Thursday Doors, 5/12/19: Door gifts and family

• Manja Maksimovič

Today is a bit of a door soup from here and there with my family thrown in for good measure. And there is Duba Duba Duba yeah yeah, as we used to sing.

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Let’s start where we dropped off last week when I was in Slovenia celebrating big with my parents. We had a long, interesting and fun lunch (amore commented that we would be late for dinner since we were still at lunch) with immediate family at Grič in Horjul. Then we returned home where a surprise accordionist was waiting. Uncle joined him with his harmonica and we sang and the day was complete. Here are some glimpses from the restaurant.

  • Mom at the heart door of our restaurant.
  • Long time no cousins! Sis and I have only one and still we see each other so little. Photo: Father.
  • Cousin Polona is the daughter of the uncle at the end. Sis has mad selfie skillz.
  • Still a happy couple after all these years.

And now to Duba. If you’re wondering – and you are – Duba is a tiny village on the long and varied Croatian coast. It is the place where I spent my Augusts growing up and it has a special place in my heart and in the hearts of all who visit it.

Last month my oldest friend (by duration, not age) suddenly began throwing photos at me from there and I got that warm feeling that will never fail to appear. It was November and she was swimming and taking photos of how it is now that stairs lead from the terrace of the room where we three used to sleep, she and my elephant-collecting friend (we met there, even though in Ljubljana we lived only 15 minutes apart) and I. Such stairs would have changed it all – but no, we had to climb down if we wished to escape in the night. And we did.

This is us three now, Trio addio (as we joked), three graces from the same generation on the brink of 50 (not yet, next year!).

Nika + Taja + Manja. Photo: Amore.

And this is Duba, by Nika (and friends).

  • Nika in Duba.
  • All important stairs.
  • Where Taja lived when we met.
  • Nika’s parents liked the room above.
  • One of the doors I passed a lot.
  • The old house.
  • Renovated.
  • The church! Only one shop. No bars.
  • No telephones. This is new.
  • The first view of the port.
  • The pier.
  • The view from the pier. I climbed that.
  • The beach!!
  • Our spot at the end of the beach.
  • Nika in November.
  • So that you know if you’re near.
  • Our host family boat. Povratak means “return”. We shall.

And finally, two especially beautiful door gifts. The first was taken by sister in Maribor, Slovenia, the birthplace of our father, and the second comes from Andreja who lives in Maribor and with whom I was also in Duba more than once when we were little. She saw on Facebook that I like doors and sent me the second beauty from Lovran in Croatia.

  • Maribor. Photo: Klu
  • Lovran. Photo: Andreja

Thank you both, and Nika for Duba, and father and cousin for their photos of our celebration, and mom and sister and uncles and Duša and everybody who made my week in Slovenia as wonderful as it was. (Including the dentist. And nurse Branka who went online to find my town in Tuscany immediately upon hearing where I live. And Patti Smith!! I didn’t tell you yet – I went to Trieste to hear her sing in a gorgeous theatre. I’ll tell you more another time. Power to the people!)

For Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors challenge.

35 thoughts on “Thursday Doors, 5/12/19: Door gifts and family”

    1. Thank you so much, Bojana. 🙂 Oh yes, Flavia has a great eye, I’m glad you found her post. Her first time in Ljubljana and she found all these dragons. I have photos of most of them but not nearly all. I hope she sees this. I can post my dragons with some other things that I promised her. Yeah, I will do that, sooner or later.

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  8. All the smiles in this post had me smiling from ear to ear too.
    I can just imagine Marco in his subtle tone casually mentioning being late or dinner because you’re all still at lunch 😀
    And the gift doors…ooh, everyone needs door disciples like these two 😉

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  12. I think that Povratak is going to be the rallying cry for my victory lap. So many smiles here. Nothing is better than the company of family and friends. Your father’s birth door was pretty cool! My father used to take me to see his old apartment building whenever we were in the city. One time we drove by and it had been torn down. He was very quiet that evening.

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    1. Ah, Lisa, this is a splendid war cry. 🙂 I see that I wasn’t clear. It’s not this house that was dad’s birthplace, but rather the city Maribor as such. I don’t know where exactly sister found this beauty.

      But I know he himself showed me the house in which he was born a few years ago for the first time. Here is the post: https://manjameximovie.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/thursday-doors-july-20-2017/

      Thank you for your story too. My parents still live in the same house where they did when I was born. Slovenians don’t move much, I guess, unless we really move. 🙂

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