SuperRobin!

The Plan:
We're still hanging out in Croatia. Right now we're in Dubrovnik, where hopefully we will finally get some decent beach time! I've been dreaming of a nice warm beach since last November but it just hasn't materialized yet.

The plan is to stay in Dubrovnik for a few days then migrate south towards Athens over the next week. From Athens Robin will fly to Ireland for 5 days to work. After that we're thinking about hanging out in Greece for a while and then heading toward Sicily. It looks like we'll probably stay for at least the summer in Europe. We're even considering buying a (very tiny) car here!

Random Fact:
The Croatian chief of state is President Mesic; how cool is that!

From Split To Dubrovnik:
Bosnia/Herzogovina is a land-locked country, except for a 6-mile section smack-dab in the middle of Croatia. So we crossed the border into B/H while traveling from Split to Dubrovnik, then crossed back into Croatia a few miles later. We did stop for a lunch break while in B/H though. There was a kind of duty-free store that accepted payment in pretty much any currency. While we watched, we saw transactions in Kuna, US Dollars and Euros. A bunch of Japanese tourists from a tour bus went into a spending frenzy, buying a bunch of chocolate for god knows why.

We've traveled almost the entire coast of Croatia by bus. It's a crazy-long ride as the road hugs the shoreline the entire way and it is not by any means a straight coast. Sometimes we would travel 20 kilometers by road to get 2 kilometers down the coast. Despite the long trip the buses are comfortable and the scenery is awesome. It is cheaper, faster, and easier than traveling by ferry or train.

All along the highway we would see nice little restaurants with outdoor seating, each with a giant rotisserie out front. We saw everything from pigs to lamb to chickens to pork chops being grilled. Unfortunately we haven't seen a single similar restaurant within the towns we've stayed at. It's very frustrating and perhaps one of the reasons we're thinking about getting a car!

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Reservations:
Robin and I have learned a new trick for finding a place to stay. Earlier in the trip we pored over web sites trying to figure out where to book rooms. Usually we stayed in shared-room hostels for $15-$25 per person (cheap hotels costing upwards of $65-$75). Now we don't try to find a room until the evening we arrive in a town, and our life is much easier.

We arrived in Dubrovnik at about 8:30pm and as expected were immediately mobbed by a bunch of old ladies trying to provide pansiones for rent. Not being in the mood for bargaining, we just picked the loudest one. She took us to her house which was less than a 1 minute walk from the station. She turned out to have a beautiful brand-new set of rooms complete with an ensuite toilette in ours. There is even a separate kitchen available for guest use. The place is so new that the stove for the kitchen will be put in tomorrow. The bill is 180 Kuna, or a bit over $33 per night. This is very cheap for Dubrovnik, especially over the holiday (May Day) weekend. I suspect we could have bargained and gotten it for cheaper but we both got a fair deal I think.

Both times we have gone with the pansione route we've ended up with very nice centrally-located lodging. The old ladies are very sweet as well, falling over themselves trying to be helpful. The landlady in Split did not speak that much English, but somehow had fixated on the word "super". Every sentence she uttered was super-this or super-that. "This room, it is super!" "The beach, it is super! Super walk to the beach!". Best of all, she took to calling Robin "SuperRobin!". She had to introduce us to her daughter and we had a nice long conversation about family and other random stuff.

The landlady in Dubrovnik was so proud of her new apartment. She (her sister actually) had to show us every light switch, the bed, the new floors, the way the lights went on and off. She made a rather big deal of the electric light switch actually.

Well, it's off to the beach now!

Bologna - the city, not the lunch meat

John and I traveled separately for a few days and I went to visit Bologna while he went to Slovenia.

I met up with a group of people Saturday night at a bar in central Bologna and had a glass of wine and free buffet. The “new” tradition in Italy of apperitivo with free food is great. You usually pay 4-7 Euros for a drink and get free food ranging from snacks to a full buffet.

There were about 15 of us, mostly Italian, but also one representative from Egypt, Ireland, Australia, Pakistan, England, and New Zealand. I didn’t have my camera with me so these photos are just to get you in the mood of Bologna.

From the bar we went to the center plaza for a concert that was in celebration of Bologna’s liberation from “Nazzifaccismo”. The concert turned out to be not very good so we went on a tour of the town by night and ended up at a bar called Transylvania – very gothic décor that fit in well with the medieval building in which it was housed. I had to catch a bus after that, but everyone else went back to the center plaza for a bit before drifting towards home around 2AM.

The next day, camera in hand, I headed out to picnic with the group. There were many more people than the night before, probably 35 at the high point in the day.




We ate and then played around and talked.

Tereza from New Zealand tried out the couch.

Then came the singing. What songs could all those people from all different countries know? Many songs by The Beetles, “Losing my Religion” and “Wonderwall” to start with.

Half of the group stayed in the park and the other half went on what was supposed to be a one hour tour of the waterway under Bologna. We were gone for three hours.

The entrance was through a steel plate in the street.



The tour included information about the Roman structures, medieval buildings built on top of that, and 1700s construction on top of that and…so on. The corner of the building seen over the waterway was a bathroom with, of course, a hole in the floor for the waste to drop into the stream. The tour was in Italian and I caught a lot of it, but the guide talked on and on and it seemed when others told me what she said that the points I understood were the important bits and then she just rambled on a bit.


On the way back from the underground, Matteeo showed us a few interesting sights in Bologna including the window to look at the river running through town.





The river.











