26 September 2014 catch up blog

26 September 2014

Hello All

About this blog: I edited the pictures in this blog. You can teach me new tricks!

Food news:
We continue to find new restaurants and dishes to try. Black risotto colored by the ink in cuttlefish had been recommended and was a must-try. I tried the black seafood risotto in 2 restaurants. It was delicious but rather salty. I'll have to try again. On the other hand, we were served a hearty, delicious black bread this morning at breakfast. I do not know what made it black and will have to ask next time.

Visitors:
During the hike up Mt. Srd. Wednesday Maggie (10 yrs old) was kind and very protective of Mary Jo and me (bringing up the rear) and stayed behind to keep her eye on us.

Here is one of several men working on a private residence
who had to carry cement and masonry in wheelbarrows up and down many stairs

There were about 700 steps prior to the long switchback path to the top adding up to about 90 minutes hiking total.

Me bringing up the rear, hiking the switchbacks nearing the top of Mt. Srd

There were bronze plaques with the stations of the cross at the turning points of the switchbacks. You may be able to see the one behind me in the distance.
We had a lunch at the Panorama Cafe at the top with views of the mountains in Bosnia to the east, Montenegro to the Southeast, Dubrovnik to the Southwest and a number of Dalmatian islands to the West, The war museum was heartrending and changed the way we now look at the city. It is more evident to us how much damage was done. As we walk around the city now, we notice where there have been repairs to the roofs and walls. They are still rebuilding many areas as I hope you will see in the pictures.

                                                           Views from the top of Mt. Srd

Looking at Montenegro ("black mountains") in the far distance

The fort and communications tower were severely damaged 

during the war and had to be repaired

Looking south on Dubrovnik

Looking North, Bosnia is on the other side of these mountains

We took the cable car down to the level of the steps. We were very proud  of our adventure up the mountain and that we had missed landmines and snakes.
Wednesday evening Mary Jo  and Kevin invited our landlady Luci, their landlady Doda and her son to a get-together at their apartment. We partied outside in Doda's beautiful garden and visited for several hours. Mike left early to attend a reception for the RIT Croatia Dean's List students.

Party at Antuna Masel 1, left to right are Kevin, Luci, Tae, Mari, Mike

Thursday Tae wanted to run and was concerned the crowded city would not be fun. She took a special trip to Lokrum to run the dirt path on the island in the morning while the girls, Mary Jo and Kevin ate al fresco at Posat restaurant. The Game of Thrones production crew had rented the entire parking lot adjacent to the restaurant for their trucks and unloaded  gear while they were eating. Security guards were on patrol. Google Game of Thrones Dubrovnik if you would like to see them filming the King's landing segments in town.

Prop wagon load 

readying set for Game of Thrones behind barricade fence

A few of the Thrones production trucks

This morning Tae, Maggie and Nora took off for home. The girls missed their dad and their guinea pigs. It was hard for Nora to leave the ice cream shops behind. We will miss them. They were full of energy and saw things with their young eyes that we would have overlooked.
Mike and I just got back from the concert at the Rector's Palace. Tonight was a group of 5 musicians and a jester all in costumes playing medieval music on medieval instruments. The program was The Magic Compass. The music started out with ditties by Dubrovnik composers and took us on a path to Italy, France, Holland, England. We apparently ended up with both a broken compass and a broken clock and heard an arrangement of "Take Five" played on the quaint instruments. It was fantastic.

Orchestra chairs in the atrium of the Rector's Palace
where they perform most nights

Stone hand rail holder at the Rector's Palace

S

Christopf Campestrini guest conducting
Picture taken from our seats behind the violins

Daytime snapshot inside the Rector's Palace
showing the 1st balcony 

2nd balcony where many in the audience stand
or sit on the ledge to listen

Have a good weekend everyone!

Croatia with the Smiths and Alberts

The Smith ladies arrive. Tae finally arrived with Maggie and Nora on Saturday Sept. 20. They missed their connection in Boston and had to stay overnight. They were able to go to the Boston Aquarium and thanks to Andy were able to get a reasonably priced hotel. They arrived safely without further ado after being rerouted through Madrid. After a good night's sleep they dove into seeing the sights. They rounded the wall and its ~1000 steps in record time. I look forward to seeing their hundreds of pictures of cats, birds, salamanders, snails etc. Maggie took 3 pictures of  as a jumper  leaped from the cliff  into the ocean. Unfortunately their camera batteries ran out of charge half-way around the wall.
Yesterday Tae and the girls hired a guide and drove to Split to see the sights especially Diocletian's Palace built in the fourth century. Split is a large old bustling shipbuilding city of 178,000 people in contrast to Dubrovnik with 50,000 whose main industry is tourism.

