Later That Same Sunday (31 August)

As Mari said, I spent all of Saturday getting ready for classes this coming week. In large part this was because you never know exactly what the facilities situation is until you're there on the ground. In any event, I think I'm in good shape - Tuesday will tell for sure.

We went to Mass at the Ignatian Church; it currently has one English Mass on Sunday @ 1100. There were about a dozen of us there in what is a very large, ornate and beautiful church build in the 17th and 18th centuries. But don't believe me - see for yourselves:

The Main Altar - Triptych is from the life of St. Ignatius Loyola

View from the Nave of the Church

Grotto dedicated to Lourdes

Side Altar - The Death of St. Francis Xavier (who was returning to Rome from Japan) 

Side Altar - St. Agustine

This is only the beginning, folks - MANY more churches to come!

One thing we've been amazed at is the proliferation of restaurants in every nook and cranny of the old city:

On the way back to our apartment, we looked for and found the one Mary Jo and Kevin are renting:

Yep. No. 1 Hakuna Matata as Mari & I call it

Now there's good news and bad news. The good news is that Mari thought the apartment was in the yellow building at the top of the stairs (picture taken next to the entrance to MJ & K's place):

Not your place, MJ & K! 

The bad news is that these are the steps up to the apartment:

40 - Count 'Em - 40 Steps

Later on we went for a dip in the Adriatic here:

The beach is "pebbly" if your definition of a pebble is a stone 2-3 inches in diameter. Walking across them with our bourgeois American feet: Oooo! Ouch! Yee-ow!

A word to the wise: bring water shoes or something you can wear while swimming until your feet adjust (if ever). Note: The pebbles turn into rocks once you get in the water.

Of course we were well equipped to handle adversity - both of us brought water shoes with us. Unfortunately mine were from a vacation about 20 years ago, and they decided to disintegrate just after I got in the water. I tried to jury rig something just to get back to the apartment, but after about 50 yards I looked like a mendicant friar who was last in line for that day's sandals.

Mari took pity on me, made me sit down, and went back to fetch my sneakers. Actually, she was looking our for herself - as she said "The last thing I want to do on an Adriatic vacation is to have to visit you in a hospital because you broke another ankle!" That's my wife - always kind and considerate.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Gentle Readers,

Yesterday was a full day of work for Mike. He has been setting up assignments for his students' lab work. Being creative, he is preparing World Cup player and team lists for his Database class. As you know soccer is big here.

That gave me another day to explore the city, to find the Posta and to buy some stamps and postcards for friends and family without internet. Since we have no car and need to carry everything, shopping daily is working out well. A couple pieces of fruit and veggies and fresh bread every day are the main staples. (Let me save you some time: no store stocks molasses, pumpkin or horseradish).

Thanks to the Croatian subtitles on TV, I have picked up a few words. Now I need to find the courage to use them! The folks here are very helpful and we manage very well knowing only English. One of my travel books attributes only two words in English derived from Croatian, i.e., cravat and dalmatian.

Mass in English is at the Jesuit Church and we are looking forward to seeing the church in person. Hope to have some pictures for you later. The frescos in our book are reminiscent of the art work in Rome, (another place I have not seen). Tonight is our Google hangout call with our kids. We can't wait to see them again. Hope you are all doing well.
Mari

Quick Note for Doc Martin fans

My son Andrew told me there was a Spanish version of Doc Martin, the popular TV show on the BBC. Well, we found it here in Croatia, with, of course, Croatian subtitles. I didn't understand a thing. Guess I'm bi-ignorant :-(
- Mike

in erratum

For those of you who may have noticed, Mike has now unintentionally identified Saint Vlaho's Church as both the Jesuit Church and the Cathedral. Saint Vlaho is the protector of Dubrovnik and I hope he did not take the snub personally. Mike still remains 99% accurate.
Mari

Wednesday & Thursday - Mike is LEGAL!

Wednesday 27 August

When we got the SIM cards for our phones yesterday we fooled around for a while making sure they worked like we thought they would. I then sent my new phone number to Jelena (HR in RIT Croatia) in an SMS message and told her to call me if any meeting with the police was scheduled. When I went to bed I set my alarm for 8:00, turned on airplane mode, and went to sleep.

