Bloggers' Meeting

Before I had this blog, I used to write another one. In Slovene, my mother's tongue. I stopped posting there some time after I started posting here. Just happened.

My brother had a blog way before I did.
Through blogging you get to know people. From their posts and from their comments. There is this blogger, Bin (short for Albin) who writes poetry. And WHAT POETRY! I just love it. So I still sometimes write a comment or two under his posts. Or to my brother’s.

So this blogger, Bin (short for Albin), decided it was time for us to get to know each other. He invited us to get together. It was a very open invitation. It soon seemed there would be about eight or ten people, in the end four turned up – including Bin. And two more later.

It is strange, how you can talk to people easily when you know them from their words already. So we talked over a drink. Then we got into one car and Bin took us to a place he wanted to show us. He planned for the day, you know. Not just the meeting, but what we were going to see and do.

So he took us through this village and then up. And up. On a dirt road. Through the forest. Then he stopped and we walked some more.
We came to this little church. It was built in 1916. During the World War 1. The soldiers built it in memory of their deceased fellow soldiers. It makes you think. There are names on wooden plates inside the church. Hungarian names, Croatian, Slovene, Bosnian, you name it. Austrio-Hungarian at the time. Young men who were pawns on the board of some self-centered old men who thought they had the right to decide about other people’s lives. I don’t know how many died on the Soča front line. A LOT.

Click for a picture

The church is made of stone and wood. And there was a guy who knew a lot about it and couldn’t stop talking. But he was a good guide to listen to.

Click for another one - the amazing interior

After that we descended to the car, had a bite and then took our torches and went on – on foot – to some bunkers. They originate from the time between the two wars when this part of Slovenia was under Italy. So there were these bunkers to protect the border.
It is impressive. We only saw a bit, but it goes under the surface of the ground and it is actually huge. And they had their own little power station. Everything was well built. But they should have never been there in the first place.

Some people want to open this to the public (not just random visitors like ourselves) as a sort of a museum. Others believe it is too painful and should be left as it is or blown up. They were built in order to make the region Italian. History’s a bitch. It can be quite emotional, you know.

We went back to the car, drove to an inn and had a nice meal, talking about all sorts of things. Than our host showed us what he did before he retired (Sixty? Yeah, right! Fifty, maybe. Nope, he’s sixty.) He showed us some really old machinery at the railway station. Fascinating. Since there are really few trains (four or so every day) and because everything works just fine, they still use some of the things that were installed back in 1906. Wow!

By that time, the last two bloggers joined us. A married couple and parents of ten. They only had two with them. They invited us to their home. So we walked again, but not more than ten minutes. Up. Everything is up around here. A nice house, nice tea, the muffins I had made the night before, the cheese and other stuff they offered.

More talk. Some poetry. From a book of one of us. Bin also read a poem. A fantastic one. I really don’t know how he puts that together. My brother didn’t read anything. Me neither. But my brother, too, writes well. Stories. Many like them. So much, that they actually persuaded him to publish them. They’re coming out in a month or so.

After a while we said goodbye and left.
I was the driver. My brother and I got home around eight. Well, he did. I had to continue for 45 minutes to get to my home.
I felt tired but pleased.

I wonder what would I would be doing if I had stayed at home.

No pictures today, sorry. Too many in the past, says Blogger. I'll try to fix that. Be patient. Okay? Thanks.