some visual teasers ---

as requested, some photos of our trip so far (all on flickr when we return):

$2 dollars worth of doughy, meaty goodness (Zagreb)

muggin' in Split (on the rocky beaches in the far west)

the handsome j crew model in Split

mushroom risotto (6 dollars, what a beautiful thing)

Squid in Split (best in the world, one could say)

Hvar Town a little past sunset (using a not breathing Conor's shoulder as my tripod)

Hvar Town on Hvar Island at daybreak

a beach day!

Howdy from Dubrovnik!
We just arrived from Dubrovnik by bus and are settling in here. The bus we took was bizarre because it seemed like a coach city-to-city bus, but we quickly found out that it served as both a local bus and a longer-route bus. For instance, we stopped at least 10 times in the first hour. It was as if the local NY bus also continued after 10 stops on Broadway to DC. This wasn't simply picking up travelers and backpackers up from different places all heading to the same destintation - it was taking grandmothers from Split to the next town, then picking up some young teenagers and dropping them off one town later. It took us two and a half hours to go 60 miles. Luckily, the road to Dubrovnik runs parallel with the sea so it was beautiful the entire five hours from Split. We went through Bosnia - Hercegovina for a bit and got our passports checked twice- nothing like a little excitement.

Backtracking...
We had a great meal at Macondo in Hvar Town after I wrote my last post. We started with a lobster risotto, then had a mixed salad. For our entrees, I had fried white fish and Conor had fried squid, fish and prawns. With a good house wine, great ambience and a New York Times recommendation, this was a restaurant I was happy we made a point to go to.

Yesterday, we took an early ferry from Hvar back to Split. We got what has become our favorite Croatian failsafe lunch (burek, a doughy pocket stuffed with flavorful meat for about 2 dollars). After dropping off our bags at the guesthouse and finding that it was decently warm we went to the Bacvice beach near the harbor. It was nice to get in the sun. Afterwards, we hiked up the Marjan Peninsula, a beautiful park on the west side of Split. From the top, there were gorgeous views of Split and it was a decent two hour expedition. Last night, we walked around Diocletian's palace, had some hot chocolate and strawberry gelato and headed back to the guesthouse as if we were pensioners and not 23 year olds.

Today, we'll get a feel for Dubrovnik and in the next days, we'll walk the city walls and go kayaking.

Dovi đenja - maria

The Sweater Song / Croatian 101

Dobar Dan from Hvar!

On the island of Hvar in Hvar town for some tourism and dinner. We are staying in a small town called Stari Grad about 22 km away on the same island. We came to this island for an overnight trip from our stay in Split. Both villages are very quaint and quiet - every street here feels like the backbackbackstreets of Rome.

Split is an amazingly cool place. You have the main walkway on the water, the Riva, and behind it the old town, which is Emperor Diocletian's old palace. He was the first inhabitant, per se, of Split and built his retirement home there. It eventually became home to locals and to this day is still home to Croatians. It is unreal because there are stores and bars and homes built into this ancient wall. It would be as if Romans set up shop and home in Trajan's Market thousands of years ago and now they live there and have a Gucci store next door in the ruins. It's pretty surreal. During the interwars it was called the 'get' (ghetto) and was home to the city's poor and was a red light district. It has since turned around and is a desirable place to live again.

Last night we had an insane dinner at a hidden seafood place. Had an enthusiastic and patient waiter, who helped us make our dinner selections. We had fresh fish, squid, tomato salad, mushroom risotto, and a liter of house red. It was the most deluxe meal we have had so far and in keeping with Croatian prices, wasn't even unreasonable! We both agreed it was the best squid we have ever had and the fish was on par with what I have had made by my Palauan family, which meant it was really excellent! We met some New Yorkers, Melody and John, at the restaurant and chatted with them for about an hour.

Tomorrow, we take a ferry back to Split and stay for one more night. The next day we will take a 4.5 hour bus to Dubrovnik for two nights. Then on the 27th, we will fly from Dubrovnik to Zagreb before catching our final flight home on the 28th. Here's to hoping that Dubrovnik, which is farther South than Split is warmer. We have been in sweaters since arriving, save for a three hour period we were in shorts and a dress. We walked around during the time we could have been on the beach, not realizing it might have been our only chance to be in the beach. Today was windy in Split, and on the ferry over, and rainy in Hvar. Luckily, Croatia is a beautiful country regardless of the weather, but it would be nice to just get part of the beach vacation promised on the internet. All the websites said it would be at least 75 degrees but without all of the tourists!

