This n’ That

This morning, I received a message from New Orleans friend, Lyle Breaux, that he was on his way to Europe, Paris to be exact. After a week there, Lyle will take an overnight sleeper from Paris to Salzburg, where he will transfer to a train to Ljubljana. I'll meet him there.

That's a week away. In the meantime, I'm spending the weekend with Alexandra, in Budapest. She is taking a class to add a certificate to her résumé as a personal trainer. I'm so proud of her, for her initiative and energy. It's nice to be 23. (Beni won't be able to join us this weekend, as he has badly sprained his ankle during a practice. He's better off on the couch at home; he'll have an MRI tomorrow. Good luck, Beni!)

As for me, I want to do some shopping, as well as revel in the Big City. Although Covid is still around, will no doubt always be around from now on, the city has dropped all restrictions. I'm due for another booster shot, so I hope to get through the weekend without catching the koronavirus, and take my medicine next week, before heading off to Slovenia.

Also, we hope to catch Cameron and his team in an exhibition game in Budapest. Once again, Cam will lead the Hungarian National Volleyball Team in competition around Europe over the summer. You go, my man!

Frankie Flowers

It is possible that Franz Liszt may be the most famous Hungarian of them all, even greater than Tony Curtis or Zsa Zsa Gabor. He was a composer, pianist and teacher during the Romantic Era. Liszt gained renown in Europe of the early nineteenth century for his skill as a virtuoso pianist.

While reading up on Herr Liszt, it dawned on me, with my pitiable language skills, that his name in English would be 'Frankie Flowers(!).' If that doesn't sound like a character from The Sopranos or Goodfellas, I don't know what does.

But I like it.

More Travels; More Vagus

After two years of Covid restrictions, I have been ready to 'move about the cabin,' for a while now. So when New Orleans friend, Pat Manning, contacted me, asking if I wanted to meet her in Italy, I was all over it. Patty was spending a week with friends in Florence, and suggested my joining her in Venice; I countered with Trieste, since I wasn't sure Venice wouldn't be over-run with tourista; it's become so bad, that the gov't has instituted a daily fee to enter the city. 

Trieste, meanwhile, is one of many destinations I have wanted to visit, and our friend, Sabine, speaks highly of this port city that sits close by her home in Slovenia. Patty agreed; Sabine even talked about joining us for a day. As mentioned in the previous post, we found plenty to do, and now that I'm home, I'm making plans for another trip, most likely solo.

The architecture of Trieste reminds me of Budapest & Vienna. This isn't so surprising, once I did a little 'googling;' during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Trieste was the main port of the sovereign territory. Even today, it is the deep water harbor for landlocked Hungary. So many of the buildings in Trieste were built during the belle epoch, just like Budapest.

Following our four days of exploring, we headed for Lake Bled in Slovenia, where we met up with Sabine, who owns a Bed n' Breakfast in the farmhouse her mother was born in. It's very cute, with plenty of Slovene country touches that reminded me of Mammaw Keen. While Pat & I were there, Sabine's aunt & uncle, Marta & Gerhard, were visiting from Switzerland. Marta is Sabine's mother's little sister; there is also an older brother, an uncle, who lives nearby and every morning would bring Sabine fresh eggs for our breakfast(!). Very sweet, very country, very good!

Pat & I spent a few days in the capital, Ljubljana. The weather did not always cooperate, but it did not slow us down. In the middle of our stay, I took the train & bus up to another lake, Bohinjsko, to check out the scene; in two weeks, I'll be joined by another New Orleanian, Lyle Breaux, and we plan to hike in the mountains behind Sabine's small town, called locally, the Julian Alps. As you might imagine, if you haven't seen the Alps, that they are drop-dead gorgeous, and I can't wait to try out the overnight hut-system created for exploring the mountains in style. More on that later. 

