An Update from Croatia

21^st May 2006
Zagreb, Croatia

Oh wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually be able to get online. The Internet is definitely one drug that I’ll never be able to quit. I’d be lying to say that I haven’t been looking forward to the wireless that would hopefully be a given at a Sheraton—because, let me tell you, wireless is not a common thing in Croatia. Shit, high-speed DSL/Cable is practically unheard of here. And, I’m sorry, I’m just not going to pay long-distance for dial up.

So anyway, Croatia has been a very interesting experience for us. We’ve managed to get into some interesting driving situations, some even more interesting family fights (though my mother swears they weren’t fights, we were just talking at each other very quickly and loudly!), and stay at some VERY interesting hotels (and I’m using that term loosely). However, we’ve also managed to see some amazing sights, meet some very friendly people, and a have a bunch of great experiences. Since I’m going to cover a few places in that this entry, I’ll just break it down be destination:

Dubrovnik, Croatia (in southern Croatia, on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea)

This is a major seaside resort for people in the Balkans, as well as several countries in Europe, especially Europe. Okay, side tangent: I have been around more Germans than Croatians! The Germans are the Japanese down here! They’re everywhere! Most of the television channels here are in German! Okay, back to traveloguing…

So, we ended up at the Hotel Adriatic. Umm…sparse is being kind to this hotel, but the views were incomparable. I didn’t mind the lack of tv (or shower door), with the amazing view I had from my terrace. The city itself was one of the most heavily shelled back in the 1990’s. However, the town has done a great job of recovering, and walking around there now, you would never have known that there was any damage done at all.

The town is relatively small, but has an old town center that is famous for the fortifications around it. You can walk on top of the walls around the city—which is so much fun! The Adriatic is a beautiful sea, probably the most beautiful one I’ve ever spent time at. Dad discovered that his (new) camera (you know, the one that replaced the $1,000 one) allowed him to take 5 pictures per battery. He was not a happy man.

We had an issue with power converters (they outlets in Switzerland are different from the ones in Austria and Croatia—who knew?), so we had to take a cab to a place with converters. Well, our friendly cab driver ended up driving up this long, windy road up a mountain. I couldn’t help but have my inner New Yorker freaking out and panicking about the death and dismemberment that was to come. Instead, he ended up driving us up to the tall hill above the city to be able to see the entire city below us. It was a total swindle to get more cash out of us (the meter was running the whole time), but it was so gorgeous, we didn’t really mind. This was also where you could see the shelled remains of a cable car station from 1991, as well as a restaurant and nightclub that were shelled then too. It really brought home to me how scary that period must have been for the Croatians.

Split, Solin

Solin is the a sprawling architectural site that has ruins ranging from 200 BC to the 5^th century AD. There’s a bunch of Christian church remains, but I was more interested in the Roman ruins further afield. In my attempt to find said ruins with Mom, we ended up on quite a few paths that led into private farms. Can you imagine, having to farm your cabbage, but these damn Roman bits keep getting in your way? The wildflowers here were amazing… I very much loved how unspoiled and non-commercial the site was. No one was selling little ruin snowglobes or postcards here (though I’m fine with people doing that—just not AT the place…I’d rather lose myself in the history).

Split is the second largest city in Croatia. It’s the place where the population of Solin evacuated to once a bunch of looting invaders came to Solin. It’s also the site where a huge US air craft carrier had just docked. You know the bit about Germans everywhere? Well, Split was the exception. There were American naval boys EVERYWHERE! I felt like I was back at home, except for the funny writing on the signs.

Split is particularly cool for the city’s center which was literally built starting with Diocletian’s palace (Diocletian was a Roman emperor whose favorite hobby was slaughtering Christians). So, when you walk around the city center, there are literally centuries of architecture co-existing—one might say in a rather parasitic fashion. Any true devotee of architecture might be aghast at the way it all comes together, but I couldn’t stop from being fascinated by the Frakenstein-ish quality to the whole thing. I have a picture up of Flickr that shows, from my rough understanding for architecture, at least 5 different architectural styles on one building. So crazy…

Pula & Dvdneck Croatia

This is the beginning of a two-day trek through MANY small towns in Croatia. Dad loved it (he planned it); it was a little overwhelming for Mom and me. But it was pretty neat to see so many historic towns that still hadn’t been over-commercialized. As some of you might know, I’m a pretty avid amateur historian of Roman antiquities—I always find myself being jealous of those 19^th century tourists who were able to traipse through the Coliseum with wildflowers growing there, no ropes holding them back, no tour guides holding up bright umbrellas and loudly explaining the stories of Romans in 15 different languages. Well, that’s 19^th century feel is what is going on at most of the sites in Croatia—which is fantastic. You can ramble, touch things, and climb walls pretty much at your own risk. I love that!

