09 August 2011

reflections on trieste





since returning to the states, i've been that kind of busy that makes your heart warm.  i've had too many phone calls and messages and i've eaten lots of delicious meals (mexican food!).  i've already been to cville, richmond, roanoke, wilmington, and the beach and have seen many of the people that i have missed this past year.  what little alone time i've had in the past few weeks, i've spent reading or planning trips to california, new york, and elsewhere to visit even more friends!  

so, obviously, i haven't really much time to officially reflect upon last year.  i mean, every morning when i drink my illy coffee and sit reading, i think about my roommates and our via della guardia daily routine, but that's not the same as really reflecting; it still feels like i'm on vacation and will be going back to trieste any day now.  

except that i'm not.  all that's left to do now is make sure i'll always remember how incredible the past year was. 
________________________________________________


in april, i started writing this post.  it was beginning to sink in that the end was approaching and i had finally begun to like living in trieste.  along with both of those things, however, i just got so much busier working hard and playing harder and i never found the time to actually post it.  then, just after i returned to the states, i discovered this article on travel and leisure's online site and i remembered that i had never finished the post.  it seems as if everyone is discovering trieste now, just as i have left the city, and having lived there, i feel some authority in my review of the place.  since everyone else is writing about my city, i might as well join in.  


earlier this year, this article on trieste was featured in a new york times blog.  i read it, enjoyed it, thought about it for a bit, made a note to reflect and blog on it, and then quickly got distracted and forgot to revisit the almost-post.  a few weeks later, i received an email from a friend of my grandmother's who was based in trieste during world war II, with a link to the very same article.  more recently, another article was printed in the nytimes travel section and the wheels in my head began turning.  why is everyone so into trieste all of a sudden?  before learning of the school and becoming interested in a job there, i had never heard of the city.  nothing major has changed in the city recently so it seems as if everyone has just stumbled upon trieste all at once. 

both articles in the times give overall positive reviews of the city but go back and forth before reaching their final conclusion.  the articles got me thinking, do i agree? what is my opinion of trieste?  i still haven't formulated a succinct answer for the inevitable question, "how was your year in trieste?"  and while this question will rarely receive an answer that does the truth justice, i should have something mentally composed.  

so.  what about trieste?  is it magical? miserable? mediocre?


in trying to form an official review of the city, i've been looking at some old blog posts.  very early in the year i said, "i love my city."  later... i was introduced to the rain + fog + bora combo that trieste is famous for and my opinion changed a bit.  at the same time as the weather became horrendous, i was reading jan morris' trieste and the meaning of nowhere, and by the title, you can imagine how negatively this impacted my opinions of the city. during the last few months, however, the weather was gorgeous, i knew my way around, had italian friends, and really quite liked it. 


in T+L, reggie nadelson describes trieste as "a handsome italian city."  for me, trieste was never as much italian as it was international.  having previously studied within the medieval walls of siena - rich in tuscan culture - i feel knowledgeable in what is truly italian.  trieste had about as much in common with siena as it did with america (not much), which really shocked me at first.  for me, trieste was the melting pot of italy and eastern europe with a bit of austria mixed in.  when traveling to italy, few tourists will choose trieste over the more popular, more italian, destinations of rome, florence, and venice.


in fact, one of the things i liked the most about trieste is its lack of tourists; i noticed that most tourists move through the city only on their way to more popular eastern european destinations just across the border.  as i'm sure most will agree, it's nice when your city isn't dominated by people wandering around lost and asking for directions.  since they weren't overwhelming in trieste, it was refreshing when someone came to visit or a stranger approached us to ask questions - we enjoyed the sporadic opportunity to share our home with visitors instead of growing annoyed with constantly having to show it off.  this is a fact that was reinforced for me when talking with my mom.  after their time in trieste, my parents went to venice for two days before heading back to the states.  they loved trieste but to sum up their days in venice, my mom said, "i'm glad i went, but it was crowded and expensive. i don't really need to go back."  the lack of large-scale tourism in trieste makes life more affordable and real.  trieste isn't a place to come and be a perma-tourist.  living in trieste is more like the real world, in a good way, instead of some fantastical life of constant vacation.


on the other hand, at times in trieste, i felt more alone than ever before in my life and these moments spurred great amounts of self-reflection.  while i didn't reinvent myself, i did have a lot of think time and did a lot of rediscovering myself.  there were many times in the beginning when i found myself resenting the loneliness of the city "for talking, thinking, writing, wandering," but one of the major things i learned about myself this year is how to spend time alone.  i confirmed that i am an extrovert; i love to be around people all the time which made it hard for me to prioritize "me time"  but i also learned to appreciate solo activities and how to enjoy the laid-back vibe that the city has; by the end, i loved the fact that the city was "for talking, thinking, writing, wandering".  


