THAT FIRST DAY IN TRIESTE WITH AN ANGEL BY MY SIDE

      Much to my surprise the bus that had just traveled over the snow covered highway through the country of Slovenia and across the mountain pass into Italy was arriving in Trieste thirty minutes ahead of schedule.  Coming off of such an intense and tiring experience, (I was awake at 4AM that morning and never took my eyes off the highway) I really looked forward to meeting, Lucilla, (Loucheella) the self-described “adventuress, writer, passionately loyal Trieste citizen, and eighty-one-years-young” internet personality who had rescued me from my homeless situation and had likened our encounter to “destiny.” 

      Once inside, I wheeled the hulk up and down the near empty bus station continuing to look for the woman with the “green shopping cart wearing a white hat and scarf,” but she was no where to be found.  Twenty minutes later I turned a corner and there she stood, alone, small in height, hanging on to the shopping cart with a gloved hand, a white angora hat covering most of her light blond hair, a white scarf tightly tied around her neck and over her chin, and a mink jacket that wrapped her in luxury. She looked past me as I approached seeming somewhat surprised as I greeted her with my very cheerful, “Good morning” and wrapped her in the same warm embrace I would extend an old friend.   

     She replied with a quick laugh through the cashmere scarf.  “You’re younger then I thought.” Then she pulled it from her chin, her blue eyes twinkling as she pointed out where the makeup had left behind a brown stain. 

      Introductions aside and without any further ado this dynamo of a woman began to lay out the plan for my morning. First on her list was the grocery store, (the reason for the shopping cart) but after taking a closer look at my suitcase she decided that we had better first rid ourselves of the burden.

        Outside the terminal I immediately felt the city’s pulse as well as a gusting wind that nearly blew me over.  “Our bus waits,” Lucilla said ignoring both obstacles and dashing across the busy lanes of traffic dragging her shopping cart and leaving me standing on the sidewalk trying to figure out how to get across with the hulk and avoid becoming an American front end on an Italian car. Wow, this eighty-one-year-old has a lot of spunk, I thought, as I watched her motioning to me from across the road. Finally there was a break in the traffic and I charged across, the hulk tilting on its wheels from the speed and threatening to take me over with it.

      Lucilla was standing guard at the wide entrance of the bus making sure that the doors didn’t close on my suitcase and leave me behind. Now safely inside, she handed me a complimentary bus ticket worth ten rides and instructions on how to validate it in the ticket machine after each use, as well as informing me of the #28 bus which would take me to her house on the upper end of the city, and where to catch it when I visited her. I could already tell that this was a woman with a plan--of which she intended me to be a player.  I tried to listen over the noise of the bus to her instructions about various grocery stores, internet keys, and points of interest, but with a weary brain I doubted if I would retain all the information. Nonetheless, I gave her my full attention.

      With one hand on the rail and another holding fast to the hulk I gazed out the window as the bus traveled in the shadow of the late eighteenth century, neo classic architecture which spoke to the city’s grandeur and history. 

On the busy side streets it passed the ever-present Chinese shops with their sidewalk displays and the contrasting upscale Italian clothing shops, promenades with outdoor cafes, a piazza featuring a stunning sculpture,

and a long canal reflecting its idling boats and domed church that marked its end.

Ladies, I was absolutely stunned by the number of women dressed in full length mink coats.  Look at this woman's fur-capped boots and hat! 

Finally, the bus exited where the Adriatic seaport met with the wide, palace-lined avenue

and its featured, jaw-dropping, Piazza‘Dell Unita D’Italia-- that magnificent square that drew me to Trieste some months earlier.

      

     

      Fifteen minutes later the bus left us off at the juncture of four merging streets.  The apartment building, #5 via Denza, was on my street. Or, as Lucilla, so affectionately put it, “Your home in Trieste.”  I quickly surveyed my surroundings observing two dominant features:

An old church she called the “Notre Dame” with a tall bell tower on one street,

and a lovely nineteenth century castle on the adjacent corner. Rainbow colored rows of tall, multi-story buildings spilled down the other streets.  It was an old and well-established neighborhood with trees and sidewalks; a place where people leaned out their tall-shuttered windows to catch a glimpse of the goings on below, and pedestrians stopped to chat with a friend on the sidewalk while they took their dogs for a walk.  As we walked the sloped sidewalk to my new “home” Lucilla apologized for the stains, passing the problem on to the excess of dogs.

