GypsyDog

with the sound of panting … it’s me.  Trying to make it up the long, steepish hills around here on my bicycle.  But yesterday – May Day – Willi, our host finished repairing an electrical assist bike and I’M IN LOVE.  This bicycle is so sweet!  You still have to peddle but it’s like having someone hand you the end of a rope tow – up you go – barely breaking a sweat.  It’s been raining a lot here the last two weeks and there is promise of more, much more, to come but I’m thinking I can hold an umbrella over my head or just buy a raincoat already.  This thing is too much fun to miss.

I walked down to the market this morning, about 5 kms there and back, just to prove that now that I had access to battery power I wouldn’t become lazy.  Anyway, if I bike I miss looking at all the schneken along the path.  I’ve got this theory that slugs are homeless snails and that the yellowish snails are hippies and the largish beigeish ones are staid and practical snails, just trying to get along here.  On the way back from shopping I stopped and talked to the woman who made this garden. She was outside with a barn coat, gloves and a tin can, walking around the vegetable patch picking off the caterpillars. They eat her vegetables but she didn’t want to harm them because they would eventually turn into butterflies.  And yes, the whole conversation was in German.  I may have missed some of the particulars but I got the gist.  My German is getting better though once I answer a single question correctly the native speakers take off and I have to ask them to slow down. The Germans are extremely tolerant of non-native speakers which makes it easier to bump along and practice.

We’re in a little studio apartment – a bedroom with a separate bath and kitchen.  While we are doing fine the rainy cold weather is complicating things as the two of us in one room all day – well, let’s just say it’s a bit touch and go.

Our room is right above those first barn doors from the left.

We make small excursions – places we can get to by bus.  Today though, we may bike down to Willhelmsdorf (if the rain stops long enough) just to go out of the house.  And to replace the exploded cutting board.  But that’s another story for another time.  Maybe.

We left Rovinj

on Wednesday at 5:15 in the morning.  Dark, cool, with the sound of the ocean in the background.  Our host, Millevoj gave us  a lift to Porec to catch the bus to Ljbjlana. As we crossed the border my stomach began to hurt and my palms got a little sweaty.  We were waved through at both borders by simply semaphoring from the back of the bus with our passports.  So much for our fine.

Two days in Ljbjlana was perfect.  Walking, exploring, enjoying the beautiful city

And as usual there was wine to enjoy.

And an incredible, painterly view from the train

And now we are in Illmensee, in southern Germany.  It’s a beautiful little town – once more at the back of beyond but this time there is transportation and lots and lots of green.  We set feet to the ground and began working the visa issue right away – and that is yet another story in the making.

If you’re feeling sad, blue, sorry for yourself – go to Ljubljana (the spelling is under discussion) but it’s in Slovenia – go downtown across the river find  and sit at an outside table at a place called Jaznu na plac.  If it’s raining feel even more sorry for yourself – but still sit outside.  Smoke cigarettes (Gauloise, Players, some foul European brand that smells like burning horse hair) order wine – I say red, R says white.  Order two glasses.  Then order the pasta with cheese or the vegetable stew.  Become giddy as you eat (you’ll wait a bit before it arrives) because it is like being in Nona’s arms.  Both dishes are creamy and rich without being cloying – they seem to be what macaroni and cheese and potato soup were before they became as we know them at home.  And then eat the little piece of cake they give you – just because you stopped to eat at their restaurant.  Order another glass of wine.  Sit there – in the rain, in the wind, in the cold.  But sit there.  It is beyond comfort moving into the world of bliss.

We’ve been getting ready to leave Rovinj.  R, in a burst of nostalgia for our first week took us on a bicycle route five miles around the city to get to a place that is ten minutes away.  But once there (traffic dangers and gravel roads aside) we found olive groves and vineyards, abandoned churches from the 11th century, wobbly big bumble bees looking for spring flowers and the loveliest quiet.  Well worth the trip.

