Countdown to the Bavisela!

Have you signed up for the Bavisela yet? There is still time! It is only a week away, though, which puts me in a crazy panic since I am not at all in shape. But, then again, I will just walk it if I have to. And I can always dust off the line I NEVER get tired of using, which is:

"Well, after running the Venice MARATHON in October, I am still a little TIRED, so I may just walk this half." Which is code for "I HAVE NOT DONE DOOKY SINCE OCTOBER EXCEPT FOR SIT ON MY TUCKUS AND EAT BON BONS".

And that is no excuse. The truth is that lately I sign up for races just to at least get OFF my butt once in a while (Venice was the same, if you want the truth, even if I sort of trained for it like a slug).

So if you are worried you are not in shape or too slow, or some other such nonsense. Remember, I will be there too bringing up the back and making you look like a running goddess!

You are welcome!

Go to Dutovlje and Bring your Damigiana!

If you are looking for a nice place to go in Slovenia just over the border to get WINE, try this.

Go to a little village called DUTOVLJE. It is just over the border from Repen in Trieste.

You can ask the tourist place if you want other suggestions. 

But my favorite is a place called

RAVBAR

I suggest you go red. There is an 8-year old mix of Terran, Merlot and Cabernet (I think) Sauvignon they are just getting ready to bottle and IT IS ROCKIN!!! Bring your 10-liter bottle, otherwise they will sell you some in water bottles (1.5 liters).

You can tell them Karoline sent you, but they won't know who the hell I am.

The important thing that WE know THEM, don't you think?

YUM!

The Best Chinese Restaurant in Mestre is Right by the Train Station

Discovery of last week. If you time it right, in 10 minutes you can order yourself dinner and eat it on the train on the way back to Trieste. This will save you from having to eat cookies and floppy sandwiches you buy in the station, especially if you are on the train during dinner time, which I usually am once a week on my way back from these 2-day workshops I have been teaching.

I can't believe my luck. Yeah.

You can tell I have been living here a Looong time and am having serious ethnic food withdrawal. I would shoot up a burrito if I could, smoke a springroll...

So this discovery is kind of a big deal for me. Just wanted to share with my ex-pat friends who may find themselves at the Mestre station (this is the stop before Venice Santa Lucia, by the way, so it's not such a crazy idea, it could happen to any of you, it would be where you change trains to go anywhere else basically after visiting Venice).

Enjoy, people!

I found this dusty old thing and thought I would share

This is an oldy-moldy article from the Local (expat online rag) in Rome, that I just dug up. They interviewed me in 2013 and I realized I never actually sat down to read it. So, I started to do that now, but then I got bored halfway through because I knew all the answers.

Maybe you would like it (or not, I don't take these things personally). It answers some of the questions that people like to ask me.

Anyway HERE IT IS IF YOU LIKE! 

Now I am going to go back to Mourning Prince's untimely passing. Sigh.

Climbing Walls & Noisy Workers

I learned two things this week (plus everything about Chicken Pox plus, but I am done writing about that).

You want to know what they are?

1. There is a super duper enormous climbing wall gym-type-place right behind my house.

This is one of those wacky Triestine things. No signs, no nothing. It's in the basement of a giant apartment building. How do people find this place, you ask? No clue. My husband just KNEW about it one day (Um. We have lived in this building for 13 years. Did it come to him in a dream?!?)

So we went to check it out. And there was a group of elementary school kids stuck to the wall in various positions like giant chameleons in harnesses. Very cool.

2. If you are doing noisy work in your building with other apartments above and below you, they can complain until the Muccas come home, but you can do what you want from 7am-11pm (although it will not make you a great Neighbor, not even here).

I learned this from the guys putting in new flooring at my work when I called them to to stop cutting and drilling until at least NINE A.M. since it was Saturday morning and I got a complaint from the neighbors.

Yes, they said, they would stop. For TEN MINUTES.

But. Just to CLARIFY. They were RIGHT.

So, there you go.