      At the front entrance to #5 Denza she began instructing me on the use of the intercom, and then she handed me a ring with six keys explaining which key went to which lock. Of course she had me practice opening the somewhat reluctant locks to both the front entrance and to my apartment-- which was conveniently located at the end of the hall on the first floor.  After this student of locks figured out the secret to opening the apartment door, I stepped inside and saw that the tastefully appointed apartment was even nicer than the pictures on the internet, and as Lucilla pointed out, was completely outfitted with everything, right down to the hair cream rinse.  It had an eighties feel, was bright and spacious, had large windows in every room, and a small terrace off of the kitchen. Lucilla asked, “What is your first impression?”  I told her I felt at home. And I did. She handed me a clear plastic envelope with more instructions about the dishwasher, on/off water valves, washing machine settings, how to light the stove, safe combination, TV and VCR remotes, and so on.  By now my head was spinning with all of the instructions! Isn’t yours? It was quite apparent that my angel in Trieste had endeavored to leave me completely self-sufficient, comfortable, and with all needs met. 

        Leaving the apartment we walked down the hill and waited for the #30, which, she explained was to be my city bus from here on out;  the same bus that was about to deliver us from the quiet neighborhood, back to the bustling city center. Soon we heard the rumble of the bus and watched it squeeze around the tight corner, oncoming cars backing up to yield the space.  Inside I could not help but think how I blended right in with the other Italian ladies, my shopping cart in hand! 

  For this American born Italian, grocery shopping in Italy represented more

than just a necessity-- it was an experience worthy of time, and in a grocery store the size of PAM--that drifted with the smell of Italy as I entered its doors--- Lucilla, was doomed to an hour and a half of patient indulgence. 

      I wandered the aisles looking in awe at the giant wheels of cheeses and pie-shaped wedges of unfamiliar types, shapely homemade pastas and gnocchi, (potato pasta) salamis and processed hams suspended on hooks, cases of freshly baked breads of all sizes and shapes, (oh, the aroma) and colorful produce so artfully displayed, to include purple artichokes—none of which, by the way, could be handled without wearing a plastic glove.  I could

almost feel the caffeine rush as I inhaled the aroma of assorted Italian and Turkish coffees that lined the shelves of one aisle, and was stopped in my tracks where the shelves bled with the bright red cans of the celebrated, pomodoro (tomato.) I could smell the Adriatic’s fresh from the sea, prized scampi, octopus, mussels, baby clams, fresh fish and small sardines, all meticulously laid out on their bed of crushed ice. The gourmet in me was itching to get to the kitchen.  My mouth was watering!  I wanted it all!  But where to begin?  The shopping cart was too small. I was just too tired to choose. I had to stick to the basics for the time being and leave the delicacies for another shopping experience. I could not, though, resist a wedge of the cheese and a fresh pesto!

       Shopping cart overflowing, we waited outside on the busy street corner across from the park where we caught the bus earlier, waiting for Lucilla’s son, Ezio, to pick us up as the wind blew down its corridor in great gusts.  “Bora,” (bura in Croatian) Lucilla said hanging on to the hat the wind threatened to tear off her head and send down the street. I was no newcomer to the wind of bora having experienced it first hand in Baska Voda, which you may recall from my drive from the airport on the Dalmatian coast some months earlier.  What I didn’t know that first morning was that Trieste was in the throws of the worst bora in forty years. For ten days it would tear off roofs, cover the city with debris, overturn a tractor trailer on the wide avenue across from the Piazza Unita leaving it to lie like a huge beached whale until cranes could remove it   And, it would welcome me that first night in my new home groaning and tearing at the branches of the tree next to my terrace, continuing on into the night to howl and bang at the shutters like that same thief from Baska Voda that once demanded entry.  I could no longer fight the weariness of a strenuous and tiring day and finally gave in to sleep, closing my eyes over bora and leaving it to its devices that first night in the beautiful city of Trieste.

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