9.2.2003 dober dan (slovene for good day)!
greetings from ljubljana! i don't have much time left on this computer... it's free internet, but i only get 15
minutes. hey, that's alright with me.
anyways, the trip has started out just fine... we've encountered God's providence at every turn... from just
barely catching our train to köln to finding a place to sleep in trieste when the hostel said that they didn't
have anymore beds for girls (for lyds obviously) to being able to stay at
the hostel we wanted here in ljubljana when the tourist office couldn't offer us anything closer than some place
out in the boons... awesome!
well, so far, the weather hasn't been all that great, but ljubljana has been amazing. a really nice city, cozy
and quaint... just wonderful. the ppl here are super friendly... actually, if i didn't know beforehand, i would
say that this was like any western european city! but it's got its own charm and character.
anyhoo, obviously no pics from this internet café, but i'll try to update every now and then.
nasvidenje (slovene for goodbye)!
9.5.2003 zdravo (croatian for hello)!
hey ppl... i'm writing from an internet café in split, croatia! it's a beautiful city on the coast of the
adriatic sea... the weather has been amazing the last few days, with lotsa sun, blue skies and virtually no
clouds... it's getting better as we travel south down the coast!
just a quick update since ljubljana... we took the train from ljubljana to rijeka, another coastal city of
croatia... from there, after a little hassle, we rented a car and drove down the coast to zadar... stayed there a
night, in this hole of a hostel. came here to split yesterday where we found a private room through the tourist
office... it's really nice, you stay in the home of a real croatian person, who, in our case, is this nice lady,
mrs. victorija... she doesn't speak any english, but it's not too hard to communicate what we need...
tomorrow, we're off really early on a ferry to dubrovnik, our last stop in croatia, after which we'll be heading
into the interior of the balkan region... first up is mostar, then sarajevo, and then belgrade...
hope you're all doing well... we're having an absolutely spiffing time! doviðenja!
ps. the second "d" in doviðenja has a short line struck through the vertical stem... it's
pronounced with a "dy" sound, as a diphthong (sp?)
well, what else is new? i'm here in dubrovnik aka the pearl of the adriatic, and i'm spending my last hours here
at an internet café, updating this page. hahaha...
anyways, it's the last day for lyds and i here in croatia... tomorrow
morning, we're taking the bus up to mostar, in bosnia. it'll be a lot different from what we've seen on the
coast here, but God willing, it will be a good experience as well.
dubrovnik has been really nice... yesterday we walked around the old town, the city walls... pretty nice. today,
we were looking to take it easy, and chill on the beach and all that, but unfortunately, the weather didn't work
with us... it rained. i knew i jinxed it when i was writing all the postcards about how nice it was here... oh
wellz. we did go to the beach anyways, and jumped some waves...
anyways, we're moving inland from here, into parts of the old yugoslavia that have yet to recover from the war,
so it will be totally different than here. probably less internet access as well, so that's why i'm posting now,
since i figure i might not get a chance until budapest.
just fyi: if you ever wanted a trophy wife, there's no better place than croatia. i'm deadly serious. i think
there's just as many good-looking girls here as in copenhagen, but the proportions compared with the men here...
well, they'd work in your favour. seriously. i'm not even joking. ask lyds. :P
hi all. in spite of what may seem a little insensitive, given the significance of today's date, i'm just gonna
write about the last few days of my trip. bear with me if you will.
so after dubrovnik, lyds and i hopped on a bus to mostar, a city 3 hours
north from dubrovnik. we were leaving croatia, and entering what some might think of as being a rather dangerous
area - bosnia and hercegovina.
well, truth be told, we didn't feel it was any different. maybe the money was different, going from croatian
kuna to the bosnian convertible mark, but otherwise, it felt similar, even if we were inland, and not on the
coast. everyone's still doing the same old stuff, from sitting at the café for midday tea to shopping at stores
like sisley and benetton.
after mostar, we came here to sarajevo, and it's been eye-opening... on the bus ride in, it looked like what you
would think an old communist city would look like... slabs of concrete passing for apartment blocks, streetcars
straight out of the 1960s... crazy. but sarajevo is steeped in history, and we've been able to tour around and
get a feel for it.
we're on our way to belgrade tomorrow night, taking an overnight bus (9 hours!), so we'll be going from bosnia to
serbia... should be quite a difference, if only going from a place with latin script to cyrillic. interesting...
i think so.
i wanna comment on what lyds said about being hard to keep in touch with ppl... but that'll have to wait.
lates!
9.26.2003 home sweet home... again
yes, i'm alive. no, i didn't step on a landmine or anything like that. yes, i fell in a ditch, a la
superfatconball. so sue me.
anyways, it's nice to be back in aachen... been back for a week, haven't really had time to update, so that's why
i've been awol. lyds is back in toronto now, she left yesterday... my
room feels quite empty now... though really clean too... :P
so anyhow, the end of our trip was great... we went from sarajevo to belgrade, and stayed there for a few days,
before ending in budapest. yes, i'd been to budapest before, so it wasn't really my preference to stay longer
there, but lyds wanted to, and who am i to deny her (don't answer that, lyds)? hahaha... it was good times
though, cuz i was pure chilloungin' the whole time... went to the baths 2 days in a row, hung out with some super
cool ppl from the hostel...
well, i'll try to post some pics soon, but i still have to catch up on some previous trips too... i'm not sure if
i'm gonna post up a travelling report, like barcelona or copenhagen... probably not. but i'll post a bunch of
pics, and i'm gonna add in a travel section where i'll offer up my tips on independent travel.
anyhoo, i'm late for sylvie's birthday party, so, until next time...
9.30.2003 losing the midas touch
wow, the month is gone... just like that. well, maybe not "just like that", but it sure felt like it... i guess
it kinda helps that i only worked 7 days this month... hahaha... crazy.
sorry about the lack of pics. i've been going through my pics from my 35mm stuff, all 16 rolls... i'm not very
satisfied with them. my composition and just plain picture quality got worse as the trip went on. i should take
more people pics. seriously. and i need to learn how to use that polarizer correctly. some of the skies are so
dark, they're almost black.
then again, that could be a problem with the developer. and have i got a bone to pick with them. i went to the
same place i took mark's wedding pics to develop, mainly cuz they had
superior scans (on cd). the pics that time turned out pretty good, at least the prints. this time, there were
quite a few prints with noticeable dust marks that weren't on the negative... and over half of the rolls were
out of order. i mean, it can't be so hard put them in order, right? whether it's backwards or
forwards?
no, it's not that hard, but then, when they mess up even putting the right pics in the right envelope, you know
there are problems. yeah, that's right, one of my pics was in the envelope of a different roll. even worse, i'm
missing a print from one roll... and i got one of someone else's prints! unbelievable.
ok, onto something i won't complain about... i went to see
matchstick men tonight, the movie with
nic cage and sam
rockwell as con artists. excellent movie. i thoroughly enjoyed it, though it wasn't some crazy
knee-slapping comedy, or a real bang-em-up action flick. just a good movie, with good characters, played by good
actors. and whoda thought ridley scott could direct something
like this? good on him.
anyways, maybe i'll get around to the pics before i go to london for the weekend... but probably not. cheers!