Now playing at the Theatre of Pompey, "The Liberators"

It was a day of sweaty palms and throat-clearing if you happened to be a particular Roman ruler in 44 BCE. Yes my friends, today is the famed Ides of March. This is lucky for me, as I had absolutely nothing to blog about today. Nothing at all to give me an excuse to fill you in on our sometimes hum-drum lives, and then I looked at the calendar. I realized I had a bill to pay, AND that it was a day of somewhat historical significance.

Weather here is spring-like, as it is all over most of this part of Europe right now. On Sunday we went to the coast and were treated to one of the last gasps of this year's burja (sp?). The burja is the chilly wind that blows out of the north, across the Adriatic, and up under your jacket.

It was a sunny afternoon, and we did eat lunch outside, but the wind made it noticeably cooler. After hanging out and having lunch in Piran we headed slightly south and then east, along the Slovene side of the Slovenia/Croatia border. Our destination was this little village of Krkavce. Krkavce is a medieval village, as are many of the hilltop villages in this area. Many of the buildings date from the 1600s, including this great place where we stopped to taste some olive oil. We passed quite a few farms that produce their own olive oil, but (don't ask me why) we only stopped at this one. It was not a huge operation, but they have been producing olive oil there since the mid 1600s. They do not necessarily have the original trees from the 1600s, since a killing freeze comes along every 30 years or so, but the building where the production is handled is original. The equipment, of course, is considerably more modern -- or at least I assume it is since it is all shiny stainless steel. The olive oil is produced by the family Carcauec, and it (the oil, not the family) has a nutty sort of a zing to the finish. It's very nice. And so was the family. They also shared some of their homemade sparkling wine, Malvazia, with us. It was also yummy. After buying a bottle of oil, we drove on to Krkavce, which was just a few kilometers away.

In Krkavce there is a baroque church which contains a baptismal font from (let me make sure I get the date exactly right here...) oh yes, sometime in the previous millenium. The font is sculpted from one solid piece of marble, and has the head of Medusa in the center, although I must say it's an extraordinarily flattering portrait of her since she looks rather like a folk-art depiction of the sun, and not at all like the serpent-headed monster we usually imagine.

We also visited a carving of a man; this carving is reputedly from the 1st or 2nd century. You would normally be impressed by its age (or not, you jaded bunch of stinkers), or at least I was. But this impact is somehow diminished by three things:
(1) The carving itself is pretty funny. It looks like a man wearing a feather headdress -- it looks very Mayan, and not at all like a depiction you would expect to find in this area. And it's funny looking.
(2) It's just standing out there on the side of a path. It's large, about 1 meter tall, but it's completely unprotected from the elements, theives, bird poop, dog urine, you name it.
(3) The small directional sign for the carving says "KAMEN". This means "ROCK" in Slovene. No special description, just "ROCK, 300 meters --->". They do everything except post an additonal sign to say, "but don't trouble yourself too much; after all, it's just a rock."

We were all thinking, if it really IS that old, it should be in a museum somewhere, right? It was puzzling.

You can read more about Krkavce here.

One thing that's not included on that webpage is the fact that there is a "living house" (sort of like a living museum) there. Oddly enough we didn't see another living soul during the time we were there, but there were LOTS of plants including massive trees of bay laurel and rosemary. There was also a cold, delicious natural spring, and some astonishingly large cacti. They must have been very old, too, but in a place that won't even acknowledge a carving from almost 1000 years ago, what would they have to say about a measly cactus? A dinosaur could have stubbed a toe on one of these very same plants, and there would just be a sign that said "CACTUS. 300 meters--->"

Well, that's all for now. I've got some prep to do before my next class, which is in two hours.

Hugs, - S

Smarna Gora

Hello,

Today was a nice sunny day, which was a welcome change after rain for most of the week. We went to the farm market in the morning and bought some veggies, fresh yogurt, and a chicken. In the afternoon we took Lucy to Smarna Gora. (there's actually a Sloevene character to be used in place of the "s", but the blog won't display Slovene fonts correctly. It's pronounced like "Shmarna Gora"). Anyway, it's a good steep hike (669 meters) up a trail comprised mainly of tree roots which form natural steps. At the top there is the obligatory small restaurant/bar/cafe and also an old (13th century) chapel. It's the reputed site of a pilgrimage by Mary, and also another saint whose name escapes me at the moment... This website will tell you more about it. You also see people somewhat more, err.... "motivated" (read "masochistic") than us RUNNING up and down the mountain. Apparently there is an annual race for this so presumably they were training. A video clip from one of the races is also available on this page.

click HERE to view the page about smarna gora

Kurentovanje - part 2

As stated earlier, we arrived SUPER early for the festivities, but this ensured us a good spot along the parade route. We were patient, there were things/people to look at, and eventually it started to get pretty crowded. A little witch (not in costume only) elbowed her way in next to me along with her mother, and continued to prod with said elbows for the next 30+ minutes or so. Now I wasn’t minding the crowd because a bit of body warmth was welcome, but the mother-daughter tag-team next to me was out to inflict internal injuries.

