Ratzco: October 2009

Yep!

We're back. Back in the cold. Still can't believe that about a week ago we were swimming in the beautiful sea of Sardegna!!!

Ok-ok. Let's start from the beginning. This way Benji won't get upset we're giving him just a super short resume of our vacation. So, Benji! Here's our Vacation Report. :o)

09/24/09 - left Vail in the morning to catch our flight in Denver. We were wondering how the roads were going to be, since the 2 previous days, it snowed the whole time. The roads were clear, but our plane left with 1 1/2 hr delay.

Snow on road near Loveland on way to airport

Our Super Pilots caught up with the delay pretty good, since we landed with just 30/45 mins delay in New York. But! They didn't let us out of the plane. :o(
We sat in the plane, on the tarmac for more than an hour: first they told us another plane had a mechanical at our gate, so we couldn't get to the airport. Then. And I'm not joking. They told us that mr.Obama was flying out from NY on his AirOne and... we had to wait. Darn it!!!
In the meantime, we could see our AirFrance getting ready at the gate, going on the run-way and flying away. Goush!!!

Once in the airport, I had to call Dale to hear his voice (which always makes me laugh!), because I was super upset also with the Delta - their Customer Service really sucks!

In short: we got a new flight and left for Frankfurt. Oh! Our original route was Denver - NY - Paris - Trieste. Thanks Obama.

Eating French bread at Paris airport, very fashionable american

Usually it takes us 22-24 hrs from door to door (ours in Vail to my parents' in Trieste). This time it took us about 36-38 hrs, flying Denver - NY - Frankfurt - Paris - Trieste. Oh! Did I mention we didn't get our bags? They got to Trieste only on Sunday night. Aaarrrgh!!!

09/25/09 - landed in Trieste

Hi, I'm an ugly American, I will wear these same pants for two weeks

Dove sono le mie valigie ! (Where is my luggage)

Sarah filled the Baggage Claim form (while Chris was horsing around with my dad at the airport), Chris drove us to my parents' place... pretty scary... every first time Chris drove in Italy! And especially this time! Since his mother sent us an article about the "101 Driving Tips in Italy", I wasn't sure it was a good idea for him to read that! Brrr!!! :o}

Besides all of these "adventures", once I got finally home... my granny wouldn't believe me all we went through and got upset with me, because I didn't go visit her as promised. I wanted to cry.

Once at home, we jumped on the prosciutto my parents' had in the kitchen.

Chris tried to learn slicing it, but... at the beginning he made some steaks out of it(!). Luckily, he improved a little during the 2 weeks of eating prosciutto every day. At the end, we were really sick off it! But how can you say no to it, when here isn't as reachable? ;o) Chris loved the cheeses in addition to the prosciutto.

09/26/09 - I spent the morning trying to find out where were our bags. At the end, Chris pulled me away of the phone and we went for a hike on mount Sneznik in Slovenija with David and Anja.

The peak in the distance

At the top, David and Anja

So happy we made it, holding hands... we are nerds.....

Great day, great place and it was a lot of fun doing something again with my Big Brother!
...while talking on the phone with BethAnn, who was trying to get a hold of a Delta Agent to find out where were our bags from this side of the ocean. [Thanks again Beth!]

09/27/09 - I'm not sure if I should write what we've done on this day... Wag might become a little jealous of my hubby. ;o) Our friends had to pick up 300 kg of grapes to make about 200-250 liters of wine. Yep!

We went picking up with them, had the tipical snack after work right there on the grass and then went to Peter's parents' home to help them with the wine-making.

Chris giving everyone directions on how to pick the grapes, where to pick the grapes, how many grapes to pick. Very good Capo (boss).

Somewhere in Slovenia (click any pics for full size)

30 minutes work, 2 hour lunch

Roberto and Gabry

It's been many years I haven't done it and had very good time. And I know my husband got a kick out of it as well. I know our friends got it for sure by having The Americans helping them!

