Gnome at Home

Can you find the gnome?Dravograd, Slovenia
Wednesday July 1, 2009

This was a cute house in a a cute town where we did an evening performance during Festival Lent. Part of doing festivals is performing on the main stage and also going to neighboring cities for other shows. Dravograd was our first outreach show in Slovenia, and talk about a fabulous audience!

We headed off on the bus, leaving around 4pm for an 8pm show. Slovenia is rather hilly and the roads wind along– it reminded of Pennsylvania a lot, actually. We followed the river most of the way down, and we passed some absolutely beautiful views of the countryside. The houses are lovely, not ostentatious or suburban at all, but very much a part of the landscape surrounding them. The forests are filled with trees, turning the hillsides vibrant green hues with the foliage. And of course the river nearby… every now and then you could see the reflection of the scene in the water and it really was beautiful.

After about 2 hours driving, maybe a little less, we arrived in Dravograd. The bus hardly fit on the small main street, and parking it was a near super-human feat. We hauled off our costume bags and instruments and set up in our stage area. Our performance area was an indoor soccer field, with bright green “grass” as our floor. I guess it was more like a very thin carpet, because it didn’t really hinder our sounds at all during clogging. It was just very green. We had to jimmy rig some curtains to hide the changing areas behind the stage. We had three bathrooms to work with, and they were even smaller than most of the SPAC changing rooms, back in the day. Thank goodness for the extra curtains, so some people could change in the walkway behind the stage that led to the bathrooms.

We set costumes, did hair and make-up, then ran some tech rehearsals. We had a full show lined up and needed to go over a few things, particularly Crazy Foot Swing, since Skinny wasn’t with us yet. I aboslutely love that dance– it’s probably my favorite, actually– but the beginning lift always scares me now that my shoulder popped out once doing it. Thank goodness, Thomas is great, and we never had a hitch with it. We worked out some steps and formations, then headed down to dinner.

That’s where we saw this house. Dinner turned out to be a nice 10-15 minute walk away down a small side street, along the river, past a WWII bombed-out bridge, past a random fish sign on a tree, and finally in a lovely restaurant that seemed quite remote from everything else, but well-frequented. The owner, or at least the lady making sure we had everything, was very friendly and so nice! We had some incredible food. Drinks started off with strawberry and peach juice, with the standards of Coke and Fanta nearby. SO GOOD!!! I loved the strawberry juice, and totally wish we had some here in the states. Like every meal in Europe we had some salad with oil and vinegar… mostly vinegar I think. I really did enjoy those salads at every lunch and dinner. The main dish, as I recall, was a leg (?) of chicken and a slice of pork, fried potato bites– WAY better than tater tots and not even remotely similar– and some other kind of starch… rice I think. There was a lot of gravy involved too. It was absolutely delicious and completely filling. I had a hard time finishing most of my meals in Europe, they fed us so much.

When we left to back up to the show, it had started to rain and drizzle. I’ve found that most rain in Europe isn’t really that strong, overall. Tiffani, Sherrie, Emily, and I dashed back to finish getting ready, although we did stop for some photo opportunities. The photo below was shot on our way back. I just couldn’t resist the beautiful gardens and pretty houses. [The first photo was a detail of the garden behind one of these houses; this was the small road we followed around to and from the dinner/venue.]

More about the show later. 🙂