Then the parade began and except for the occasional toe-crunch, I was able to forget about them for the most part.

The highlight of Kurentovanje is the presence of the Kurentov. The creature in the picture posted here is a “Kurent” or “Korant” - the main carnival figure. (Kurentov is the plural form in Slovene for “Kurent”, or at least I think it is. I'm sure if more Slovenes read this blog there would be a correction posted in comments before you could even finish reading this sentence.) You can click HERE after you finish reading and see more pictures of the parade.

The carnival in Ptuj is the largest and oldest carnival in Slovenia, and it is named after the Kurent. It’s also a traditional carnival figure in other neighboring parts of Slovenia, and we also saw some similar figures from other countries, too.

Although the costumes vary slightly from one group to another, the general costume is made up of a massive sheepskin coat, and around the waist there is a chain with huge (and LOUD!) bells. They also wear heavy boots, and sometimes wear furry sheepskin gaiters (think Ugg boots), and their head is covered by a giant mask. The mask is also made of sheepskin and is about two feet tall, at least. Many of the masks have horns on top, some real and some made of long twigs decorated with colored streamers – when the Kurentov dance in the parade they will sometimes run towards the people in the crowd (imagine a bull charging) and then the streamers fall all over you. They also have a large beak-like nose, complete with sheep’s wool nose hair (!) and tusks, which I thought made them look a bit like an Alaskan totem. They also carry a wooden club in their left hand. When they dance, the sound from the bells is deafening! The “purpose” of all this showing off is for the creature to chase away winter.

Traditionally, the Kurent's outfit used to be restricted only to unmarried men, but we even saw entire families of Kurentov, including lots of little boys (so cute in their furry costumes!) and even several women. I asked a woman how much her costume weighed and she confirmed it weighed 30 kilos (about 65 pounds), and I can’t imagine how hot it must be inside all of that sheepskin! Many pictures you’ll see of them dancing will show them without their heads, which makes them look even funnier –- kind of like oddly shaped chickens. Click HERE to see a short video -- I hope it will remain posted for a while. In case you don't see the 'play' button you should click on the word 'predvajaj' to play the video.

While we were in the castle we saw another tour group. They were speaking French but we did not know where they were from. Some of them were wearing Carnival costumes and were obviously here for The Event. We later saw them in the parade and noticed their banner advertised they were from Brussels, from some international carnival committee. Many of their group were dressed as red-and-white jesters, and the seeming-head of the group was an older gent wearing a cape and a hat with two extreeeeeeeeeeemely looooooooong pheasant (?) feathers. He was accompanied by a very robust-looking fellow dressed as a sort of a nobleman/king (picture Henry the 8th, but without the big turkey drumstick you’ll inevitably picture him holding.) He was was escorting two younger women, who inexplicably looked like they'd have preferred he brought the drumstick instead.

There were lots of other characters, too: There were wagons of people dressed as gypsies, with all of them drinking and smoking and holding ‘babies’ (even the ‘babies’ were smoking! No worries about political correctness here!). There were these incredibly frightening devils from Austria, with red faces contorted into gruesome gestures, giant horns and long black outfits, writhing their way along the parade route. There was a kurent group from Bulgaria with towering headpieces, MASSIVE bells, and large tusks. There were groups of young men dressed in black pants covered by a long white tunic, and over their shoulders were several plaid, paisley, or floral scarves – on their heads they wore large, triangular hats covered with flowers. Together they pulled a wooden plow, also decorated with flowers, and at the back of the plow there was a figure of a bride and groom, which would rotate as they walked. Women sowing seeds sometimes accompanied groups pf them, and they were occasionally chased by men cracking long rope whips, who would perform a sort of a dance. The *crack!* *crack!* sounded like a fireworks display, it was so loud! There were also people in various costumes (clowns, medieval costumes, etc).

There were also some people dressed as animals (cows, goats) The animals had a large cylindrical body, usually with two people inside, and (of course) a head and a tail. One animal -- a goat-- approached us, and my friends with the sharp elbows petted it for a minute, after which time it turned promptly round 180 degrees and peed on them! Right in their faces! And I saw the whole thing (including their priceless reactions). Granted, it was only water, and the mother was a good sport about it eventually, but the 10-or-11-year old witch girl was obviously MORTIFIED. And I laughed and laughed and laughed…

And I kept a wary eye on the cows when they came past later on.