so trieste is relaxed and beautiful.  these things are great!  however, i'm a social 24-year-old and more-than-occasionally missed the obvious existence of social opportunities.  as jan morris so perfectly states, "at the end of an autumn day's work, the city hardly feels as though it is preparing for an evening out."  with an elderly population, the city shuts down quite early in the evening.  whenever i traveled to more bustling cities like berlin, london, amsterdam, i didn't want to leave.  being hidden and isolated in a beautiful corner between western and eastern europe was great for developing new hobbies and traveling to random spots but i struggled in the beginning because i didn't want to travel every weekend and i wasn't looking to discover new hobbies.  i didn't see all that much wrong with who i was when i arrived in treiste.  retrospectively, however, i am very glad i was forced to calm down.  i live a much richer life now than i did a year ago.  i cook, i run, i read, i write.  these are all things that i have always appreciated and i'm glad i had time to remember my appreciation.  even with the new appreciation of these hobbies, however, i did miss the bustle of people.


trieste is truly unique because it has all the components of a major european metropolitan city:  easy to get to (airport, train station, major highways, boat options), major events (la bavisela, barcolana), international schools (multiple), a good university, a double-decker sight-seeing bus, and incredible sights to be seen.  so what gives? where is the bustle i missed?  it's the people, i think, that give it the lonely feel.  no one is overly friendly, a majority of the population is over the age of 80 and the few young people in the city are either set in their ways and uninterested in meeting new people or go home to their parents' houses in nearby cities every weekend.  these circumstances create some difficulties in meeting locals.  i wonder if the people have always been like this?  has the city always been lonely?  and is that why many famous writers, including italo svevo, james joyce and sigmund freud, have written here -- did they come here to hide in their words?  how did they know it was a place "to be left alone...?" and why didn't anyone tell me?


the unfriendly nature of the triestine people could be attributed to the melting pot culture.  because many triestini have diverse, international backgrounds, they don't have as strong a national identity as they do a triestine identity and pride.  there is much smaller population of people with whom to relate.  even sandro, the unusually friendly man who accepted our hitch-hiking plea that one time from slovenia, spoke of the "melting pot" nature of the area that makes it unique.  we asked where he was from, and he said "i was born in trieste, but i have quite a mix. i've got austrian, croatian, slovenian, and italian, so this is where i live. we are all of mixed background here."  the triestini aren't italian, they aren't croatian, they aren't slovenian - they are triestini.  and you can't simply become triestini, it's what you're born into.  


so, trieste has the full spectrum of weather patterns ranging from mind-blowing sunsets to the treacherous bora and an aging population that is impossible to make friends with.  many people have written that it's a good place for the drifter, "a loitering kind of place."  morris says that trieste "gives me a waiting feeling as if something big but unspecified is always about to happen."  it's a stopping point on the way to greater places and greater things for those who stop through.  when i was there, it felt like a very inbetween place.  but what was i on my way to? i never could decide (and still haven't decided).  i was constantly asking myself, "why am i here?!" and "what am i doing next?!"  was it a coincidence that i spent this year of indecision in trieste?  while i was there, i remembered things that i had previously lost sight of; i cleared my head and rediscovered some of my priorities.  is that what trieste is for? to find yourself?   


i have not yet figured out why so many people seem to be obsessing about trieste right now, all at once.  but, i think it's ok.  adding a bit more tourism won't immediately turn the city into a fantastical spot for perma-vacationers.  maybe the added visitors will inspire the city to get a bit more bustle in its step.


i don't know all the answers but i do know that i am a lot different from who i was a year ago, before leaving for trieste.  for me, trieste was a place of discovered opportunities.  i realized things i was capable of and things that interested me.  throughout the year, i felt like i could do anything.  at the beginning, i wasn't sure if i loved it.  but i grew to like the city in the end.  maybe it just takes some time to get used to trieste, a natural adjustment period unique to the city?  you know, i have heard of a thing called culture shock.... 


i do think that without meaning to, the city of trieste helped me to focus on myself and what i wanted out of life.  whether it was because of the city itself or because of the specific circumstances surrounding my year in trieste, i don't know.  but i do know that i loved it, it was hard to leave, and i would love to go back someday - even if just to see another incredible sunset. 

No comments: