no orange cheese here or anything that resembles Colby or cheddar cheese. At the deli case I tried to explain to the woman who speaks no English that I wanted a stronger cheese than their gentle Muenster like cheese. She gave me Parmesan, but when I tried to tell her that I didn’t want an aged cheese, but just one that was flavorful she brought in another woman who also didn’t speak English who showed me an even larger variety of Parmesan. Finally I went back to their lovely mild Jo^st cheese and it complimented the chili nicely. The chili had a little hint of heat, but nothing like Mexican food at home, but more heat than the choir is accustomed to. They were all a tad hesitant to try this new meatless dish [this is a country of meat eaters], but out of respect for my efforts everyone took a bowl. The first bite was hesitant and polite and then the grin started to spread across faces around the table and the surprised comment “dobro!” [good] and the dash for seconds. Now they are asking for the chili recipe. I guess it was a hit. Dinner was accompanied by wine from the casks in the cellar of Jo^sko and finally champagne accompanied by songs and songs and more songs. The perfect 2 day birthday celebration.

The American Choir at the Gimnazia had their first performance this week. The students performed at the final program of an exchange day with students from Udine, Italy, - Isola, Slovenia and Nova Gorica. We have been working on the rounds “I Love the Mountains”, “Song” and an arrangement I did of the spiritual “Can’t Sit Down!” There are only seven girls and one boy, but they performed like real pros with great confidence, serious performance presence and a full rich sound. They are putting forth enormous effort to sing American vowels and consonants, but their mouths are too accustomed to the Slovene closed vowels and rolled R’s. I continue to bribe them with Reese’s peanut butter cups hoping to shape their American sounds and with American flavors. They were such a hit that they now have 3 more performances scheduled before Christmas and they are begging for more peanut butter.

“The temperature never gets below freezing in Nova Gorica.” “We have 300 days of sunshine each year.” “We never get snow until January.” “We haven’t had snow like that in 40 years.” Are these tall tales, legends, the sick mysterious sense of humor of those who start their day with the weather channel or down right lies? We left Nova Gorica at 2:00 on Friday in a snowstorm and headed to Podlipa to have an American Thanksgiving with Bob’s Slovenian relatives in the mountains. It snowed all day and night. We were stranded in a Christmas card wishing Sre^cen Bo^zi^c. with18 inches of snow sculpted on sloped roofs, our rental car with summer tires buried at the bottom of the hill and sleeping in someone else’s PJ’s, but a most memorable Thanksgiving.

Bob’s cousin Monica and her husband Andy arrived from Denver on Thanksgiving. Day. It was such a joy to have family come to visit; to be able to laugh and talk about the things that are common and share with them the things that are new. I made pumpkin bread, corn bread, stuffed turkey breasts, gravy, corn pudding, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce [straight from Denver] and salad with pumpkin and pecan pie for dessert. Full turkeys are only available by special order, but I was afraid that Maru^sa’s oven would be too small for an entire turkey so I ordered large turkey breasts [puran] and I got 2 enormous turkey breasts. The butcher followed my hand signal directions and sliced the turkey so that I could stuff them like a stuffed pork chop, then put stuffing between the breasts and tied these fat bosoms up with string. For someone who does not eat meat this is a lot of flesh handling, but tradition had to win out for our first American family Thanksgiving in Slovenia. The Slovene’s eat a lot of turkey breast sliced very thin and breaded or served in light gravy, but seldom big hunks of turkey, and certainly never with a sweet berry sauce. They hesitantly tried everything and it was funny to watch their faces when the flavor surprised them and it actually tasted good. The pies were the biggest hit. At first small bites and pieces and then requests for seconds.

The Petrov^ci^c family lives on the side of a hill above the village of Podlipa where Bob’s great grandmother Barbara was born. Vinko still lives on the property of the family home where we visited him at the sawmill in the beginning of the snowstorm. He was cutting boards at the mill that once was powered by the water flume flowing between the house and the mill. The water also powered the flourmill that is no longer used and the sawmill that is now only used for cutting wood for friends and family. Vinko’s father Tony [and great grandma Barbara’s brother] was also a barrel maker and the tools of his trade still hang in the mill room. When Bob was 18, he and his grandmother visited Tony and his entire family in this house. You walk in the front door and you have the choice to turn right to the room where the barrels were made and the grain was ground, up the stairs to the bedrooms, or to the left where the meals were eaten. The dining room/living room was heated by a pe^c, which is a cooking, stove fueled by wood in the kitchen with a ceramic extension into the dining room. Benches were built around the out side of the pe^c where you could sit to get warm and the children would sleep on the toasty top on freezing cold nights. Vinko showed us the door he was rebuilding in the dining room and offered us a class of homemade [doma^ci] ^snops. He opened a hidden built-in cupboard in the wall and pulled out a bottle with one shot glass. He offered the glass first to Bob and, in good Slovenian tradition, but unusual for Bob, he downed it in one gulp. We all shared the same glass, but I’m sure no germs grow on anything that comes in contact with this shockingly potent fiery manifestation of apples and pears.

When we tried to drive back to Maru^sa and Janez’s house the accumulated snow prevent our little Italian “Smart Car” with summer tires from climbing the hill. The law requires that people have “winter” tires or chains during bad weather. There are blue round signs that display a tire with chains as a reminder of the requirement. We parked at the bottom and tried to walk. Monica had her fashionably gorgeous tall-heeled leather boots on and for every upward step she slid back two, which made walking in the “Winter Wonderland” precarious at best.

The festive time with Maru^sha, Janez., Ur^sa, ^Spela and Bostian was warm and welcoming. Ur^sa, ^Spela and Bostian speak English beautifully and serve as translators for mom and dad who understand a lot, but are hesitant to speak. Janez interjects English phrases he has learned from TV that send us into fits of laughter because they are always just the right things at the right time. Maru^sa opened her kitchen to me but suffered when I made her sit like a guest in her own home. She has assured me that when they come to the U.S. to visit she will act like a guest, but when I am in her home I should act like the guest. I wish we could speak together alone over a cup of coffee. There are so many things that can’t be said through a translator or with hand signals. The inability to really talk with people about things below the surface is becoming difficult for me. There is so much I want to know and so much that is misunderstood.

I had a performance as the soloist in a choir concert in the hill top village of Rovte on Sunday. Rovte is the one of the ancestral homes of the Leskovec family, the lineage of Bob’s grandfather’s family. The information we have traces the family to house 49 Rovte where Jurij Leskovec [1835-1876] lived with his wife Marija Voli^c [1856-1905]. The houses have been renumbered said the owner of the local gostilna and he thinks that the old house was torn down, but we hope to return to this little mountain village when there is less snow and search out the family home. We were told that 50% of the men from this town had to leave the country after WWII because they had fought for the Germans/Italians against the partisans and to stay would have resulted in imprisonment or death.

I was invited by Bob’s cousin Maru^sa to sing as a part of this evening of choral music. The two adult choirs sang traditional Slovenian folk songs and the girl’s chorus sang a variety of interesting arrangements. The choirs sang mostly a cappella with a few of the men’s songs accompanied by accordion. The sound was clear, in tune, straight bell tones lacking the wobble that is so often heard in older voices.

I sang “Simple Gifts” and “Shenandoah” to match the feel of traditional songs from home. While practicing the line “It’s seven long years since last I saw you” in Shenandoah I found myself fighting back the tears and longing for home. I can’t imagine how painful it must have been to be forced to leave your home, your culture, and your language because of poverty, political repression or even just the hope of a better life. The traditional songs would then become a most precious memory of family and friends and the emotional link to home. Now I really understand why the old men collected in the bar at the family weddings and gatherings and sang the old songs with the tears running down their faces.

I was surprised, after I sang my two songs with all the professional diva quality with in me, to be followed by a dozen preteen girls and one boy dressed in a variety of leotards with a hodge podge of tights wearing slippers and carrying balloons doing the Hubba Bubba Dance. If I ever have any delusions of grandeur, moments like this of being a part of the local variety act help to keep me humble. But the highlight of the evening was the singing of the old traditional songs with the accordion after the feast of local delicacies. The songs kept singing themselves long after most of the audience had walked down the hill through the deep snow.

Thanksgiving

Monica, Bob, Kay, Andy
Our buried"Smart Car"
Andy, Ur^sa, Maru^sa, Janez, Bostian, Bob, Kay, ^Spela

Rovte

Snow covered home
Kay dancing after the concert
Bob with ^Spela and Ur^sa
Road from Rovte

Rovte

Podlipa

Kay, Vinko, Bob & Monica outside the saw mill
Andy, Vinko, Bob & Monica in the mill room
Podlipa under snow
Homestead

Week of 14 November

I got a bicycle for my birthday from Bob. I guess my rule that I receive no practical gifts for birthday, Christmas or anniversary does not translate into Slovenian. Nonetheless I am thrilled to have my own wheels. It is almost as exciting as my first car. It was an old Volkswagen crème colored beetle, and I loved that car. The only problem was that often it refused to start. Fortunately we lived at the top of a hill and, all dressed up for work, I would roll it out of the driveway, head it down the hill and run. Once the car and I got up some speed I would jump in, pop the clutch and we were on our way. For some reason this non-conventional start to my day bothered my father so much that over my rebellious objections he replaced my favorite car with a much more dependable clunker. I’ve never had the thrill of getting a running start since.
The startup of my new bicycle is not as interesting to my neighbors I’m sure, but I get the running start rush and it feels good.

We are enjoying bike transportation more than we ever imagined. Even though the air is getting cool and we are wearing hats, gloves and scarves while riding it is refreshing to be in the fresh air intimately watching and feeling the season change. There are always people out on bikes. Older men and women ride at their strolling speed, the teenagers ride as if they wish the driving age was less than 18 and the professional women with their spiked heels and extremely pointed toes ride with a confidence that matches a snazzy convertible Fiat. A bike makes life easier, it takes less time to get places, you can greet your neighbors while passing by and you don’t have to pay gym fees to ride a bike and never go anywhere. These Slovenians have it figured out.

We are discovering the bike trails and flat roadways around the hills. One ride through the woods is especially nice. It appears to have been a railroad bed, but the trees that canopy across the path indicate that no train has passed here in a very long time. It is a wide gravel path and most of those enjoying the cool sunny Sunday afternoon are walking or jogging. To get to the wooded path we pass a flat area with little gardens on both sides. People have built little sheds for their tools, with small gazebos for shade and side framed raised beds lined by paths. Many of the beds are cleared for the winter, but just as many have plastic hoop protection for the lettuce and other cool weather crops. Gardens and making food at home is a proud respected tradition, but the people I see in the gardens are mostly those who have lived most of their life under the socialist system when food was not always available. I wonder, if gardening is not an economic advantage, will the younger people will find it has value in their lives?

One late afternoon we trek to Italy to shop before my Italian class. The sun’s rays light the border with long angles and deep shadows and the air smells of wood smoke, crunchy leaves, sweet fall flowers and chicken soup. Coming down from the mountains are clouds that look heavy with snow. Dark and swirling they ride on the borja squeezing through the hillsides following the Soca valley on a collision course with the warm moist palm tree Mediterranean air. The clouds drop to the rooftops in the perfect setting for an Armageddon painting as the clash of these two weather systems lights up the sky with shocking orange, peach and strawberry colors. The warmer air from the Adriatic dispels the huff and puff of the snow clouds and a dribble of rain sends us into a café for cappuccino and MTV. But the people continue to walk, ride their bikes and go about finishing their workday without noticing the drama above them. The air is so free of dust and pollution that in this light everything has the brightness of being colorized. Objects are more real than real and we are more alive and connected because we are here.

There is ice on top of the cars this morning but the geraniums still bloom in the window boxes. They tell us that the weather never gets below freezing, but a boy wiped out on his scooter on his first frozen puddle today. The stores in Italy are stocked with lusciously warm sweaters, jackets and boots, but people sit outside savoring their coffee at the café. For the first time in three months I’ve seen people who make me sad; two beggar women in the town square on their knees in a prayerful stance with hands cupped in front of them, the middle-aged man who wagged down the street talking furiously to himself and the two older women in mixed-matched filthy clothes holding themselves up with canes while they carry a burden heavier than their arms can hold. Have these people moved south from the colder climates for the winter? Are the beggars with their beautiful dark skin and brilliant eyes gypsies? Where will these burdened elderly women lay their head at night when they realize that winter is coming here too?

I have been looking for pumpkins to make pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread and all things Native American-Pilgrim-Thanksgiving pumpkin. Everyone tells me that I can’t eat pumpkin. I assure them “but of course” we eat pumpkin every fall in the U.S. They think pumpkins are for decoration, but I know that they are eatable too! Finally a choir member brings me perfect small pumpkins and a gigantic squash. I am so thrilled to use the genetic lessons of my Puritan Mayflower relatives and share the goodness of my American heritage. The squash is decorative and will look great next to the front door. While Bob is watching the Travel channel and dreaming of going on a train in Switzerland I start the pumpkin puree process. Cut the pumpkin in half, it looks like pumpkin, take the seeds and stringy stuff out, it’s slimy like pumpkin, cut it into pieces and boil, the skin is pretty tough not like pumpkin. After the meat of the fruit is soft and cool I scrape it from the rind. The pumpkin skin is hard and crisp like a shell, but everything else looks and smells like pumpkin until I test a little bite. It is the most awfully shocking bitter fruit that no amount of sugar and whipped cream will hide. It all goes in a plastic bag and straight to the end of our street to the dumpster. In comes the squash with the hope that it will be suitable for pie and holiday fixins, and I can call it bu^ca pie and pretend it’s pumpkin.

Bob was without voice most of this week so I taught his classes on Thursday. The students had reading and listening assignments dealing with ageing, genetic modification of foods and the controversy surrounding the attempt to secure the integrity of the Tower of Pisa without straightening it too much. The conversations that surrounded these topics were impressively articulate, thoughtful and challenging. I am not certain that a class of Ashland teenagers could discuss these issues with any greater understanding and grasp of the language than these Slovenian students who are communicating in a second language. Very, very impressive.

I have been regularly singing with the choir at Sveta Gora. The church sits on the top of the holy mountain 600 meters above the city. On a clear day, looking to the north, you can see deep into the Julian Alps with snow on the tip of Triglav and Austria, and looking to the south you can see the Adriatic Sea and the coast of Croatia. The church was completely destroyed during WWI because of its strategic location and rebuilt to its current glory by the Italians. But there is no heat in this mountain church! On Sunday mornings the choir stands in the balcony wrapped in coats and gloves and toasting our fingertips on the little electric heater. The congregation does not have the luxury of a heater or the benefit of heat rising. We also attended an evening concert of the Faure, Requiem and the Vierne, Messe Solennele in the cold. The soprano soloist was wearing a hat and a scarf around her neck and her winter coat with the entire choir in their black attire beneath their winter woolens. I think it would be the rare singer and more rare audience in the U.S. who would tolerate freezing conditions for the sake of music. But now I understand why parishioners in U.S. Catholic churches never take their coats off during mass. Their bodies have genetic memory of a time generations ago when their relatives were freezing in church and that recollection of the frozen past demands that they never take off their coats and stay warm.

Each day I feel that I understand more and more around me, but words like vrt [garden], prt [tablecloth], smrt [death] send me spinning. Isn’t it an international law that every syllable needs a vowel? What spin-doctor told these Slovenians that “R” is a vowel? The tower of Babel certainly did send the world into a state of confusion. Doesn’t it seem logical that language would blend like color? If you work with watercolors and you place red and yellow close to each other, the colors blend to create orange that has qualities of both red and yellow, yet each color keeps its integrity on either side. I would think that language would blend like that as well. Here on the border of Italy and Slovenia there should be a blended language spoken with qualities of each. The color of the sound would have the nuance of one and the curl of the other using words from both and creating syntax that is unique to the Italian/Slovenian border towns. But no Slovenian is Slovenian and Italian is Italian. The Italians do not speak Slovene and the Slovenes resent that fact. So I plod along each day getting deeper and deep into that which I do not understand.

