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.