Mary Jo and Kevin, Mike and I also hired a driver and had a wonderful driver-guide take us to the wine producing Peljesac peninsula. Our first stop was the village of Ston. In the past the village built a great wall in the mountains to protect the city from invaders. Ston is known for its oyster and mussel farms. They evaporate ocean salt water and collect the salt. For the first time in many years, there was no salt harvest this year because of the unaccustomed extreme rainfall. The wet spring and summer has also decreased the tourist trade all over this area.
On Peljasac, we toured 3 wineries, all very different sizes and varying wine types. Marianna had suggested Vinarija Milos, a relatively small family owned vineyard producing 50,000 bottles a year. These were my favorites. The wine is aged partially in oak barrels and then in the bottle. Price of the wine was related to the length of the aging time, the quality of the grape and their ripeness.  
Michael Grgic, our second vintner, emigrated to California where he has a famous winery. Following that success he opened a smaller Croatian winery. I also recommend these Posip and Plavac mali (white and red) wines.
Our third stop at Matusko was very different and the tasting rooms were beautifully individually decorated as underground cellars that seemed to go on forever. One looked like King Arthur's round table with 4 inch thick circle table that would make a great Mah Jongg Awards Dinner venue.

next Mah Jongg banquet venue

lots of atmosphere

Here they produce over 500,000 bottles. Naturally at all stops we (our driver refrained) sampled all of their offerings and purchased a good sampling of many. Too bad none of the wineries make enough to export. Croatia 1 vs. US zip. We'll do our own wine tasting here with Marlene  and Michele if any is left.

Mary Jo and Tae and the girls just stopped in after their day trip to Lokrum,

Tae, Maggie and Nora on Lokrum Island

Maggie and Nora at the Fitness Park on Lockrum

Maggie and Nora will take over blogging at this point.

Hi it's me Maggie, so anyways today we went to Lokrum and we went to the fort. We went down to the dungeon and took a flash photo of it so we could see inside it. It had lawn chairs in it. This morning we ate pancakes, they tasted like scramble eggs. We also went to the dead sea it was weird how the current went in and washed back onto the shore like it was the biggest wave ever. Now I'll hand this over to Nora to type. :)

flash picture of the dungeon with unexpected amenities

Mary Jo and Maggie on Lockrum with Dubrovnik in the distance

Croatia is amazing! I loved what I did for the past few days and their is a ton of ice cream! This trip has been amazing :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( but we missed are plane flight but we made up for it.)
Nora

Nora on the Pile side of the wall with Fort Lovrejenac in the distance
and the Dubravka restaurant on the right

Thank you to our visiting correspondents. Well done!

17 September 2014 Our first visitors arrive

17 September 2014

It's been awhile since our last blog and our first trip to Cavtat. We have been having adventures with Mary Jo and Kevin, seeing the sights and enjoying our new friends here in Dubrovnik. One of MJ and K's first days here we climbed up to both Buzas and took in the views. They have been doing a lot of exploring on their own, discovering for themselves walls, views and museums.

Mary Jo and I also spent a day or more getting her local phone set up. She bought hers through VIP and had roughly the same experience we had with T Mobile. She patiently visited and revisited the local kiosk. She patiently fruitlessly attempted to translate the phone cues from Croatian into English and activate the SIM card. This called for a bus trip to the VIP store over in Babin Kuk. Her "experienced, local" guide tried a short cut to some private backyard and patio which led to a U-turn and a bit of rain sprinkle. All's well that ends well. The rain let up, her phone is working and is now giving English cues. We walked back and ventured into an aged cemetery which is still active. Many young men from the war are buried there in a designated area. Graves appear to be visited often as there are many fresh flowers.

 large monuments at the cemetery entrance

stone graves and monuments 

Cavtat was such a hit that we went back for the boat ride and seeing the sights with MJ and K. MJ and I swam in the small pebble beach. It was interesting how the cold ocean surface water came in and mixed with the warm shallow water at the beach. Even though the waves were small the temperature in the water was layered with warm and cold. The ocean floor is visible to at least 20 feet down.
We strolled around the Cavtat peninsula again and climbed up to the Racic family mausoleum. This family of four all died in 1918 during the Spanish flu epidemic. The mausoleum and cemetery are on top of a hill and surrounded by a small cemetery. There should be some pictures of this trip to follow.

Luci and Niko, our landlords, invited us to their home (upstairs from our apartment) for a delicious dinner. We tried some homemade whiskey, walnut brandy,  prosecco. We were introduced to quince preserves served with different cheeses and cured meats. Lucy made a delicious fillo dough cheese wrap. Niko grilled chicken, beef, lamb, pork and a mixed ground meat roll special to Croatia. He used his new Weber grill he had recently shipped from the US. Needless to say we had a wonderful time and learned much about Dubrovnik and their families. Niko trained here in Dubrovnik and had been a merchant sea captain sailing between Japan and California for 22 months while awaiting his US visa. They have run Adriatic Travel Inc. for 40 years in San Pedro, California and have great ideas for traveling in Europe.