Trieste

Trieste, Italy Saturday, May 21st 25°C/84.5°F Light breeze off the Adriatic

After spending two nights in Zagreb, I headed to Ljubljana on Thursday, where I spent one night, before taking the bus down to Trieste. I stopped in Ljubljana, because it has been two years of waiting while Covid took over our lives, and I wanted to see what had changed since my last visit. In a word: plenty. Lots of closed storefronts; my favorite little café, gone. On the bright side, I took a gamble on another little café, Breg, ordering veal cheeks in a green peppercorn sauce, that was one of the best dishes I can remember having here or anywhere. The waitress was attentive, which is not always a given here in Central/Eastern Europe, and the wine she suggested was perfect. 

I'm now in Trieste with New Orleans friend, Patty, and Trieste is a delight. It's my first foray into Italy, but the people are so nice, I thought I was in Croatia. (Croatia is like 45 minutes from here.) Last night, we ambled down a very tight alley in the Old Town and stumbled on yet another cute little café (should I change that to 'cliché?'). They have a large selection of wines and what appears to be one dish: a charcuterie board, with locally sourced cheese & aged meats. Delicious. Very enthusiastic young owners who were playing Trombone Shorty, which is what drew us to the place. "What's that playing? It sounds familiar…" I guess.

Tonight, we're in search of Linguini Carbonara; tomorrow, seafood. Then, Monday morning, we find our way to Lake Bled and our friend, Sabine. 

More later.

On My Way

Here are some observations on my way to Zagreb, Croatia. At the moment we are passing through Ötvoskónyi, Hungary, if you want to ride along.

It's 5:00 p.m. The train is heading west to Gyékényes, where I will transfer to the Budapest train to Zagreb, Croatia. At the moment, however, we are in the middle of nowhere; farming country, lots of space. The landscape is beautiful, truth be known, but empty. The sun is peeking out after an afternoon of showers. Last night, there was a lightning & thunder show, which hasn't happened very much since I've arrived here in the south, in Kaposvar. Not like N'Awlins. 

This is the local; the conductor can't seem to pass any of the small towns without stopping. Beleg, Kutas, Jako, Somogyszog. Never heard of any of them. Quite a few riders disembarked at Kutas. Almost all carrying grocery bags full of stuff. I assume they take an early train to Kaposvár, being the largest town in the area (and the county seat), and consummate their business, returning home in the late afternoon/evening. ["Handle your bidness," popped into my head, writing that…]

Now we are sitting in Somogyszog, most likely because we are ahead of schedule. A few locals boarded and are settling in to their seats. It is an hour to Gyékényes, still plenty of daylight. There is a flock of crows making a commotion off to the side, out of sight. All is green.

Ten minutes waiting, we finally pull out of Somogyszog. After about 5 minutes, we come to a siding, with nary a soul around. The small square 'station' building, I guess you'd call it (the blue sign proclaiming the town is over the door: Bolhás), is boarded up. A young 20-something(?) young man stands up, all in black: shorts, T-shirt & heavy black boots, wearing a 'bebop' hat on his head; smells like teen spirit, no? He departs and stands out the window of the seats opposite to me, waiting for the train to move on. I wonder that he didn't get off on this side of the car, if he's waiting to cross the tracks. Hard to say/tell.

We move for 2 minutes before another stop. In less than a minute or two, another train, heading the way we've just come, pulls up along side our train. It says Dombósvár, which is the town on the other side of Kaposvár, to the east. I can't tell where we are 'cause I no longer have cell service on my phone. A man is standing in the doorway of a building, but the block-house has no title on it and the man is not wearing a MAV uniform, so I don't know what this is all about. Luckily, the train picks up speed and we are back on the move, baby!

Eventually, the conductor comes by; I show her the QR code on the phone, but she isn't interested in it, says something to me, in a gruff manner, as if I was doing something wrong, so I simply hand her the phone and she scrolls through the email/digital ticket. Satisfied, she hands the phone back to me and smiles. "Köszönöm." Thank you.

