The brief interaction with Simon's grandmother taught me a very important lesson. Her doting grandson presented her with the chocolate pudding, handing over a spoon and peeling off the lid and speaking softly in Slovene.
Grandmother hardly responded. She plowed into the pudding, slowly, methodically, deliberately. Simon asked her a question. Grandmother brushed it off and licked her chocolate covered spoon.
"She won't talk with me," Simon grinned. "She says she's too focused on the pudding. As soon as she finishes, all the questions will come."
Too focused on the pudding! I wanted to burst out laughing but chose to smile discreetly instead. I want to spend my life too focused on the pudding. When something is good, enjoy it thoroughly and don't let yourself be bothered by questions that can wait.
Simon then drove me to a nudist beach from which we could see the buildings of Trieste protruding into the horizon.
Win. This makes... what... twelve countries? Yeah. Twelve countries in two months.
I felt proud indeed as I untied my sarong and allowed the soft fabric to fall around my feet.
Learning to move in a different way. It used to take me a year to see six countries. Now I know I'm capable of whirlwind travel. I don't think it's my favorite way to hop, but it's nice to know I can. Hoppity, hop, hop. All over them Balkans.
I laid out my borrowed towel and napped naked in the sunshine.
I've only been in Slovenia for two days and I've already managed to get naked twice. This must be my country. I belong here.
Even though I'm technically in Italy.
Slovenia is a tiny country. Its 7827 square miles are home to a mere two million people and most of those people seem to live in Ljubljana. However, for being such a small place, Slovenia is remarkably diverse.
It has the Alps (the regular kind).
It has the Dinaric Alps.
It has the Pannonian Plain and the Mediterranean I tried to ask Simon about cultural food and he always responded with the unsatisfactory (but completely justifiable) remark, "Well, it depends on the region."
There are twelve regions in Slovenia. We went to the spectacular karst/coastal region, which is famous for its prosciutto and dry red wine.
If I were a region of Slovenia, I wouldn't mind being famous for my prosciutto and dry red wine.
We avoided carnivorous wasps and itsy bitsy rain showers (which aren't quite as pleasant when one is stretched out on a towel on a rocky beach) by crawling into a cave whenever we felt too attacked by one or the other. I waded into the Adriatic and Simon dove from a rock and went for a swim.
Swimming, the Adriatic gently pushed me from rock to rock and I felt like I was stumbling in a standing room only metrobus in Istanbul. I still don't like you. Most people I meet on the Mediterranean tell me I ought to like you (I'm sure you're a likable guy), but I still just don't. You're kind of like the mutual friend that everyone insists I should fall in love with but with whom I have no romantic connection whatsoever.
I looked down at my fingers and the seaweed clinging to my chest.
I like the way water plays with me. I just don't want to take my feet off the rocks.
Then Simon swam over. Deftly. Easily. Looking the part of someone who was born by the sea.
"Do you swim, Aimee?"
"Well," I pondered the question. "I don't sink."
"Come on, try to swim," he encouraged me.
"I really don't like swimming," I felt like such a spoilsport. "Being in the water is great, but that's kind of where it ends for me."
"Just lift up your feet."
I need to keep exploring this fear.
"Okay," I tried to sound bright as I reluctantly lifted my feet and reverted to my standard back float.
"See, you can swim!" Simon congratulated me half enthusiastically and half regretfully. Most people enjoy teaching a newbie to swim and it's a little disappointing to see that they already have the basics down. Teaching someone to swim is like seeing someone drink alcohol for the first time or taking the training wheels off a trike.
And has the tendency to look like both combined.
A wave splashed water into my face. I sputtered, splashed and reached for the rocks with desperate toes.
"DAMN!" my sputtering turned to cursing as my toes lifted back up with a smattering of extra desperation and heaps of sea urchin needles.
"What is it?" smooth Simon looked concerned.
"Sea urchins," I stumble/swayed from rock to rock and let the tide push me towards the shore. "Lots."
"Is it very bad?"
"Meh. Not bleeding so much," my peppered feet tingled, throbbed and caterwauled (or would have, had they mouths with which to caterwaul).
I returned to my beach towel and starting poking, pinching, prodding the black needles.
My feet didn't need mouths to caterwaul. I did enough caterwauling for the three of us.
"Can I try?" Simon asked.
"Sure," I handed over a foot in frustration. "But I don't think they're going to come out. They're in too deep and I keep breaking off the tops."
Cactus doesn't break like this, I glared at the pieces of sea creature in my fat red feet. It's a much more sensible spiky creature. This mountain girl doesn't know how to handle sea urchins.
Sea urchin stayed in my foot and we stayed on the beach. I laughed off the pain because there wasn't much else to do.
My feet are already complaining. I don't need to add a bad attitude to the general unpleasantness.
We climbed up the cliff a few hours later and I tried not to imagine the black spikes driving deeper and deeper into my fruity feet (although they were fairly difficult to ignore), tumbled into Simon's car (still rank with river hippie) and drove home.
"I'll make a nice dinner to help you forget the pain," Simon offered as he passed me a sewing kit and a lighter.
"Can we have music, too?"
"Of course," he obligingly hooked up my laptop to his speakers and Snow Patrol started blaring through the spice bedecked kitchen.
I stabbed my feet again and again and again, laughed when I wanted to scream and grinned stupidly when I wanted to cry.
How does this hurt SO bad?
I removed one whole needle. One. And half of about ten.
Even Simon's spectacular dinner couldn't help me forget how much it hurt.
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