Tuesday Luci and Niko invited us to Desa-Dubrovnik for the awarding of 10 scholarships to local students. The Desa-Dubrovnik organization was founded after the 1991 war by Niko's cousin, Jany, to help local women and their children remain independent, find jobs and provide many other types of support. There is a large Croatian community in San Pedro, California and many from there have connections here. Several ex-pats came to the ceremony. You can find the Deasa-Dubrovnik web site on line and a news picture of the awards ceremony. Luci, Niko and the scholarship winners are pictured on the website. (me too)

Luci in the atrium at Desa-Dubrovnik

.......
More later. MJ and Kevin just called and are at D'Vino's restaurant and asked if I wanted to join them for a late afternoon glass of wine. I'm glad their phone is working.
.......

That was refreshing. We had a cheese and fruit plate with figs, apricots and the most delicious spreadable blue cheese. We visited with a young software engineer from San Francisco who quit his job to backpack his way through Eastern Europe. I asked if he was blogging for his mother. Mom, if you are reading this, he's doing well. We met a couple from Williston VT who were amused that we knew the Williston Wheezers band and Andrew and Ronnell have played trombone and cymbals in their parades. We meet some of the most interesting people. And those are just the English speaking people. I keep looking for faces from Rochester. Who knows?
I have more to tell and more pictures but will stop now to post this.
Mari

9-9-14 ... We venture to Cavtat

Hello again,
Cavtat is a small town on the coast about 18 kilometers east of Dubrovnik. For reference the airport is another 2-3 kilometers east of Cavtat. Today we took a boat ride to Cavtat about 1 hour along the coast.
Seeing the rugged Croatian landscape from the water was impressive. We saw the road that runs parallel to the coast that we took in from the airport. Again, let me say that even the most directionally challenged of us would have little trouble finding their way around here. The mountains are on one side and the Adriatic is on the other. Like we did on Babin Kuk, we walked around the peninsula on a well maintained tree lined path and found incredible views of the turquoise sea, sun baked mountains and rocky coast.
We found an ideal swimming beach with small pebbles and will take our visitors there to swim. We also saw a small family of three on a paddle boat equipped with a ladder and slide. Looked like fun. A leisurely 40 minute walk around the peninsula made us thirsty. We stopped at one port for a cold beer thinking we were half way on our walk. Around the next bend we discovered we were back where we started so we stopped for lunch with a view. Eating is big on our agenda.
There are several historic sites which we will catch next time. We made a short stop at Our Lady of the Snows church. Mike left on an earlier ferry to get back to teach. Poor bugger. I hung around for ice cream then took the ferry home to get ready for Mary Jo and Kevin's arrival.
I found out that they made it to Dulles Airport but "missed" their connection to Frankfort. Actually they and the airplane were at the gate but boarding had closed. SO they had an unplanned night in Washington and we will see them tomorrow.
It's fun to listen to all the languages the tourists speak. British tourists make me feel at home. I've seen some honeymooners (easy to pick these happy couples out). I'm also amazed at how many senior citizens with swollen ankles come here. Given the hills and steps, many are not prepared for the challenge. Buses and ferries make touring easier. Mount Srd is accessible by cable car but you still need to climb a couple hundred steps or steep hill to get to the ride. Some of these attractions will be a "once" in a lifetime experience for us. Pictures will be posted later. My IT guy went to work. Miss you all, Mari

Wrapping Up The Work Week

RIT

We had meetings from 12:00 to 2:00 today just covering general faculty and teaching issues. Nothing earth shattering.

For the geeks among you, I did see a perfect example of deadlock on the street leading to the RIT building:

DEADLOCK!

Interesting Croatian Solution
Make a Resource Where None Existed

Late Afternoon

It was threatening again, so we decided it wouldn't be wise to walk the walls of the city if lightening struck. Instead we went to the Franciscan monastery (just inside the Pile gate), which, among other things, houses Europe's oldest pharmacy. We couldn't take pictures in the pharmacy area itself, which was a shame because the paintings, reliquaries, chalices, etc. were exceptional. On the other hand, too many pictures degrade the quality of the artifacts - oh, well.

We did get some pictures from the Monastery atrium and from the walls on the walk around it. We also visited the Franciscan church itself - another example of beautiful interior architecture.

Afterward we had drinks at the Bodega, a relatively new wine bar near St. Blaise's church. The young man in one of these pictures was our server - he also took the picture of Mari and me.