And now for a little Croatian 101 --
Croatian is generally phonetic, save for the following letters-
c - pronounced like the ts in cats
č - pronounced like ch in chat
ć - pronounced like the c in cats
š - pronounced like the sh in share
j - pronounced as a y as in youth
r - always rolled
ž - like the s sound in pleasure

I practiced these sounds a bit before I left, which has helped some here, but it can be pretty trippy since often you will often have to juggle two types of c's in a word. Also, i have found that the j sound often replaces the ia sound in Italian and some English words, such as policia in Italy would be policija or galleria would be gallerija. Or as I saw Maria is Marija. Pretty interesting. We have been lucky that people here speak English since otherwise it would be quite difficult.

Signing off, time for dinner!
m

the fashion tv

Dobar Dan from Zagreb!

We arrived yesterday noonish to the Zagreb airport. Conor's luggage, of course, as is his lot in life, got lost between Paris and Zagreb. It arrived this morning, but there were some definite harsh words and sighs in the meantime. Checked into our private room right off the main square and our wonderful host Tin (pronounced somewhere between Teen and Tin) immediately said, "Sit down, I tell you where to go in Zagreb" and proceeded to tell us the best ways to see the city. He pointed out the caffe bars (said in quick succession, caffebars) and the discos. Hence the fashion TV title of this post because he said "here, this disco is fun, in the park, half is outside, half is inside, but now it is cold so inside now, and this disco is also fun here, and this bar Hemingway is good and you need to dress up to go, for the fancy schmancy, the fashion tv," we think referring to how fashionable the people are who go there. Tin is the best kind of room-owner you can ask for - accommodating, helpful in getting conor's bags back (called the airport and gave them his number for delivery) and wise with the type of things two 23 year olds travelling in Europe want to know. He gave us the name of a great pizzeria (that serves everything) right around the corner from our room. We ate at Nokturno last night for 96 KUNAS (about 20 dollars) -----pause in the post ----hari krishna just walked by singing, I could be anywhere in the world and know that familiar bell sound ---back to it, For the equivalent of 20 bones, we got a large squid salad, mushroom risotto for c, gnochhi bolognese for me and 2 beers. my kinda meal. Went to bed at 830 and slept until 1030 this morning. Of course, found the closest cappucino to refuel and begin the day, as well as delicious fried bread called splitci (pronounced spleet-see). Got 2, went to the market, went back and got 2 more all for 12 kunas (about $2.50).

And now, my first impressions (we have been here approximately 24 hours, so these are initial)--
1) the z is where the y is on the keyboard, this makes it difficult to type things such as conor lany and tzpe.
2) smokers smoke - in the airport terminal, bars, restaurants - it reminds me how lucky we are in most U.S. cities to have the smoking be outside, at least.
3) english and non-english speakers: finding that Croatians either speak English well or not at all. For instance, at the ticket booth where we bought our bus ticket to Split for tomorrow, the older woman spoke very little english, but the younger gentleman next to her spoke it fluently.
4) it is cold here. Tin at our little apartment room said it was much warmer (80s) and has just dropped. Conor and I bought wool sweaters last night - it feels like a Kansas City early November here. Hoping that the coast is maintaining its warm weather for us. We will find out tomorrow.
5) language difficult for me to pick up. We are lucky tehre are English speakers because there aren't a lot of cognates, but this also means I will pick up less because we are not being forced to learn it. Hopefully I will pick up a few words - might ask Tin later to help us get a few words down for the rest of our trip. From the little I have been able to hear close up, it sounds like italian rolled rs, mixed with a lot of chs and shs and some vs and ys thrown in there.

Really liking the feel of Zagreb - just people hanging out, eating, marketing, shopping, enjoying life, and there is plenty of stuff to see, but not like Rome and Paris where you feel there is a checklist before you leave.

