Ljubljanica River, with Cafe Romeo on the leftFall is lovely along the Ljubljanica River as it winds its way through the city after which it is named.
There are at least 30 cafes lining the river, all equally jammed with Slovenians enjoying their leisure time with kava and a sendvici. One such café is Café Romeo, and it sits just across the cobblestone path from Café Julija.
And nothing spoils a riverside café kava more than when your five year old asks,
“Mom, what’s an orjasm?”
"You mean O- ran -gina? You know what that is. But you can’t have one today. Can you find another, less sugary drink? A juice or something.”
“OK, How about a juice -y pussy?”
“What?”
"A juice -y puss-y"
"I'm sorry?"
“MOOOOOOMMMMM, she’s reading the liquor drink menu!”
“What?”
“You know, the alcohol drinks.”
“What menu?"
“Look”
'That's not true."
"Yes, it is"
"Take it from her. Be casual."
"No, that's mine. That's my menu. I had it first. You don't have to read it to me. I can read. What IS an orjasm?“
"Hum, well, It's one of those intoxicating, adult drinks. You know, like wine or beer.”
"Oh"
At first, it was hard to understand the frequency of such language in mainstream cafes here. But it only took a few Slovene classes to reach clarity on the issue. Take Dober seks for example. Does that get under your skin? Or socno moco?
Well, it sure would if it were on a Slovene menu.
But make no mistake though, Slovenians do have a different view of nudity, and sexual innuendo than we do in the US. Whether it’s the spas, the sex shops facades, or the billboards, nudity is just not as alarming, or disarming, as it is to us in the States.
Take a look at the billboards and store windows of the city streets here in Ljubljana.
Riverside upscale
shop
"Mom, there are 27 evil strawberry billboards, and 14 of those women in see-through bikini ones"
Yes, this is really outside the Historic Opera House
And these Venera Sex shops are almost as frequent as those Lekarna Ljubljanas. Clearly in Slovenia, Venera conjures images of that beautiful Roman Goddess of Love, Venus. But as a doctor, venera is only synonomous with venereal disease, making this sex shop not very enticing reallly.
4 comments:
Venera
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Venera (Cyrillic: Венера) series probes were developed by the USSR between 1961 and 1984 to gather data from Venus.
Ten probes from the Venera series successfully landed on Venus and transmitted data from the surface, including the two Vega program and Venera-Halley probes. In addition, thirteen Venera probes successfully transmitted data from the atmosphere of Venus.
Venera is the Russian name for Venus.
well, what do I say other than I LOVE the first photo.
and so funny about Jia and reading.
miss you all mom
hmmmm....interesting ads. I'm currently studying sexual oppression in advertising. The one with the woman in her lingerie dusting and the "skinny...part of life" makes me shudder a bit. Do blatantly sexual images mean people are free in their sexuality or expected to be sexual? I can't quite put my finger on it.
As a matter of fact, I've been pondering the same thing. My guess is, that like most other places in the western world, it is a mixed bag.
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