Pula is most famous for its amphitheatre—one of the largest complete ones in the world. It was fun walking around it, but I have to say that the stage they set up for Jose Carreras in the center of the auditorium kinda killed the mystique I was hoping for. There was a great display of excavated wine jugs found onsite below the auditorium, though. We also got to poke around a few other ancient sites—the forum and a temple dedicated to some 1^st century local big shots. Dad cursed at his camera even more.

Dvdneck is an abandoned medieval town in the middle of no where (that’s saying something in Croatia too!). It’s incredible. You can just walk, climb, whatever anywhere there. There’s just a few signs saying “Bad Idea” in 5 languages with some picture of a little stick guy getting killed by falling rocks. Haha, as if that would stop Dad and me. There were also gorgeous wildflowers everywhere as well. But you know what comes with gorgeous wildflowers? Bees the size of Snickers bars. At one point in the ruins, the buzzing was so loud, I don’t think you could hold a conversation. I did lots of brave exploring—but then I very quickly would run away from the first buzzing noise around my head. I looked like a total ass, I’m sure. But I didn’t get stung!

Polin & Hilltop Cities, Croatia

Polin is a lovely little seaside city. It’s famous for a church (aren’t all towns). But, the most notable thing that happened here (and actually in Pula too) were these god-awful seagulls. My parents and I were sleeping, when in the middle of night the most awful shrieking awoke us all around 4AM. I stumbled to the window and discovered that it was a group of seagulls. The seagulls here are fucking banshees. Cross the sound a cat makes in heat, while fighting with another cat, the drone of frogs after a rain storm and a wailing grandmother at a funeral. Multiply the volume times three. That might be how disturbing these birds were. The three of us could not believe these sounds were coming out of sea gulls, who are pretty soft and relaxing vocalists at home. These things are agents of the devil.

The hilltop cities were the next stop on our driving schedule. We were supposed to visit 6 towns, but we ended up cutting it in half, because Mom and I started feeling that we were seeing the same town over and over again. SCENE: winding road that twists up the side of a mountain. At the top, there will be one tall building of a somewhat notable design that peaks out over the tiled rooftops by about forty feet. This will be a church. In order to get to said church, the travelers must climb up a somewhat steep path over very slick cobblestones, all the while trying to avoid the occasional Mercedes that has decided to try to drive to the top. Must be dozens of German tourists everywhere and slightly bewildered locals here and there staring at the tourists. The church will be small and quaint. The cities will sell truffles and wine. Okay, that pretty much sums up all of the hill towns we went to. :)

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So, that’s the recap. Tomorrow, I finally get to go shopping (yay!), and we plan on spending a few hours in the historic center of Zagreb. Then, we’re back to Vienna for the next 5 days (which will include a visit to Slovakia, apparently). I’m really looking forward to spending a little bit of time in Vienna—the coffee there is amazing. The coffee here has been, well, um, different. In Dubrovnik, the coffee literally smelled and tasted like the spice packet in my Ramen noodles. Different. :)

I’ll probably post a couple of times from Vienna, then back to the States! Hope everyone is doing well!

An entry of stilted punctuation

Hello from distant Croatia, where the keyboards are even more confusing to me than they are in Austria. I'm on the hotel's computer and probably being charged 100KR per minute, so I'm going to keep this more short and sweet than usual. I'm pretty much on here to say that Croatia has been fun...though with its share of drama...and the pictures will come up later. Maybe even today if I can find a wireless connection in this COUNTRY. Oh, and we didn't have any landmine problems, haha.

Tomorrow we're going to go exploring in Zagreb, and then we're driving back to Vienna for the rest of our stay. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to some of the creature comforts and familiarity that will be awaiting us in Vienna. Of course, I have to go back to sleeping on an air mattress and trying to sleep through my father's snoring...so I suppose there is some sort of trade off.

