An announcement in Italian came over the intercom, and suddenly everyone rose and began to leave the Trieste airport waiting room. I was there to catch a plane to Frankfurt on my way home to Idaho for Christmas.
“What’s happening?” I asked someone who spoke English. I learned that all flights to Frankfurt were canceled because the airport firemen were on strike there.
I had made reservations leaving as late as possible before the holiday so that I would miss only a few days of teaching classes. Now I realized I might not be able to get home because it was so close to the holidays that flights might already be filled. Nevertheless, I followed the crowd to the desk where everyone was re-booking their flights. Last in line, I didn’t expect much success and was mentally preparing to be disappointed. But yes, it was possible to get a flight out the very next day.
This all happened at little Ronchi airport several miles west of Trieste, Italy. My good friend and colleague at the college, Silva, had insisted on driving me there even though we would have to leave Slovenia at 4 a.m. After arriving, we had enjoyed a latte before she left to drive back to Slovenia.
So there I was stranded, but best to just go back to the college and teach my classes. I went to the car rental office, got a car and drove back to Slovenia where I arrived just before lunchtime. While I was sitting at my desk in the teachers’ office, Silva walked in, gasped and did a double take when she saw me.
“Why are you so surprised to see me?” I asked. “After all it is my day to teach.”
She stared a moment mouth agape, and said, “Did I just dream I took you to the airport?” After I explained the situation, she said it had seemed completely unreal and like the world had suddenly tilted.
Luckily for her, I had my rental car so she didn’t need to drive me to the airport again the next day. Everything went as planned and I got home with no further problems.
The trip back to Europe was almost as big an adventure as leaving it. As we flew over Europe I was surprised to see snow covering everything. That was very unusual in some areas. Silva had told me she would pick me up at Ronchi airport. But while I was changing planes in Frankfurt, she called my Nokia phone and said she didn’t know if she could get to the airport because a blizzard had closed the autostrada (Italy’s autobahn). She would let me know, but if she couldn’t get there I should take the bus into Trieste and she’d meet me there.
Fortunately Silva was able to reach the airport by driving through downtown Trieste and along the Mediterranean seacoast road. She was a welcome sight, for sure. We slowly retraced the route she had used and got back to Slovenia just fine.
While we were stopping for pizza, the Nokia rang again. This time it was my landlady who was worried about me getting back OK. I told her the roads were icy and there had been very little traffic but Silva managed well.
Scheduled to teach the next morning, I had to use my kitchen spatula to scrape half-an-inch of ice from my car windows. Skill, born here in Idaho from driving on slick roads, served me well. Again there were very few vehicles traveling, and at school few teachers and even fewer students showed up. Unused to such weather, almost everyone indulged in a cozy day at home.
A colleague who lived in Trieste said the streets of that hilly city were so steep and un-travelable that food had to be delivered by helicopter to the hospital on the hill above town. She also told of a hilarious scene with one of the tiny three-wheeled pickup trucks used in vineyards creeping up a steep road as two men sitting on the back tossed out handfuls of salt.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Johnson, of Grangeville, worked in three different European countries — Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovenia — in the 1990s and early 2000s. She can be reached at johnsondixie@hotmail.com.
