If you are connected to me on Facebook, you may have noticed that Ron turned 74 years young on July 1, 2012. However, he was in the US at the time, so yesterday, I had a small birthday celebration for him with a most delicious ice cream cake.
Generally, it is difficult to have Hungarian folks at our parties; they always have a dozen other things on their agendas. Our friend Anna was taking her family to spend the weekend with her brother. Laszlo is generally at his house in the country on weekends. Balazs and Edit were visiting her parents in another city. We were fortunate to have some former Fulbrighters who have not left the country yet, come grace us with their presence. We were able to include a new friend as well, so the seven of us talked for hours that felt like minutes. It was a delightful afternoon and evening enjoyed by all.
The cake was a raspberry and dark chocolate combo that was well worth the price. So this was another happy birthday for Ron.
When we first moved here, I noticed this word all around the city. I thought either this is a great city for gays or they are purposefully being derogatory and posting it on a tremendous number of buildings, signs, and in store fronts. It was so close to fag, faggy, faggot, there had to be a relation.
Still, I cannot look at this word without smiling at my preconceived notions. This is another lick-able, likeable treat that also comes in a number of colors and flavors. It is ice cream.
For those who are not from the US, first a quick lesson. Ben and Jerry were two old hippies who decided to change the way business worked. They created their business in Vermont, using fresh products from local producers and farmers. They paid fair wages and had a standard on the ratio between their salary and the lowest paid worker, which would make any CEO laugh to death today. Another words, they built their business model on what they believed in: ethics, fairness, and customer service. These are traits we didn't often see in business when they started nor do we see them now.
If this law is passed in Britain, they may have to make one called Apple-ly Ever After with my Chubby Hubby who really supported Ben & Jerry with his purchases.
This teaser is from the LA Times. You can read the full article here.
Ben & Jerry's wants gays to live "apple-y ever after" in Britain.
As the British Parliament starts debating legalizing gay marriage this week, the British arm of the American ice cream company has changed the name of its apple pie flavor to Apple-y Ever After. The carton, which is available only in select stores in Britain, has a picture of two men in tuxedos standing on top of a wedding cake.
The breakfast room was hopping this morning, by eight o’clock, it was full to capacity. Nine tables filled with guests, trying to get back and forth to the nourishment table, while scooting around those still seated.
We decided to take the only tram in the city, for a ride, needing only one ticket each way, for a euro each, it was a bargain. Walking the streets to get to the starting point, we noticed more stores were open today, but still plenty of them are closed yet. The tram runs every twenty minutes. Climb aboard and validate your ticket, take a seat on one of the wooden seats and don’t try to open the window. It is supposedly air conditioned, but it isn’t really, so some did try pulling down the stubborn top portion of the window to let some air in. Our goal was to take the tram to then end of the line, which is another town, Opicina.
Ascending in altitude, the panorama view became increasingly interesting with glimpses of the water. There was supposed to be the best view from the obelisk stop, one stop before the end. We thought we would stop off there on the way back. Opicina is a small village with basically one street of businesses, not much on the side streets. It is close to the Slovenia border, so many signs are in both languages. Wandering down the main street, we eventually found a restaurant and stopped for a plate of pasta. The elder owner must have a case of OCD. He put all unused chairs at 45 degree angles to the tables they were at. We were waiting for him to come rearrange our seats too. I had made a decision, not to pass up any opportunity for Italian treats. The pasta with Bolognese sauce was different from what I am used to with a minced meat clump plopped on top of the spaghetti, but tasty nevertheless.
After lunch, we started back to the tram and arrived just as it did. Riding down one stop, we disembarked at the obelisk to check out the view for ourselves. The land was artificially reforested by the Austrians in the late 1800s; there are walking trails, but not much else. Our tram tickets are only good for 60 minutes, so if we waited longer, we would have to buy new ones, but there was no machine to get them at. When the next tram arrived, we jumped on to get back to Trieste city center.
As we returned, we noticed that all of the stores that were open when we left earlier, were now closed. It seems that those that are open in August, close from 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm and then reopen until 8:00 pm. The town was empty. There were not even many cars driving through, so we took this opportunity to return for a nap, but stopped for an ice cream on the way. I am working on my ice cream and pasta quotas.
After our rest stop, we went window stopping, but there really is nothing new and different. Thanks to globalization, you can find the same or very similar things all over the world.We went to a bar called The Tea Room for a popular local drink of white wine, sparkling water, and a shot of Campari. It is wonderfully refreshing on a hot day, but this evening the Boer winds were coming in fast and furious, necessitating a jacket for we tourists, while the locals were still in their shorts and short sleeved shirts.
We did our evening stroll on the waterfront to watch the sun, and then went to a pizzeria called the Copacabana. The place is huge and can easily seat 200 outside and just as many inside. We sat on the terrace, where every table was soon filled. The menu was only in Italian, but I discovered a pizza with roast beef called Stregata. I known strega is witch, so I went for it. It had a white crème sauce, mozzarella cheese, cooked kale, and was smothered in slices of roast beef. I am not certain how to say heavenly in Italian, but it was a gastronomic orgasm. Ron had cheese and pepperoni.
Plans for tomorrow are to visit another castle and then in the opposite direction, go to the only place in Italy where they had a Holocaust prison camp, complete with a crematorium. We will see if we are emotionally up for it when the time comes. Funny, when we arrived, we were not sure we would be able to fill our time here. Having so many things closed has made it interesting, but we are finding things to do without needing to rush here and there, making it utterly relaxing.
