Well today was the day to separate the strong from the weak, the determined and stoic from the whinners and complainers. After a long night of being eaten by every mosquito in Venice, I had everyone up showered and out of the Apartment by 5:45am. To encourage my charges I may have suggested it was just a short walk to the Santa Lucia Train Station. Well after 20 minutes of dragging roller bags down cobblestone alleys and carrying them over a half a dozen bridges even the dullest of them figured out – I lied! Turns out it was a half hour hike.
After a two hour train ride Jackie and Jeannette rushed to the Trieste Train Station Bathroom. And they rushed back out just as fast. Turns out the did not appreciate their first introduction to eastern toilets. I think their exact words were “it’s just a hole in the floor, it smells and they charged me a Euro just to go!”. And yes Eastern Toilets are just holes in the floor, they do charge for the experience and ambiance, and they usually do smell. Just another new and exotic travel experience to experience and enjoy. They didn’t buy it.
To digress a moment – this has given me an idea for a book! “Bathrooms and Hygiene Rituals Around the World”. On just this trip I have been exposed to a riot of bird calls, tweets, and birds singing in an airport bathroom in Helsinki, surprised to find myself standing in front of a large urinal trough with a photograph of six women’s faces with eyes wide watching with a bird’s eye view of my answering the call of nature(intimidating), and amazed to see an interesting gadget in the side of the toilet tank in Warsaw.
The Warsaw toilet tank had a 6 inch high by 3 inch wide panel in the bottom center of the tank and a bright red button at the top of the tank. Being a red blooded American Man there is no button I won’t push even with out the slightest idea of what reaction it will cause. So I pushed it! And then I began to hear a whirling sound and the panel moved forward to the inner edge of the seat. Once the panel was out far enough to cover the entire width of the seat it began streaming a liquid and the toilet seat began to rotate in a clockwise direction rinsing the seat and squeezing the seat clean and dry. Who knew! The Polish contribution to civilization in the 21st Century.
And now in Italy we find toilets have regressed to back before Roman times. I will diligently report on these bathroom adventures in future travels.
Back to the day’s trip. Trieste was, in spite of the initial toilet shock, a particularly nice and interesting little town compete with Roman ruins (Theater, Gateway, and Forum), Castello di Sa Giusto (see inappropriate photos of ugly Americans living up to our reputation), Cathedral di San Giusto Martire, and we topped it all off with a great lunch at the historic Caffe Dan Marco. Oh, did I mention it rained on us throughout the day?
Then we were back on a train to Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana to crash my daughter’s honeymoon. But first, another character building experience – standing in the rain without umbrellas for 30 minutes on one side of a building while the person we waited for with the keys to our apartment for the night standing on the opposite side of the building.
In spite of all the rain we had a fantastic dinner with Sara and Zack and delighted at their own travel screw ups and misfortunes. Personally I subscribe to Don Imus’ philosophy “I’m not happy until someone else is not happy”. The food was great! my beer and their wine was great! the company adequate! and our waiter George – is the man!
One more sartorial note. An update on the Panama hat – you will recall that I have been told I look like both a dork and mean in the hat. Well now we can add that one of my friends has informed me I look like a gangster in the hat. Imagine that – My trusty Panama hat protecting me from skin cancer makes me look like a dorky, mean, gangster!
Good thing I’m immune to insults because the Panama is Back!
Crashing Sara’s Honeymoon
Richard Proving we are not just Ugly Americans but also Pervy Americans.
And to quote that great American Philosopher Forest Gump “That’s all I have to say about that”. Tomorrow on to Zagreb and my favorite Museum – The Museum of Broken Relationship.