A bit later we went to dinner at a Rick Steve's recommended restaurant the Dalmatino. Unfortunately we couldn't sit in the courtyard as it was raining, but the ambience more than compensated. Mari had an octopus appetizer - I, as usual, refrained.

She's into seafood and I'm into meat, and that's just the way it is.

On the way out of the city we caught the changing of the guard:

When we got home, Nick and Luci, our landlords, invited us up to their patio for wine and conversation with some friends. We had a nice chat, and Luci provided us with some leads for the trips we want to take. Then it was downstairs to change for the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra.

Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra

The symphony performs in the courtyard of the Rector's Palace in the old city.

The seating goes all around the orchestra:

Yup, up-close-and-personal; this gives new meaning to the phrase "intimate setting." I was concerned for a bit that if one of the violinists sprained a finger ligament I'd be drafted into the third violins. Fortunately, nothing untoward happened.

The concert began with Mozart's Symphony No. 40, a warhorse that everyone would recognize. After the intermission came Beethoven's Egmont overture, then two sets of songs from Mahler/Schoenberg and Gotvac. The mezzosoprano, Janja Vuletic, is a Dubrovnik native; her voice was simply beautiful. Things wrapped up with Brahms Hungarian Dances No. 3 & 5 - everyone has heard the rousing No. 5, and it was a fitting climax to a thoroughly enjoyable concert.

TTFN,
Mike

It's Early September . . .

And many of the tourists have left. There are still enough around to ensure that tours, boat rides, etc. are available, but things are nowhere near as crowded as they were a week ago. From talking to folks it seems there is a slow wind-down until November, after which most of the tourist industry hibernates for the winter.

We've been busy, with me at work and Mari at exploring. I depend on her to be my guide - or I should. Whenever we're in the old city, trying to navigate the maze of streets, she'll say "Go left," I'll say in frustration "NO! Go RIGHT." Then we'll go left and she'll be vindicated. I never learn.

She still puts up with me after 43 years, though, and even preparing me delicious meals. Here's a picture of the repast she created two nights ago!

Kava

Coffee is an art form in Croatia, even that which comes from machines. Here's what one gets for 3 kuna (about 50 cents) from the machine outside my office. The computer and monitor are scale references:

Not much, you say? Well, you're probably right about overall volume, but I can guarantee you that there is at least as much coffee in one of these cups as in anything from our Keurig machine back home. If you like strong coffee, this is the place to be! (Right, Liz?)

RIT Croatia - Dubrovnik Campus

The Dubrovnik campus is housed in one building near the sea. So let's take a short tour of the digs.

My office which I share with Deb LaBelle
(my desk is nearest the door)

The teaching lab filled with new Macs

From a Lab Window
It doesn't due justice to the view of the sea

The "Quiet" Lab where students can work on Dell PCs

Coming from Rochester, one thing you note right away is that students do not, in general, own their own computers. This means that everything they need for assignments must be available on all the Macs and PCs on campus. The lack of personal accounts means they also have no permanent storage other than that on USB thumb drives, DropBox, etc., which they must reattach at the start of each class.

I think I've addressed the ISTE 230 Database issue by using SQLite so that they can keep the DBMS and the associated database files on a USB thumb drive. I'm still working out the logistics for ISTE 422, the Application Development course, as not all the tools I need (e.g., jUnit, SVN, etc.) are universally available. Fortunately I have a couple of weeks to work with the IT folks here and in Zagreb to make sure the environment is up to snuff.

Rain

"It's raining, it's pouring. The old man is snoring. Went to bed, and he bumped his head, and he was swept into the Adriatic by a Dubrovnik thunder storm in the morning." (Sorry if the meter is bollixed).

When it rains here, IT RAINS! Everyone carries umbrellas, but mostly as a triumph of hope over experience. Maybe an umbrella will keep you dry - from the chest up - but only if the wind doesn't catch it and blow you away (see Mary Poppins). Students coming to my class on Tuesday were soaked, and they wanted extra credit for just showing up (they had a point). I managed to make it home during a break in the shower; by break, I mean I ended up soaked only to my waist.

The rain also wreaks havoc with the water system. "Boil water" advisories are all over the media (we've learned enough Croatian to understand this); those who can use bottled water. The water color has slowly changed from dark brown to a light ocre since the worst of the storms passed. We'll see what things are like a couple of days from now when the weather is supposed to turn back to sunny.

Buza

We found the second Buza last night. It's actually quite close to the first one, just in the opposite direction on the wall. This one lets you get a drink and sit right on rocks overlooking the sea. Depending on how much you drink vs. admire the view, this can be dangerously adventuresome.

We didn't stop to have drinks last night as there was a steady drizzle. We'll visit it the next time we have a clear night. I may even let Mari guide us there.