croatia in words

Croatia in words

I know I told a lot of you I was going to Split, but I actually went to Trogir. Still on the Adriatic, still nice. Normally I begin day one with traveling, but this blog begins with the day before; traveling to Tucson to spend the night with my cousins so I wouldn’t have to get up so early Friday morning. Well I checked, rechecked, double checked, and tripled checked. Passport and underwear, all I need. Well I was also going to take some food to my cousins that way it wouldn’t spoil at my place. I accidentally left a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs on the counter. That should be a hell of a stink bomb when I come home in 11 days. The flight over was okay, I was thrown out of my exit row seat and had to sit in the center, but it was next to a nice old woman and we chatted it up on the way to Dallas. The flight to Frankfurt was just fine, a little turbulent, but no big deal. I had some sort of beef dish on the way over and then their super discount continental breakfast in the morning. I finally saw the Simpsons movie and I also watched Hot Rod. Hot Rod really sucked, Samberg and Hader definitely need to stick to making digital shorts on SNL. Tried to sleep but it didn’t really work. For whatever reason we were sitting in business class on Lufthansa going to Split. So we had access to their lounge. It was fairly swanky, they serve beer, wine, and liquor and it’s all free. We had some sort of spinach egg omelet and the worst honey dew I’ve ever had in my life. Flying over split was really nice, the Adriatic was beautiful. It’s a very very small town, only here because of summer tourist. The hotel, www.hotelmeden.com , looks much nicer here than it does in real life. Its forty years old and you can definitely tell it’s a former Yugoslavian state, I don’t think the décor has changed since the original. I had a balcony which was nice and of course dual twin beds, so that I could not partake in hanky panky.

Saturday I got to the hotel and went to bed, slept until 4 got up watched some entourage and went to dinner. We had dinner at the hotel and it wasn’t very good. Went to bed and got up at 4 in the morning. Did my homework until breakfast at 8.

Sunday was a slow day, just set up the network and did all the updates and restores we needed. Sunday I went to the Kamerlengo Fortress and had some pretty good dinner. Walked around, really was quite an experience. Cobblestone floors, all the window have outward facing working wooden shutters.

Monday was the preconference and it was pretty laxed. I can’t really remember what I did now, but after the day was over I went to their gym and met an Australian named Taylor. Couldn’t really understand a word he said, but it was an enjoyable conversation. He wished he had learned more about computers; he was amazed that a kid from Texas would be doing the computer network at a conference in Crotia, I said yeah pretty sweet gig. He told me he was sorry I had to come in winter because there is no one here. Had it been in the summer and there were babes here I would have been laid twice a day. A fact I scoffed at in my head, but you never know, I’ve been told I’m not really that ugly. After that I went to a pizzeria and had a pretty good Hawaiian pizza. Went back to the room and finished up my entourage dvds.

Tuesday was the start of the conference; we had the in briefing and the roll call of nations. Took a group photo and then went on a coffee break. Ahhh the life. Tuesday night was our ice breaker, had quite a few beers and a shitload of calamari. Passed out at 2130, stupid time change.

So now it’s currently Wednesday and it pouring. We had a thunder clap that almost lasted 10 seconds. It kept roaring and the windows were rattling. Really something else. Im supposed to go on the cultural today, in about 3 hours, hopefully its stops raining. I think it’s in the forties right now, but this is where I get the bulk of my pictures, so I hope they don’t cancel it.

Alright well I’m going to get back to getting paid to do my homework. I’ll finish the rest up later. Alright, well now its Friday morning, I’ve been up since 3 am, I’ll tell you why a little later on. Let us resume from the un-canceled cultural tour.

Our cultural tour was to Split, about 35 minutes away but 1.21 hours because of traffic. We were going to tour the Diocletian palace. A Roman structure that was built in the 3^rd century BC. It rained the entire time we were on the bus, but thankfully it subsided by the time we got to the palace. The sea was really rough that day, not too often I get to say that but, that’s what it was. There was a lot of graffiti on the streets. A lot of swastikas and crossed out swastikas. A lot of long live rock and ac/dc, I guess they shun that genre. And my favorite was emo sucks. So I didn’t know if they meant the kids or the person, either way they both suck. It was pretty cold and windy throughout the tour. We walked around the basement, and the courtyard, and went through various small passages. The entire palace is now an outlet mall, which is kind of sad that they couldn’t have done something better with it. But the place is a few hectares big, and the economy is dependent on tourism money, seems like that was the only conclusion to be drawn. Stopped into an Italian restaurant while I was there and had a really good spaghetti fettuccine with salmon and calamari. Love that calamari. Then the rain started to pour, walked around, stopped at the Lacoste store and Pierre Cardin store, but neither of the girls working the counters knew what my metric measurements were, nor did they care. I guess I could have ball parked it, but I couldn’t figure out the exchange rate in my head and I didn’t feel like getting a bill for hundreds of dollars when what I thought in my head was different by a decimal place. Got on the bus passed out and woke up we were at the hotel. Put my clothes on the radiator and went to bed.

Thursday was going to be a first full day of work, at least with no planned interruptions, i.e. cultural tour, in briefing, and the like. It was a rough day to get through 10.5 hours and most of that was without internet. But I finished all of my database homework. Went to the gym and then went back to the pizzeria and had two pizzas. Fast forward 6 hours from that time and you’ll know why I was awake at 4am, heartburn. I guess at 24 I’m aging because I had killer heartburn or indigestion, not sure which. Ive only ever used pepto bismal for upset stomach. But now I know that their commercial isn’t lying when it says it takes care of heartburn, bloating, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea you know the jingle. So like all European tv you can always find some naked girls on tv doing naked stuff. Read some from my java book, then watched a little old school Americas funniest home videos with Bob Sagat, circa ’95 and then some everybody loves Raymond. It was in English with Croatian subtitles, I thoroughly enjoyed.

So now is Friday and only a half day, get to pack up and have an outbriefing and cultural dinner. Hopefully its pretty tasty. We found out that the cultural tour was going to be at the hotel, which meant hotel food, so we high tailed it back to the Kamerlengo fortress for dinner. Walked around and got lost a little bit, had some veal cutlets. Didn’t really care for the veal, but now I know. Went back for the traditional dinner and sure as shit it was hotel food, but the alcohol was flowing. Red and white wine and beer. And like always the nations bring their own, so had some good scotch whiskey from Scotland and some death looking black licorice drink from Finland. It made jager its bitch. Our entertainment was the Croatian Naval Acapella group. They were fantastic, had no idea what they were saying but that was okay. They sang one Elvis song and it was great. Got into an argument with the Germans on how to drink Jager, evidently they sip it at room temperature there. Well when I bought a round I said prost, and slammed that bad boy down. They were looking at me in disgust, while they sipped it. I said don’t you slam this in Germany? No, it’s a sipping after dinner drink. “Well in America we shoot this” and I slammed one more. Well they didn’t care for that. So I cleverly said, “USA! USA!” I guess anyone can be an asshole drunk. We were friends in the morning, so it’s all good. Since the airport doesn’t open early we had to overnight in Frankfurt. Stayed at some industrial area of Frankfurt where the prostitutes run rampant, at least that’s what it seemed like, didn’t see any. Had some fantastic un-pasteurized german hefeweizen and delightful red snapper with coriander foam and rice, it was a little foo foo, but tasty. Sunday was our flight and I watched all three movies on the plane. Not much left to say, had a good time, recommend you go there, not for a week, but a day or two trip.

Herpes free since ‘83

jacob