The alarm went off, I was tired, so I killed it. Seemingly a moment later our landlord knocked on the door saying they wanted me at the college for my police interview at 9:30. It was already 9:16, so I did a quick brush the teeth, wash face, toss on clothes and RUN! On my way to the college I couldn't understand why Jelena hadn't called - the perspicacious among you will already know why her calls didn't get through!

The interview was no big deal, but it did take quite a while (I guess there is large variation depending on the inspector you get). Luckily I could remember when my parents were born, when they died and where; when each of my children were born, where they currently reside, and what they do for a living; when Mari was born and where; when and where I, Pete and Chris were born and what we each do now; how many children each of my siblings had and where they live. Whew! I'd have been stumped (and probably ejected from Croatia) if they'd asked about my grandparents! In any event, I'm now legit. for teaching in Croatia.

Note to self: Don't use airplane mode on the ground if you expect any calls!

Mari and I went for a stroll around town, and while she went to the outdoor market to purchase fruits and vegetables, I went looking for shirts! I only brought a couple of informal shirts to Croatia, and with the heat I was going through them at an astounding rate. I also picked up a Dubrovnik beach towel for our swim in the Adriatic.

The water is warm and inviting - just watch out for the salt! Then we went to Buza - just a little wine and beer bar outside the west wall of the city and nestled on some rocks. The view of the Adriatic was spectacular, and we saw some boys jumping off rocks into the sea:

Buza (Booze - Ah?)

Boys are as crazy here as anywhere.

Dinner was at a restaurant just outside the city walls by the old harbor - it was recommended to us by Marianna. Food was delicious. As you can see, Mari had the view of the sea and me; I had the view of the city gate and her. I think I came out a bit ahead.


We also took some pictures in the harbor and the city as night fell.

The City Bell Tower from outside the walls.

The Cathedral at Night

Up Close and Personal with the window

Stradun at night (after most vacationers have departed from Dubrovnik)

Thursday 28 August

Blogged in the morning, did some work on the DB course, and wandered over to campus at 1500 for a presentation on the video conference gizmo between Zagreb and Dubrovnik. Both Deb LaBelle and I will have to use this, but the gremlins got into the equipment so we really didn't get to take it for a spin. Oh, well, we've got until Monday, right?

On the way home I took a picture of the beach we're going to try next. Unlike our first one, this has a gentle sloping entry into the sea - but it still goes out pretty far as shown in the second shot. Note the water polo setup - Croatians are mad about water polo!

Perfect beach for bathing not far from RIT

Same beach but showing how far out people swim

I also took some pictures of a cove just a tad south of the swimming area. This is one of the many places from which sea kayak tours take place.

The Pier that (I think) Ed liked to go to when summoning the computing muses.

Same cove, but looking over towards the city walls.

Nighty-night. Tomorrow's a busy day for me, so if anyone posts it'll almost certainly be Mari.

Monday to Tuesday - The Adventure Continues

Monday

I went to the RIT campus - one building I'll take a picture of later on - to meet the staff and get everything straight with respect to immigration and working here. Mari is already legal, but I'm a scofflaw apparently. Anyhow, the staff and our landlord are working things out, so with any luck I'll be legit in no time.

This was the last day of Dubrovnik's Summer Festival, so we went to the old city once again just to see what was happening. The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra was giving a concert in the square outside the Cathedral. I stayed until about 2100, when I went home to catch a few Z's. Mari stayed until 2230. I did get some night pictures of the old city - enjoy.

Dubrovnik Symphony on My Poor Phone Camera

Wall of the City at Night

Outside the Walls. Careful, Kids - That's a Moat You're In!

Tuesday

This morning our landlord's daughter, Marianna, took us for a short guided tour of the old city. In particular she showed us the restaurants and other places where the prices are most reasonable. No pictures of Mari, Marianna and I sipping coffee under umbrellas in one of the many outdoor restaurants - maybe later??