I'll write a better travelogue in the next day or two. Right now, I'm looking forward to getting out of this strange little office and back into the sunlight. Hope everyone is well!

ps...Mon, of course Newark is ghetto!

German Keyboard of Pain!

We arrived in Vienna a few hours ago, and everything here just seems so lovely. I love this place--it's probably one of only a handful of places that I return to every few years. And the weather here is perfect--it's in the mid-70s (tank top weather, Mon!).

The only bad thing is that I'm having to borrow the family laptop (someone never wrote down the WEP key...); so I'm learning a whole new way of typing (and discovering frustration levels barely knew existed within me!).

I'm glad lots of you are enjoying the blog and pictures:) Makes me feel like it's not just a vanity thing (which, of course, it being me, it is at least somewhat, hahaha:) ). Well, the odds aren't good on there being much Internet in Croatia. However, if there is, I'll be sure to post. If not (and I survive those landmines!), I'll post up more on the 21st.

How do you say "bleh" in German?

15^th May 2006

Zürich, Switzerland

What a day. It’s been rather interesting (definitely a euphemism). I don’t want to bore and bother you all with the crap that’s gone on today. Let’s just say I’m not necessarily surprised the day is over at 4:30pm.

Highlights from today: There was some stunning scenery of a few lakes and the Alps on the way to Zürich. When I was younger, I used to fantasize about living next to one of those lakes, a gorgeous mountain in the background. Maybe I’ve grown up, but I wouldn’t trade Manhattan for anything right now. It’s nice to visit those rural wonderlands, but I’d rather have a 24-hour deli around the block than a dairy farm. :)

Zürich was a bit drabber than I anticipated. Maybe I was expecting too much, but the town was kinda blah. And the entire left bank of the river was under construction, not really helping out the scene. However, I wasn’t really concerned with all that. The only thing I cared about was being able to see the 5 Chagall stained-glass windows at the Fraümunster. I love Chagall—definitely one of my favorite artists of all time. The opportunity to see some of the last work he ever did—especially in glass!—was so exciting to me. It was the main reason I pushed for Zürich over Geneva for today’s excursion. And then…the Fraümunster was closed for refurb as of April. No Chagall for me. Sad.

Oh well, that’s vacationing sometimes… I’ll just have to hunt down some Chagall when I get home. It’s New York—there has to be some Chagall somewhere, right?

Time to listen to Wicked…again. It’s my new drug. Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better…? Maybe one day I’ll get to the 3,276 other songs on my iPod!

Pictures @ the usual place: **here**

An Alpine Stereotype Come to Life

14th May 2006

Grindelwald, Switzerland

So today we actually did things!:) And I got back online (I'm such an Internet addict--it's really insane)!

Today we made our way out to Jungfraujoch--a little facility built up on Jungfrau (one of the many mountains in this area). Jungfrau (the "Virgin") is apparently protected by Moench (the "Monk") from Eiger (the "Ogre"). Aww...a mountain love triangle:). Of course, since winter was not so long ago, there was quite a bit of snow on the mountains, and many a tourist was being hit on the head by stray icicles (or snowballs being thrown at them by their kids!).

The Jungfraujoch facility is *huge* and sprawls on seemingly forever. The highlights were the Sphinx observation station, the Ice Palace, and the Glacial Plateau. There are trains full of tourists (including us!) that arrive every hour, and by the time we left at noon, it felt like a mini-UN summit there. The place was probably 40% Japanese, 40% Indian, 10% European, and 10% American. Gotta love when the touristy snack bar sells Ramen noodles in a cup--for $7! The views from the observation station were amazing. The Ice Palace was cute--I've been someplace similar much grander in scale, so it's hard not to compare--and a nice intimate escape from the screaming kids. The plateau was probably nice--I don't know because I ran up and took the picture my mom wanted, then tried to get the hell out of there! It was freezing there--the winds were clocked at 55 MPH and the temperature was 20F. So, in my rush to get down the plateau, I end up sliding half way on my ass. Grreat. And then some French guy tried to pick me up literally and figuratively... Boy-wise, this trip has already been too much for me:)