Week of 7 November

We both have been sick with a sore throat, cough and fever this week. Every Slovene we know has this fall virus so we decided to assimilate to be just like them. Actually I think we let our guard down when we came back from London. It was so comfortable to communicate even casually in our own language that we both felt a little depressed returning to “Struggle to make a sentence” land. I lost some of my positive perspective and allowed the germ of doubt to creep in. And when that germ is through the door the little bugger holds it open for every errant virus to take up habitation. So I am pretty determined to wear the cloak of positive energy all the time, because I know that the struggles will pass. Our language skills can only get better [believe me there is no way they can get worse] and we will begin to connect with more people now that they are getting to know us. And one of these days we will be able to read the labels on products we want to buy.

We went to the pharmacy to buy some vitamin C tablets. All of the medicines were behind the counter [even the over the counter are behind the counter] and as we stood in line contemplating the difficulty of requesting medicines without our dictionary, a line was forming behind us. There on the counter were cylinders of vitamins for children with a bright yellow Vitamin C label on one. This was easy. Bob picked up the vitamins neatly priced and with almost no communication skills needed. We bought the vitamins and were on our way. We walked home on this brilliant blue day and he opened the vitamins and gallantly offered me one. They are round and chalky and seemed kind of large for children, about the size of a $.50 piece, but we popped them in our mouths anticipating instant healing. The tablet started to fizz and explode in my mouth, frothing and sparking. The flavor was vitamin C’ish, but the sense of effervescence was unexpected and unbearable. We tried to let the entire tablet dissolve in our mouths, but as we passed a potted plant we both gagged the thing out. When we got home and finally read the label with dictionary in hand, it said to dissolve the tablet in a class of water to create a fizzy vitamin C drink. It was like sucking on an Alka Seltzer tablet.

Every time I start to feel sorry for myself for my pathetic language skills I think of the woman who sits next to me in Italian class. I think she is a Muslim woman from Bosnia. She seems to speak Italian with some confidence, but when we have assignments that involve reading she doesn’t do them. This week the assignment was to write a description of someone in our family. I began describing my husband Bob who is tall, thin with gray curly hair and a long nose, when I noticed that she was copying what I wrote. Her writing was reminiscent of 5-year-old Aaron trying to draw the letters without any understanding of how they are used. Each letter was formed with slow difficult strokes after glancing between each movement at my words. Bosnian uses the Cyrillic alphabet and she may be struggling with a new alphabet, but my instinct tells me that she is not only coping with a new world, a new culture, a new language, a new alphabet, but she is also learning to read and write for the first time. I am always overwhelmed and amazed by the determination of people to create a better life for their family, and what they are willing to give up for that dream.

This week was the best week Bob has had at school. He had a number of classes alone without the co-teachers, and he was able to find the “zone” of his unique classroom style. He has honed his style these past 30 years but here he has not been able to get into full Raplenovich dramatic presentation mode when the responsibility of the classroom lies with someone else. It is his nature to be very organized, teach subjects in sequence, provide the students with a wide range of varied opportunities to demonstrate their skill, assess their skills regularly and have a personal energized relationship with his students. None of these things are regular criteria for many of his colleagues. He has not been enlightened with the scope and sequence, provided with curricular guidelines or involved in departmental planning sessions [they are all held in Slovenian, and his ability to order dinner and ask for the receipt is not pertinent to these discussions]. . When he tells the teachers the number of graded assignments he had each grading period in Ashland their immediate reaction is “That is too much work!” The teachers do not assume the parental role of being responsible for the student’s learning, but they do have conferences together with both the parents and the students every trimester. The approach is more like our university system and although Bob is struggling with wanting to be more involved in the guarantee that the students learn the material, they seem to learn it as needed and are surprisingly knowledgeable and articulate.

Because of our experience with enlightened exchange students he was certain that he would find a more effective design for instruction in European schools. Instead he finds that students are given graded assignment and tests once every trimester [12 weeks]. Students are given homework, but no one checks or grades the work. The assignments are mostly “fill-in-the-gap” with words provided and a key in the back of the book. The students are seldom asked to create writings without very specific guidelines and they are proficient in copying the work belonging to their friends. The teachers do not seem to have a master plan, or they haven’t shared it with him. One teacher who was absent from classes this week gave him lesson materials that he had covered in the same manner with the same students a couple weeks ago. H e found himself without a sense of direction but went to the classes wearing his improvisation mask and engaged the students in some enlightening dialogues. Like all that we are doing, his experience in school is keeping him challenged and interested and working hard to figure it all out.

I have begun working with a math teacher at Bob’s school on my Slovenian [not on math!!!]. From the first meeting I liked Irina and felt a connection with her. She speaks multiple languages and is happy to help me with Slovene if I help her with singing. Everyone tells us with a certain amount of pride that Slovenian is a very difficult language. I wonder if the difficulty of their language is the reason they are able to learn other languages so easily. It seems to me that the language we learn as our native tongue effects the development of the dendrites in the brain and the way our articulators form the words. As we learn the structure of a language the brain has to wrap itself around the complexities of communication. If one is learning Slovenian, and needs to know how to use the appropriate ending and placement of each word based on the masculine, feminine or neuter gender, the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative and instrumental case, and how to use it in singular, plural and dual, then the calisthenics of this brain is different than mine. As an example: Robert is a teacher. Robert je profesor. But Kay loves Robert. Kay ljubi Roberta. The [a] on the end of Robert is because he is the object of my affection and not the subject, and even though all feminine names in Slovenian end in [a] when a male name is an object the last vowel is [a] and when a feminine name that naturally ends in an [a] is the object the [a] is changed to an [o]. In other words I can have this language wrong in a multitude of combinations!

There is a real movement to protect the uniqueness of this language from the invasive words from other languages. The people on this border town naturally have Italian influences, but English words are also creeping into their daily conversation in strange ways. The influence of the monoculture of our world for the youth is going to make it more and more difficult for this small county, with only 2 million people who speak the language, to hold on to, not only their culture, but their language too.

Our daily walk to Nova Gorica

Our apartment is in a new neighborhood along the border. In the distant photo the cluster of houses is our area. Our street is a dead end so the only noises are the trains going by. The castle in Italy rises above us and is beautifully lit at night. The border crossing has a gate that everyone walks around when it's down, but cars don't cross here only people going to the bike path on foot or on bikes.

Past the Border

Once we pass the border crossing we walk the bike path that was once the train line between Nova Gorica and Sempter. The Kostanjevica Monestary guards the area and the new homes that have been built here. The single house sits right on the border and the fence jogs around it. It sits in Slovenia while the neighbors live in Italy. The only way they can drive to their house is carefully through the pedestrian tunnel. The tunnel is burrows under the olive orchard of the monestary and has a great echo in the middle.

On the way to school

Bob loves that fact that trains pass by all day long. The train station is the oldest building in town and sits right on the border of Italy. The streets are the paths to school.

Gimnazia Nova Gorica

Solski Center Gimnazija is a campus for a primary school, a nursing school, a technology school, a language school and the academic high school where Bob teaches. The orange building is the new and still unfinished "Sports Palace". It was supposed to open in August and they are hoping if it is "ever finished" it will help to solve the over crowding problems. There is constuction of a new library at the primary school across the courtyard, and the sound of trucks, and cement machines is the drone to all the gimnazija classrooms.

Main Square Nova Gorica

Just across the street from the school is the center square. The middles is open for walking gathering and sitting at the bar for kava [coffee], caj [tea], coke and cokta [the Slovenian coke] and of course wines and other drinks. The heated press bar gazebo was recently placed in the square for cooler weather. Across from the bar is a playgound for the children and the Kulturni Dom where concerts are performed and movies shown.

Business in Nova Gorica

Just past the square there is a large grassy area that is surrounded by the city hall, theatre and library. The football [soccer] stadium is across from the music school and is used not for high school games, but matches that look like they are played by professionals.

Music and shopping in Nova Gorica

I have started going to the local music school to practice every day. For about $10.00 per month I have access to this studio in the mornings before the school gets busy with afternoon and evening students. After practicing I like to do the daily shopping on this street where there is an open air market, a bakery, a butcher, a fruit and vegetable shop, a fabric shop, a shop for local wines and a small grocery store.

Gambling in Nova Gorica

Nova Gorica is the gambling capital of Slovenia. They proudly call it the "Las Vegas of Slovenia". Recently Harrah's Casino signed a contract to build the largest Casino in Slovenia with only 175 beds. [not quite the magnitude of Las Vegas]. The border from Italy is crowded every evening with Italians coming to gamble. The HIT company even provides a bus from the border gostilna [restuarant and bar]. There is concern that the casinos will attract undesirable behavior, but the casinos are big employers and an economic security for the town. There is the Mona Lisa Night strip club, but apart from the neon sign of a nude woman with nipples lit in red out side of the club, there is very little sense that these clubs and casinos are having an negative effect on the town.

Housing in Nova Gorica

Housing in Nova Gorica is varied. There are many apartments building and tall towering structures built of concrete. Much of the housing was built in a hurry following WWII when the Allies laid the border and gave the city of Gorizia to the Italians even though there was a large Slovenian population. I think most of the homes and apartments are heated with hot water radiators, but this green building often has smoke coming from the chimmneys and piles of wood along the side.

Art work Nova Gorica

There is artwork all around the city. There are bronze statues and bust of men who were leaders, and friends of Slovenia, including this odd multiheaded statue on the side of the road. Many of the sculpture are made from rough concrete, but there is this beautiful symbol of Nova Gorica carved in a stone pillar as a landscape installation on a lithopuncture site. Concrete walls are a great canvas for graffitti so it is seen all around the town. The obscene text is usually in English, but the images are delightful.

London

Docklands
Prince Albert Memorial
London Zoo
Kensington neighborhood
Trafalgar square

Week of October 31

Bob has a fall holiday for a week beginning with All Souls Day. When asked, the women in our English class say that they are going to spend their week at the cemetery caring for the graves. They clean the graves of the summer flowers and replace them with pots of mums, pansies or cyclamen that will grow and bloom in the cooler weather. Most of the graves are family plots in a walled area behind the churches. The headstones are shiny marble rising up from the ground and carved with the names and dates and often show pictures of the deceased in oval frames. Candles in white, blue and red plastic containers with gold-vented tops can be purchased in the post office, the grocery market and the open-air market for the graves. Many family members faithfully attend their loved ones by placing these candles on the plot every Sunday after church. When you drive past a cemetery at night the glow of candlelight arises from inside the grave walls. There is little or no grass in the cemeteries, the paths are of stone and the plots that average 6’X6’ are outlined with concrete, a marble slab lays over the very deep burial spot and the rest of the area is filled with white lucky stones and seasonal plants growing in the ground. The country is dealing with the problem of limited space for cemeteries by planning plots out of town, but it is causing great unhappiness since people can not be close to their loved ones. Their loyalty to the deceased is very evident, people seem to live in the same area their entire lives and the families are very close and spend a lot of time together.

We decide that we need to spend our holiday week in a place where we can read the signs, understand the clerks and relax from translating. There is a daily flight from Trieste, Italy to London for $90.00 round trip, and the airport is a 30 min. car ride from our home. The airport is small, although larger than Ljubljana, with very few planes coming and going. An armed military man in camouflage patrols the tarmac with binoculars when we walk outside to the plane. The plane has stairs from the runway to the front and back doors for the passengers to climb. There is little concern for weather or convenience, but it really does not seem to matter to anyone. For $90 we can suffer a little bit of dampness. The plane is full and I always wonder, who are these people are on a Monday afternoon going to London? Many carry shopping bags from Italian and Croatian shops they visited over the weekend, but just as many look like they are beginning an exciting holiday with their family.

There is cloud cover blanketing all of Europe except the Alps around Lucerne, Switzerland. It is amazing to see clearly how the mountains divert the flow of air. The peaks rise above the clouds standing guard, not allowing the rainy weather into the protected valleys. The only place in sight where there was perfectly clear sunshine was within the parapet created by the wall of mountains. There is some snow on the highest peaks and the Eastern slopes, but still most of the mountains are barren craggy juts of gray basking in brilliant sunlight.

At Stansted Airport we are grateful that we were not carrying E.U. passports, their passport line is 10 times longer than the line for “others”. In the short line with us are people from Croatia, Bosnia, India. The passport attendant says that he often sees Americans coming to London for a brief respite from the hard work of translating when they live in a foreign country. I imagine it is harder for us as a people because as a collective body we do not study languages and many of us live in parts of the U.S. where we never hear another language spoken. It is already a relief for me to be able to have a brief conversation with the attendants in the airport.

From Stansted we take the 45-minute train trip to Liverpool Station for 14.00 pounds. There we pick up the Circle line in the Underground to Glouchester St. where it spits us out onto the steps of our hotel. The train is stopped for about 20 minutes because of an unidentified package left unattended at Black Friars Station, but announcements are made stating the purpose of the delay. A few people leave the train to find other means of transport, but there is no panic, we all sit calmly as if this happens all the time [and it probably does]. Every few minutes we are informed of the reason for the stop, told that the police are investigating the package and reminded to report anything suspicious. When the train starts up again the energy in the car does not change, those who are standing out of the car in the station get back in and we are on our way as if nothing has happened. One other time during the week the train is stopped due to a passenger acting in a suspicious manner at another station and again no one seems the least concerned. The Underground is convenient, clean, fast, well lit, quiet, with tube maps everywhere you rest your eyes and functions accurately and on time. It is a non-threatening environment under the entire city. The corridors have shops, automatic ticket booth and someone watching the turnstiles. Movement is quick and convenient unless one is handicapped in anyway. Passages are staircases that maze underground, but impossible for baby carriages, wheelchairs or even a suitcase. Certainly there are lifts available, but the access is not easily observable. Announcements communicate delays along with handwritten and electronic signs that update the passengers at every turn of the time of departure, the quality of timed service and any complications. It is not evident that guards are patrolling the cars and no sense of confusion. Like most big cities people do not seem to be aware of each other, instead they are lost in their internal world closed in with headphones attached to an I-pod or living another reality in a book. For 2pounds per trip it is the perfect way to get around an enormous city.

Our hotel is in a neighborhood of hotels near Kensington Gardens. The building is a fabulous old pillared structure attached to others and around the corner from even more. The buildings look as if they were once suites of flats converted into second-rate hotels that are now being richly upgraded to classic high cost hotels. We are staying in the second-rate section, in an over crowded room on the top floor with out an elevator, but a lovely winding steep staircase that keeps us in shape, and a small bathroom that is so convenient that you can wash your face in the sink, soak your feet in the shower while sitting on the john. We look down on Cromwell Street across the street from the Underground and a French bakery. Location, location, location.

We are definitely blessed with beautiful weather. The weather gremlins on T.V. keep telling us that it is going to be a blustery rainy week, but almost everywhere we walk outside it is sunny and dry. The breeze is Fall cool, but perfect for walking around London with a sweater and neck scarf. We decide to take advantage of the weather and enjoy the parks and out door places; Kensington Park, Princess Diana Memorial Walk Way, Hyde Park, St. James’s Park, Regents Park, London Zoo, Docklands, Prince Albert Memorial, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Parliament Square the theatre district, the old neighborhoods and the river front. We decide to stay away from the huge tourist attractions that are going to cost money, but instead we go to the British Museum, Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Gallery, Covent Garden and a few churches too.