A Pock by Any other Name

Chicken Pox here are called VARICELLA. Just so you know.

I guess they have a vaccine for it, because every mom I have talked to knew that it existed and where to go to get it.

MY KID? Not so lucky. Guess we will spend our long weekend watching all 78 episodes of the Mermaid show on Netflix. (Have I thanked the Netflix Gods for smiling on this side of the pond finally??)

Let me just take my lemons and make LEMONADE for YOU!

1. Yes, They have Chicken Pox in Trieste.
2. Yes, There is a vaccine.
3. No, They don't use Calamine lotion here. They have a little spray bottle with white stuff in it you spray on.

Is that helpful? I just want to feel like a good person again. Actually, the wee one is surviving. It was only one TERRIBLE night. She's on the mend... (and we've got mermaids coming out of our ears by now).

Getting Ready for the Long, Rainy Weekend

I conducted a poll today to see what people were up to this weekend since Monday is a Holiday (April 25, La Liberazione).

99.99999% Said they were planning (insert fun springtime activity here: grill-out, trip to Tuscany, walk in the woods, etc) but since it's going to rain, the weekend is going to suck and life is not fair!

.00000001% Said if it rains he's going to have a rock-n-roll weekend with his wife, who is supposed to come up and visit him from Rome, and his kids are away for various reasons, so, yeah, let's hope it rains.

Because, if not, he will have to paint his boat. And his wife is going to watch him do it.
But that is only if it is Sunny.

Viva Rock n Roll Weekends, y'all!

Trieste is back in Fashion

And I am celebrating with a big glass of Prosecco (don't tell the guys up in the Carso. They have it in for the Prosecco folks for their marketing maneuvering in their turfoir...)

See, I wasn't finding it easy to write about it, but now that things may be changing for the better, I can finally tell you. 

Trieste lost its mojo. 

Clues were everywhere: stores that had been here Forever closed down (Godina, Marchi Gomma), even the city's largest supermarket chain (the Super COOP), and for many Triestini the only BANK they trusted, just closed one day, without telling anyone. We all read about it in the PICCOLO, which, this time, was telling the absolute truth. They filed for bankruptcy, customers with money in the bank would receive a letter with information on when, if, and how much they would get back at some distant point in the future. 

That happened. And as if that weren't DEVASTATING ENOUGH...

The CLINCHER: 

ASSICURAZIONI GENERALI, the APPLE of TRIESTE'S EYE, every Triestino kid's ULTIMATE EMPLOYMENT DREAM (for kids who did their homework anyway) CHANGED ITS MIND. 

"Yes. Trieste, you are cute and all, but we have been together since the 1800's, and, well, that's like, you know, a long time. I know you have the great view, but I am thinking of sowing my wild (well maybe that is exaggerating a bit, I admit) insurance oats inland. I am moving to Milan, and I am taking the whole COMMUNICATIONS department with me! Hmmph!" 

And with that, sadly, Trieste began a fast and painful fall straight off the map. Even the train from Venice to Trieste started going slower and slower as if to say "Are you SURE?!"

FLASH FORWARD TO TODAY: TWO PIECES OF NEWS. 

1. NEW GROUP CEO SAYS GENERALI AND TRIESTE OFFICIALLY IN LIKE AGAIN AFTER MILD FALLOUT. Communications Department still has to go (35/43 said no and will stay in Trieste, can we call that a Victory for Trieste as well?) Other departments assured they can stay in Trieste. Group CEO will also have an office in the City. The lights on the first floor of Via Macchiavelli officially turned back ON.

2. STECKLEY GETS EMAIL FOR AN INTERVIEW WITH CBS TRAVEL EDITOR PETER GREENBERG ON HIS WEEKLY WORLDWIDE RADIO SHOW BROADCASTING FROM TRIESTE. 

Both of which mean one thing. 

It is time to blog Trieste again. We have to help her straighten up, put on her pearls, finger fluff her bobbed hair, smooth down her flapper dress, and enter the room like she OWNS. 

It is about GD time!!