One thing I have noticed is that there are no WiFi cafés or marked hotspots and there are no Internet cafés. We have covered a great deal of the city by foot, since there has not been much else to do, so if they existed, we should have spotted them.
Another observation is that the Italians, I am guessing these are locals or Italian tourists, always dress nicely. You do not see many, not even the teens dressed in raggy clothes or even mismatched outfits. They all look like they are going to be someone’s guest and have dressed accordingly. It has fascinated me how many men wear sandals of all types, while women wear sandals, and a good number of them wear heels.
Also, the city is CLEAN. There is no litter and relatively little graffiti anywhere.
The super efficient airport shuttle not only deposited us at the airport on time, but with plenty of time to spare. Our flight was due to leave at 10:30 and we were there by 8:00. Going through security was speedy and efficient, but we found ourselves immediately in the shopping area for duty free. There was no Passport Control to go through now that Hungary is part of the Schengren Agreement.
SkyEurope had us boarded and ready to go within minutes, though they had a flight come in from Trieste at 10:00. We arrived at our destination after 1 hour and 10 minutes. The airport is tiny, so there is no fear of getting lost. We bought bus tickets into town at the tourism office for 3.10 each and walked over to bus 51 to stow our suitcase.
More than once, I had a thought of “that is interesting, we should come back there to see that mosaic” or “an open café , we should check it out”, but the bus kept going and going. The other thought I had was, "Are we on the correct bus?" We have been known to get on the wrong trains and buses at times. While taking one hour to get into town, all of those places are closer to the airport than they are to Trieste. Let’s review - It took one hour-10 minutes to fly here; it took one hour to get from the airport.
Our hotel, is one whole floor of a building, there are three such hotels within one building. It was an easy 10 minute walk from the bus station. The room is extra large, but with a shared bathroom. This is not a problem as there are three of them, two equipped with showers. They were reviewed by Frommer’s in 2003, but has not been seen since with gives me pause.
After dumping our things, we walked around the city, noticing not much was open, but being Sunday, we did not think about it. The reception at the hotel suggested going closer to the waterfront to find a restaurant, or perhaps around the major square. There were a few open there, but not too crowded. Is this what Sundays are like? As often as we have been in Italy, I am not sure we have been here too many Sundays before.
Just a short walk from the hotel, we ran into the stature of James Joyce. Joyce had lived here twice during his life. First he lived here from 1904 to 1915, and then again from 1919 to 1920 when he finished TheDubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
The major square the Piazza Unita d’Italia is an umph experience with stunning architecture on three sides. Built in 1870, to the left is the Palazzo de Governo, Palazzo Stratti, Palazzo Modelo, the Town Hall, Palazzo Pitteri, and the Lloyd Triestion Palazzo. All of this overlooks the sea.
At the waterfront, people were milling up and down the cement walkway again certifying Europeans as strollers. As families, as couples, as groups of friends, people were walking up and down the walkway, taking in the soothing view of the Gulf of Trieste. Still, it was not crowded as one would expect for the end of summer. When we rode in on the bus, we noticed a number of people sunbathing on a concrete platform along the sea. Only one or two people were actually in the water at any given beach. There is not a beach to speak of, mostly rocks you climb down into the water. It certainly is not inducing to sunbathe if you cannot easily go for a dip to cool off, but the Italians are sunworshippers. I know from family history.
We by chance decided on a restaurant where the waitress working was from California up until nine years ago, she lives here now. She suggested we go to a bar “where there are other people like you”. We were not quite sure what that meant. What kind of people? We had just told her we lived in Hungary, where there other ex-pats living in Hungary there? Where there other Americans as bar guest? She once again reiterated that there would be people we would like at this particular bar and than added there are lots of "those" types of bars around the city. Interesting. She discovered all this from two orders of eggplant Parmesan and a few questions about where the best pastry shop in town happened to be. By the way, the eggplant was good, but the sauce needed to cook more. Even Ron, a non-Italian could tell it was not ready yet. As it turned out the pastry shop was the most highly rated by the tourism board as being historic, but it is closed for the month of August.
We gave in to our early hour start of the day, and went back for a nap. We had to get rid of that jet lag from that hour long flight. Within minutes, I was out and stayed out for three hours. After I revived from that drugged feeling I get when I oversleep, we took off to explore the city on a Sunday night.
After wandering for an hour, looking at menus, we decided on one for pizzas. I had the thrill of years when I found a pizza with sausage, sweet peppers, cheese, and tomatoes. The highlight was the sausage, though not enough, it was real Italian sausage, something I had been hunting for the last four trips to different Italian cities and have not found. The peppers were sweet peppers like I have grown accustomed to in the US, but never find in Hungary.
Ice cream, an Italian tradition, is not to be by-passed. As we were wandering back to the hotel, we by chance passed a large parlor of frozen delights. The pistachio screamed out to me and then there was this other flavor bufala, which was intriguing. I had both in a cup. Pistachios were more abundant than the ice cream itself, but I did not complain.
My mission this trip is not to leave with any regrets. It will be tough, but I will have to have ice cream, pasta, and pizza as often as possible.
We could not find any WiFi cafes or Internet cafes in the city. At the hotel, the young crew did not know of any either. What gives Italy?
I was born in Long Branch, NJ on the Jersey shore and lived there until I was a junior in high school. From there, I moved to New Lothrop, Michigan to finish my last two years of high school. I returned to Michigan for one disasterous semester of college, but moved to Florida. I have owned a restaurant in PA, drove taxi in Jamestown, NY, and lived in Philadelphia before CA. I have a BA in Psychology/Sociology from Thomas A. Edison State College, a MSW (Temple University), and my Ed.D. from the University of San Francisco.
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