Movie of picking the grapes

This machine separates the stems from the grapes. Watch your fingers!

The wine cellar in Peter's garage. now this is serious.

After this great day, Chris and I decided to drive to the airport to see if our bags might have come. They just arrived right when we got there: YESSS!!! Our vacation in Sardegna has been saved!!! We were supposed to fly out to Sardegna the next day.

I've been wearing the same shirt for 3 days !

For dinner we went out for a pizza (yesss!!! REAL pizza!!!) with Gabry and Roberto. Great time again and Chris is doing better and better with his Italian. Tonight he was learning how to order in Slovenian as well, since we were in a pizzeria just across the border. Yep! I have an amazing husband!!! :o)

09/28/09 - In the morning, Chris was recruited by Stojan to help move and filter the wine.

Chris "why am I here on vacation scooping up wine?"

A visit with Nonna Lina

Then we went for a bike ride to the most eastern part of our Kharst area... which we call Istrija... but don't say that to the locals over there, or they kick your butt! He-he!

There we saw the Socerb castle and my dad and his friends playing with the paraglides. Yep. You read it correctly: at 62 he started paragliding and his instructors was a young boy 82 years old, whom his paragliding team-mates call "Nono" (a.k.a.: grandpa). They could do top flights, both taking off and landing at the top with the correct type of thermals. Looks like a LOT of fun.

Stojan Sosic

Video of the old man Sosic

After dinner we left for the airport - again! This time for Sardegna. My friend's parents came to pick us up at the airport, all the while Chris was making fun of me... since I told him jokingly just once "I wonder if I'll recognize them." He took it for good and gave me hard time. Aufff!!!

09/29/09 - spent part of the morning with Raffaella's parents. Man! I remembered the proverbial Sardinian hospitality, but - WOW! - her parents really went out of the way for us!!!

Raffa is a good friend of mine. We've been keeping in touch since we met at the Arbatax campground in Sardegna about 20+ years ago. Last time I saw her was 14 years ago, while I was visiting her.
We were planning on seeing each other again, but... she lives now in Paris. So. While we were waiting for our late (again!) airplane to go to Trieste, I called her and we had a good talk. At least something! :o{

After a big lunch we left Rita and Samuele and drove towards our hotel in VillaSimius. Stopped in one of the first beaches we found and... jumped in the Sardinian crystal clear water - better than Hawaii!!! No pictures of the actual beach. We were too excited.

After beach time and getting ready in our hotel (http://www.hotelmariposas.it/e_hotels_hotel.htm : beautiful!), we got out to town for our Sea Food Dinner #1. Goush! I've been waiting for it sooo long!!!

Everyone had the same rental cars

09/30/09 - beach time, some sight-seeing and Sea Food Dinner #2.

10/01/09 - this was the only day of bad weather we got. We got woken up at 3.30 am by thunders, lightnings and rushing rain - it wasn't just raining dogs and cats! It was raining cows and elephants!!! Hollymollyguacamolly!!! It's ok we live in CO and don't get many long-lasting thunderstorms, but -goush!- we've both never seen and HEAR something like this!!!

So it was an easy going lazy day: slept in (finally we were able to!), had breakfast, talked to the hotel owner for a while, strolled in the village, drove around for some sight-seeing and then went back to Raffaella's parents' place where they were already waiting for us for lunch. A little misunderstanding. We didn't think of getting back there before dinner time.

Lots of little cars in Italy

Incredible art on the walls of the town

Mask

sofa made of stone

Art on almost all the houses

Is Chris still wearing the same pants and shirt?

Therefore, at dinner time we found the whole Family Tribe [ less Raffa :o( ] and had a very good time with all of them.

I think we made Raffaella envy, since she called and we passed her everybody in the room and everybody was laughing and talking laudly and having great time and... she was in Paris. Her parents thought she was alone, but Chris said he heard a guy in her background... you can imagine how many stories came out of that simple sentence. He-he! ;o)

10/02/09 - slept in after the crazy night and had another very good Sea Food lunch(!) before leaving for some sight-seeing in Cagliari.

Before we left Samuele showed us the park with all the rocks that sing (Chris still wearing same pants and shirt)

Playing the musical rocks

This was really the funniest adventure ever! We were in a new city for us.

No maps at hand. I was driving while Chris was telling where to turn like he knew the city inside-out... don't need to tell you how many times we got lost in order to find the old part of the town. But we finally made it there and had a good stroll; took many pics and got once again blown away by the amount of trash everywhere.

same pants, different shirt
(hey, I'm trying to blend in and be a stinky Euro)

Tourists on electric scooters, people are really getting lazy!
Next time we'll do it too.

We loved Sardegna, had good time, but I've already told my friends that... I've never seen it as dirty as this time. Man-oh-man!

Oh! One more funny thing: after sightseeing, we got to the car rental place early and were proudly giving the key to one of the agents when... he asked us if we filled the tank. Oops! We jumped in the car right away, got almost lost again, but made it back in less than 20 minutes. Not bad for two Sardinian Rookies! :o>

Cinque Cento

My dad came to pick us up at the airport. I was barely able to translate what he and Chris were talking. I was out. And wasn't very happy about having to go to my former high-school reunion that same evening. I haven't seen them for the last 15 years, so they didn't give me much choice once they found out I was in Italy during their dinner.
I had to thank Chris here. He left home and went to meet them before I could change my mind.
And I don't regret doing that, since I had very good time in seeing everybody again. :o)
They've already told me to let them know when we'll be back next year, because they'd love to get together again. Yep! Kharst Style: every occasion is good to have a party! He-he!

10/03/09 - able to sleep in again(!), we're finally getting through our jet-leg. We spent part of the day with my brother: went on a hike on the Rilke Trail in Sistiana.

A beautiful trail right above the sea, with some WWI trenches and bunkers on the way to Duino... where we went all the way down to the little harbor.

I think my brother is starting to understand that, he cannot always say "yes! I'm coming for a hike with you!" as easily as he said it these last two week-ends we spent together. He just kept saying "you guys are crazy!", while teaching Chris some Italians swear words and way of sayings that I hope will forget soon! Simone over here in USA is already enough of a teacher for these things. :o(

Then in the evening, to avoid having to spend our vacation in Italy by going to every relative's and friend's home, while Chris is starting the divorce papers because of that... I organized a party at my parents' place - this time it was a Yankee Style Slovenian/Italian Party. Instead of having us to prepare all the food, I asked my relatives and friends to help us out, this way my mom won't stay the whole day in the kitchen. She still stayed a looong time in the kitchen getting the food ready, while I was trying to make her understand we won't need as many things... Well. You know my mom. She has a good heart and is always afraid there won't be enough food for everybody.

At the end: the party was a Big Hit! There were even more people I thought would come, everybody bought a bunch of food so... we had food coming out of our ears! JinnderryBadanga! We ended up having left overs for the next 3 days!

10/04/09 - we spent part of the day with my parents, David and Anja. We went visiting the castle of Duino: Chris couldn't believe me I've never been in there.

I explained him that the prince Karl Thurn und Taxis still lives in it with his family, therefore the castle was always closed to the public. In special occasions you could go visit its beautiful park, which my mom once did. But the rest of the family has never been neither in its gardens.

The prince decided to open it up to the public in 2003 - when I left for CO and... well you know what I've been doing since then; everything and anything but visited the castle.
It was an awesome tour. We got a tour guide for just the six of us, so it made everything even more interesting than just looking at things.
Afterwards we also went down to the WWII bunker under the castle's garden - cool!

And the views you had from pretty much every room, the castle's tower or the bunker's opening onto the sea were just amazing!!!

(This was from Sardinia, but Chris said it was the trip of "proscuitto crudo" / raw ham, yumm)

After all of this, we all got home to our different commitments. Chris went on a long solo hike in our woods. Mom was doing stuff at home. David went to bed, or at least that's what he said. Dad started tearing down the rocks by our garage - the hole is sooo big by now that he could make a great swimming pool for the kids of the next door elementary school. They would just jump out of the window and had very good time.
I took care of few things and went on a fast hike with Gabry and Roberto before going to visit my grandma up in Opicina.

We were leaving for the mountains and wanted to spend again some time with her.

Got up to my friend Sonja's place and... we both went straight to bed, exhausted.

10/05/09 - I was helping Sonja with different chores, while Chris was sleeping in. Afterwords he helped us taking the hay to the barn for mrs. Marina. An old and lots of fun lady, Sonja's neighbour.

Marina working the fields to feed her cows and chickens

Movie of Chris working in Italy

Got a hike in the Las Calas canyon, where Chris got scared I'd fall down while looking for fishes down in the gorge. And then he worried me by trying to find a trail on a steep section, where I couldn't see neither a game trail. We decided to get back down on the stairs we came from and did the loop in a different way.

In the canyon

Don't fall !

On Feratta route (click for full size) Chris is straight up

What destroyed this one lane mountain road ?

This boulder

10/06/09 - Chris and I went hiking mount Zermula. Beautiful hike, too bad we couldn't see much because we were in the clouds all the time. We decided we have to do it again.

10/07/09 - I took off hiking, while Chris went on mount Tersadia and - he got super lucky with much better weather then yesterday's. I saw the pics he took: they're amazing! He promised me he'll take me next time. I'll cross my fingers to get good weather as well!

Sonja picking carrots

Anjka's Ford Fiesta worked great on the mountain roads (American bike paths)

Probable WWI trail going up to the top

Poisonous snake (per the locals after seeing picture) Yikes !

10/08/09 - we drove back to Trieste for my grandma's birthday.

Guard rails are around 8 feet high in places.

I went up to Grandma's place earlier to make Struklji Kuheni, our tipical kharst boiled strudel. Once Chris tried it, he wondered why I haven't yet made it and that I should make it asap. We'll see. Gotta organize another party up here and then we can talk about it. ;o)

Chris went paragliding with Stonjan again. Chris thinks he wants to do it when he gets older. He has too many sports already.

Stojan says, "Drive down and pick me up in the car over THERE"

The evening turned out really great: my grandma was surrounded by my parents, all her grandchildren (but David: sadly out of town for work), the grandchildren and her caretaker. I don't have to say she was overwhelmed, both by the love she was getting and by... all the talking heads in her little living room. I know she was happy to have us all there, but I'm sure she was as much happy to see us all gone at the end of the evening, so her ears could get a rest. He-he. Poor granny!

We decided that next year we're gonna do the party in a restaurant: she's gonna be 90! And we'd love to celebrate big time with her. She just got scared when we told her that she'd be paying. We were joking, but she thought we were serious... ouch!

10/09/09 - after getting the bags ready, we got a last hike on Sv.Primoz up in the woods of my village with my dad. Afterwards he took us to the airport for our return flight to the States.

This time we made it: we had to run through Paris' airport, where we got stuck at the custom lane and barely made it on the flight; then we had to run at the Atlanta airport to get ahead of everybody through custom, security, get the bags, get through custom again, throw them on the belt and run to the plane - barely making it, again!
Once in Denver (finally!) we almost froze our butts off! Snow, ice and a temperature of 16F/-9C was waiting for us.

It was tricky driving back to Vail with the freezing rain on the roads pretty much until Eisenhower tunnel. After that, the road was pretty clear and after Vail Pass the road was even drier and the temperature much higher.
We got home around 2.30-3:00 am and... we were wide awake. Once again, we'll have to deal with the jet-leg, but we're very glad to be home!!!

[Note of the Author: my publisher will review this travelling-article and post some pictures for you to enjoy as well. At lest this way I won't be doing everything! He-he!]

Ratzco

October 24, 2009

Misc Fall

October 10, 2009

Italy 2009

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