Arriving in the border town of Gyékényes, there is an hour wait for the connecting train from Budapest. This was a stressful situation, almost chaotic. Reading the 'Arrivals/Departures' board in the small station, my train is due on platform 4. But when I walk over to the cars as a train pulls in on that track, the conductor tells me that the Zagreb train, the one I want, was not here yet, and would be on track 5, that his train was going to Budapest, not arriving. Making matters worse, the train seemed to me to be going in the opposite direction, of what I thought it should. Obviously, I was turned around. I checked with another officious looking person, who confirmed what the first conductor had said. 

The train was late getting into Zagreb's main rail station. Luckily, the owner of the hostel, Dots, it's called, was helpful, and manned the desk after-hours to accommodate me. While out on a walk today, there were a bunch of old women selling fresh strawberries in the middle platform between the tram lines(!), a basket for the equivalent of $2.37, so I picked one up for the owner, as a thank you. He seemed genuinely touched, as much as I appreciated his willingness to work with me last night.

And so it goes. (There's more, but it's after 6 p.m. and I need to run to the market.) 

Végre! Finally!

Good morning! Even though the Omicron variant is still 'hovering' over the continent, and the horrific Russian invasion is still on-going 'next door,' I can finally! say, "Enough already, let's travel!" As such, I will begin posting here on my blog over the next weeks (and perhaps, months) as I meet up with friends and you can read about our 'progress' here…over the next two weeks, we'll be exploring Trieste and Ljubljana and hiking in the spectacular Julian alps.

So, yesterday, I had a video-call with friend, Patty, living in the Marigny of N'Awlins, to finalize our rendezvous in Trieste…she will fly out of NOLA this Friday, the 13th…(oh, lord, that's the first time I've put the day & date together…what I find humorous is that the family here does not know about this, so-called, 'bad luck,' associated with Fri 13…I wonder when & where that got started…do you know? It's easy enough to 'Google,' I suppose)…anyway, Patty will fly to Florence, staying with friends, before taking the train to Trieste on the 20th, where I will meet her.

Meanwhile, I awoke this morning to an email from Lyle Breaux, another New Orleanian, from Uptown, whom I will spend a week with in mid-June…the last time I spoke with Lyle was a month ago, when he and his wife, Anna, were spending some down-time in Mexico…for brevities sake, I copy & paste my reply:

Lyle: this weekend will be fine to call…do you have a better time than another…I will head-out of Kaposvar either next Monday or Tuesday for Trieste, by way of Ljubljana…my friend, Patty, is making her way from Florence on the 20th, where we will stay in an Airbnb in central Trieste for 3 days (not having been to Trieste, I'm anxious to see it)…then over to Ljubljana on the 24th for a couple of days, before heading up to Lake Bled for the remainder of that week…I may have told you that Patty was intrigued by the hut-to-hut hiking in the Julian Alps, so we will use that time to 'check it out'…unfortunately, it's still early in the season, and it will be interesting to see if any of the 'lower' huts are open, for lunch, if not an over-nighter…I haven't tried making any reservations for Patty & I, not knowing how serious she is, but it occurs to me I could check the map and try to make a (pretend) reservation at a couple of those lower-lying huts to see if they will be open while we are there…this past weekend, the Giro d'Italia bike race began its 3rd leg starting here in little Kaposvár, ending in a village on Lake Balaton, so that was a thrill for the town…unfortunately, the crowds were huge, and unless you arrived in the central square early, it was impossible to get near the 'action,' just a bunch of heads in colorful helmets flashing by. We'll talk more over the weekend. Just give me a time. David

See you down the road!

Charles Simic

Today is the birthday of Charles Simic, born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), in 1938. I love what he had to say about the writing process:

"I write to annoy God, to make Death laugh. I write because I can't get it right. I write because I want every woman in the world to fall in love with me."

When asked how one should prepare for a life in poetry, he answered, "There's no preparation for poetry. Four years of grave digging with a nice volume of poetry or a book of philosophy in one's pocket would serve as well as any university."

Dušan Simić, known as Charles Simic, is a Serbian American poet and former co-poetry editor of the Paris Review. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for The World Doesn't End, and was a finalist of the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for Selected Poems, 1963–1983 and in 1987 for Unending Blues.