AC's Journal Entry 5, Saturday, 9/27/08

Saturday, September 27, 2008
We were met at breakfast by Rena’s husband, Raymond, who came to show us the purchase documents of their house which was bought from Oton’s parents by Raymond’s grandfather. He didn’t speak much English but we were able to get by enough to understand what he was explaining and showing to us. One of the pictures he showed us from WWII showed Dregatus completely bombed.
We are definitely celebrities here. As we were leaving for the day to head down to Vinica, he came out and stopped a woman from Vinica who was arriving by car to ask if she knew any Gorisek’s. Unfortunately, she spoke no English either so all of a sudden he yells to another car with a woman driving away. He went over to talk to her and before we knew it she was out of her car willing to help, even though she wasn’t from Vinica. They came up with the name of a woman to help us but when they called her on the phone found out she was in the hospital. Oh well, dead end there. But they encouraged us to go down and ask so we started out marveling at how nice the Slovenians were!!!
Before we got in the car, Buzz invited this woman, Julijana, to come that night to the restaurant to have dinner or drinks with us. She declined dinner but said she might come for drinks….more on that much later.
After a brief mis-navigation on the part of me, not Bella, we made it to Vinica. Actually we had driven through it (during that drive Carol saw a sign for Oton’s museum but didn’t mention it at that time) and passed the border to Croatia. Since Vinica sits on the Kolpe river which is actually the border of the EU there’s a patrolled border crossing into Croatia. Some of us didn’t have our passports with us so we couldn’t venture across the border (which we really hadn’t planned on anyhow). After we turned around, Carol asked me if I had seen the museum sign. I hadn’t so we went back through the town, found the sign, and realized the museum was right on the main street. So we parked the car and ventured out finding Alex a bit down the street working in his yard with his mother in law and young daughter.
Carol, Dot and I went into a café (read bar) and I had a cup of coffee. Carol and Dot didn’t stay long and afterwards told me there were porn pictures on the wall by the bar. I never noticed them because I was attempting to ask the young female bartender and two men if they knew Gorisek or Malich. They tried to help me but sign language just wasn’t working (I think the girl could understand English but didn’t feel comfortable speaking it). So I left the bar and when I joined the others they had befriend Alex, who spoke perfect English (for his kindness, Judy gave him one of her Steelers bags) so since the museum was closed, he phoned the girl in charge of it and told us it would take awhile for her to arrive.
He joined us in the museum in which we spent a fair amount of time looking at everything …enough time for me to break one of the glass cases by leaning on it…..resulting in much laughter. Buzz left some euros with Metka, the docent of the museum, to cover the cost which they kept insisting was unnecessary. Alex then made arrangements to for us to meet Mirko Malich (who ended up being our 3rd cousin). He happens to be a wine maker in the town’s castle (told you I love this country) so this being the busiest weekend in entire country with every male out picking grapes he could only spare a short amount of time with us. Judy showed him the 1961 pictures she brought with her and he pointed to one of them and said “that’s me!”, then he pointed to the little boy on the photo and said “that’s my nephew Ignac Strmec who’s in the castle making wine”. This was one of the most exciting things said to us during the entire trip. To realize we were actually tracing our parents’ steps and talking to the same people they did some 40 odd years ago. WOW!!! Mirko also makes wine (red) in the cellar of his home, so he walked us up there to share some wine with us. His porch has a great view overlooking the river, with Croatia beyond it. He told us our grandmother had swum in that river as a young girl. Another WOW!! We then headed over to the castle where the white wine is made and the grapes were being processed in, of all places, the castle’s chapel, I love these people! Another taste, a lesson on how to really wish a traditional Slovenian toast (nostravya) with a wine glass (hold it by the stem, not the bowl to get a good TING). We left them to their work and stopped at a restaurant for some pizza. (Its hard to find restaurants in Slovenia, most cafes offer only coffee, drinks and maybe desserts.) While eating we met another nice couple (the woman asked me if I was related to so and so!) who showed us a town on the Slovenian map that our grandfather Gorisek was probably from. They too were very impressed that we were related to Oton (notice we’re using that bit of info everywhere we go!).
After lunch we headed back to the “farm” and took a nap before dinner….hmmm, could it have been the wine!! Went over to dinner which I thought was just ok (noodle soup, salad, beef with vegetable sauce, potatoes and, for dessert crepes with jelly). This farm has a huge restaurant and tour buses bring locals there for dinner and dancing. You don’t walk in off the street (unless you’re related to Oton, of course as we found out last night) for dinner but come by bus with all your friends or neighbors. The place was lively with Slovene music piped in and dancing and drinking, a lot of fun. The English teacher, Julji we met that morning came with her husband to share some wine with us and translated Oton’s poem that was on the napkin: “The wine if flowing, I’m happy, and you’re the cause (of my happiness)”. This was after much laughing over the translation provided to us from a nearby table which was “The wine is flowing, I’m happy and its your fault”. Julji also translated a Slovenian phrase from our childhood for me phonetic here: “Marishka koplanavich peelanich platula, capadaylish?” She translated (if I remember correctly): “Mary Smith (smith used as an example of a common Slovenian name) you drank without paying, why would you do that?” I told Julji that we had been hoping for potica so she promised us we’d have it before we left and she went off to talk to Rena about it. She came back and said that Rena had made it for dinner then a whole group had shown up for dinner on the wrong day so she gave it to them and we got the crepes. Of course we all thought she should have given them the crepes!!! After dinner Julji took us to her school for a tour and we arranged for her daughter to come on Monday to go to Mirko’s as our translator. She was very proud of her school but compared to a school in the US it was sparsely equipped. On the walk to her school we met 3 of her 8th grade students who, guess what?, were very impressed that we were related to Oton. It goes on and on!!