FASCINATING ENCOUNTERS

NEVER, NEVER IGNORE THE VOICE THAT COMES FROM WITHIN.

    

     With everything in order and accommodations in place I booked my flight to Trieste, Italy, ignoring the voice that warned, wait to make your reservations! 

     The very next morning I received an email from my would-be-landlady informing me that she’d found a “longer term tenant.”  The news definitely set me on my heels, leaving me feeling anxious for I had a plane ticket but no place to live. What to do?  Cancel the flight and remain in Germany?  Go to Trieste without a room?  In the midst of my dilemma the same voice that had warned me to wait was now saying, there’s a reason, don’t fight it.  Proceed with your plan.

     What a daunting task it was pouring through the endless listings of properties for rent in Trieste on the internet.  I persevered, though, and after sending numerous inquiries, had a hit two days later from the assistant of the coordinator of the state agency (to whom I had presented my plight) that helps newcomers (primarily students) find accommodations.  “Here’s a list of properties,” the person wrote. “But in addition, a woman just listed her house in the city and with the exception of internet service, has everything you have requested.” The word just struck a cord, so I made haste to contact this person. The woman responded immediately with an offer for an apartment-- rather than a room which is what I had before-- for a lot less money.  It seemed the previous landlady had done me a huge favor.  Several emails later, I had a lovely city apartment within walking distance of the magnificent Piazza Unita d’Italia…the exact location that had lured me to Trieste some months earlier.

     After suggesting to my new landlady that she read my blog so as to satisfy her curiosity about the person behind the emails, the unexpected began to unfold.

      

XXX

     Europe was in the throws of a major winter storm, the temperature plummeting to minus 15 degrees C just two days before my flight was due to leave Germany. Flights were being cancelled, many delayed. I had been thrown another curve ball, perhaps even more challenging than the first.  The only redemption was that Germany had been spared the snow. 

     The alarm was set for 5:45 am that morning of February fifth, but I lay in the bed wide awake from three o’clock on trying to chase away those nervous flutters that persisted in my stomach.  Four o’clock found me up and checking online to see if my 9:55AM flight to Zagreb, Croatia, (one of the hardest hit countries with snow) had been cancelled. On German Wing’s website for pending flights, I read: “Flight 406, scheduled.” I took that as a good sign and proceeded to put the last minute items in my suitcase, never losing sight, however, of the persistent storm that was claiming lives and continuing to slam Eastern Europe with more snow.

      It was dark and freezing cold when Matthias set out for the Cologne/Bonn airport. “Diesel engines take a while to heat up,” he admitted some five minutes out. Even the layers of heavy clothing could not chase away the cold.  I sipped on a steaming cup of coffee and watched my breath move in the air in front of me as we traveled the two-lane road along the River Rhine

      The morning light was beginning to reveal the scenes along the river.  Even seeing them through the hovering mist, I was once again struck by the orderliness of the towns and villages that claimed their place in German history. Matthias, a German history buff, pointed out a town known for the bridge which American forces had captured during WWII—another reminder of a painful time in history.

     As the Rhine began to slip out of sight, I bid it and the beautiful country of Germany that had yielded such memorable experiences those past weeks, a quiet auf wiedersehen.

    At the Cologne-Bonn terminal I waited, expecting any moment for German Wings to announce that the flight was going to be delayed.  In the meantime, I tried to keep my butterflies at bay and my mind occupied with things other than the impending storm, and what better way to do it then to observe the colorful array of passengers that were beginning to congregate in the waiting area. 

     A woman with a baby sat down next to me.  The baby was all bundled up in winter clothing, its angelic face peaking out from a knitted hat, its little eyes fixed on me like a cat staring blankly at a wall. The mother removed a layer of clothing and then began her ongoing vigil of keeping the restless baby entertained with an assortment of squeaking toys, sips from a bottle it quickly tired of and threw aside, and walks along the aisles. I must admit that it was quite a comical sight watching the mother do the duck walk up and down the aisles, two little legs appearing between hers as she and baby shuffled along hand in hand.  A young woman with a small black dog on a lead sat a few seats down leaving the seat next to me open.  Finally, a woman wearing an overpowering, bargain-basement perfume--which preceded her-- stopped to pet the dog, and to my misfortune, took the seat next to me. Cheap perfume?   Barking dog?  Crying baby?  Which of these might share the seat next to me on the plane?   

~

      I took my window seat at the front of the plane watching while the other passengers moved along the aisle in search of their seats, observing, in particular, a woman with an interesting three-tone hair color and red-rimmed glasses who was accompanied by a very distinguished looking man with a neatly manicured white beard—both about to become my seat companions.  Miss eau d’cheap par fume took the seat directly in front of me!  Baby and pooch moved to the back of the plane.

