A Nice Day and an Excursion

My landlord (well the landlady's nephew who is acting as the landlord since she is sick) called this morning to ask if I want a ride to the big grocery store on the outskirts of town. I happily took him up on the offer. We went to Plodine and I had a nice leisurely time looking through what was there and picking out items. Some things you can figure out easily, like cookies and tomatoes, especially since there are pictures on the labels. And sometimes there is even some English on the label. But other things are harder to figure out. For instance I wanted to buy some solution to clean the bathtub, but I couldn't figure out which of the many cleaning solutions there would work on the bathtub (this was actually the other day in town). I did try to ask a woman working there, but she spoke no English. After looking for quite a while I finally noticed one that bottle, "Mr. Proper" with the same muscled guy pictured as on "Mr. Clean" at home, had the word "bath" on it, and showed a picture of a bathroom sink, a toilet and a bathtub shining in the background of the label. So I figured it would work. And today I used it and it did work quite well. So shopping is always an interesting cross-cultural experience.

By the way, I also bought some of the nut roll that looks like pugatitsa today and tasted it. It tastes a little like the pugatitsa we make, but that's not what it's called. I'm still working on learning what pugatitsa is here, and how it's different from this other stuff.

Then Vinko asked if I wanted to go up to Trsat (from the grocery store), and so we did. We visited the church there (our lady of Trsat), and saw more of it because there was no mass going on (as there was the other day). Vinko also took me around through the connected cloister and grounds near the monastery. There is a back garden with a covered area for devotions to the Virgin Mary (Marija here). And there were plaques and other objects decorating the gardens that had been found by the monks in the gardens and on the walls. There were many plaques on the wall given in commemoration to "our lady" or asking for her protection. Many of them apparently had to do with the sea. There was a whole chapel devoted to Mary with the walls completely covered with these types of commemorations, and also what appeared to be devotional artwork. For instance, there was a big (like 6 foot long) rosary all carved from wood, with 1 inch wooden beads, and a carved wooden crucifix. There were also some crutches on one wall, presumably from sick people healed by their pilgrimage there. This is one of the biggest pilgrimage centers in the country.

We also went to a health foodstore (Lotos) and then we went to a cafe, where I had some of the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted -- basically just melted chocolate, it seemed. I might start going to more cafes. Since I don't drink coffee I often don't think of stopping at cafes. But they also have lots of herbal tea here. I see people drinking it all the time, and it's readily available in groceries and at cafes, and people choose it over black tea. And the whole cafe culture (sitting outside or inside in an interesting atmosphere) is relaxing and appealing.

The weather was a little better today, but apparently another cold front is due to come through.