The week evolves into a tour of Baroque music. We attend 2 Evensong services at Westminster Abbey [and walk on the graves of Sir. Isaac Newton and composers William Walton and Ralph Vaughn Williams] where we hear a sung Eucharist for All Saints Day and a setting of the Requiem by G.F. Anerio [1567-1630] for All Souls Day. The choir is made up of12 men in red and white robes seated on either side of the center isle. The upper voice is sung by countertenors melting my ears with the full sound of a man’s body strength but the range of a woman. Their 8-part singing of shimmering highs to darkest depths spiral to the peak of the ceiling arch and swing back down taking 5 seconds. The pageantry of the mass surprises me; priests in gilded ceremonial robes processing beneath the gold cross and through the incense haze, readings from the gospel after the display presenting the word, and the somber presentation of the sacrament. I know that the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church over the issue of divorce for King Henry, but I expected the service to have less rather than more pageantry. As I continue to find elsewhere, the vibration force in the church is of those seeking something greater than themselves.

We are fortunate to attend 2 candlelight performances at the Royal Parish Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The building with its gigantic Corinthian columns was completed in 1726 and was the model for colonial churches in America. The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields has been a powerful voice in the use of authentic instruments and ornamentation for early music and the sound is deep in the pores of this building. It is the perfect place to hear a concert of Vivaldi played on a historic harpsichord, baroque flute and string instruments that use sheep’s gut for the strings. We are also bathed in the sound of Handel’s Messiah played on period instruments and sung by a 16-voice choir with the alto parts sung by countertenors. Handel performed in this church and I like to think that the pure sound in these halls is what he intended rather than the huge chorus sound we are accustomed to hearing in the U.S.

I also am able to hear singers at the Royal College of Music in a master class of “Handel: Italian Opera Arias” presented by Eiddwen Harrhy. The students sing with big rich full voices that are produced with more tension than I like. This sound replaces warmth and color with huge sound that is brassy but not lovely. She focuses mostly on their presentation and the need to communicate exact statements. I am fascinated that the very things that I would have mentioned to bring life to the characters are the same things she pinpointed. At some point singers must become the character and arrange his/her body to communicate the deepest emotions with more than the voice. Finding the RCM is a leading that I do not expect. When we visited the Prince Albert Memorial on Monday something lead me around Prince Albert Hall as if I have been there before and behind the building are the stately brick buildings of the Royal College of Music. I have begun to completely trust these feelings that I fondly call “past life feelings”. It is the sense of returning to a familiar place, but I’ve been gone a long time, my breath freezes for a lengthy moment and the tears prick the surface with the memory of the place. I have no idea why this place is important, but the why matters less than the knowledge that it was once important and I need to return.

The highlights are the musical moments, hearing the royal band at Buckingham Palace, walking through the spider monkey exhibit at the zoo; watching them play under our feet, the Greek and Egyptian plunder in the British museum, walking along the Thames at Parliament Square after dark, the fireworks for the Guy Fawkes Day 400 year celebration and holding hands as we explore the neighborhoods, parks and waterfront.

Everything in London seems twice as much as it is worth and because the pound notation looks so much like U.S. dollars we would forget that the healthy 7.95 salad was really an uninteresting and not very tasty salad that we are paying $13.83 for. Even the food that should have been good was bland. How do you make a bad pizza or fish and chips and then charge a fortune for it? The best eating is the thing we buy at the grocery markets and eat on a park bench touched off with sweets from the French bakery.

It was a shock to return to the land of foreign language. I slipped back into the world of the English speaker so easily that it was a huge gummy emotional stretch to reshape myself into not being able to understand anything around me. Communication is such a huge part of being me that even though I try it is exhausting to work this hard to understand and be understood.

More London

Thames at night
Parliment Square at night
St Martin-in-the-Field concert
St Martin from Trafalger Square night/day

and More London

View from palace
Westminster window
Buckingham band
Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London Eye,
Big Ben

Week of October 24

This week I was a full time teacher of English at the Gimnazia substituting for Maks who is having sinus surgery. His classes are 1st and 2nd year students preparing to work as aids and assistants in the medical field and a Matura class. The medical students take basic Gimnazia classes, but additional courses in patient care, basic nursing practices and science courses that will qualify them to do basic work in a clinic or hospital. The Matura class is a group of older students who either did not pass the national exam needed to attend the university or they went to the electronics school, tourist school or other technical high school and have now decided to go to the university and need to pass the Matura to qualify. Some of them are older and have been working, but have made the choice to return to day school to prepare for this exam.Maks wanted me to talk to the students as a native speaker and engage them in conversation. The native speaker is no problem, but I practically have to reach into their throats and rearrange their vocal chords to get them to speak.

Maks is a grammar aficionado and wrote his masters thesis on the many voices of “I will”. He has faithfully taught the students the present perfect, present simple, present continuous and all the other possible tenses, but they are in a grammar straight jacket and frozen with fear. They understand a great deal because of American T.V., movies and music, but turning that knowledge into conversation is one step beyond jumping off a bridge.

Maks prepared a reading for the first class on the average British family. Since I know nothing about British families [we are going to the U.K. for the first time next week] I created an article about the average U.S. family in Ashland, OH, population similar to Nova Gorica. We compared the Ashland family with the average Slovenian family and found that there are more similarities than differences. The U.S. family has more stuff [televisions, bathroom, cars and garages to put them in] but the family size, the type of work, the way they spend their free time is very much the same. The kids really do think that we live in the mansions of “The Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous” and they are surprised with the commonalities. They also think that our kids dance all the time like MTV and carry guns to school. In addition to being the voice of the native speaker our greatest responsibility may be to be the U.S. Myth Busters.

The students seem more mature than the students we are accustomed to working with in OH. Some of them live in a dorm of 300 high school students during the week and go home on the weekends. They have a great deal more freedom in their day and the teachers do not baby sit them when they are at school. They seem to be more knowledgeable of world affairs and certainly are very knowledgeable of American movies and music. It is very difficult to inspire these students with materials that challenge their intellectual hunger within their limited language skills. Unfortunately Bob feels that much of the material would be better suited for 6th graders than for these sophisticated European students and is struggling with finding the balance.

The second Matura class on Friday was optional, but I offered to meet those who wanted to talk in English. Six arrived for class and we went to an outdoor café for coffee. I made the rule that if they spoke in Slovenian they had to pay the bill, so we were especially entertained when a couple of girls had to talk with their boyfriends on their cell phones in English. The more relaxed atmosphere inspired even those who are embarrassed by their weak English to try harder. I think we might do this on a regular basis.

Friday and Saturday evenings we walked to Italy. The shops are open until 8:00 with the glow from the windows lighting the street. People are walking arm in arm pausing to glance at the clothing sprawled in the display cases, the bars are overflowing onto the side walk with groups of people gathering before dinner and the restaurants are enticing the evening strollers with luscious smells. We can’t seem get enough of the energy of people flooding the streets to be a part of the environment of community.

Sunday, after singing a solo with the choir at Sveta Gora, we hiked Sabotin. The mountain rises about 2,500 feet from the Soca River bed. The climb is a very steep 2 hours of jostling around boulders, tree roots and sliding rock. The path was once used by pilgrims toiling up the hill to the chapel built on top and then by soldiers and their weapons during WWI. [Ernest Hemmingway was here. Actually I think he was everywhere in this area] The path is so treacherous it is impossible to imagine what level of insanity would require troops and pack animals to haul guns to the destroyed chapel despite it’s strategic location. But aren’t insanity and war synonymous?

Unfortunately the clouds rolled in by the time we crested the summit and the view of the river valley was foggy. The hillside is decorated with fiery red and orange bushes that are scattered all around. There are no brilliantly colored trees like we have at home, but the contrast of these bushes and the white limestone rock is stunning. Considering the severity of the climb, we were surprised by the number of people spending their Sunday afternoon in meaningful exercise. People of years more advanced than ours in their knickers and walking sticks, families with little children and young women practically running up and down the path. Maybe one of the reasons the Slovenians seem to be so shapely is because they find cardiovascular climbing to be a Sunday stroll.

When we look to Sabotin from the city we can see Nas Tito [our Tito] written in rocks on the hillside. Apparently there is an on going skirmish between those who think life was better during the time of Tito and those who are benefiting from the new democracy. The writing is known to change from Nas Tito to Slov and back again depending on the political fervor. We had no idea how strong the passion was until we had climbed more than half way up the mountain and saw the letters spelled out in huge boulders. The creation of this sign would require an aerial view for the layout and earth moving equipment to collect and distribute the rocks or maybe a lot of homemade wine.

On the hillside opposite Sabotin is a limestone mine. The hill is scarred with the slashes that bring dirty dangerous work to many in this valley. The trees and bushes at the base of the mine are blanketed in the white dust that undoubtedly also fills the lungs of the workers.

At the top of Sabotin is a ruin of the original chapel, foxholes dug into the rock, bunkers built under ground and the fenced border of Italy with a view of the whole world. Sveta Gora can be seen across the valley and her bells ring through the fog in warning. A marker indicates the location of the Republic of Slovenia established in 1947 with ruins in Italy just on the other side. Until 2004 the border between these two countries was highly protected. Now that Slovenia is in the European Union the border continues to stand and the crossing guards check passports and ID papers at the border gates, but the passing back and forth is easy with only a nod to the tradition of checking papers.

Sabotin

Rocks

Bunker

Leaves

Fog rolling in

Sabotin

S of Nas Tito
Border of Italy
Limestone mine
Chapel ruins
Sveta Gora through arch

Sabotin

Hike
Bob hiking
Mountains from the top
Fiery bushes

Churches

Window, Sveta Gora
Sveta Gora, Nova Gorica, Slovenia
Trenta, Slovenia
Serbian Orthodox, Ljubjana, Slovenia

Week of October 17

I never tire of the churches in Europe, so I always search for the church when we arrive in a new town. There is the feeling of solemn anticipation as I approach the Duomo in Gorizia from the marble steps. A wall of darkness blocks the sunshine, as if to separate the worldly from the Spiritual. This is a place designated for the Spirit, a place to worship the Creator, and energy remains of those, longing for oneness with their God, who have come seeking answers for the confusions of life.

The sun filters through the etched glass, iron bars and street grime. Black and white and rust and white checkerboards lead the faithful to stairs of cinnamon marble flecked with white. The dome above the altar is fragmented in honeycomb shapes, with painted angels in each cubicle bearing a gift against the starry sky. For centuries the weight has been burdened on the backs of gray stone pillars bearing up the arches. Bare bottomed cherubs recline on each arch exhibiting a sacred article of the church in their chubby little hands. Their eyes follow me with a smirk as if they know the true color of my soul. Everything is trimmed golden above the crème and meringue surface. The organ rises from the back balcony crouched to spring forward and attack with sound. It is restrained by3 twisted columns of soft wood and the wave of silence. Altars stand at attention along the side walls, each with its own design, color and detail housing a painting demonstrating moments of enlightenment. St. Francis, Mother Mary and of course Jesus glance down as I pass their shrines. In the front side chapel carvings of knights and crests are embedded in the walls. Are these the tombs of the royal soldiers of the faith remembered for eternity because of their blind destruction of anything that tasted of a diverse perspective?

In each church I leave a gift of song. From the front I sing Ave Maria, listening for the sound swirling around the columns, sitting on the altars and rising to the basket of abundance hanging from the ceiling. I leave just a hint of myself to be coupled with all those before me who have lifted their hearts with soaring voices to heaven. A few faithful come and go, lighting candles for loved ones or kneeling to speak the voice of their heart before the Mother Mary. I too light a candle for mom and dad Raplenovich remembering how much I miss their presence in my life.

The bells of the churches tell time. A long ringing from the tower starts and ends the day at 7: 00 am and pm. The bells ring the appropriate number of times every quarter hour and of course a grand chorus of bells calls the parishioners to church on Sunday. Not all the bells are synchronized and the sound rings up and down the valley at intervals not quite as exact at the digital clock in everyone’s cell phone. When I hear the bells I take a moment to meditate on the desire of my heart with an adapted version of the prayer attributed to St. Francis.
Spirit guide me to be a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is dispair, hope
Where the darkness, light
Where there is fear, faith
Where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love,
For it is in giving that I receive,
And it is in dying to self that I am born to eternal life.

I walk out of the duomo into the brilliant autumn light as if rising from a dream. The London plane trees shed leaves, larger then my hand, in the gutter. The dryness rises in sound and smell as I shuffle down the street and the rhythm of my walk is the only sound at 2:40 this the afternoon. Shops are shuttered and empty as if protecting the contents from great destruction. But no fear, the people in town are simply taking time in the middle of the day for a big meal with family and a moment of quiet in the midst of work. When the workday revs up it goes longer into the evening. About the time it starts to get dark, the shops close up again and the restaurants serve dinner beginning around 8:00. There seems to be a collective commitment to the quality of ones personal life. During the day, time is taken to connect and regroup rather than drive at rapid speed to accomplish so much and make more money.

I hear people at home say all the time. “We’d like to get together with friends more, but we just don’t have time, or we are just so tired at the end of the workweek.” I wonder if we fill our every moment with work because our personal lives are so shallow, or are our personal lives lacking because we work all the time? Here people make real effort to get together for coffee, to sit and talk, to take time for each other. I have had more offers to go for coffee in 6 weeks then I have had in the past 15 years.

On Thursday we both joined a group gathering to speak English at the Tennis Club Bar. Two men work in informatics (computer programming and services) for the customs agency, a retired anesthesiologist, an Italian physical education teacher who loves languages, a mountain climber who has completed climbs in the Himalayas, our friend Mohamed from Egypt and Bob and me. Over chai, cappuccino and a beer we just talk. Mohamed started this group when he moved to Nova Gorica so that he could get to know people and provide a venue for people to use their language skills. The conversation starts with people introducing themselves, but quickly expands to questions for each one about a point of interest in their lives. They are very curious about our lives in the U.S. and it seems that they desperately want to believe that we are not all violent, money hungry, and overly fed. I continue to be amazed by their distorted perceptions of us portrayed by movies and television programs. I asked one woman if she had ever been to the U.S., and she said emphatically that she is not at all interested in going, because she does not like any thing about our life style. I told her that there are many wonderful places and people to visit in the States, but she just looked at me with eyes of disbelief. So many people ask me if the guests on the Ricky Lake or Jerry Springer shows are real people or are they just actors playing fat, rude, uncouth, violent, ignorant Americans. I don’t know how to respond. I hope they are actors, but I am afraid that they are real people given a venue to expose their dirty laundry to the entire world. The hard working, generous, loving, educated, well traveled, curious U.S. citizen is invisible in the media that is imported here, and I am beginning to understand more clearly why people in the world hate us. We are our own worse enemy.

Later in that same evening we are invited to the home of one of the teachers for chestnuts. It is chestnut season and people are really celebrating. Silvanha boils the nuts for over 2 hours with bay leaves. She brings the hot pot to the table and we start pealing. The hard outer shell has been softened by the boiling and with a serrated knife it comes off easily, then the inner membrane is pealed off too and the warm nut is eaten with butter and a little salt. Yummy, but a little dry. She also has cheeses, bread, wine and finishes the evening with home made apple cheese strudel. We sit around her table with her 13-year-old daughter Valentina, her friend Josko for 2 hours talking, laughing, and getting to know each other. It’s fun to be so exotic that people really make an effort to get to know us.

The government is requiring people to cage their chickens, ducks, geese and other birds. Even in the city you can see chickens scratching in the gardens and hear the roosters wake up the morning, so this will be a great hardship for many. The understanding is that this directive is for the common good and everyone will comply. Or as they say “It is obligatory.”

