Vino – a family visit / Vino – družinski obisk

It was three o`clock on a weekday morning half a year ago and I was sitting on a toilet, doing what I usually do when I have indigestion problems – because of my IBS that is quite a common occurrence. I still do not know why but I decided to google one of my best friends from high school Damjan. We lost touch about 6 years ago, for no apparent reason I can remember. Maybe it was just the fact that we had very different lives after high school so we slowly drifted apart. I don`t know why I googled him, although I think it was the »Paula influence«. I told her few days before that I had a dream about Damjan and in the dream he was in trouble. To this she replied that this is life telling me to call him. Google was the only tool I had to reconnect.  However, googling his name yielded no results, so I used the last thing that he told me about his life – that he met a cute Australian woman, a lawyer by profession working in England. That information, after a little bit of trying, helped me find his wife (she took over his surname, so I put one and one together). I got her work e-mail, said: »Why not! «, and wrote her an e mail.

She replied and the result of that late night visit to the loo was the two day visit this week. And they brought an addition to the family with them – a small cute little boy of two months. Apparently Damjan and Nicola (his wife) go quite often to Slovenia and Croatia for holidays with car and they pass Nuremberg on their way (that is just 45 minutes from Bayreuth). Damjan, true to his word, took two days for the visit and those two days went by in a flash.

We were nervous about the visit – because I haven`t seen Damjan for 6 years and because I haven`t met his wife yet and of course because they have a baby – we haven`t had a baby in our house over night for quite a while. We tried to make them as comfortable as possible and I tried to get Damjan as drunk as he can get. With the first task I think we succeeded, the second plan misfired. Damjan as it turns out can really hold his liqueur. I got so drunk that I almost puked in front of everybody the next day. Not my proudest moment and I will not tease Damjan to get drunk with me the next time we see each other. But Damjan has seen me at my worst in high school, way worse than this– there was this incident that we reminisce over every time we see each other. Well to make a long story short I got so drunk in the second year of high school that he had to carry me home where I collapsed and puked all over the place (mom was not pleased, dad gave me his sternest of looks – oh yeah, I was grounded for a month). Again, not one of my proudest moments. While we were together, conquering Bayreuth, we weren`t remembering our glory days in the high school as we used to (about how he was a real catch – he has this Latino Dalmatino thing going on, he still does; while I had my sport and the interest in school affair – for me those days are alas over – all of that made us kind of popular in high school, so we liked to remember that time.), we preferred to talk about the future plans and the ongoing stuff (family and kids). High school is evermore becoming a distant memory.

His wife is very pleasant and gorgeous and their son is just a »sugar plum« (this is what she called him – I never heard it before but it was adorable). In addition to showing Damjan the wonders of German beer at which I failed miserably, we showed them the town centre, Hofgarten and Eremitage. For anything more we would just need more time. Ahead are some pictures from their visit.

They said they had a great time and that they will visit us again in August. I hope they weren`t being polite. It was just so nice seeing my friend again, a teenager I once knew, the man I know now and his storybook family. Hope there are some adventures to be had for us in the future, so that when we get old we won`t just laugh about how I got stupor drunk in high school…

If you are still wondering about the title of this post – Vino is Damjan`s nickname that is an abbreviation of his surname.

Slovenec, ki živi v Angliji na obisku v Nemčiji:

Ob treh zjutraj nekega dneva pol leta nazaj sem sedel na stranišču, kar se pogostokrat zgodi, ko imam prebavne problem – kar je zaradi mojega iritabilnega črevesja precej pogosto – sem se odločil po spletu poiskati svojega najboljšega prijatelja iz srednje sole, Damjana. Še vedno ne vem kaj me je pičilo, saj sva izgubila stike že pred kakšnimi šestimi leti. Razlog zato, da nisva več ostala v kontaktu, mi ostaja neznanka, čeprav mislim, da sva po srednji šoli pač imela zelo drugačna življenja. Mislim pa, da me je Pauli vsadila idejo, da ga moram poiskati. Namreč v tistem obdobju sem nekajkrat sanjal, da je Damjan v nekakšnih težavah in, ko sem o tem povedal Pauli mi je preprosto odgovorila, da mi življenje hoče povedati, da ga naj pokličem. Ker nisem imel več njegovih kontaktov, mi je preostal Google, ki pa ob vpisu njegovega imena ni obrodil sadov. Zato sem bil malo bolj inovativen in sem uporabil zadnjo informacijo, ki mi jo je Damjan zaupal preden sva se odtujila, in sicer, da je spoznal neko zelo lepo Avstralko, ki pa dela v Londonu kot odvetnica. Ta informacija, skupaj z nekoliko iznajdljivosti, me je pripeljala do službenega elektronskega naslova ženske, ki je bila v Angliji zaposlena kot odvetnica, študirala je v Avstraliji in je imela Damjanov priimek (ki je zelo redek tudi v Sloveniji in v bližnjih Balkanskih državah). Sestavil sem eno sporočilo, si rekel: “Ja, zakaj pa ne!” in ga poslal.