I know it must seem as if we’ve been on vacation all along but we have been living frugally. Mostly eating at home, being careful about the day to day expenses.  And since it seemed we had both lost our concentration a bit after The Border Affair we decided to be tourists for this last week.  We took a ferry ride around the islands getting to see Rovinj from a different perspective.  No matter which way you look at it  – its a beautiful place.

A lighthouse that we could only see from the ferry

There’s been a Red Bull Fly In going on since yesterday afternoon.  The air is filled with the buzzing sounds of small planes.  The wharf now has food carts strung along its edge and all of the restaurants on the square are open; waiters standing at the ready, encouraging people to step in for lunch, dinner, dessert, coffee – you get the picture.  There were supposed to be 80,000 – 100,000 people here for the event – hotel rooms filled, streets packed.  There’s a band stand set up on the square.  We’ve promised ourselves to take a walk down tonight and see what’s up though we could just faintly hear it from the new apartment on Centener.

The rocky shore – though the sea has been mostly calm.

We’ve worked out how to get to Germany from here – with a two day stop in Ljbijana followed by a train ride to Ravensburg.  I’m looking forward to the trip and to a little more ease with the language.  I’m afraid the only Croatian I’ve managed are the very basic of basics, rather like a two year old.  Dog, good, bad, please, thank you, a continental shrug of the shoulders which means I don’t understand and lastly, a fairly good imitation of an owl like bird called a Cuk.

One of many beautiful sunsets

I’m not in jail.  Neither is R.  We were fined – a whopping $800.00.  Our credit card didn’t go through the first time.  I began to plan where I would sleep at the police station because I’d already decided that I wasn’t leaving town without my passport.  Second pass, whoosh, from our pocket to theirs.  I let out a cheer and the young male officer (who once I realized reminded me of Joey Howell, a police officer in Kentucky, R’s oldest grandson and also a very, very, sweet and funny young man) I became less nervous.  Got him to crack a smile with my pleasure at increasing the GNP of Croatia.  Ivana, the 18 year veteran who was helping us out got a kick out of it as well.  I thanked them all with a dozen doughnuts, chocolate bunnies and handshakes (some of which is true).

We’ve got an extended visa – good for 20 more days. Since our plan and our tickets to Germany are for the 16th I think we’ll be okay as long as we stay out of bar fights, don’t indulge in public drunkenness, avoid littering, pay our cafe bill with small change and continue to impress the natives with our scintillating wit (such as it may be).

By the way, I loved the advice from all of you.  True to type some was practical, some was heartfelt offerings of support and some pointed out what a bunch of nitwits we can be.  Thanks.

Our weekend in Slovenia is the most expensive non-trip I think I’ve ever taken.  But we are ticking the lessons learned.  Don’t trust anecdotal information about government related rules, in other words – read for yourself twice, pay once.  Stay calm, be curious rather than defensive.  Assume you are correct and be surprised that anyone would think otherwise.  Be polite.  Enjoy yourself – it’s the only possible way to get through it without making yourself and others sick.

So, once again, thank your for your advice, thoughts and caring.  I didn’t realize quite how dire the earlier blog might sound to some of you – while it was  a little nerve wracking – it was okay.

I’m sure you’ve gotten those e-mails that attempt to wring money out of you with a sob story about appendicitis, stolen passports, lost luggage.  And I bet that you took a moment to run through your memory to see if your  child/nephew/niece/any relative had a scheduled trip to foreign shores and I bet you thought, “What if this is real?”

Well, this isn’t one of those.  We aren’t in a Slovenian or Croatian prison.  We haven’t been deported … yet.  We have enough money and a place to sleep, but oof!  My worst nightmare.  We had a scheduled trip to Ljbjiana this weekend.  At the border (after my usual nervousness about approaching border patrol) we hand in our passports and … we wait.  Then we wait some more.  Then we are asked to pull over to the side.  Then I’m glad I didn’t eat too much at breakfast.  And we wait some more.

After two hours or so it is determined that we are illegal.  Our passports are confiscated and we are given orders to return to the police station in  Buje tomorrow morning at 8:30 at which point we will be told our status.  Lots of conversation ensued on the way back to Rovinj (without our passports, which I’ve got to say caused me some difficulty) about Plan A, Plan B and who could we call for help.

I’ve been packing for our move to the other apartment for the last two weeks of our stay anyway so we were 90% packed.  I’ve ditched all I can,  just in case they make me walk across the border and I have sewing thread and a needle if I have to keep my liquid assets safe while being questioned.   I’ve already  arranged for the rental car to be picked up in Buje in case we don’t come back.  I can’t think what else I could do.  Beyond that I’ll let you know.

Oh, and while you think about passport control – think also about what happens to the Rovinj cats in the summer.  More to come.

It’s like mushrooms are growing around here.  Every morning we take inventory of how many cafes, restaurants or gellato stands have opened since the day before.  First the chairs and tables appear then the umbrellas, followed soon by people occupying the seats.  The streets are more crowded and we now have to order our rotisserie chicken the day before – a fair inconvenience to us but you know, The Season.

The Season is getting a kick start this year from what I understand.  On April 12th and 13th there’s going to be a Red Bull fly in.  One hundred thousand people are expected. Cafe owners, landlords, shop keepers are all working frantically to bring their places up to snuff a month earlier than normal.  We offered to move to another apartment that is outside of old town so that our landlord can rent this one for that weekend.  It isn’t only altruism that motivates us.  It’s going to be noisy down here.  And crowded.  And oh, did I mention noisy?  So when we get back from Lubijana on Monday we will throw our stuff into the rental car and haul it up the hill.

We’ve heard some practice planes flying the course already.  They sound like big angry bees.  Big bees.  If one were the nervous type one might expect nasty things to fall from their insides if one didn’t know better.  I’m trying not to graphically imagine people flying these little bombers after a couple of cans of Red Bull.  I’m hoping to view the race from a bit further away than the ideal.

We are beginning to make plans for Germany.  We really have chosen to be in the back of beyond so leaving here requires either two bus rides and a train ride to Munich followed by another trade ride to Ravensbug, or a bus ride to Slovenia followed by another bus ride, a train ride and then, well you get the picture.  But the back of beyond is a lovely place to be … once  you’re there

right outside our front door

I knew something was up last Saturday when I saw people carrying single roses and carnations wrapped in cellophane – kind of like those cheesy gas station check out flowers, but prettier.  It was a beautiful day – sunny, no clouds.   Lots of people on the square, lots of women having coffee, dads with their kids.  Lovely. But I didn’t know what the celebration was about.  I kept trying to figure it out with my very limited knowledge of the Catholic calendar.  Not Easter, not Good Friday, maybe Lent? The secret was revealed Saturday night.

We go to the movies pretty regularly.  I’ve seen new U.S. releases sub-titled in Croatian (the down side being that if there is a second language spoken in the film, like Elvish or Russian – it’s subtitled in Croatian, too – meaning I miss some important clues).  The movie theatre – Gandusio Cinema – is an old opera house that seats about 300.  There’s a balcony that becomes blisteringly hot during a film and it’s the best place to sit because the main floor can be cold  and drafty.  I think the only time I saw more than a handful of people there was for The Hobbit – and that was lots of naughty little boys in the balcony becoming bored and tearing around the theatre.  It was kind of fun.

On Saturday we saw Philomena with Judy Dench who could be changing her shoes and I’d watch.  As we made our way up the stairs there was a lovely young woman dressed formally with a black cape and carrying a basket.  She was accompanied by two young girls, also dressed Sunday best, who stood shyly with her. The basket was filled with little origami pods that had quotes from movies pertaining to women in Croatian and English sticking out on slim pieces of white paper, like a fortune cookie.  She told us, in lovely English, that it was International Women’s Day and this was part of the celebration.  Aha! The cellophane wrapped flowers.