Here's the view of the street from our apartment to the main street of Dubrovnik. Note how the concrete has been chiseled to let (very small) cars pass. I'll take a picture of a car actually passing when the chance arises.

Ok, all you CS / IT / SE folks!
What concurrency problem does this portend?

Today was "get SIM cards for our phones" day. I bought us GSM international phones before we left - fortunately they work on both our U.S. (Consumer Cellular) and European frequencies. However, unless you are as rich as Croesus you want a local SIM card when you are making local calls.

Mike Floeser, Ed Holden and Liz Lawley were all very helpful here - in particular, Ed told us how to get to the T-Mobile shop in Gruz. He said it was about a 20 minute walk, which was true. However, he walked it in January when the temperature is in the 50s; we walked it in August in the 80s. Bit of a difference, that.

Here's the chart from Map My Walk of the elevation profile from T-Mobile back to our apartment:

Actually, that's a profile of almost any walk in Dubrovnik - fair warning to Mary Jo, Kevin, Tae & the girls, Michele and Marlene! The best way to prepare is to walk 2-3 miles per day, preferably up and down the Xerox Tower steps.

Also, please note that were the Americans with Disabilities Act in force in Croatia they'd have to shut the entire country down for years to remodel it. No curb cutouts, no beepers at crossings for the blind, few elevators or ramps, a paucity of handrails, etc. This seems to be a general European attitude - I remember things being the same when I was in Madrid about a decade ago. Then again, if much of your infrastructure was in place before the Renaissance, when simply living until tomorrow could be a challenge, that's to be expected. Personally it's fine by me - I walk up and down the steps every day trying to lose weight.

We get our both our SIM cards and very confused

The first thing to note is that cell phone plans work differently over here. In the U.S. some folks get a "free" phone at the cost of being attached to thumbscrews wielded by some usurious provider for two years under a fixed plan (minutes / SMS / internet). Others, like us, prefer to purchase a phone directly then have month-by-month plan where the torture only lasts 30 days at a time. A few brave souls go for a total "pay as you go" plan.

Croatian plans seem to be a random mixture of all of the above - some minutes, messages and internet that don't expire, coupled with the need to maintain a fixed monthly balance on your account via cards purchased at kiosks, grocery stores, post offices, etc. The purpose of the fixed balance eludes me. Anyhow, the nice, patient saleslady at T-Mobile explained all this to us very carefully and several times over before we chose our plans. By the time we left the store and bought a couple bottles of water (see elevation profile above) it was all a blur. I do know that calls are charged only to the caller, unlike the U.S. where all cell phones get dinged.

There are a couple of numbers we can call to get our plan status but the responses are all in Croatian. I tried translating these, but all I was able to extract with our phrase book was "sacrifice" and "first-born son." I'm sure this was a mistake on my part because of the simplicity of the phrase book, but Andrew should be ready to fly over here just in case we need him.

And now Tuesday's pictures:

Boats in the Old City Harbor

Turret at the top of our walk - see elevation profile once again

They expect me to work for some reason, so TTFN.

Hi all!
Wow! Blogging certainly brings out the best in Mike's sense of humor. If he starts getting busy at school, I will take over. Meanwhile, I'll just say that I approve of his assessment and he is 99% accurate.
Mari

Croatia - The First Three Days

Please excuse any testiness in this entry - I had it 90% complete, then hit some button that Blogger interpreted as "Oh. Toss everything without a warning? No problem."

Well, we've been in Dubrovnik for 2-1/2 days so far and are enjoying it immensely. So much, in fact, that this blog entry was delayed until now (1430 on Sunday). Following is a recapitulation of our adventures so far.

Thursday - We Make Our Flight After All

Marlene Etlinger was kind enough to schlepp us and all our baggage to the Rochester airport. We checked in without any problems, our baggage was tagged for Dubrovnik, and we passed security without a hitch (big shout-out to TSA pre-check here). Went to our gate to wait for our 4:30 flight.