There is so much fear spread on CNN and BBC that every migrating bird is carrying the deadly disease that will wipe out the chicken population in Europe and cause a catastrophe of epic proportions to the population of the European Union. It appears that hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, bombings, tsunamis and starvation are not devastating enough; someone needs to make all of Europe afraid of birds. I wonder if there is an evil mastermind named Lex Luther who has control of the international media and spends his spare time creating scenarios so that we will live in fear for our lives and begin to distrust anyone who is not like us. He plans for us to become greedy and build walls around our houses to protect our collections of unneeded paraphernalia. He sends forth his evil henchmen every week to create a plane crash, an assassination, or a dread disease to keep us glued to the T.V., and fall into the oblivion of lost perspective. Sixty people have died of avian flu over the past 2 years and all of them have lived in poor Asian countries and have been handlers of birds. In 2 years how many have died in Africa of curable diseases? How many are still homeless from war, volcanic eruptions and typhoons? And what about those destroyed this year from the tsunami, the hurricanes, other earthquakes and AIDS? I guess that is old news not worthy of attention because new fears are so much more exciting. Living without a television in the U.S. truly determined that the quality of our life was much more peaceful. Fortunately here we can turn off the brand new television that our landlord so lovingly purchased for us, and we can listen to WKSU on line and be intelligently informed without the hysteria. Yea WWW!!!!

More churches

Lake Bled, Slovenia
Ljubljana, slovenia
Gorizia, Italy
Kostanjeviska, Nova Gorica, Slovenia

Week of October 10

I had the new adventure of doing a voice over recording. It’s not a snazzy car commercial, or the new voice of CNN (look out James Earl Jones) but a training computer program for “informatics security”. The company wants to market this email security program past the borders of Slovenia so they need a native speaker to read the English. This is a three-year-old company of young ambitious computer designers who have a vision to provide services all over the world with training programs and films. They know that they are not Microsoft (yet), but they seem to have a plan to fill a market hole in email security. Grammatically the writing was very good, with only a couple sentences that needed surgery from the Slovenian sentence structure. I continue to be impressed with the number of people who have a mastery of English, and an understanding that this ability opens up the entire world. Unfortunately not enough companies, tourist bureaus and museums invite a native speaker to do final editing of written material. Often the sentence structure uses poetic language or is shaped with Slovenian syntax that makes it difficult to weave around the vocabulary to understand the intent.

One statistic we read stated that 38% of the Slovenians are on line and certainly a much larger percentage has cell phones. The service is affordable and gaining access may take a lot of patience, but even Bob’s relatives, who live in a small village, have connections due to satellite access. We purchased a cell phone for about $100, but we do not have monthly payments. Instead we purchase phone cards for 1,000SIT (around $5.00) and load the number into the phone using the money on the card rather than a subscription. The cost for calls anywhere in Slovenia is $.23 per minute. Because of satellite technology the phone can be used in any other European country, but of course with a higher per minute fee.

I’ve started taking an Italian class in Gorizia 3 nights a week. The class is free for foreigners and taught completely in Italian. Most of the people in the class are living in Italy and some are from Bosnia, China, an African nation, Ukraine and an Arab nation. I am the only native English speaker, although some of them speak English as well as their native language and are now learning the language of their new home. The teacher is wonderfully patient. She repeats things in multiple ways with very slow pronunciation and simple phrases, but I am really thankful I already have a basic understanding. I am also joining an Italian class for teachers at Bob’s school. Most of the teachers speak a great deal of Italian because of the proximity to shopping across the border, but they want to be more articulate. 20 of us are taking this once a week conversation course offered by the Italian foreign language assistant and the Italian teacher. Both the teachers speak fluent Italian and Slovenian and communicate to the rest of the class at a rapid fire pace flopping back and forth between the two languages. There were times that I could not discern which language they were speaking and I found myself confused in two languages simultaneously. I know that if I am faithful to attend these classes, practice at home and at the shops the language will eventually come more freely. I am studying Slovenian at the same time and sometimes my mouth simply does not remember which language it is supposed to speak.

Why do we think languages are so difficult in the U.S.? I know that the size of our country and our isolation prevents us from having the opportunity to use other languages, but I do think we have an attitude problem. If we never hear other languages spoken and we deep down inside think that the whole world is just like us (or should be), then studying another language is really just an academic exercise and not worth the effort. The expression of a culture is not only in the food, music, native dress, design of the cities, pace of life, but also in the sound of the language. The attitude of the people is expressed in the use of a formal tense, dual, contractions, multiple words for the same thought and the color of the sounds that express deep emotions. If we only speak English in a new land, then the subtle nuance of a culture is lost to us.

The teachers at Bob’s school see English as a very rich language with an abundance of words for similar concepts. In one conversation with students they were trying to understand the difference between glance, glare, glimpse, peek and look. This is a highly sophisticated understanding of a language for people who have never spent much (or any) time in an English speaking country. Because they read so much literature they are confronted with words used for painting minute details with a very specific tone, but not often used in spoken language. The fourth year students are reading “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. As I reread this “classic” it is amazing to me that they are able to wade through page one. Ex. “Most of the confidences were unsought – frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation of a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.” Can you imagine understanding that when you have to look up every third word? This is required reading for the national Matura exam and they will be required to write a lengthy paper on the book, in Slovene, to pass the exam. The choice of this book is curious and the demand seems unbelievable. I think they will study this single book for the entire year, and will certainly understand it better then I do, but I’m afraid they will neglect even greater literature.

On Tuesday Bob was told that all the documentation for our residency permit had to be sent to the Slovenian Embassy in Washington and that it might take months before it would be completed. Currently we have tourist visas for 3 months that will expire 26 November, but we were assured if the paperwork took too much time all we needed to do was walk across the border, get our passports stamped and then walk back and the 3 months would start all over again (is this international diplomacy/security/insanity?). But then just as he was leaving for home a message came that we should go to Trieste in the morning with all our papers and they will process the papers at the Slovenian Consulate. We are not certain how many member of the “good old boy network” were involved with this process, but we know it included the headmaster, the mayor of Nova Gorica and the father of the wife of one of the teachers at school who works at the consulate.

We rode our bikes in the cool darkness to Gorizia and boarded the train at 7:34 heading for the coast. There are 5 stops along the route with one at the castle Miramare and another picking up a lot of students at Malfalcone. Trieste is a thriving port town that was first inhabited at the end of the Ice Age, but the Romans developed it into a thriving commercial community as a part of the Eastern Empire. In the later 1300’s, in rebellion to the taxes imposed by Venice on trade within the Adriatic, Trieste swore allegiance to Austria and remained under their rule until 1918 at the end of WWI. The city has a feel similar to Chicago with the major buildings built along the coastline.

We walked along the windy coastal road to the Slovenian Consulate where we joined a group of men waiting for the office to open at 9:00. The guard would not let the men enter, but after showing our passports and with the name of the father-in-law of the teacher at school on our lips we were ushered upstairs by the multilingual, pistol toting, shaved head guard with a sweet smile and warm eyes. We presented the originals of Bob’s letter of invitation, his school contract, our housing contract, his Slovenian health insurance, our FBI background checks and the American copies with apostile attached to our birth certificates and our marriage license, we each filled out an application, they copied our passports, we paid 173 euros ($207) and she said she would call us in 3 weeks and we could return to be stamped with our residency permit. It took less than 30 minutes!!! Is that all? Only simple answers needed? We were flabbergasted, confused, in shock! For months and months and months we have been worrying and stewing and consulting about this, and in no time at all, and with no hassle, we were in! We tiptoed down the stairs afraid that everything was a mistake and in a moment she would come running after us calling us back and require us to provide servitude of our first born in payment for wanting to live in Slovenia (sorry Aaron). But no, the guard wished us well, we passed through the doorway and when it locked be hind us we looked at each other in amazement and dashed down the street out of sight. It seemed too easy. Our passports are not stamped yet so we are not getting cocky, but it seems that who knows who goes a long way in Slovenia.

Here we are 9:30 on a beautiful sunny day in Trieste, Italy with nothing to do and our burden lightened. So we stroll the neoclassical Italianate streets, peer in the windows of stores we cannot afford to enter and soak up the flavor of another wonderful Italian city. Around a very busy corner, we are surprised by a Roman amphitheatre sitting quietly in the midst of a traffic jam. Excavation began in the1930’s of this 1st century theatre that seems to go unnoticed by the modern pace of motorbikes and little Italian cars. We sit inside the Serbian Orthodox church of San Spiridione breathing in the spirit of the artists who covered every inch of the walls and domes with icons and faux marble in this building shaped like a Greek cross. We eat lunch of frutti di mare in the sun along the Canal Grande in the shadow of the plain but majestic Church of Sant’Antonio Taumaturgo, and watch the poor woman with the giant crucifix around her neck comb her hair and rinse her face in the fountain before she goes into the church to fall asleep on a pew. Women pass by beautifully dressed in the orange and warm yellow/green that is so popular this fall with their boots, scarves and quality jackets. The sky matches the color of the brilliant blue dome of the Serbian church, the sun reflects in the fountain and we relax in the warmth.

Choir for Sveta Gora starts again this week now that the grapes are harvested and ready in the vats becoming wine. After singing we celebrate the “coming of age” of one of the sopranos. 18 years ago her brother (also in the choir) donated his bone marrow for a transplant to save her from leukemia. We all toast her rebirth with wine from last year, but also with new wine that is a hazy white color with a dull flavor accompanied by roasted chestnuts (you know “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”). Despite the language barrier I feel that they have adopted me into the choir family and have already assigned me a solo (in Slovene) for next week, but we are not singing this Sunday because pilgrims are coming to the church from a far.

Thursday is the first rehearsal of my English Ensemble for students at Bob’s school. 17 singers come to sing American songs and we rehearse with rounds that I brought from home. The round singing should give me a sense of their voices and their abilities. The only rule is that they must speak English and if they speak Slovene they have the duty to bring treats for the next rehearsal. This certainly will eliminate too much casual talk, but hopefully it will also inspire thinking in English and expanding comfort with the language. I am delighted that the singers have great pitch memory and there are some lovely voices. Many of them have sung in choir in grammar school and are comfortable holding a part while something else is going on. There are 2 boys who are searching for their octave and one girl who struggles with matching pitch, but the rest are surprisingly confident, yet untrained. At school they are only able to take music class the first year. After that, the curriculum is so academically intense that those who are interested in the arts must attend the music school in the afternoon. The head master is hoping that this ensemble will evolve into doing a fully staged musical. My worst nightmare of doing “Oklahoma” with Slovenian accents may come to reality yet, but not this year.

The Kulturni Dom in Nova Gorica has a full schedule of concerts almost every weekend. This week is Janez Boncina Benc. He is an aging pop star (not as old or as ugly as the Rolling Stones) who has been very popular in Slovenia over the years. The first half is a big band made up of university students from the music school in Ljubljana with Benc singing a few tunes. These kids are amazing!!!!! The sound is clean, the unison sax runs are meticulous and the improvisation is tonal, but unique. The second half is Benc and his band covering a few songs familiar to us in English, but mostly Slovenian tunes. This is a very tight group, fabulous drummer, and great improvisation from the guitars with Benc leading them to make each tune a little different. We have been so impressed so far with the quality and the variety of the performances available to us. What a great feeling to sit in the midst of an audience who is really enjoying and become a part of the unison applause. I don’t know how it happens. Everyone is applauding in his/her own tempo and then all of a sudden everyone is applauding in unison and the pace increases and the fever to have more rises until it is satisfied and the group agrees to one more tune and then the sound returns to the individual tempo before it dies down. Such an interesting crowd dynamic (research for my next life).

Saturday is a glorious sunny yolk robin egg day and we decide to go to Venice, (I love saying that) along with 10 zillion others searching for a beautiful day excursion. We catch the train in Gorizia (for $25.00 round trip for 2) and ride about 2 hours to the Grand Canal dividing the island of San Polo and San Marco. We spend most of the day exploring these two islands through the maze of shops, apartments, churches and markets. The swarm of humanity clusters around Piazza San Marco so if we wander deeper into the island we find ourselves alone in a world of the unbelievable. The islands are built up on thousands (millions?) of pylons that were driven 25 feet into the clay foundation of the marshland beginning in the 6th century and then floored with Istrian marble. This combination creates an oxygen free environment where no microbes can survive that would destroy the wood. The buildings, from one of the most powerful governmental forces in the early centuries, still balance in all their glory on these poles. Even the small bridges over the canals elicit a pause looking both ways into the mystery of the past. The excess of Venetian design visually bombards me until i simply can’t look any more and yet like an addict I can’t stop looking at the gold trim, the multicolored marble, the arches and more arches, the columns, the statues, the bridge railings, the gondolas and the glowing shop windows of glass, masks, jewelry and brightly wrapped candies. The sounds of languages whishing past my ears, some with melodious pitch variation, some with clicking and clacking, spin me around and around until my feet can’t carry me another step. I have never felt such sensory exhaustion, yet each corner leads to another wonder calling us forward and we follow as in a dream. We stop to refresh with an early meal and then search the city canyons in the dark stepping like hop scotch from one patch of light to another. The romance of this city is the titillating unknown sensually tugging me to uncover the treasure just out of reach.

Venice

Grand Canal
Canal poles
Kay on ponte Maria Callas
Traffic jam

Trieste

Teatro Romano
Canal Grande from Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo
Interior dome of Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo
Serbian Chiesa di San Spieidione angel

Our Home

This is our home. We live on the first floor and our landlord and family live up stairs.
The houses on the street are all double cluster homes on three levels built into the hill.
We have a small great room (living room and kitchen), bedroom and bath.
Perfect for two.

Nova Gorica, Slovenia

This is what we see every day.
Nova Gorica from the monestary.
The castle in Gorizia, Italy.
The tunnel we walk through on our way to school.
The view from our kitchen window.

Week of 3 October

I have returned to the mountains with Vidojka’s class for 3 days. The mountains are playing hide and seek with the clouds. The clouds are hanging in the valleys held with sticky fingers to the tops of the trees. The clouds resist and pull away wanting to float to the mountaintops only to be pulled back to cover the treetops in a blanket of mist. The wind has stayed on the Austrian side of the mountains and refuses to come to Trenta to play.

The heavens weep pouring streams for every moment of the three days. The river roars past the place where I leisurely sat last week unleashing a power from the mountaintops that cascades over cliffs and ledges forming waterfalls that were not present a week ago. Last week the water in the river was clear to the bottom except in the deeper basins where the clarity shaded into a shimmering blue/green. This week the water is a milky blue rushing so fast that there is not time to stop and show the stones on the bottom.

It is too dangerous for the students to take water samples or measure the depth and velocity, so they are given shortened lessons inside. This class has real wild tendencies that are demonstrated by the noise level, the rude behavior, the illegal drinking and the escape tactics from the second story windows. It is not the same kind of restful holiday that I experienced last week, but it is interesting to observe the expression of youth that is common to kids in Nova Gorica and in Ashland, Ohio.

On the bus ride home (while watching another “great” American film, “The Saint” with Hebrew subtitles??) I see a buck curled in the grass hiding from the rain, two blue heron and a large white egret along the river that is close to flood stage. The Soca is dammed in a couple places along our route for hydroelectric power and the current running with this river is greater now than expected.

I visited a music class on Thursday. All the students have music and visual art in the first year, but not again at the gimnazia. The students are studying style and I was asked to show different styles using “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess by the Gershwin brothers. I sang in the classical style first and then a freer jazz style with improvisation. We compared the differences in the choices I made as a singer to produce the different qualities. All of this work was done in English and I was so impressed with their abilities to understand and communicate in a language not their own. These Slovenians are definitely blessed with a language gene!

