Trieste

Guess what? I'm still alive! I haven't been run over by a Vespa yet! (I consider this to be my most likely form of death while I'm here.) I know it's been a while since I've been in the blogo-sphere, but it's for good reason. I've been really busy (in a good way.)  I've taken a number of weekend trips, plus classes have really started to pick up. I'll probably write more about all that later. Right now, I'm going to talk about my recent trip to Trieste, which is what inspired me to write another post after such a long hiatus.

Geography lesson. Trieste is here:

It's not even in the boot. It's pretty much directly across the Adriatic from Venice, and I think there are actually ferries that run between the two cities. (We took the train.) Since Trieste is so close to the border of Slovenia, there's a lot of Slavic influence, and it also has a history of belonging to the Hapsburg Empire in Austria. So, it's a pretty unique place. For example, a lot of restaurants serve traditional Italian dishes as well as Hungarian goulash and German sausage.

We decided to go to Trieste (the "we" being me and 4 other American girls) because we had a long weekend, and we found a really decent-looking hostel there. However, in the days leading up to our trip, I checked the weather forecast, which of course was 90% chance of rain. So, I wore my fleece jacket and wool socks and packed a hat and two scarves. My roommates warned me of the high winds in Trieste and wished me luck. Evidently it's not a popular destination in November.

I don't know whether we got lucky or if the bad weather in Trieste was just hype, but it was super sunny and beautiful! If you don't believe me look at these pictures:

Mom look! Rowers!

In Trieste we saw two castles. The first, Castello di San Giusto, was situated on a hill overlooking the city and provided some excellent views of the city like this:

San Giusto also had a museum of war photography artificats and that Noelle (my fellow History major) and I spent a long time looking at. You can also see the ruins from the Roman city of Tergeste:

The second castle, Castello Miramare, was right on the sea. It was originally built for the Hapsburg archduke and later emperor of Mexico Maximilian and his wife, Charlotte. Awesome history aside,  these guys had some sweet digs.

Another highlight of this trip had to be the food. For lunch on Saturday I split the "Piatto di Buongusti" (Plate of good tastes) with Margaret. Somewhere this is documented, but it had a mix of Italian classics like gnocchi and polenta with Hungarian and German dishes like goulash and sauerkraut. Awesome!

One more picture of the water.

And this cat riding a motorcycle.

And this dog in a bandana. 

 
Okay. Over and out.