I have only two uncles (and zero aunts!) so I have to take care of them to last longer. You guessed it, stric means uncle in Slovenian.
Today celebrates mother’s brother, beer maker, beer drinker and beer poet. After working all his life for Union Brewery in Ljubljana, as the most recent of his accomplishments he took the collection of poetry by the biggest Slovenian poet from the 19th Century, France Prešeren, and rewrote ALL his poems so that now they revolve around beer. Among Prešeren’s poem is also A Toast, the text for Slovenian national anthem, read here by Vanessa Redgrave.
Throughout he has kept the original metrics and rhymes of individual poems, so it’s been quite a workload. And that’s not all – he is already threatening to finish his second book of rewritten poetry but doesn’t wish to disclose which poet he has tackled this time.
Just a taste:
Ko bral sem jaz pesmi Prešernove, malo prešernih
našel sem. Sem se razjezil, dal nove na dan.
/Free translation: As I was reading Prešeren’s poems, I found only a few to be jolly (“Prešeren”=jolly, happy). I got mad and came up with new ones./
You can guess that he has retired by now. And he did it just in time, before his brewery was acquired by Heineken three years ago or so.
Happy birthday and I wish you never run out of poets, rhymes and beer! Oh, and please, pridi kaj! (This means roughly do come over and it’s a family saying based on an anecdote. After my parents’ wedding my father’s uncle said to you Pridi kaj – to be polite – but you indeed came over with your rucksack for a week. :D)
Photos are from other times you came over, to our home here in Tuscany, as you do about twice a year. Soon the time will come again. Cin cin and always welcome!
Sometimes you cheat on beer. In Volterra you found your double. In Siena you minded bestia for me, thank you! Dare to repeat what you said about Italian beer? Siena Cathedral is pretty mind-blowing. Montalto di Castro before a storm. Talamone before a storm. Towards Volterra. On one of the Monte Argentario peninsula beaches. Proudly showing how many asparagus you had eaten. 😀 In Castiglioncello we found a hidden passage to the sea. Right here in good light. Porto Ercole, beer 1. Porto Ercole, same bar, your favourite. Porto Ercole, Union on shirt, Heineken in glass. No fear with beer. The Night of the Pirates in Porto Ercole, still to be experienced.
Let’s raise our glasses then…with beer of course.
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Thank you, Bojana. Živeli! 🙂
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Cin cin. (Moving to wine now)
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There must be Beerbeer blood from the Maghreb in your family!
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Wow, this sounds precise. My uncle loves going to Morocco and Egypt and Turkey. Must be the Beerbeer in him. 😀 (Only when writing it down, Beerbeer, I realised that you may not be all that serious. :D) Thanks!
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Just a silly little joke. I enjoyed the piece (and your uncle) immensely. I also like North Africa, no offense meant to Berbers.
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Of course no offence. I was simply thinking that you’ve got some mean face recognition skills and that this is your line of work and that this is just how you spell Berbers. 😀 😀
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