     

      The small aircraft popped off the runway like a cork rising to a surface, quickly leaving the runway behind.  I commenced to stare out the window as Germany’s neatly laid out green and brown patchwork countryside gave way to a nature-inspired, stenciled landscape,

and to forests that appeared like black furry giants casting their shadows over the snow-covered earth. 

     Fifteen minutes out, my female neighbor asked me in German if I spoke either German or Croatian, to which I replied, “No, English.”  Upon her request, her companion was now addressing me in very refined English. I was immediately captivated by his soft delivery and polished manner as he asked, “My wife ordered a sandwich but would you like to have it?”  There was a kindness behind the woman’s eyes as she looked into mine and nodded her approval while gently touching my arm.  “I don’t want to take your wife’s food,” I replied politely.  But they both insisted.  So I agreed.  Then, they saw fit to complete the snack by asking what I would like to drink.  Soon, I was eating a cheese sandwich and sipping on a hot chocolate, happy when the last bite was gone so that I could continue, unimpeded, with the interesting dialogue that had developed between me and this interesting duo.          

     The man’s face lit up when I shared with him that I was on a “journey,” and when I told him that I was writing about it and had a blog he presented me with his business card.  It was then that he revealed with extreme pride, that he, Branco, and his wife, Darinka, were the parents of the famous German actress and jazz singer, Andreja Schneider. Branko also added that he was a jazz pianist, and Darinka added that he was an “architect.” The conversation continued, consuming nearly an hour and a half of the flight as we shared our mutual interests. Now, to my disappointment, the pilot was announcing that the plane would be landing in fifteen minutes.

     I asked them if I could take their photographs and post them on my blog.  They happily agreed and posed for the camera. We exchanged emails and said we’d communicate.  I asked Branko if it would be possible to listen to him play the piano. To which he also agreed. 

It was my fondest wish that this would come to pass for they would be living only a short drive from Trieste. But even if our paths would never again cross, I was grateful for the interesting encounter and distraction from the weather that had left the Croatian countryside below covered in white.  

     Velibor,  (you remember him and his wife, Iva, from a previous blog) was waiting for me at the airport, and after an embrace said to me with a smile, “You are amazing.” I was thinking, no, Veli, I’m incurably adventurous! Who else would make the journey in such weather!

     But the journey was not yet complete, for I still had to travel by bus into the country of Slovenia, and cross a snow-laden mountain pass to Trieste two days later.

     XXX

    

     Veli was my angel that morning…up at 5AM, standing in the freezing cold cleaning the remnants of ice and snow from the previous night’s snowstorm from his car and windshield, driving in the dark along the unplowed, snow-covered roads, carrying the “hulk” and my computer bag through the snow and ice and across the roadway to the bus station where the bus to Trieste waited.  

     At least I was not the only “crazy’ passenger braving a trip in a snowstorm that morning.  There were two Canadian girls that had been back packing in sub-zero weather, and they were still smiling and cheerful.

     We passengers all stood outside the idling bus waiting in the bone-chilling cold while the driver’s not-too-pleasant assistant loaded the luggage into the compartment, barking at me in Croatian when I presented the “hulk.”  “He wants an extra 12 kunas ($2.40) to load the luggage into the compartment,” Veli said.  And the man wasn’t budging until he got his money!  So, my angel, Veli, reached into his pocket and paid the kunas, and as I turned to him to say goodbye, said from his heart, “Enjoy this next part of your journey.”

     The street lights of Zagreb revealed the morning commuters waiting in the semi-darkness for the city trams. What an awful time of day to be going to work I thought as the bus took control of the left lane of traffic, passing the cars with ease, and leaving their windshields filled with its slushy backwash.

     There was little to be seen that early in the morning, and what could be seen from my window seat was blanketed in white, to include the highway.  At times there’d appear through the gray mist of dawn, the steeple of a church and a small cluster of Alpine houses with smoke rising from their chimneys, or a forest of dark green evergreen trees, their snow-laden branches shuddering in the wind, dusting the air with a powdery fine snow. Perhaps this day, the residents of these mountain hamlets of Slovenia would take out their skis or sleds and enjoy the freshly fallen snow. For sure, they would spend their day shoveling walkways and hauling wood for another fire.

       A little after nine the bus wound its way along the road that affords the beautiful panorama of the Adriatic.  Once the welcome sight of the city of Trieste spilling down the hillsides to the sea came into view I felt a great burden had been lifted.  We were early and soon I would be delivered safely to my destination and home for the next forty days.  It had been an adventure, for sure. Now, I anxiously awaited the encounter with the woman, Lucilla, who had rescued me from my homeless circumstance, and who awaited my arrival at the bus station.