And waited. And waited. Turns out there were big storms in Chicago and all flights into O'Hare were held up. We finally boarded the plane at 6:00, waited on the runway until 7:00, and finally took off, arriving at 7:30 central time. The 4-1/2 hour layover we'd been expecting became a 2 hour layover; any annoyance we'd originally had about the layover was gone because we knew we'd make our flight to Munich.

To prove our arrival in Chicago, here's a totally irrelevant selfie at the airport Chili's:

Eventually we got on our Luftwaffe (oops - hansa) flight and started winging our way to Munich (the first 1-1/2 hours basically retracing our flight from Rochester). The flight was excellent, the food was good, and the free wine a bonus. Mari says that white wine and tiramisu makes a great pairing:

Friday

Landed in Munich at 1630 (their time - 10:30AM ours), had a quick snack, and boarded the flight for Dubrovnik on Dolomite Air(?). Mari says white wine and tiramisu is a good pairing:

Here is a shot we took of the Croatian coast just prior to landing:

Clearing customs was a breeze (note that, U.S. Border and Customs!). Desa (DEH-sha) from RIT met us with a taxi and we were on our way into the city. Turns out Desa is an IT student enrolled in the database course I'm teaching, so she was super-polite! The taxi ride itself was "interesting" - on the one hand we got a wonderful view of the Adriatic; on the other, we sometimes felt we would become part of that view. Rochester drivers have nothing on Croatians in terms of aggression.

Dropped off at our apartment, we met Marianna, the landlord's daughter, who let us in and showed us around.  After unpacking and stowing our gear, we were pretty pooped; we took a short walk to the Old City, bought pizza and some local Cab wine, ate, and zonked out. We did get a couple of quick pictures of the city walls:

  

Saturday

I got up around 800, but Mari couldn't sleep and arose around 200, so after puttering around the apartment a bit she went exploring. Because of this she became my guide for the day (except for a walk with Marianna to find the beaches and the RIT campus).

Our apartment is very nice: two bedrooms, a combined kitchen, dining area, and sitting area, with a bathroom in the "American" style - both a bath and a shower. We're grateful for all the appliances, including the clothes dryer; clothes hanging across the streets is a common sight. The more domestic readers may be interested in the following photos, and everyone else is invited to skip ahead.

The Master BR	Master BR with view outside	Hiding the other unmade bed
Front Hall	Kitchen / Dining / Living Area

Most of Saturday was shopping and oggling the sights. We went on the bus to the big super-market, Konzum, about 2 miles from where we are. Filled our Wegman's bag and a backpack with essentials then rode home again - a bit of a trip, so we'll see how often we do it. Turns out there is a deli-like Konzum right outside our apartment and a mid-sized one in the old city, so short trips will be the order of the day.

Took a bit longer tour of the old city in the late afternoon. Again, a lot of pictures, with captions on the ones I actually remember!

Entering the Old City via the Pile gate

This beautiful woman kept following me around!

Take a look at those stairs!
Think I may lose a few pounds.

Same woman on the Stradun near the bell tower

We think this is the Jesuit church, where there is an
English Mass at 1100 on Sundays (which we missed). 

The Old Harbor looking out to newer Dubrovnik

We had a very nice dinner - Croatian ale is excellent - at one of the innumerable out door restaurants on an Old City plaza. It'll be interesting to see how many of these remain open outside once the big tourist crush eases after this weekend.

View from our restaurant

On the way out we were looking at menus for other restaurants and one maitre de chatted with us - turns out he's also in my database class. Dubrovnik is a small city!

Left the city to see there were now ceremonial guards at the Pile gate:

No, I don't know who she is!

We ended the day by buying some SUPERB ice cream and wandering down to one of the many coves off the Adriatic. So far we LOVE it here!

Sunday (so far)

Slept in today - so late, in fact, that we missed the 1100 English Mass at the Jesuit church (and, yes, it seems every Catholic order has its own church in the city!). We'll take off in a bit to explore some more.

Addendum

Some pictures from our wanderings today in and near the Old City.

A View of Lokrum Island (we'll get there)

Two Small Cruise Ships in the Port

Yes, we're going down. And yes, we climbed up!

The Old Harbor near the Old City

Note for Our Children

Be prepared! There WILL be a test!