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Do
you know what hoarfrost is?
In the Slovene mountains near Semič, the fog is thicker than you’ll see anywhere. Steam from the hot springs evaporates then collects and freezes on each bough, each limb, each individual pine needle in spectacular, thick fractal patterns. This frost is both light and thick, as if several inches of sticky snow have just fallen. Entire cedars bend to the ground under the weight of this frost and the force of the wind. It is December, solstice, full moon. This is the first day of winter and the last full moon of the millennium. Last night my partner Peter and I drove into Slovenia from Italy. At last I had found my way to Slovenia, the land of my ancestors, the people on which I can place the blame for my unique looks and my embarrassing last name. I’ve learned to place other blame on my Slovene heritage. I blame Slovenes for our family’s peculiar traits: the spacey-dreaminess, the attention deficit disorder, the sloppiness. For how could anyone from a place called Slovenia be anything but slovenly? I couldn’t wait to see this country in the daylight, and to study the natives. Would they have the characteristic sunken dark eyes, the big mouth, the slumping posture? Would they mill about, reading and walking at the same time? Would they be able to tell right from left? Would they lose track of time and space, lost in the depths of their own thoughts?
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Maybe the first clues would come from the highway. Our little rental car took us through the wet hills which quickly turned to snowy mountains. The Slovene highway was clear and well maintained without much traffic. This place was clean, not sloppy. This was not how I had imagined Slovenia. What a pleasant surprise it was to find this post cold war eastern European nation working so well. Then we entered the fog zone. I would have been afraid to walk in such a murky haze, let alone drive, and Peter, not to be outdone by the locals, sped bravely on, blindly passing slower moving trucks. Somehow (and I honestly don’t know how, having I shielded my eyes from most of the night’s driving), we made it to our destination: a Slovene spa and water park called Terme Catez, (where, by the way, one can get an unterwassermassage for only 342 DM). So now, this morning,
under a fresh blanket of hoarfrost and slowly dissipating fog, we set out
to visit Semi
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Downtown Semic |
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the mythological land where my Kambitsch ancestors once lived. The view
from the roads leading to Semi