I finished the class with this meager attempt at the “Summertime Rap”.
Oh your daddy’s rich
As rich as a bitch
With a car in the jar
Like a big fuckin’ star

And your ma is good lookin’
When ever she’s cookin’
She’s a red-hot mama
I’ll give her some bamba

So hush little baby
Don’t give me no maybe
Your belly’s well fed
For your fat sleepy head

Don’t you cry little whiner
Or you’ll stay a minor
Give your papa some bread
Mom and Daddy are in bed.

It rained all week. Everyone tells us that this is unusual, that the weather is usually dryer and warmer in the fall. Our apartment, which is half underground, is cool and the landlord is waiting until 22 October to turn on the heat (is that day of the patron saint of heat?). I can’t wash clothes since they will not dry inside or out and the clean clothes hanging in the armoire are damp to the touch. I know the sun will return, but it takes a lot of effort to keep the spirits high and not let the ghost of depression ooze through the cracks. The true entertainment is trying to act like a circus clown riding the bicycle to town in the rain balancing an umbrella. All I need now is a little dog in my basket and I will look just like the witch in the Wizard of Oz.
On Friday we finally get Internet connection in our apartment. It has been hard to stay in close contact with friends and family because there are only 2 computers for all the teachers at school. We have the freedom to use these machines, but most of the time there are others who also need them. Now we have IM connection on AOL and Skype where we can talk with others who have Skype for free on line. It is an amazing thing to be able to talk with Aaron whenever he’s home. And the sound has clarity as if he is here in our little flat. I am finally a true believer in the value of technology!

The Kulturni Dom (House of Culture) has a concert series of 8 concerts during the year. We bought 2 of the last season tickets for the series. Amazingly the house is nearly sold out with subscription patrons. The theatre seats around 500 and has clean but dry acoustics. On Friday the performance is an ensemble of violin, viola, bass, oboe and clarinet playing Mozart, Beethoven, Prokofiev, and Kumar. We’re not certain because we are having a difficult time reading the program, but the performers are principal players in the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Combattimento Consort in Amsterdam and orchestras in France and Germany. They stand for the 4 pieces and dance the motives and cleanly pass them back and forth amongst themselves. The physicality of their playing heightens the awareness of the games played within a chamber ensemble. Following the performance a reception in the foyer celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Kulturni Dom and champagne in fluted glasses and small pastries is poured for all.

On the weekends Bob is really tired. His is struggling trying to find a flow in his week. He is so accustomed to a regular schedule at school that the flexible starting and ending times in his week, and the juggling of classes with many different teachers throws off his sense of routine. Even though most of his colleagues and students speak English, a heightened awareness of understanding constantly flows through his brain and at the end of the week he needs to collapse and regroup.

On Sunday we take a bike ride up the river valley to Solkan and across the expansion bridge and then down to the riverbed where they have kayak races. It is a glorious clear day after a week of rain, but there are no boaters in the water. The rapids are furious and the depth of the water hides many boulders that normally raise their shoulders above the water surface. The sound is like enthusiastic applause. My brain tells me that we will leave for Tejasa’s birthday party when the sound stops, but the river keeps flowing and the sound keeps coming.
We are included with a few of the neighbors for the birthday celebration. Bread, prust, salami, pickles, roasted red peppers, vegetable spread, oiled miniature mushroom caps, elderberry juice, wine, beer and homemade vanilla, chocolate, apricot liqueur layered cake with bananas is served. The traditional snack foods at mid-west parties, chips, dips, and soda are not common fare here. Salty snacks and overly sweet desserts are nothing we’ve had yet. Most of the time we have been served food that is delicious and healthy.

Soca River, Solkan 

Bob's Birthday 

River Soca in Trent 

Week of 26 September

Monday morning bright and early we head to the bus station for a 31/2-hour trip to Ptuj with the second European Class. This program is in its second year but this is the first gathering of the students from all over the country who have elected to focus on language study. A beautiful tour bus awaits us at 6:00am and once the sleepy kids load up we head northeast. Most of the highway from Nova Gorica to Ljubljana is still a 2-lane road and carries all the cars and heavy trucks of a modern society. The link to the rest of the super speed highway is taking years to build because of the tunnels through the mountains and because the land under one of the bridges keeps shifting down hill. So this road curves around through the mountains at dangerous angles. The silhouette of the hills rise like black cut outs free of the texture of boulders and trees against the dawn sky. The morning mist is a halo floating above our heads glittered with stars. We pass a cemetery and the red candles on all the graves light the darkness as an eerie reminder of how many are killed on this road each year.

The bus driver entertains the students with the movie “Coyote Ugly”. We pass through meticulous rows in the vineyards, valleys with extreme mountains on either side, past mountain streams and the students are glued to the sight of American female bar tenders in New York bumping and grinding on top of a bar and pouring cold drinks down the pants of their customers. I actually sit a little lower in my seat embarrassed by the depiction of the degeneration of my homeland. Certainly this movie is not an indication of what most of the citizens of the U.S. are doing on Saturday night, or are we really closet wild ones? The movies that come out of Hollywood tell so little about our common lives in small towns and medium sized cities. The influence of these films causes the students to ask if we are afraid of living in the States, and why does everyone drive around in fast cars? I think they are surprised that Bob and I simple normal people. I wonder what damage exported movies have on the international image of who we really are as Americans?

The gimnazia in Ptuj is an extreme modern building with a high tech lecture hall in the round. Students, Slovenian teachers and Foreign teachers have come from 14 schools around the country. The adults are herded into the center section in a place of honor with well-behaved respectful students all around. The program starts with the national anthem, but to my surprise no one sings. This is a country of singers and with a new country to be proud of, yet everyone stands at quiet attention and no lyrics of their poet laureate are sung out loud. The most impressive thing in the entire morning presentation is the young woman (probably age 15) who stands with extreme confidence in front of us all and welcomes us in beautiful Slovene, English, German and French. Wow!

The presentations are projects the students created last year and include the murder trial of Romeo and Juliet in English, information about their regions in Slovenian, power point presentations, songs, and a costumed telling of the history of Egypt. In general the students share their offerings with great maturity and a confident presence typical of seasoned presenters. I find the presentations interesting but frustrating. When people speak on and on in Slovene and I am only able to catch a few words and I miss the sense of the conversation, I shut off the sound and turn into my own thoughts. I have never been good at shutting out the things happening around me. I always have my antennas out, aware of a multitude of events, surveying an entire room and sensing the energy around me, but when I can’t understand, those intuitions shut down and I feel like I’m watching from a sound proof booth.

After the presentations, the students are given sandwiches and sent off for a walking tour of one of the oldest cities in Slovenia while a buffet of hot food, wine and desserts is set up on the stage for the teachers. I can’t imagine that wine would be served for teachers who are returning to their towns with students on the bus any where in the U.S. Do we really think we are teaching young people to not consume alcohol in excess by never showing them responsible drinking habits?

While Bob and the other teachers work out the details of an essay competition sponsored by the U.S. Embassy I walk around the old city of Ptuj. This community started as a Roman military outpost, and sits on the bank of the Drava River. It was a center for the Mithratic religion; the primary rival of Christianity until Constantine came to the throne in the 4th century. (from The Lonely Planet Guide to Slovenia) “Mithraism and Christianity competed strongly because of a striking similarity in many of their rituals. Both religions involved the birth of a deity on 25 December, shepherds, death and resurrection and a form of baptism. Devotees of Mithraism knelt when they worshipped and a common meal – a ‘communion’ of bread and water – was a regular feature of the liturgy.” Like so many of the ancient villages the city curls around the base of the castle and shops and homes cohabitate with centuries of history. The church of St. George has headstones from the 1600’s written in German imbedded in the exterior walls. Excavation around the church shows columns and remains left as rubble that now serve as artifacts. I delight in walking the cobblestone streets, through the end of the morning open-air market, looking up at the flowers and the decorations only visible to the angels on the tops of the buildings.

Tuesday and Wednesday I am invited by Suzana and Silvana to join them and 30 third year students in the mountain village of Trenta. The school has a study center within Triglav National Park available for students to bask in the mountains for 3 days each year. First year students study visual art and music, second year students focus on discovery of self and third year students test the water, study rock formations and all the groups hike the mountain trails. The center has bedroom suites upstairs, a large conference room, small kitchen, foyer and a room for trading climbing shoes for slippers on the first floor. Meals are taken at the local gostilna about a mile walk from the center.

I balance on a boulder of limestone inches above the frigid Soca River. The floor of the flow is white sand and limestone pebbles washed from the erosion of the cliffs above. The student experiments indicate that this water passing beneath my toes has greater purity than the bottled water that brags of perfection. No industry is any where near except natural farming and tourism. Should the animals or humans add some ammonia to the water the flow is so fast that the pollutants are washed away.
On all sides the cliffs tower like petrified haystacks of the gods. The Soca cuts circular crevices with the power of a whirlpool and churns deep in shades of turquoise.

The village has rooms for climbers and a gostilna for tour buses that desire a view for lunch. When the clouds roll in, the meal will be a disappointment, but when the breezes blow the mist into the valley the ambiance sparkles like new wine. The sound of the river never stops; a constant rhythmic snare, an ostinato to the few bird sounds harmonizing with the Austrian motorcycles. Each moment the view changes as colors are added and subtracted with the veil of clouds and the breath of the Spirit.

The path to the hilltop is sparkling white beneath my hiking boots. Sheep dung polka dots the white limestone and the ringing of the neck bells remind me that these pastures trimmed close with summer grazing is the home of a flock of sheep. Wooden buildings covered by steep inclines of weathered shingles shed rain and snow and hide the winter firewood from the demon of rot. Boulders are stolen from the glacial plateau piled high to create borders of land too rocky for growing anything but cool weather vegetables and sheep.

With each breath I inhale the energy of the Spirit. Towered above me, molded by water through rivers and snow, are the fingers of the Earth reaching for the heavens in praise of the Creator. A small church 1st built in the 1400’s holds within its walls the expression of Tone Kalj from 1945. A covey of angels hang from the ceiling while Mary steps away from the gathering of saints with flowers balanced on her feet and circling her heart on the front wall. The figures are elongated tall, thin and towering above the 40 mortals seated for worship. Here the bishop is buried who introduced a flock of 100 sheep for the people to graze for sustenance in this harsh climate. The date on the chimney of the parish house tells that sparks have been dancing out of its mouth since 1869.

A total of 5 hours of walking in my hiking boots push the muscles in my legs to pulse, quivering as they expand for the mountain air. My hips open up and stretch swinging from the socket reaching for the next step. The more I walk the more I want to walk.

I am having very nice in-depth conversations with Silvana and Suzana while in the car and hiking. They are both anxious to use their English. Silvana speaks with more comfort, but Suzana is not shy to learn and uses what she knows with boldness. She tells me that the food in Slovenia is highly regulated. The cows are free range and there is no factory farming. I think I can feel confident that eating animal by-products is healthy for me and for them. In Trenta we are served weiner schnitzel, chicken paprikas and trout along with soup, potatoes and salad. This is the first time I have eaten so much meat since March and certainly the first time in years I have eaten so much meat in such a short period of time. The meat makes me feel clogged and weighty despite all the walking with a desperate craving for vegetables. The trout is a blend of native marble trout breed with an American trout to prevent extinction of the native fish due to over fishing. They are raised in local farms and brought to the tank behind the gostilna where the cook fishes them out, cleans them and prepares them with butter, garlic and parsley for a luscious culinary treat.

Bob received a 3-month work permit today. With this he can open a bank account and the school can pay him on the 5th of the month. This is just one more rung of the ladder that leads to legal residence for this year and an encouragement. To celebrate we head to Gorizia for Gusti di Frontiera. The streets in the old section are closed except for pedestrians and booths are set up all over town selling wine, beer, honey, candies, prosciutto, sausages, polenta and other regional delicacies. There are Italian and Slovenian vendors and strolling accordion players. We arrive at 6:00 for dinner hour forgetting that the Italians don’t even think about eating until 8:00 so we sit again in our 15th century verandah and watch the festivities unfold. We ask ourselves, “Why don’t we attend gatherings like this at home?” Maybe the length of the drive to Cleveland and the crowds keeps from attending, maybe the abundance of junk food at fairs and festivals keeps us away, and maybe we don’t take advantage of the offerings at home the way we should. At a Slovenian booth we dance a polka or two to the music of the button box player with the flowered bellows and we hold hands like newly weds. The discovery of everything new makes us feel like we are just starting our life together and the sensuousness is tantalizing.

After going to the open-air market Saturday morning to buy domace (home grown) potatoes, carrots, lettece, zucchini, and apples from the grandmothers we ride our bikes into the countryside. Nova Gorica is in the Primorska region and the Soca River valley where wine making is the primary agriculture. Most of the grapes have been harvested, but the few that are left smell syrupy sweet in the warm sunshine. The road is relatively flat so we ride from town to town easily along the stripped fields of vines. We ride the perimeter of the largest vineyard in Slovenia and along the railroad tracks on our 10-mile ride.
Sunday is Bob’s birthday and our new friends join us for pizza in Italy. We all must show our passport or identification papers as we cross the border, first to the Slovenian guards and then to the Italian. Some times they don’t look at all and wave us through with barely a nod, and other times they study every page of our passport as if something meaningful is hidden there. Matje teaches music at a Slovenian school in Italy. He crosses the border sometimes 4 or 5 times a day. Every time he is stopped and his papers are scrutinized by the same guard that looked at them hours before. One time they did not believe that he was as musician and he had to take out his trumpet and play a tune to prove that he had legitimate reasons for traveling to Italy. After really yummy pizza with wine and chai with homemade-layered cake with bananas at home, the last thing Bob said before he went to sleep, “I am really happy.”

Week of 19 September

I read a statistic that states that 60% of women in Slovenia with children under the age of 12 work outside the home. Most of the teachers are women at Bob’s school and for them this is definitely a serious career although the compensation seems to be ¼ of what Ohio teachers earn. Most of them are highly educated, well traveled, speak multiple languages and are regularly taking continuing education workshops and classes. They dress very casually in pants and even blue jeans, but the students call them professor and the student/teacher familiarity we see in the U.S. does not exist here. No one has his/her own room so between each class they return to the staff room to return the key and get the next one. In these few minutes they have a lot of time to talk with each other as well as during the morning 30-minute break when the teachers go to the café for kava and conversation. His colleagues are concerned that I will be lonely and unhappy here so they are beginning to include me in activities at school.

Monday night one of the music teachers took us to the home of another American in Nova Gorica. Kathy is from Buffalo and teaches English to people in the military. This is a U.S. defense contract to teach English to our allies. She has been teaching over seas for 25 years all over the world. Her husband Mohamed is from Egypt and he is taking retirement in Slovenia because he is unable to get a work permit. He has taken on the challenge of knowing everyone in town through tennis, golf, leading an evening of English conversation and being extremely friendly. They have been here 4 years and because they are planning to move on to another country next year neither of them has learned to speak Slovene. They manage just fine since most people under the age of 40 speak some English and are anxious to practice their language skills.

We are frustrated with not being able to read anything; road signs, food labels, posters, etc. We really want to learn Slovene and we are trying to learn a little at a time, but because everyone really wants to practice his or her English we too are not required to use the language too much. Our inspiration is Ancecile from France. She is beginning her 4th year teaching at Bob’s school and she speaks Slovene beautifully along with English, Italian and German. So many people here are really impressive with their abilities to flop back and forth between multiple languages and the Slovenes have really made that a national quality to be able to speak 2 or 3 languages.

The rain clouds and misty air finally opened to blue skies on Wednesday and it was the perfect day to hike to the castle in Italy. We can see the castle with the Italian flag flying above from the bottom of our street. Every time we walk together Bob says “That castle is in Italy you know” and then he laughs at the pure delight of being able to say that regularly. This is the same castle that Hemingway speaks of in “A Farewell to Arms” in Gorizia.

At the bottom of the castle there is a switchback path with wooden guardrails and hill supports leading up the hillside. If I could erase the sound of little Italian cars and motorcycles racing around the base of the hill I would have the feeling of a desolate national park. I wonder about this path in the 1500’s. Was it a military road used for defense of the castle? Did it once have buildings with shops and homes? The trees are young. Were the original trees cut for a multitude of purposes during the wars? The main road leading to the castle is a narrow ancient path bordered on both sides with stucco buildings housing modern families and shops. How were these spaces affected by the last 2 wars as well as all the battles that have raged in this area for generations? Or could it be that this royal bulge is too steep to have ever housed buildings? Who walked this path before me to the castle? Whose energy do I feel as I pass through the gates and under the arches? Have I walked these stones before? The questions fly around my soul wishing for a time machine or a porthole into the past. I have no passion to see into the future, but I would very much like to slip into the past.

Even in the denseness of Parco del Castello there are no sounds of birds or bugs. There are a few butterflies circling the fall flowers still in bloom, but basically the woods are silent. Shouldn’t the air be overrun with insects if there are no birds to eat them? As I rounded the path to the base of the castle I startled a small deer about the size of a summer fawn in Ohio, but no squirrels, ground hogs or other common U.S. critters to be seen anywhere. I wonder if the wars decimated the wild life populations and the animals were food for the millions of starving soldiers and townspeople during WWI and even before that, hunt for the starving peasants. Were the animals so seriously hunted that their populations never recovered? I keep asking people about this, but if they have never visited the Mid-west of the U.S. they don’t understand what an abundance of wild life is like. One man told me that Slovenia has 88 bird species in the country. But I know about an Amish man who has documented 150 species of birds on his farm in Wayne Co. in Ohio. Do we really have so much more wildlife within the same land mass? Slovenia is the size of New Jersey, but over 50% of the land is forest. When I ask the people here they think the animals are hiding in the mountains and do not need to come into human view, maybe the animals here are a lot smarter than the ones dead on the road in Ohio.

Around the base of the castle is a path with an open view of Gorizia and the plains beyond the hills before the sea to the south, and Nova Gorica and the Julian Alps to the north. It is no wonder that this hilltop was strategically important over the centuries. This view is definitely “location, location, location” aesthetically, militarily, economically and a clear view of weather patterns. The walls of the castle rise straight to the clouds. In the creases of the stone walls snap dragons have claimed the role of decorating the exterior hanging precariously with their toes tucked deep into centuries of rock.

The castle has been beautifully maintained. The interior courtyard is in a triangular shape with a deep well in the center. On the first level along the courtyard are the functional rooms; stables, military rooms, kitchen and eating room. The tears of a past life hit me in the eating room. It is a feeling of time freezing for the length of a breath. There is nothing special about the room, but it’s a feeling of comfort as if I have spent many hours of connecting with others here. A table is set with wooden chairs around under the low ceiling with vaulted windows. The floor is new brick with chests lining the walls and dish racks hanging from the ceiling. It’s a dark room, but the talk and laughter of the past echoes against the walls deep in the lonely silence.

On the second floor are rooms for living; large salons with decorated ceilings and in some places remains of decorations on the walls dating from the1700’s, small intimate rooms with window seats on both sides of the alcoves and tremendous views all around. The care for this building is remarkable; furnished with lovely ancient pieces as if waiting for some one to move in. The energy, the vibrations, the aura of those who have passed this way years before shimmers in the breeze, people living their lives day by day in joy and heartbreak., washing the clothes, baking the bread, rebuilding the wall, encouraging their children, spoiling their grandchildren, making love in a hunger to leave something behind. We are dropped here on earth without a game plan or knowledge of the purpose. We wander through each day figuring out how we fit, what role we play, how do we influence those we meet and how do we make the world a different place because of our being. Did those who lived below the castle in 1472 seek these answers or did it take so much energy to stay alive that there was little time for idle thought? I will spend a lot of time in this castle. There are a lot of imaginings deep within these walls and I want to search them out.

Our language skills in Slovene and Italian are extremely weak. People in Italy do not pride themselves in speaking multiple languages and I am forced to find Italian words for the things I want to say. But in Slovenia the moment I hesitate to think of the way to say something an energetic multi lingual person jumps in and saves me from myself. And the words never come. At the grocery store across the street from Bob’s school I bought some vegetables with my stumbling language. In my frustration “sorry” slipped out and the woman said, “Finally you open your mouth, if you use your words I will understand you.” I realized at that point, that I need to plan what to say so I can try to speak more Slovene, but use my English without hesitation. The Slovene language has 6 cases and everything modifies everything else so even if I know the noun it will change depending on how I use it, but I’m not at that point yet. Right now I just need to learn the vocabulary.

The program that brought us here is the European Class project that Bob shares with Martina and Vidojka. This is a special program in 14 schools around the country for students who are particularly interested in languages and is project based. The first year class is enthusiastic, interested with fun personalities. The second year class seems bored with everything and not as motivated to learn. This program has an emphasis on connecting cultures so they go on trips and do projects to prepare themselves for cultural exchange with a focus on building a spirit of unity and understanding with people from other European nations. We will be able to travel with the classes when they go to Vienna in the spring.

On Friday I substituted for 4 English classes. The teachers want the students to converse with native speakers so I spent most of the time having conversations. They want to know how I like the food, why we would want to come to Slovenia, and do we like the wine? It appears that the students are not really proud of their country. They see themselves as a small struggling nation and in comparison with the U.S. they fall very short. Bob and I both try to convey the excitement of being a part of creating a new nation, making cultural choices to preserve that which is wonderful here. We perceive some of their strengths as clear unpolluted mountain streams and rivers, modern highways and beautiful byways, a highly educated population, most who are bilingual (literacy rate is 99.6% of those over the age of 15), strong public transportation system, quality living in the small towns, value for quality food (in the grocery the meat is labeled with the name of the farmer who raised the animal), exercise (walking and bicycling is as common as driving the car) and family connection (we’ve been warned that people will not invite us to their homes often because they do everything with family). The students watch American TV and long for our lives without realizing how much of our soul we have sold for convenience.

On Saturday we awoke at 6:00 am to clear skies, half moon and walked in the darkness to the train station in Nova Gorica. The air is cool and damp with sweet smells of apple trees and grapevines sending forth the scent of the ripening fruit. Not many climb on the train, that only costs $6.00, and only one boy with a bicycle stores it in the front compartment designed for bikes. The tracks hug the hillsides that are so steep you look straight up from the train window. Passengers, mostly women wearing hiking shoes with small backpacks, are out for an excursion on a glorious day.

The air is cool, but the sun is intense so on the train half of my legs were hot, but I needed my fleece to keep the rest of me warm. The train stops in 17 towns along the climb in the mountains. Each station is similar in design and most have a common quality of disrepair. Many are 3-story block design with an attached porch where passengers wait. Many look as if the stationmaster, in his turquoise suit the color of the Soca river and red cap, lives at the station. Like every other window in Slovenia, the station windows weep with pink and red hanging geraniums. The side yards are fenced with picket like fences made form molded concrete with moss powdered on the tops and sides giving the fence a speckled texture. Within the fence are large colorful yummy gardens with rows of cabbages and other cool weather greens, borders of dahlias and sometimes tomatoes protected under a plastic shelter.

In each village there is a church or chapel with a pointed steeple stretching for the heavens. The churches are neat and unadorned on the outside except a biblical painting with in the stucco or a Mary statue hidden in a cubby built just for her. The bells in the steeple are the keepers of time and call believers to worship and can be heard above the clatter of the train.

The path to Bled meanders around and through the mountains following first the brilliantly turquoise Soca river and then the crystal clear Sava Bohinjka. We dig through the mountains in the darkness of 26 tunnels and across bridges where below a fly fisherman, waist deep in the water, is able to see the fish nibbling his toes. The hillsides, that are not lush with vegetation, are manicured by the sheep. Our train is just for passengers, but there is another train carrying cars with their owners riding inside waiting on the siding to be taken through the 10-minute tunnel.

Imagine the vision, the fortitude and the strength to create this railroad through solid rock. It appears that the boulders from middle earth were used to build the retaining walls required to hold the earth from overflowing on the tracks. It must have been an army of men far from home breaking their backs to burrow through the earth. What inspiration drives men to control the earth carpeted with trees and mold it to the vision that meets the desire for convenience?

We saw a buck standing at the river’s edge at the same time as a blue heron flying over head. Both of these creatures are totems for us. Bob is always searching out the deer as he travels and the blue heron has been my traveling companion for years. To increase the natural delight we watched a golden eagle soar high in the sky leading the way.

The train station at Bled is at the top of the hill with the lake shimmering below. Clearly train travel is an undervalued means of arriving in Bled. There were no taxies waiting and the walking path to the lake switched back and forth for one layer and then followed the flume for snow melt straight down the hill. The walking surface has washed away so many times leaving crevices of gravel that over the years has been repaired with layers of asphalt so that the handrail is now about knee height.

Lake Bled is the largest tourist attraction in Slovenia. The lake shimmers at the bottom of hills and mountains all around and in the middle of the lake is a rock island that sprouts a church balanced on the boulder. Rowed boats are used to reach the island where the church bells ring regularly.

The walking path around the lake is crowded with Saturday strollers, children on bicycles, teenagers swaying back and forth balanced on the wheels of roller blades and families pushing baby carriages. The growth of the Slovenian population is healthy if the new babies are any indication.

We saw a dirt path marked grad (castle) and chose to take the challenge of climbing to the castle. At the top it was very steep and surprisingly difficult dodging around tree roots, rocks and mud. The castle has served as home, lookout and protection since 1004. Balconies, walkways offer shocking views of the lake and the church on one side and the village and the mountains on the other.

A wedding appeared with pregnant bride in white followed by her entourage and led by costumed period actors. The champagne for the wedding was opened as a sword cut off the cork and then splashed into the glasses lined on the balcony. The accordion player kept the party lively singing the old songs and trying to encourage the party guests to sing along. It was sad to see how peripheral the music was rather than an integral part of the celebration. After drinking toasts and photos all around they climbed into the limos and drove down to the lake for a ride in 4 boats to the church. The legend says that the marriage will have good luck if the couple rings the bell together. As the party went from place to place drinks were shared and the more they drank the more they sang loudly with the accordion.

We sat on a bench with an elderly woman and watched the happenings. She spoke no English and continued to communicate with me in German. She was so delighted with the wedding boats, the ducks, the fish and the coolness of the air. She continually made a little verbal sigh through her smile with every moment of delight. Her spirit beside me was wonderfully joyful and infectious. The day was one of leisure, walking talking and enjoying the surroundings with nothing to press us on.

Week of 12 September

Bob is starting his second full week of school. He is beginning to know the names of the staff, but keeping the names of Martina, Marinka, Maruska and Marina straight has taken real cognitive processing. He does not yet know the names of the students, which disappoints him, but not only are the names more difficult to remember, but he has seen at least 15 different classes this week. The students are responding well to him as always and greet him with a friendly American “Hi!” when they meet on the street. The normal greeting is “dober dan” (good day) or “dan” and “ciao” when leaving. The Slovenians are not indiscriminately friendly like Americans. They do not greet strangers on the street, and certainly they do not ask how one is doing with out stopping to have conversation. Instead they will stare as you pass and look surprised if the stare is returned with a smile.

Bob, or Robert as everyone, including the students, call him, is still doing introductions of himself and answering questions about the U.S. in most of the classes. With some of the teachers he is beginning to find the flow of real team teaching. He has been invited into not only the English classes, but also some History and Geography classes. The teachers have told me how very happy they are to have him. They apparently have had some difficulties in the past with foreign teachers who have been unhappy and projected real negative energy. Bob’s extreme positive energy, serious competent teaching skills, and joyful countenance is bringing great delight to the school. He was standing in the hallway where a door could have hit him if opened unawares and the asst. headmaster passed by and told him to move because they did not want to loose his sunshine.

The school is seriously overcrowded and none of the teachers have their own room. The classrooms are locked and the keys are kept in the large conference room. In the 5 minutes between each class the teachers return to the conference room get the key, pick up the record book that for the class, chat quickly with their colleagues and head off to the next class. Some of the classes are in a different building reached by walking out side. The students are waiting in the halls for the teacher. The halls have benches along the inside wall where the students sit with their legs stretched into the pathway. The windows on the outside wall of the hall way can open, but they open into the hall with side hinges like a door, so if the windows are open in the hall the air is cool, but there is no room to walk. Once the teacher opens the classroom the students stand behind their seats while attendance is taken, and they sit down when instructed to do so. The classrooms look into the courtyard and have big windows that open in, but in the courtyard a new extension of the library at the primary school is being built from fired clay blocks (a little smaller than Am. cement blocks). The cement trucks are in and out, the hammers and saws are going constantly and the noise echoes and bounces around all the hard surfaces. Even without the construction noise the classrooms are alive with sound. The interior walls are made from the same clay blocks and covered with stucco, the ceilings are tall, but there are no surfaces that absorb sound.

Classes are 45 minutes long and the students are generally attentive during class. The academic expectations are high and there is nothing at school that distracts from academic pursuits. Sports are completely separate from school so the focus on sports that is found in U.S. schools does not bleed into the school day.

The dress for staff and students is very casual. The girls are dressed in fashionable styles of low-slung pants, crop tops, spaghetti straps and skintight shirts. There is a lot of skin showing in school but the school does not take the role of teaching students how to dress. The school is an academic environment. It is not a place where personal issues are dealt with and values are reinforced. Dress is seen as a statement of fashion and not a statement of life style and echoes the rest of the culture where the expression of the feminine is celebrated. Modesty does not seem to be more highly valued than fashion so very few women anywhere look as sloppy and saggy baggy as so many U.S. women.

Bob had meetings for the teachers of the European classes in Ljubljana on Tuesday. He and Martina taught until 11:00 then drove 2 hours to the capital city had a meeting from 2:00 – 6:00 and drove the 2 hours home. He was saddened by the fact that the meetings were just as ineffective as meetings in the U.S. Lots of talk, but very little substantive content. He was pleased to meet the other foreign teachers in English, French, Italian, German and Russian. There are only a couple of U. S. citizen teaching English in the program, there is a man from Canada and the rest are from the U.K. or Australia.

While Bob was at his meeting I wandered around the old city of Ljubljana. It is a very easy city to maneuver because most of the historical and cultural sites are within a few blocks of each other. I went to the exhibit at the National Modern Art Museum, which had the quality of a student show (and it may have been I couldn’t read the description) and none of the profound insights I felt at the Neo show this spring at the Cleveland Art Museum. I also visited the Serbian Orthodox Church to see the glorious iconic paintings on every surface in the sanctuary, visited galleries along the river, the open air market, sat in the park and circumnavigated the university library that is built with modern styles and ancient aesthetic touches.

People are everywhere. The streets are filled with the vitality of life. They are walking, riding bikes talking in small groups with the strong sense of going somewhere fun, but not in a hurry. These are strolling people. The old men amble with their hands clasped behind their backs, the women carry bags or baskets and the pace is casual. I saw no one walking madly to the next place cell phone pressed to his ear, tail of his suit flying in his wake. Everyone saunters. They stop for a sladoled (creamy not too sweet ice cream sold from glass booths on the sidewalk), fill the cafés drinking coffee or wine, stop at the deli for a slice of pizza or just chatting along the way. The Slovenian language is spoken gently with few stresses and a lilting quality so it doesn’t carry well, there is seldom music amplified on the streets from the shops and no booming bass from the cars passing by, so the sound of the city is calm and lacking in the hysteria of so many cities.