Signing out, more later - m

plan of action

So we've decided the rough itinerary of our Croatian adventure. It will look something like this. I've included pictures to give you an idea of the different types of paradise we'll be visiting.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH JOHN F KENNEDY, NEW YORK TO CHARLES DE GAULLE, PARIS
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH ARRIVE FROM JFK, NY TO CDG, PARIS ARRIVE FROM CHARLES DE GAULLE TO PLESO, ZAGREB, CROATIA TERMINAL 2E Stay in Zagreb
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH ZagrebSUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST Zagreb to Split

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND Ferry to Hvar
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23RD Hvar, back to Split
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH bus to Dubrovnik

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH Dubrovnik
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26TH Dubrovnik
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27TH Early bus from Dubrovnik to Zagreb (about an 11 hour drive)
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH PLESO, ZAGREB, CROATIA TO CHARLES DE GAULLE, PARIS, FRANCE ARRIVE FROM PLESO, ZAGREB, CROATIA TO CDG, PARIS CHARLES DE GAULLE, PARIS, FRANCE TO JOHN F KENNEDY, NEW YORK

Photo credits in order of appearance:
http://www.ecml.at/html/croatian/images/zagreb.jpg
http://www.pictureninja.com/pages/croatia/split-croatia.jpg
http://www.kompas-travel.com/dmc/slike/953Hvar.jpg
http://www.dubrovnikcroatia.biz/dubrovnik.jpg

oh my my! they are back and better than ever.

It is with great delight & joy that I announce that Conor and I are traveling internationally again in September, and will revive this old blog leading up to and during our ten days abroad. With travelers' itch after having been in the States a whole year (*eeeek*), we decided it was time to take a trip. We considered San Francisco, which quickly grew to Paris, which eventually grew to Croatia. Why not?!

We are flying from JFK through Paris to Zagreb, Croatia on September 18th & will return September 28th. We plan on staying in Zagreb the first two days, then to Split for a couple days and back to Zagreb, possibly doing another trip to either Hungary or Austria. The Kuna is friendly to our wallets, and the beaches will still be accessible without the prices being as high as they can be in early summer. Our preparation for the next few weeks includes: of course, my freakish itineraries (plural), learning basic phrases and numbers in Croatian (this doesn't look easy, I'm tellin' ya), reading guidebooks, booking hostels, and cutting back on eating out here so we can eat out there! Apparently Italian is spoken on the coast, so maybe we'll luck out there. Definitely looking forward to another adventure abroad! Could we be...addicted?!

signing off for now, but signing on again - mk

the end of the luggage's adventures

Sept. 13th. 2007


Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the fall semester. You may
remember that British Airways lost my bags while flying from New York
to Brussels. A traumatic experience, as I was forced to wear Mike
Lashinsky's ill-fitting slacks for a week straight. When I came home
from Europe, I called British Airways every day for about a month
trying to track down my bags. They were in Milan, Paris, on a
Lufthansa flight to Dallas, they spent about 3 days circling the
Carousel at JFK and then back out to Dallas. A really nice summer
vacation for my dress shirts.

BA eventually stopped returning my phone calls and I basically gave up
on the whole thing. I had bought new clothes for work and had almost
forgot how much I enjoyed wearing some of the ties I owned. But this
morning, September 13th, at approximately 5:15 AM, an unmarked white
van stopped outside my house. This woke my step-dad, a light sleeper,
who went to the front door just as the van was pulling away. At his
feet, a crumpled black garment bag. Not immediately recalling my
ordeal with BA, he was nervous about opening it. Was it garbage? A
message from Don Corleone? Terrorists? He finally saw the tags on the
bag and, realizing what it was, brought it inside.

When I woke at 6:30 and shuffled to the kitchen for breakfast, I saw
the bag on the floor. Christmas in September! Tearing open the bag
like there was a Super Nintendo inside, I found all my shirts and ties
were folded into complex origami shapes. No flashy new (old) wardrobe
today. A summer traveling the world can do that to a suit.

For the record, it has been 12 weeks since I left for Brussels. BA
claims that the average turn-around on misplaced baggage is 72 hours.
I'm not a statistician, but I think I may have beat the curve on this
one.

Again, I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all and I'll always
remember our time together in Brussels.

Best,

Conor