Zelo kmalu mi je odgovorila in dvo-dnevni obisk ta teden je rezultat tistega straniščnega spletnega iskanja. Nista pa prišla sama – s sabo sta namreč pripeljala majhnega dvomesečnega dojenčka. Situacija je taka, da Damjan in Nicola (njegova žena) relativno pogosto obiskujeta Slovenijo in sosednjo Hrvaško in njuna pot ju pelje mimo Nuremberga, ki je le 45 minut oddaljen od Bayreutha. Damjan, zvest dani obljubi, si je na poti nazaj iz dopusta vzel kar dva dni, da nas obišče s svojo družino. Ta dva dneva sta minila kot bi trenil.

Ne bom lagal, s Paulo sva bila malce živčna zaradi obiska, saj Damjana nisem videl vsaj 6 let, žene sploh nisva poznala, z njima pa je prihajal še dvomesečni otrok in je že kar nekaj časa preteklo od zadnjič, ko smo imeli v hiši dojenčka čez noč. Zato sva se potrudila, da jim bo kar se da udobno in jaz sem sklenil, da bom Damjana napil, kar se da. Prvi načrt mislim, da nama je uspel, drugi načrt pa se mi je izjalovil. Vse tako kaže, da Damjan zelo dobro prenaša alkohol, zato sem se posledično, ko sem ga hotel dohajati, tako napil, da sem drugi dan skoraj bruhal pred vsemi. Torej nisem si bil ravno v ponos. Ampak Damjan me je videl že v bolj nizkih trenutkih mojega življenja, in sicer bil je en dogodek v srednji šoli, katerega se spominjava vsakič, ko sva skupaj. Če poenostavim, v drugem letniku srednje sole sem se ga tako napil, da me je Damjan moral nesti domov, kjer sem pobruhal vse okoli sebe (mama ni bila vesela, ati pa mi je dal svoj najbolj jezen pogled – aja, pa še ven nisem smel cel mesec). Torej, ni bil dogodek, ki bi mi bil v ponos. Ko sva bila z Damjanom zvečer v mestu, se več nisva spominjala najinih zlatih dni v srednji šoli (kjer sva bila kar popularna – Damjan s svojim Latino Dalmatino videzom, jaz s svojim športom in udejstvovanjem v dogodkih šole), sva se presenetljivo raje pogovarjala o prihodnjih planih in trenutno aktualnih zadevah (predvsem o družini in otrocih). Srednja šola čedalje bolj postaja oddaljen spomin.

Njegova žena je zelo prijetna in izjemno lepa, njun sin pa je “sladkorček” (njegova mama ga je neprestano klicala “sugar plum”, ki je angleška ljubkovalnica). Poleg mojega poskusa, da mu razkažem dobrote nemškega piva, kar mi je spodletelo, sva jima razkazala mestno jedro, Hofgarten in Eremitage. Karkoli več bi terjalo več časa, kot smo ga imeli na voljo. Zgoraj so nekatere slike iz njihovega obiska.

Ko smo se poslavljali, sta rekla, da sta se imela zelo lepo in, da nas bodo ponovno obiskali avgusta. Upam, da sta mislila resno in, da nista bila le vljudna. Meni je bilo zelo lepo ponovno videti svojega prijatelja, najstnika, ki sem ga nekoč poznal in moškega, ki ga poznam sedaj in njegovo skoraj pravljično družino. Upam, da naju v prihodnje čaka še kakšna avantura, da se ne bova na stara leta spominjala le dogodka iz srednje sole, ko sem se ga napil do amena…

Če vas še vedno bega naslov, naj vam zaupam, da je Vino vzdevek od Damjana, ki je skrajšava njegovega priimka.