Slovenia is a new country (1991) with an ancient history of occupation by Celtic tribes, Romans, Huns (Attila himself), Frankish, Germans (the Hapsburgs held control over Slovenian territory from the early 14th century until the end of WWI) Ottoman Turks, French, Austrian – Hungarian, Italian and the consolidated nation of Jugoslavia (which included Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia - Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia). Between 1850 and 1910, 56% of the population immigrated from peasantry and poverty to the U.S., Canada and Australia. Now that they have their own nation with it’s unique language and culture the scent of newness is in the air throughout the country. There seems to be great pride in embracing that which is new, but a meaningful respect for the old and the traditions that are unique to Slovenia as a culture.

New buildings are built in empty spaces, but old buildings are restored on the outside and gutted and modernized inside. Buildings are built to last forever. Everything is constructed with block interior and exterior with tile roofs. The walls are 9” thick and then covered inside and out with stucco. All the plumbing is imbedded in the concrete and the wiring is run though plastic cables also set in concrete. There is no wood used for construction and people can’t understand why we use such flimsy construction materials in the U.S., especially in hurricane areas. Many of the buildings in Ljubljana and throughout the entire country look like they have a new coat of paint and you see very few deserted or rundown buildings anywhere. Homes are built in phases so around the countryside you can see buildings with only the outer block shell waiting until funds are available for the next phase. The interiors are starkly modern in the buildings that have been redone, and those that have been restored are tastefully and simply recreated.

The highlight of my week was choir practice on Wednesday. Vidojka (and English teacher at Bob’s school) and Armando (a professional flute player in an orchestra in Ljubljana) picked me up at the end of our street a little past 8:00. It was dark and warm with just a kiss of fall in the air. We drove 15 min. out of town into wine country. Choir practice for Sveta Gora is held high an upper room above the garage at a vineyard. The room was created for this purpose because Vidojka’s brother-in-law is an aficionado of singing. The floor is tiled, the ceiling is beamed, the walls are lined with art, plaques and banners. A dividing wall is shelved with music and a clavinova sits center stage. There are 2 bass, 2 tenor, 3 alto and 4 soprano (including me), the conductor with a twinkle in his eye and a bellow more like an Italian that a Slovenian. Three or four of the singers are comfortable speaking some English, but Vidojka serves as my faithful translator. This small choir sings weekly for 10:00 mass on the holy mountain except during harvest season. For the next 4 weeks there will be no choir at church because it is time to harvest the grapes and make the wine that will be ready November 11 on a Saints day.

All the songs of course are sung in Slovenian and many are in manuscript form. We began with a warm-up familiar song and the sound of these volunteer singers made me gasp in amazement. There was a full richness, strong nasal pharynx resonance with no vibrato. The sound has purity, but no force, and they fall into parts with a slippery ease. I joined in, as I was able. The vowels were no problem, but at times the music moved too fast for me to remember the differences between the sound of the two different C’s, S’s, and Z’s and if the V is a [V] sound or an [U] sound. After an hour of stumbling over the sight-reading of the music and sight-reading the lyrics they closed up shop and headed to the cellar.

The cellar is a cave room created for parties with two long wooden tables paired with benches on either side, shelves of unopened wine bottles, art work and certificates framed on the walls. People gathered around talking and then the food started coming; bread, a creamy fish spread, pickled artichokes and yellow peppers, little brown patties that looked like some kind of cold meat, a pig leg on a bracket that was sliced thinly for prsut (prosciutto), cvapcici (grilled spiced ground meat rolled into little logs) and carafes of white wine filled from the barrels in the next room. The wine is mild, but not too sweet, is made on the premises and was heartily consumed. Once the eating slowed its pace, small bowls of ice cream in little melon ball shapes of 4 or 5 different poignant flavors topped with raspberry jam appeared. One of the altos, elated with the birth of her first grand child, opened a bottle of homemade champagne from her vineyard to celebrate. It had a full-bodied flavor with just the right amount of sparkle. Each course was introduced with a song – a song for the birth of the baby, a song to welcome me, a song for a birthday (in 3 languages) and a song to wish us lako noc (good night) and zbogom (go with God). These were songs that everyone knew and in this cave room the sound vibrated in every pore of my body. Is it possible that I have landed in a country where singing is like eating? And it is good in tune singing with passion and gusto with no hesitation or shyness. The tears just flowed down my cheeks – good singing, good wine, good food, lots of laughter, stories and joy – a perfect evening.

I have been going to Gorizia regularly. The distance to walk to the center of Gorizia is the same as walking to the center of Nova Gorica and I like the charm of the antique buildings more than the boxy concrete structures of Nova Gorica. Our favorite square is encircled with buildings built in the 13th and 14th centuries. Apartments are on the second and third floors and shops and cafés are on the street level. The cobblestone road follows the curve of the hill that supports the castle and people are everywhere window shopping and hanging around. We’ve spent the last 2 Friday evenings sitting on a verandah between the arches drinking regional wine, talking about the week and watching the world go by. I have found a café, for my morning cappuccino and croissant with marmalade, where I can write and read and watch from the corner table. The waitress knows what I like and although she speaks no English we are beginning to have conversation as my Italian improves. One day this week I was there alone until a group of men came for beer and chips at 10:30am.

Shopping is cheaper in Italy. Our landlord says that there are 2 distinct philosophical differences. In Italy they are willing to lower the prices to be able to sell in quantity and make a fine profit, but in Slovenia they want to sell only one item and then retire for 40 years on the money they made. Bob bought a new bike at a big box store that was about the same price at the much-used bike he found in Nova Gorica (approx. $100). Now with this bike it will be easier on his hips to get back and forth to school. He was so excited about his new means of transportation you would have thought it was a Porsche.

We are still waiting for Internet connection in the apartment. As a part of our rent Rado promised us a high-speed connection for both computers. The cables that are imbedded in the concrete must house any wiring that is added. First the computer guy came and was not able to hook up the needed cables, so the electric guy came and spent all afternoon pushing and shoving wires, adding boxes and connections, then when the computer guy came back he said that it was not done correctly, then the electric, the computer and now the telephone guy came to figure out what was happening and they couldn’t figure out why they can’t hook up the Internet downstairs and have now lost the connection upstairs too. So now the “god of all computers” will come and figure out what is wrong and hopefully we will have Internet next week (but I have been saying that for 2 weeks now).

We also got the washing machine fixed so that it doesn’t dance around the bathroom. There is a heater within the washing machine that heats the wash water to extreme temperatures. When Olda, our exchange student from the Czech Republic, lived with us he didn’t feel as if his handkerchiefs were getting sterilized because our water was not hot enough. Now I understand why. His mother must have washed them in the really hot cycle which is nearly boiling water. The clothes are looking very clean, but during the spin cycle I have to sit on the machine to keep it from sliding into the glass wall of the shower stall. Since I am washing clothes almost everyday I was getting a great massage. The clothes are hung on a drying rack in the sun. I’m not sure how things will dry during the rainy season (October and November) when they can’t be out in the sun. I guess I will figure that out when the time comes. Very few people had dryers and everyone has clothes hanging on racks on their balconies.

The weather has the qualities of the Mediterranean. The sea air from the Adriatic comes up the valley and Nova Gorica and Gorizia are the last towns in the valley to benefit from the tropical breezes. Palm trees grow here, along with passion flowers that produce fruit that resembles orange Easter eggs swinging from the vine, rosemary bushes that are used for hedges and trees and shrubs that flower in the fall. The air in town smells of rosemary, lavender and roses.To the north, up the Soca river valley, the air blows down from the mountains and the two systems meet over Nova Gorica. Depending on the airflow sometimes the air is humid and sometimes dry. They are accustomed to about 300 days of blue sky and sunshine here, but this past summer it has been unusually rainy so green spaces are very lush. It has been surprising that with all the trees in the towns and forest covered hillsides, we have seen and heard very few birds, butterflies or insects. Even in the two ancient estate gardens within walking distance of our home there are very few birds except the big gray crows wearing their black tuxedos. None of the windows have screens and I air out the apartment every morning by opening the windows wide. We’ve only had a couple of encounters with muha [flies] and no other bugs come to visit. The road kill that is so prevalent in our neighborhood in Ohio is non-existent even in the dense forests of the mountains. Bob saw an aerial photo of the area taken in 1948 and the town and the hillside were empty of trees. Our theory is that the devastation of this river valley during WWI, WWII and the need to heat homes with wood for generations eliminated the forests and the reduced the creatures living within. When people get excited about seeing a squirrel we know that they do not have much contact with wildlife, maybe we should send those fat fluffy squirrels that invade the bird feeder to Slovenia.

Week of 5 September

Bob is in regular classes at school beginning this week. He either walks 30 minutes one-way to school or he gets a ride in the morning with Rado. He is visiting the English classes and charming the students with his high energy and personal style. He received the ultimate compliment from a student who said, “You are a real teacher” as he left the classroom. All of his class work is in English and many of the teachers on staff are anxious to practice their English in conversations with him. Some of the classes start at 7:00 and are finished by 3:00. The students are free to come and go depending on their schedule and are not jailed in study halls to keep them off the streets. The cafés and park benches are bubbling with teenagers around town all day long adding a lively vitality to the center of town. Teachers too are only expected to be in school during their scheduled class time and they have no additional duties beyond their classes. There is a 25-minute break in the morning for kava and chai taken in the local café with colleagues and a full lunch that includes salad, main meal, bread and dessert served until 2:10. Bob is eating his main meal at mid-day so we can try to maintain my vegan diet at home as much as possible. A full day of 5 classes, walking back and forth to school, and trying to work his way around the Slovenian language makes for a very tiring day.

I am home during the day. Not since the first 3 months of our marriage have I chosen to be home with no schedule or commitments. When we began to plan this adventure there was no certainty that I would have work and I became excited about the possibilities for creative time. I have a book started that is an expansion of stories inspired by family photographs, I have an outline for a book for beginning voice teachers, and I have Slovenian and Italian to learn. I am taking time to meditate each day, walk around Nova Gorica and Gorizia to discover the nooks and crannies of my current home community and doing domestic penance.

At home in the U.S. I accomplished domestic chores only when I found time or when life became unbearable unless I actually broke down and did a load of laundry or cleaned the bathrooms. Fortunately Bob found domesticity a delight and I could often go weeks on end without battling with the vacuum cleaner. But here in our tiny little apartment I clean every day! Our landlord is completing the parking pad outside the apartment shoveling gravel and making his own concrete so the dust needs to be wiped away daily, the bathroom has white tile and we have dark hair, the dish rack only holds enough dishes from one meal, the washing machine is large enough to wash only 2 single bed sheets and 2 pillow cases, there is no dryer and the drying rack that I carry outside in the sun can only dry one load of clothes at a time. Considering all these conditions it is easiest to sweep the apartment every day (yes with a broom), do a load of laundry every morning in hope that the sun shines, wash dishes after every meal because the counter is so small that there is no room to cook if there are dirty dishes and go to the market daily because the refrigerator is twice the size of a small dorm fridge and the freezer is the size of 2 ice cube trays. Surprisingly being a domestic goddess has become like a Zen meditation of “opening my eyes and being present with the actual stuff of my ordinary, everyday life”.

On the weekends we hope to take discovery trips; they can be long or short, but choices to take full advantage of being with in close distance to amazing wonders on the earth. Saturday we walked through Gorizia to the Soca River (Isonzo River on the Italian side) it turned out to be a 3-hour walk through lovely neighborhoods, along the market street, in the gardens of Villa Coronini, resting along the river park and finally cooling off with gelato in front of the Duomo.

Sunday we went to Sveta Gora for a voice recital of a Slovenian soprano and baritone with organ. The church was packed with people of all ages and fashion statements quietly, attentively facing the altar in the front of the church while the performers sang from the organ balcony in the back. The concert was all sacred music of Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Lloyd Webber, and four Slovenian composers (Gruber, Mav, Ferjancic, Vodopivec). The acoustics greatly assisted the singers and made it the most perfectly wonderful place to sing, but these singers were fabulous. They both had the kind of voice I like; free, open sound with a brilliant yet rich resonance and extreme control with no tension. We were sitting in a basilica on a holy mountain listening to voices close to perfection and I had a glimpse of heaven.

Sea side

On our final day with the car we drive to Koper through Trieste and along the Italian coast. Trieste is also a city that was given to the Italians after WWII. It is a gigantic deep-water port with enormous ships waiting in line to for the harbor. The road signs in the city are in both Italian and Slovenian so we are lost in 2 languages.

It is the perfect bright blue sunny day to be on the Adriatic Sea. We walk the old city of Koper trying to absorb the amount of history under our feet and sit on the break wall to soaking up the Mediterranean sun. Our train ride home is the most spectacular ride along the coast and climbing switch backs up into the mountains. The train is crowded with high school students going to Ljubljana and Nova Gorica for school. The students make a choice after their 9th year of school as to the direction of their future education, and if the school that offers their desired direction is far from home they board in dorms during the week and return home for the weekend.

Peace

To be eligible for his work permit, Bob has to have a physical in the health facility in Ajdovscina. He boldly goes with slovar (dictionary) in hand hoping that someone speaks enough English to give him the needed tests and not misunderstand his purpose for being there. The receptionist and technicians do not speak much English, but fortunately he is able to communicate well with the woman who actually administers the physical, eye test, hearing test and draws blood. Amazingly all the test results are ready in an hour and he leaves with documents in hand that state that he has passed without waiting weeks for test results.

Because of the tests Bob is excused from classes today so we head to the mountains to Kobarid to the WWI museum. 29 months of the war were fought in the roughest, rocky, steepest hills imaginable. There were 3 million men in these hills, in caves, starving in trenches and fighting and dragging equipment in frozen conditions beginning in October. 1 million men lost their lives. The museum focuses on the individuals who were lost from Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Germany and Italy and begs the world to never again send our young men to war. I wonder if we could convince every world leader to visit this museum before sending our sons to their death, and maybe the photos of those who never saw beyond 25 years old would cause the leaders to seek harder to find a path to peace.

Italy

Today is our first visit to Italy by foot. In the morning I walk into Nova Gorica and then cross the border near the train station. This is the only free zone where there are no guards at the border crossing. On the Italian side of the border are lovely pastel colored old quality homes behind high hedges and stonewalls. This area was originally a Slovenian settlement that was lost to the Italians, but this quiet and peaceful neighborhood has no exterior indication of the struggle and animosity that has lived here for generations. I have found a café for my morning cappuccino and croissant and a protected place to write while watching my Italian neighbors go about their daily routine. Later in the day Bob and I drive together through the crossing closest to our house to visit the castle that we can see from our home, with original walls dating from the 1500’s. Like so many ancient cities the castle sits on top of the hill with narrow cobblestone streets leading up to it and from there we can see our house and all of the Gorizia valley.

Paperwork

The rotary of paperwork is in motion. Bob has a signed and sealed contract for his job and our home. The salary is livable with our rent at $450/month and no car or additional payments. But the amount on the contract is determined by the contact hours and there is the possibility of bonus payments for extra work, effective teaching, transportation and lunch. How all this is assessed is a mystery. 33% needs to be set aside for Slovenian taxes and taxes to the U.S. government also has to be paid on the money earned in Slovenia. No one seems to know for sure what is the exact path to concrete information; we are just reminded “Don’t worrrry.”

We end our day with dinner on the outside terrace at gostilna Kekec high above the city watching the night lights of Nova Gorica come alive under Mars and the setting sun.

First day as Foreign Teacher

Bob meets with all the English teachers today and tries to understand what his role is and how they intend to use him. At the moment he is scheduled to visit all the English classes as a native speaker and try to engage the students in conversation and answer their questions. The English teachers lead the first part of the meeting in English for his benefit, but apologetically switch to Slovenian so that they can speed through the necessities of the first week of school.

Martina, the European classes coordinator, begins working on our documentation papers. She takes us to the city Notary to have copies of our passports officially stamped and then we go to the police station to register. It is impossible to register as a resident of the city without a residency permit so we are currently registered as tourists for the allowed 3 months. The cyclical process of bureaucracy has us caught in a whirlpool of confusion. You can’t obtain a residency permit without a work permit and you can’t obtain a work permit without a residency permit and all of this paperwork should have been done in the U.S. with the Slovenian embassy, but they would not have issued the applications for the permits until we had proof of housing and confirmation of a job, but we needed to be in Slovenia to solidify those positions. Our heads are spinning!

While we have the car we decide to get to know the region by driving up the Soca river valley. The road hugs the vertical cliffs and follows the turquoise river clear enough that you can see the fish in the depth along the bank. On the road, not wide enough for the speed, are cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles winding and turning as if this is the Nascar-Tour de France. After lunch at a gostilna along the river we follow the hillside stations of the cross up to Sveta Gora (Holy Mountain). The legend says that a shepherdess was visited by the Virgin Mary here and was told to build a church on the highest mountain in this area. The basilica crowns the top with golden decorations, marble altars, the ceiling painted with a traditional repeated pattern, and a pipe organ and bells that can fill the valley with sound.

Our apartment

Rado Gorjup, our landlord, arranges to met us at the dorm and escort us to a meeting with the Headmaster Bojan Bratina at the school. We speak with Bojan, Martina and Rado about the details of our presence here and begin to get an idea of the depth of the beaurocratic paperwork we are wading through. Bojan seems to be a very kind and honest man willing to share his warm smile, sparkling eyes with the air of someone very much in control of himself and the school he has been charged to lead. He retains his job by vote of the community every 4 years and has served as headmaster for 14 years.

They take us to the first staff meeting to be introduced as the new English Language Foreign Teacher and his wife (this is a rare position for me to be in as an extension of Bob without a community identity of my own). The staff meeting is like every staff meeting either of us has ever attended. The seasoned male teachers are sitting in the back of the room arms linked across their chests already bored with the first day of school, the experienced teachers talk amongst themselves paying no attention to the speeches, and the new teachers are sitting quietly, attentively, properly taking notes. The room is an echo chamber made of stucco covered concrete, tile floors and large open windows that look out on the construction workers blasting holes in the exterior walls of the adjacent building. The headmaster sits in a chair at a level where no one could see his face and drones on about new policies. It is disturbing to find that staff dynamics appear to be the same in Slovenia as in the U.S.

Our apartment is in Pristava just over the hill from Nova Gorica. Fortunately a converted railroad track is the walking/bike path through the tunnel under the hill to town. It is a nice 30 minute walk to the city center. The apartment is a 2 room efficiency flat on the first floor of a lovely new 3 story cluster home. The homes are built into a hill with balconies on all levels facing west. Plants are growing in every inch of available dirt. Grapes hang on the wall just outside our door and kiwi vines growing up bamboo poles in front of our windows. Tejasa has planted vegetables in terraced rows along the side of the house and apple and fig trees are bearing fruit in the postage stamp backyard. It is typical for apartments to be rented furnished and we have a bedroom with an armoire, two twin beds pushed together for a double bed, and a desk. The bathroom has new appliances including a washing machine. The living room/kitchen has a love seat, chair, coffee table, and a brand new television. In the kitchen area there is a 2-burner gas range, single sink, counter top baking oven and a table with 3 chairs. They provide dishes, pots, pans, bedding, towels, tablecloths and even cloth napkins.

Our landlord Rado is a physical education teacher at Bob’s school. He loves languages and is thrilled to use his English. His wife Tejasa understands much of what we are saying, but is shy about using her English. Their son Niko is studying theoretical physics in Wales, Ursa is waiting to find out the results of her matura exam so she can either go to university in Ljubljana and Alijas is 12 and entertains us with his bike and skateboard in front of the house. Rado is very attentive and is helpful in ways beyond his call of duty. He has made arrangements for Bob to have his own computer in the bedroom and free Internet access for both computers.

The best part of the apartment is that I can see Italy from the kitchen windows and Bob can watch the trains go by. From the front yard we can see the castle on the hill in Gorizia that is lighted every evening for our nighttime pleasure. We are a 30-minute walk from Gorizia and the old town with winding streets, small shops, cafés and markets. Living here is the best of both of our fantasies.

I have wanted to live in Italy since my first visit. Each time I have visited it feels as if I am returning to a place that was once home. I feel like I know what is around the corner and the food, the music, the passion of the people are qualities that resonate in a unique way within me. I have lived in Italy in past lives I’m certain and now I can walk to Italy whenever I want to.

Our own grad

Our apartment is not prepared for us yet so we are staying in an empty modern dormatory for college students on the hill side over looking Sempeter. It is a tad spooky to be here all by ourselves, but we are given keys and the remote for the outside gate so it feels as if we are living in our own massive grad (castle) looking over the valley and the mountains beyond. We take this time alone to rest and drive around to familiarize ourselves with our new home city.

First day in Slovenia

Now the adventure is really going to begin. Marusa and Spela contact Headmaster Bratina and make arrangements to meet in Nova Gorica and get us settled. Nova Gorica is a city nestled in the valley of the Soca river. It was built after WWII when the border between Italy and Slovenia (then a part of Jugoslavia) was drawn along the railroad tracks and the two cities Gorizia and Nova Gorica (new Gorica) were formed. Most of the buildings in Nova Gorica were built after 1947 and the city is planned around a center shopping and businesss area with wide streets, pedestrian walkways and open grassy areas with lots of trees. The buildings are generally boxy concrete stuctures built quickly to house and serve the Slovenian people who were displaced from Gorizia. They lack the aestheic beauty that is so prevelant in other Slovenian towns, yet like everywhere in this country flowers overflow from every window and balcony. Gorizia is the home of a number of casinos that are run as shared ventures by the government and private business. The casinos draw a large number of people to town from neighboring Italy and brings vitality to a community that has almost no industrial base. Many of the city buildings and casinos dabble in modern design and it appears that the revitalization that is happening now is including some very interesting moden architecture. Bob's school is in a campus in the center of town with the elementary school, a new sport complex, and near by is the football (soccer) field next to a pool and tennis courts.

Leaving the U.S.

We lock the door of our hilltop paradise leaving all that we know and understand and set off for a year to the unknown. Bob and I have talked about living in Europe our entire life together and this dream is finally real. The feelings are sweet and sour. We are anxious to have the adventure of living in another culture, see international education from the inside and use this time to travel from the “Green Heart of Europe” to amazing cultural and environmental wonders throughout the continent, but we are leaving our family, our friends, our home and our pets. We understand all too well that the time we are away is time we are unable to share the special and important moments in the lives of our family and friends. We know that email cannot replace a hug, a smile and the sound of a voice and that makes us enormously sad, but we also know that if we are to turn our fantasy into our reality we have to leave behind the things we hold so dear and jump into the pool of risk and grab each moment of life and hug it close.

Bob received confirmation of his teaching position from the Gimnasia on the 8th of August. We have been communicating with Katja in the Ministry of Education of Slovenia since November requesting information, but receiving very few details. Finally14 days before a scheduled meeting for Foreign Teachers in Ljubljana Bob received a letter of invitation to teach at the academic high school in Nova Gorica. There was no way we could rearrange our lives in 14 days and buy tickets at a decent price, but we were willing to try to do it in 17.

Fortunately we had started to follow the paper path during the summer in hopes of a job, so many of our documents were in order. We had our FBI background check stating that we were not criminals, we had our marriage certificate so that I could stay in the country as Bob’s wife if I didn’t have a job, passports, birth certificates, proof of education, Ohio teaching certificate for Bob and the certificates from the TEFL course we took. All of these documents needed to be notarized by a lawyer with a permanent license in the state and then notarized by the Secretary of State of Ohio in the form of an apostile to indicate that we stated that these are legal documents. I don’t think it actually makes them legal documents, but it says that everyone thinks they are. We had no idea what documents we really needed because we were never given a list or guidelines.

Everyone is on vacation in July in Slovenia, so it was a difficult month of waiting until they come home from the seacoast to get a morsel of information. An official in the Slovenian embassy in Washington did tell us that before we left the U.S. we needed a signed and stamped contract indicating salary, and a residency permit, but these were not coming from Slovenia. Katja kept telling us that we would deal with the documents when we arrived and all the previous teachers have completed the paperwork after coming to Slovenia. So we decided to follow the advice of the Ministry of Education and move to Slovenia with the hope of having the correct U.S. documents with us and being able to obtain the needed Slovenian documents in Slovenia.

In 17 days we rented our house fully furnished to the parents of a former voice student, we rearranged all our financial issues, cleaned out closets, cupboards, bookshelves, stored our precious items in the basement, cleaned up the gardens, got poison ivy, found friends to adopt our pets, spent extra time with family and friends and made lists and lists and lists and packed and unpacked and repacked.

We have 6 bags in which to place all the items we need for the year. 4 bags are to be checked that could weigh 70lbs each. The carry on bags can weigh 40lbs. We chose to use space for books, music and study materials rather than many household items. I don’t know what I was going to be doing, but I am hoping to sing, teach, and work with choirs so I packed music a lot of music. We are also taking small decorative items that bring us joy to be placed around our apartment and make it feel like home. We bought a lap top computer that would serve as contact with the outside world as well as CD/ DVD player and a printer. These items go in the carryon bags for obvious reasons, but we had to buy a carryon bag that would fit the printer and stay within the baggage limits.

After a tearful addio with Aaron and Elle we try to drag our 6 bags to the check in counter. Carts in the Cleveland airport cost 2 dollars, but that is only possible if you have 2 single dollar bills in your wallet (we had euros and tolars, but no small dollar bills). You cannot leave your bags unattended, but carrying 6 bags with only four hands is close to impossible, yet possible with the kind help of other passengers (don’t tell). We weighed and reweighed our bags on our bathroom scale at home, but miraculously 2 of the bags had put on weight during the trip to the airport and now weighed in at 75 and 72 lbs. and the carryon weighed 46lbs. Since this was an international flight we are not able to pay for extra weight. So in front of the Continental counter and in plain view of God and country we open our bags and shuffle, weigh and reshuffle until all the bags come under limit. Farewell Western Civilizations book, hand mixer (only kitchen appliance we brought) and Bob’s study notes from his TEFL class, we hope that the airport cleaning crew is enjoying smoothies and dense reading. Once on the plane we breathe deeply for the first time in 3 weeks. The giggles explode from deep inside us. We are on our way!!

The plane to Newark is completely full. There is an air of anxiousness around us, and a number of families with multiple small children sitting near by. We are frozen at the gate for an hour due to overcrowding at Newark. As the plane steams up, the toddlers and babies lift their voices speaking the objection of us all for the heat, the delay and the pressing of too many people in spaces that are too close. We are truly amazed with the great words of effective parenting in the row behind us, “If you don’t stop I’m going to tie you up and put you in the baggage carrier”.

The flight finally begins an hour late with a cheer from the passengers, but we had a sinking sense that the words of a psychic Kelly were only too true, “You can go this year, but it will be like swimming up stream.” So far she was right.

It is a glittering day. As we circle and circle waiting to land at Newark we can see the hills in PA rolled out like bread dough laid on a sheet for baking, the flat marble grave stones in a cemetery reflecting the sun like mirrors of the dead, and the buildings of Manhattan rising above a halo of beige, gray and pinkish layered clouds of devilish poison.

When we finally disembark we have15 minutes to run from gate 84 to 182. Through the food court catching a whiff of American cuisine, hamburgers, popcorn, and French fries, weaving past a man straddling a toddler, past an Asian family each with a camera swaying back and forth and a gaggle of teenage girls with ponytails and pink flowing together like a blob on the moving sidewalk. Bob is still healing from hip replacement surgery so I run ahead going as fast as I can dragging my 40lb carryon bag and hoping that I get to the gate in time and they will wait for Bob. We arrive in time to take one deep breath, collapse in our seats and be amazed by our cross-country athletic abilities.

Again the flight is completely full and this plane seems to be more crowded than others we have traveled on. The seats are so close that the movie screen is 12” from my nose and I need to wear my reading glasses to watch a movie, but I can’t wind my way around the remote to find anything interesting to watch, I can’t figure out how to turn it off, so I darkened the screen and sleep as peaceful as a baby on a cloud.

We have only 3 hours to make our transfer in Gatwick airport in London. In a perfect world this should be enough time, but we are concerned that the recent subway bombings would cause heighten security to be slow and detailed. We pick up our luggage and place it on a free squeaky pushcart with crooked wheels. No one checks our luggage tags; they casually glance at our passports, want to know nothing about us and send us on our way. A piece of cake.

After winding and squeaking around the maze of corridors at Gatwick we find the Aviance desk, our tickets are waiting for us and we become confident that the upstream swim is over. At the Adria ticket booth our checked bags squeeze under the weight limit, but my carryon is 17kg and needs to be only 8kg. We can ship the bag, but we have no address yet in Slovenia, all the breakable items are in this case and it is going to cost almost $200. So I delicately sit cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the airport and try to decide how to unload some of the weight. Each little breakable memento is carefully wrapped in my colorful underwear and I unceremoniously unwrap each item to see what is disposable and then rewrap each deciding that I can’t part with any of them. Thankfully two women from Qatar airlines in their caps and beautiful suits show us where there is a scale and a table to sort our things without waving my privates for all to see. It turns out that the carryon bag is half the weight and if we unload the bag and the printer we can take the rest of the items. We asked an Adria employee who was passing by if she wants a brand new printer, a much used small tape recorder and a brand new suitcase to carry them in. She is delighted and takes off with our over weight items. We double bag the plastic bags they provide, loaded our precious things into the bags and finish the trip like a hobo with a sack slung over my back.

Our flight is delayed again because of increased air traffic, but we have no more connections to worry about and no schedule to keep. I put my ear plugs in and sleep the entire flight missing London, the White Cliffs of Dover and the mountains, but I am finally able to shut down after 3 weeks of lists and deadlines constantly running through my head.

Flying into the Ljubljana airport is a step back in time. The airport is small with few planes and the passengers are unloaded from the planes on stairs rolled out on the runway. It is raining when we land, and we walk out of the plane into the fresh smell of pine forest, coal burning and manure being spread on a near by field. All our bags arrive safely and the only bag that had been inspected in the U.S. was the bag that has the small tool kit, and the appliance converters. I have to remember the next time again to put all the questionable items in the same bag and on the top so only one bag is opened. There is no security, no one looks at our passports or asks us questions they just welcome us with Dobrodosli.

Bob's distant cousinMarusa and her daughter Spela are waiting for us as we exit the airport. To use the Slovenian phrase 'it was like a rock falling off our hearts' to see their smiling faces. We are overjoyed to tears to have these lovely family members who speak the language there to help us through the first interactions in Slovenia. We are way too tired to remember any of the language we have learned and Spela is a wonderful translator.

The red Fiat that Bob arranged on the internet is waiting for us, and all our bags fill up the hatchback of his cute little compact car. The airport and the access road to the airport speak ofsome of the differences between the culture of Slovenia and the U.S. They have an airport with regular flights connecting to everywhere in the world, and the service is functional but basic. You have to walk outside to get out of the plane, you have to walk outside to go to the car rental place and the windows in both places are wide open to the fresh air.The airport access is a 2 lane road typical of an American rural road. It is lined with tall pine trees on both sides with no businesses, hotels or fast food restaurants. It serves the purpose, but without the hype and comfort that surround so many U.S. services.

We follow Marusa to a gostilna for the most lucious mushroom soup with a flavor fresh from the earth and then to a B&B in Logatec. They tuck us in bed and we sleep peacefully until the morning missing the bells ringing from the church on the hill.