The elegant basket wielder introduced the movie and said something that the other audience members reacted to with smiles and applause.  The young girls sweetly handed out white envelopes with two free tickets to the cinema – and charmingly told us in excellent English what was going on.  I don’t know why I was so touched by this – perhaps the young girls getting experience at being graceful in new situations, or the sheer sweetness of their using English with us, or realizing the effort that went into the folding of all those ribbon pods and typed quotes – so many more than there were movie goers – but it did touch me in the way that unexpected kindnesses do and of which there seems to have been so many on this adventure.

I woke up with a cold last night.  Sore throat, aching head, general malaise. I like the sympathy but hate being sick.  Alas, there’s no way around it at this point so I suppose I’ll have to pull up my drawers and get on with life.

Rachel’s visit was great! We did our usual site seeing tour – in the rain, went swimming a few times at the pool, saw a movie at Kino Gandusio – our local movie house, dipped her toes in the Adriatic, took lots of walks, did some good cooking at home, and spent an overnight in Zagreb before she went back to the U.S.  The overnight was lovely and Zagreb is a beautiful city.  While there, I felt a tug to be somewhere a bit more, hmmmm, bustling perhaps, than Rovinj.  But yesterday we met our friend Alex on the square for coffee and the pleasure of sitting on the square reminded me how nice quiet can be.

Only 8 weeks left before my first draft needs to be finished.  I think I’ve squeezed my way through that last sticky part and I’ve got a plan for this week but it is work … like brick laying or digging trenches.  I remember how annoyed I used to get when I told someone that I taught dance at the University and they’d say, “That must be fun”, as if the work of teaching dance was no more than flitting about the studio  asking young people to grow like flowers.  It was hard work and so is writing.  One of the hardest things to overcome is the little voice that says you don’t know what you are doing, this sucks, why bother, what are the rewards – you’ll never sell, be read, be appreciated, etc. etc. etc.  It’s that whole critic thing.  I’ve come up with a few tricks to silence the little bugger – sometimes I wear a hat while writing just to keep my head in place, other times I talk to the critic – yes, out loud, telling her that it’s too bad her childhood had been so awful and that she had to take it out on me.  Sometimes I eat Nutella – oh wait, that doesn’t keep the critic down – but it helps me a little.

So this week is slogging through the middle part – trying not to let myself be distracted by things that won’t help me to complete the task.  And getting rid of my cold.

I think my husband has staged an intervention.  Not one of those you see on t.v. where some hapless, drug dependent individual arrives home or to what they think is a surprise birthday party, drug of choice tucked into their tote bag, to find family and friends arrayed around the room looking dire.

It isn’t drugs or alcohol that moved hims to this daring act.  It’s the fact that I’ve gotten myself into a great muddle over this novel I’m writing and I can’t figure out how to get out or go forward or unwind it to a sensible point.  I did after many a false start  manage to kill someone off, get someone else bonked on the head and create a bit of drama around a young woman in a bad relationship but somewhere in there I lost the thread and simply couldn’t go on.  I sat in front of my computer for hours on end, trolled the internet for great plot ideas, watched a few too many reality t.v. shoes on youtube (now that could cause a brain implosion) and finally after a week of this I simply began to finger stomp on my keyboard and let one of the characters loose in an uncharacteristic way.  That at least unstopped the bottle though I don’t know if that scene will stay in the book .  But if it’s not written it can’t be edited … and so on.

One of the reasons why we decided to live abroad this year was R’s feeling that new vistas feed his writing and creativity.  And I’m usually game for an adventure.  This time we’ve carved out would feel wasted if I didn’t force my way to the end of a book so that I could write in good faith – The End.  I’ve started so many stories and left them abandoned in the virtual back drawer of my computer.  I have this feeling that if I complete one – good or not (and I don’t think it’s up to me to even judge at this point) I’ll be able to complete the next one and the next one and so on.  So … even though you sitting in my living room looking grim, ready to help whisk me off to rehab I very much appreciate the encouraging words, virtual hugs of support and willingness to take the time to give me a push toward where I want to go.

Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch.

Lili St. Crow