From our room

It is 338 steps down to the main walkway. This means that from the main walkway it is 338 steps up to our room. By the time I get to the top, I can no longer walk. Instead, I'm shuffling like the old women who carry small bundles around town, going no where fast. They outlasted the communists, they weathered the '90s, this day is nothing much to worry about either.

Lokrum

There's a stone bench on the island of Lokrum. It faces the sea, as most benches on the island do. I sat there, hidden in the shade, looking at the Adriatic through a break in the leaves, listening to Third Eye Blind.

Dubrovnik

Everything in Dubrovnik is picturesque. The steps worn smooth from millions of feet. The oranges falling form the trees, rotting on the ground below. The laundry hanging from the windows. The workmen repairing boats in the harbor. The red tiled roofs. The children playing soccer in shady corners. In every glance, something catches the eye.





When everything is picturesque, when do you stop? When the batteries in your camera die? When your memory card is full? When you're tired of pulling your camera out every ten steps because a pigeon has landed on the arm of a saint or a cat is balanced on a window sill? Or is it when you finally realize your lens will never catch the sunlight's angle as it filters down between the buildings and comes to rest on the awning of the cafe where you ate supper last night while a string quartet practiced in the church next door.

Honestly, it'd probably be better to forget the camera for a day and just soak it in. Of course, no one really has the self-discipline to do that.

En Route to Dubrovnik

I don't see how anyone could wear black today. Everything is drenched in color. The deck is green, the ocean, blue, my notebook and shoes, red, and Aubrie seems to be wearing all the other colors. It feels like a Nautica photoshoot. Or maybe Fanta.

The ferry ride was 8 hours long, so we had ample time to enjoy the scenery of the Adriatic coast....



...and lay out



...and take artsy pictures of the lifeboats


and have a Fanta...


And even after all of that we still had a couple hours left....
so we had a photo shoot...

I'll spare you the rest. I don't think we'll be getting any calls from Nautica (or Fanta) requesting our services.

Plitvice and Split

We took a bus from Zagreb to Split. On the way we stopped at the Plitvice Lakes National Park. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and even though it wasn't in our plans, we couldn't in good conscience pass it up, since it was on the way and all. At Plitvice, there is a series of lakes connected by waterfalls. It was well worth it. See picture for further explanation.

We had three hours there and then hopped back on the bus for 6 more hours till we arrived in Split. We stopped in a lot of smaller towns, picking people up and letting them off. I slept off and on and between times just tried to observe and figure out life in Croatia.
This is what I saw.
A pair of goats in the street. A woman, bent double, preparing her field for the growing season. Three boys playing soccer, pausing their game when the bus stopped to let off their grandmother. Two nuns, collecting their items and disembarking as quietly as they had arrived. A field of poppies. Everywhere, people working hard to stay.

We arrived in Split in the evening. Leaving the bus station, we set off on the quest to find our accommodation and were caught off-guard by the city itself. There was a wide promenade all along the front of Diocletian's palace. It was gorgeous. New white paving stones had been laid just two weeks earlier, we were told by a local man. We found our place a little ways walk from the promenade. It was up a slightly winding road, through a gate to a housing compound with pathways lined with flowering bushes. Our room was just off of a little courtyard area, secluded slightly behind an overhanging tree branch. We dropped our stuff off and after a brief chat with the guy that owned the home, we headed back down to the promenade for more. We wandered around through every short and narrow alley in the palace. We stopped for ice cream twice.

In Split you can imagine lots of things. Narrow streets connect and lead from countless geranium filled balconies to crumbling arches to stairs climbing out of sight. Cars are impossible. It's a maze of life that has been going on here amongst these very walls and columns since the 3rd century A.D. Time and people have passed through and left their mark. When the city came under attack, the people of the surrounding area flocked to the palace for protection within it's walls. At some point Diocletian died. His private quarters eventually became the city slum. Apparently there's talk of building 20 new buildings, including a shopping garage complex (whatever that is) within the palace walls. Not sure how I feel about that, though I suppose it's their city and this is part of the same process that has been shaping it since the days of Diocletian.

Fanny Packs and a Gingham Jacket

Zagreb in Bullet Points
Aubrie asked me, “What should the first bullet point for Zagreb be?”
I replied, “You should know. You were there. *pause* But I think it was wearing a gingham jacket.”

Indeed our first encounter in Zagreb was with a gingham jacket-wearing, male flight attendant from Baltimore. He was on our flight from Frankfurt but his luggage never made it. It had never left DC. As a result, he had to stay in Zagreb and wait for it to arrive instead of traveling on to meet up with his friends, so we took a taxi together to our hostel and he managed to get a bed there as well.

Zagreb was a good time. The afternoon we arrived, we sat outside a cafe and watched the fanny packs go by. I've never seen so many fanny packs in my life. Not even in the 80s. After I finished my hot cranberry tea (gross) we walked around for a bit and I managed to step in the biggest pile of dog crap imaginable and nearly fall down several times. It was amazing.

The next day, Aubrie and I walked around all day. We heard the cannons go off at noon as they do every day. Came across a big courtyard area outside the train station where there were about 20 people with carts set up selling strawberries. I had to buy some. They were delicious. We walked around and through and up some crazy alleys and staircases and stumbled upon a man playing a guitar. Since the street really wasn't on the main routes, I suspect he set up and played there between the buildings because he liked the acoustics and didn't worry about how many people would throw coins in his case. We ended up going back about 20 minutes later and bought some CDs from him. He gave us a deal - buy two, get the third free. So we got 3 Cds for 100 kuna or about $20.

Everyone in Zagreb smokes. I think I got cancer when I stepped off the plane. We saw a 9 year old girl walking down the street with 3 adults. She casually took a drag from her mom's cigarette. No one else seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Cro-Magnon Curls

I arrived in Croatia on the 15th looking like something straight from the Mesozoic. My hair was curly when I left home. However these curls don’t travel well. After 11 hours of flights, my hair looked like it had been styled by the Gieco Cavemen.

Death on the Interstate

My day was going too well. I was ahead of schedule, there was extra room in my bag, I went to the mall and found what I needed in 15 minutes instead of the 45 I could have spared. At 1:40 p.m. I was cruising down I-70. At 1:42 p.m., just before Exit 343 a coyote burst out of the ditch and across the road. He almost made it. Almost. Busted up the bottom part of my grill and took out the fog lights. I didn't have time to be upset, I had to catch my flight to Croatia. End result, after about an hour of phone calls and discussion, I got a rental. A big ol' Dodge, full size, quad cab... probably the nicest truck I'll ever drive. I made it to KCI with 45 minutes to spare.

Now I'm en route to Frankfurt, Germany. There's way too many devastatingly beautiful kids on this flight. They're half my age and already more gorgeous. I'm screwed.