Interesting phrase in this ceiling mural found on a covered walkway near the town center – “Canibus Protectio”




This guy was set up on the edge of the town square. He has all of this equipment built into his motorcycle. He rides to a new town, plays, and rides off again. Click on the picture to take a closer look.


Matteeo showed us an interesting perspective on Bologna’s famous statue – he looks happy to see you.



To be continued!

Moving Again

Today we moved apartments - back to the one we were in originally. Our flatmate was nice, but we could not really understand her moods, what we were suposed to touch and not touch, what we needed to purchase ourselves, etc. We ended up feeling very much like unwanted invaders most of the time rather than paying guests. Anyway, we dropped our stuff off at the new (old) place where we will share a flat with 4 other students. We have to wait until 5 to get the key to the room and since it is Easter weekend the museums are packed - we wandered a bit and are now at InternetTrain surfing.

Tomorrow we will go to the Pasqua celebrations where we will witness a wooden cart being drawn through the streets to the Duomo by white oxen. The archbishop of Firenze will light a symbolic dove with holy fire, it will fly down to the courtyard where it will alight on the wooden cart filled with fireworks and cause it to "explode". For a real explanation of this tradition, click here.

Just Hangin' Out

So, what have we been up to? Just the usual: wandering around, watching people, eating too much, trying to talk to the natives. We have actually not been inside any of the museums yet – who needs to pay to go look at art when it’s all around you?

Often, after school, we pick a direction and just start walking. The things we see are astounding: little sculptures in alcoves behind glass, fountains on the sides of businesses, statues standing in the cross-section of two small streets. The amount of art sitting in quiet corners and hiding behind busy tourist stands is unimaginable. It’s like we landed in a giant seek-and-find, the list of everyday marvels is endless.

Of course we plan to go to the museums before we leave, but in a city where the graffiti takes the form of the Fibonacci sequence, it may be a while before we have to pay to go see something amazing.

It is just starting to get warm enough to hang out in the parks. This one is very close to where we are staying and is usually filled with people taking their pausa between about 1:00 and 3:00PM. Normally, in the non-tourist districts, stores close between 1:30 and 4:00 and then re-open until about 7:00 or 8:00. We were told today that until recent years during the month of August EVERTHING closed down and people left town for vacation.


We decided to go investigate an old fort (Fortezza da Basso) very near where we are living. It was really interesting from the outside and even had what we thought was at one time a moat. The compound is actually huge – it takes up a large section of our map, and we had been wondering why it wasn’t mentioned in any of the tourist lists.

We spied a sign stating that there would be free admission to the fort over the weekend, but didn’t read closely enough. We went back the day after taking these photos and entered the fort. It has been converted to a modern convention center and they were having a home buying fair. Not exactly what we were expecting.

We decided to wander around the center of the city and quickly made our way down to the Duomo (cathedral). The lines for entrance wrapped around the building and around the block.

There were people from all over the world in large groups and small, each speaking a different language and many sporting interesting fashions.

The Duomo is undergoing preservation/reconstruction right now, which should make the big Pasqua (Easter) celebration on Sunday even more of a challenge – it will be interesting to see.

Past the Duomo we went over the Ponte Vecchio that bridges the Arno River. The Ponte Vecchio is famous for being lined with gold and silver shops. Needless to say, we didn’t buy.

On the other side of the river we passed the Pitti Palace and explored the surrounding neighborhoods. Here is a fountain on the side of a building near the bridge.

There are hundreds of churches in the city, most with beautiful artwork inside and out. I especially like the busts of saints with halos that are commonly found above the doorways.

I really hate being seen as an annoying tourist wandering about with my camera, but there is so much that is picture worthy. I am sure that people often wonder just what it is I am taking a picture of. In this case, I just really liked the little piazza – the woman in the foreground with the cigarette was waving it around and gesturing wildly as she talked to the man off camera – very typically Italian.

I wish I had opened the door to this shop to take the picture, but I didn’t want to disturb the people inside. This is a pretty typical neighborhood shop selling cheese, wine, cured meats, pasta, and a few specialty items. I often wonder how each shop stays in business because they all sell the same thing and they are everywhere. I suppose people frequent only the ones closest to them, but it still seems impossible that there would be enough business to support them all.

Parking space is almost non-existent and with gas priced at €1.26 per liter, or about $6.37 USD per gallon, most people choose to use scooters or small cars if they can’t walk or bike to their destination. This car is a bit smaller than average, but quite common. The people in Italy are, on average, quite a bit smaller than Americans, both in height and girth. John and I often feel like giants walking down the street, especially when we meet a group of Japanese tourists. This car is probably quite comfortable for many Italians - it even has a back seat.

Here is just another corner in the neighborhood. Nothing special.

We stop into a bar at least twice a day to get our coffee fix. Most people drink their caffe (espresso) standing at the bar and leave. They do the same with alcohol as the coffee bars serve both. We have often been standing at a bar enjoying our caffe machiatto and witnessed a few regulars come in, greet the bar man, knock down a shot of their regular liquor and hop back on their scooter. During Easter season, the bars all sell Uova de Pasqua – big chocolate Easter eggs with a surprise inside. They come in sizes ranging from 2oz – 10kilos!

Another normal traffic circle - except for the large statue of a woman with a block of marble balancing on her head and the ancient walls in the background.

We keep taking street shots – can’t help it.

This is the Piazza della Republica, once the center of Firenze (Florence), now the middle of the tourist area. It’s an interesting place to hang out and people watch, but you need to bring your own food and drink as the cafes are really overpriced in this area.

Street art. We have seen this girl several times re-creating famous paintings in chalk on the sidewalk in the tourist district.