So today, I saw a Saint Bernard--with the barrel around his neck, cute (yes actually cute) mountain goats, billy goats, little flowers on the hillside, and a gal in traditional Swiss wear. And this wasn't staged or anything. It was just around, either on the side of the train tracks (which are nice on either side:) ) or around Grindelwald. It really makes me think that there just might be something to these picturesque stereotypes we have in mind for places...:)

Then, tragedy struck. My father, the most picture-obsessed tourist, had his camera break. The shutter button fell off his camera and into the Alpine valley below. The camera (which is too expensive for me to even contemplate) is only a month old, yet already falling apart. It was a Sony, Mon! See, they DO make shitty stuff:) So Dad had to go through all sorts of crap to figure out that he has to buy a new camera in Vienna and return this one when he gets home. Oh, the drama.

So we're off to Zurich for the day tomorrow. I'm looking forward to lots of shopping! We were thinking about going to a chocolate factory tour, but it's so far away from here that it just wasn't worth it. I got my decadence on by having a pot full of fondue for lunch today...mmm...

Check out some of the pictures at Flickr !

Time to pack up my stuff for another exciting ride in the Peugeot...:)

Greetings from Yodel-ing Country!

13^th May 2006

Grindelwald, Switzerland

(For Pictures of the trip, visit my Flickr page--(click here)--since this blog is being a real bastard about letting me upload things.)

As with most first days of vacations, mine was spent pretty uneventfully. My family managed to somehow find itself (if you didn’t hear, my father was sidetracked in Florida and couldn’t come meet us until late Friday). A few beers/hours/phone calls later, we were finally on our way to Switzerland.

It’s been a few years since I’d flow internationally. I was still in this surreal haze about the whole vacation until I heard the jet engines start up on the Airbus. This was definitely no flight to Florida! J Of course, the entertainment system of the plane wasn’t working for every seat, and mine was one of the special seats that only received three programming channels in four languages. So, I got to watch my boyfriend, Johnathan Rhys-Myers, in Match Point three more times in two languages. He’s somehow not as hot speaking with a French accent—he just seems pouty. Speaking of speaking—the hilarious thing about flying Swiss Air was the fact that every announcement had to be made in English, French, and German. The further we got from New York, the more the steward changed up the order he’d speak in. When we left New York it was English, French, German. Half-way over the Atlantic, French, English, German. Just outside of Zurich was German, French, English. Conscious effort? They only did the safety video in English and German. After the video they announced in French, Spanish, and Portuguese that if you felt like you wanted to know what the safety video said, the plane steward would attempt to explain it to you in your language (or so said the Spanish instructions), but that this might not be possible on all flights. Grreat…

So, plane food is the same—drab and too salty. I had a damn good brownie though (thought of you Monica!). I forgot to be afraid of the choice of “white wine” or “red wine” from airplane carts. The “white wine” made me miss Three Buck Chuck desperately. But the highlight of my flight was my seatmate. He was in his twenties and nice, but oh-so-southern. I never found out his name, but I nicknamed him Trapper John in my head. I could feel his weary gaze on me when he saw that I was reading Culture Shock: USA, probably thinking I was some foreign gal trying to understand crazy Americans. He kept giving me these looks, until I spoke up to order my drinks. Then, he was all smiles and nice and polite. So weird. As if being from another culture made me cannibalistic or something…. Especially weird for a guy flying non-stop to Zurich. So, when sleeping, I occasionally found his hand straying over past the arm rest—hopefully not intentionally! I just stuffed my blanket up against me and his hand until he’d move it. He also did the head lean in my direction while “asleep”—I was loving my window, let me tell you! :) I woke up with his hunting cap under my heel—hehe.

Anyway, not much has happened since Trapper John. They (of course) messed up our car reservation, so the 3 of us plus our *6* bags had to fit into this tiny Puegeot hatchback. I made the mistake of sitting behind my dad, who has to slide the seat back as far as possible when driving. Usually this isn’t a problem—I don’t need that much space. However, in this special Puegeot, I literally had six inches for my legs. It was very, um, sports car feeling. Except I didn’t get the satisfaction of knowing I was in a hot car, while stuffed in the back of this Puegeot. Instead, I looked like a squished bug in the back of a hatchback station wagon. The people in the Subarus were laughing at me as they drove by, I swear! Haha, nothing like sexy travel.

After much driving past beautiful hills, majestic mountains, and sparkling lakes (or at least that’s how the brochures describe them J), we arrived in tiny, touristy Grindelwald. We have a cute, retro ‘70s room at the Hotel Derby. The room has plenty of space and a bed far removed from my father’s godawful snoring, so it should work out. And down pillows and comforters! So happy!! Our view from our terrace is incredible—I’ll attach a picture. It’ll be nice to wake up to that in the morning.

I spent most of today sleeping—recovering from Thursday night’s 3 hour sleep (thanks Con Law) and Friday night’s 3 hour sleep (thanks Trapper John). I’m feeling much better—but I miss Diet Coke. I had to snatch the overpriced mini-bar Virgin Cola (I swear the guy that runs Virgin music/air/etc. runs half of Europe—Rupert Murdoch owns the other half). It’s been a long time since I’ve had Virgin in me…haha, okay I had to go there, you know I did.

Off to bed. Tomorrow we’re going up to Jungfrau, this super high Alpine mountain that my dad has a crush on. It should be a beautiful day, and I’m sure I’ll have great pictures to post.

--Barbara

Steelers fan had heart attack after fumble

FOXSports.com - NFL- Steelers fan had heart attack after fumble

I almost had a heart attack...in the good way. I was so happy! And then, just a few minutes later, I was so sad.

No time to mourn; it's the first week back to classes--I have plenty of cases to read!

WWJAD (what would Jane Austen do)?

So, I'm sitting here and supposedly studying hard. I have Emma on (with Gwyneth), and I can't tear my eyes away from the dance scene. This got me thinking about all the Jane Austen movies that I've seen in the last 10 years (because, so help me, Emma is officially a decade old, which makes me feel old) and how wonderful all of the dance scenes are. They are so sexy. Unless you've seen these movies, you'll probably think I'm mad. But they are so much sexier than all the movies I've seen in the last 10 years that have shown off some hot actors and actresses shedding it all.

I hate to come across as conservative or back-in-the-day-ish, but do we really need to show off so much to try and be attractive to one another? The dances in Austen are so sexy because they're the only real opportunity that men and women had to touch and be intimate with one another. Newland grabbing Ellen's hand in The Age of Innocence is incredibly sexy because it's his first time actually touching her skin. To paraphrase Dangerous Beauty, any girl can drop her top, but a real woman need only use her eyes. The crazy thing about all of this is that I know lots of men who would agree with me. The more Girls Gone Wild gals are great for pictures and drunken times, but the women that men truly obsessive over are the mysterious ones. They want to be the one--the only one--to see what's underneath.

I wish more people actually danced, not just grinding. I wish there was more mystery in our culture. I am such a fan of freedom of choice and having all the options we want. But does that mean that we have to throw ourselves out there to one another? Why be so cheap about it? Why not take the time to seduce one another with our appearances and our personalities?

I feel dowdy and stodgy writing this. I went through the college liberation phase. I loved my tiny tops and skimpy skirts. But even then, I hated what it got me--empty attention that resulted in loneliness at the end of the night. Would it have been different if we had dances and I about 3 yards more clothing on? Maybe not, but I certainly would not have minded trying.

Okay, back to IP...

Some SI.com love

SI.com - Writers - John Walters: Is everyone going pro these days? - Wednesday January 11, 2006 3:16PM

Wow, there are really some amazing writers at SI. Some people dig reading about politics or the market all the time. I love reading about sports, especially football. And because of some bizarre SI news service, I get every SI.com football (and sometimes golf, sumo wrestling, and curling) article emailed to me the moment it goes live. These guys are really great writers. They're funny, but not snarky. And much like myself, they have a wandering train of thought in their articles:). I think I have cyber crushes on half of the SI's college football staff. :)

Anyway, I have to agree that the whole Marcus Vick thing is so sad. I've been a closet VTech fan since I saw them crush FSU a few years ago. I'll foreverassociate that game with beer, a smokey pool hall, and a new boyfriend. Vick wasn't QBing then, but I always kept up with VTech and eventually saw him play. The guy certainly has some potential--definitely able to overshadow his big brother, given time. What in the world makes a guy like Marcus Vick, with so much potential, do the shit that he's been doing? Especially in the last week? Stomp on a guy on the field in a bowl game?! Hold up some kids at McD's (a la Maurice Clarette)? ::sigh:: I agree...it's just sad.