holidays 2012 - day 13: a short swim & a long drive

it's sunny but very windy on our last morning. we have breakfast in front of our tent ...

michi honey


... listening to the waves, wondering if it will get warm enough to go for a swim before we hit the road back to austria.

after we have taken the tent down and put most things away, we go down to the beach, soak up some sun, play a few games ...

happy feet


... and eventually decide to take a dip. the water is rather on the cool side ... nothing like the previous year. but as the wind dies down and the sun grows stronger, we are fine and actually take another swim before heading for the showers.

we're off at 1 pm, have a quick lunch and an ice cream in tisno proper.

heinrich hearts ice cream


then we are off towards the highway. familiar sights along the road. the last glimpses of the sea make me a little sad ... but we've had such a great holiday, and croatia isn't all that far, it is very likely we will be back some time.

we leave croatia around 5.30 - hello slovenia! onward ... and hello again, austria! we stop at heinz's mom's for the night - 500 km from tisno. and this is where our 2012 holiday ends.

it did me a world of good - not being connected to most of the rest of the world for a while ... no phone calls, no facebook, no emails. much as i am online at home, i really don't miss all that when i am travelling for a couple of weeks. it's part of recreation for me. :)

photos of day 13

holidays 2012 - day 12: three countries in one day

so it's goodbye to žabljak and durmitor - in the rain. grey curtains drawn before the stunning panorama. jelena is the only one home, and she doesn't charge us for breakfast nor the countless teas and coffees! i'm really sorry to have to leave - what a nice time we've had here, and what a beautiful area it is! of course we stock up on some more pastry in town ...

durmitor in the rain


so we drive towards rastovac in quite heavy rain, stop for a hot drink in an umbrella-friendly place ...

the parasol protectorate? (for alexia tarabotti fans)


... and then look for the road towards the bosnian border near krstac. we drive back and forth a few times and cannot find the turnoff. that should tell us something. or it might have been better to just give up and take a different road. but - just then we find the turnoff. the rain lets up eventually. beautiful scenery: hills, mountains, red and yellow and green foliage, burnt trees, barely any settlements, entertaining traffic signs ...

zorro was here!



cow with square udder



greased lightning


... relaxed cattle ...

your road? my arse!


... and the occasional garbage dump:

another road, another sofa


and so we leave montenegro. drive down the street to the bosnian border post. hand over our passports. the guard disappears in the house. comes back. says "there's a problem for you." that isn't quite what we want to hear. "this crossing is only for local people, people who live here." argh. why on earth? not a chance? no, sorry. we are not experienced in bribery, so ... we turn around and enter montenegro once again. the border guard doesn't even stop us, he just raises the barrier. sigh. we lose about two hours driving to krstac and back, the only good thing is that i get to spend more time in montenegro! :)

we take the road to trebinje, and this time they let us leave montenegro AND enter bosnia and hercegovina. doviđenja!

not a hint of rain here, instead blue sky and a few fluffy clouds. the scenery is gorgeous - mountains, a lovely river, rusty bridges, and then, when we come around a bend - a view of the sea, dark blue and dazzling in the sunlight!

the sea! the sea!


another border crossing, this time into croatia. we stop for a drink and some fresh mandarins in opuzen at the beginning of the neretva delta, where the fruit vendor immediately cries out "falco!" when he sees our austrian number plate.

we make our way to the highway and on to split and šibenik. our destination is tisno on the island of murter, where we spent a few days last year. we know we'll be arriving late, therefore it will be nice to be in a familiar place. it's 7:30 and nearly dark by the time we get there. we set up the tent one last time and head into the little town's centre for some delicious dinner. yummy calamari! the night is actually quite cool - what a difference to last year, when we barely needed a blanket in the tent! still, we don't quite feel this way:

grim face


photos of day 12

holidays 2012 - day 03: laundry, rooftops, city walls

we wake early after a good night's sleep and head to dubrovnik after a quick breakfast. once again we leave the car outside the centre and walk down the dozens of stairs.

we climb the steps up the city wall shortly after the ticket booth has opened, so it's still rather quiet. i'm grateful it's not all blue sky and merciless sun, but hazy and cloudy for most of our long walk around the old town.

heinz & i on the city walls


built between the 13th and 16th centuries - and certainly built to last - the city walls are dubrovnik's main claim to fame. all in all, they're over 2 km long and up to 25 m high - quite impressive. of course they offer great views of the old town they encircle and have protected for so long.

stari grad, framed


i'm intrigued by the glimpses of people's lives in this rather public place: laundry hung out to dry, open windows, pillows left to air, chairs in narrow backyards, little pots of herbs on mini balconies, residents having a smoke out the window.

backstreet balcony


there are also plenty of cats in more or less unusual places, some making for rather picturesque or funny scenes.

doorway with black cat


there are schools, sports grounds tucked away between walls, not even big enough for regular games of football.

sports ground with a difference


there are rooftops reminding me of venice, pockmarked and looking out of place with big, white satellite dishes. there are odd chimneys and broken roof tiles. somewhere below a band is playing jazzy music. the sea glitters, and kayakers on a day trip disappear behind lokrum island.

we make our way around rather slowly, joined by more and more visitors to this spectacular place, and overtaken by most. afterwards, the sun's out for good, and we enjoy some palačinki (pancakes) with ice cream in a narrow side street, just off stradun. more sightseeing in the old town follows,

detail, church


but we long for the beach and a nice long swim. lovely, lovely water! at night, we have delicious barbecued chicken, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, and bread right in front of our tent, jealously watched by the campground cats and dogs.

photos of day 03

holidays 2012 - day 02: dubrovnik-bound

excellent sleep on the mattress, and we're up early (holidays, after all, are not for slackers!) to drive down to dubrovnik. there's still the highway till some place below split. i fall asleep very quickly and wake up somewhere in the middle of nowhere (and just in case you are wondering, no, it is heinz driving at the time, not me). off the highway, it's winding roads across the hinterland, at first dry and rocky, then a fertile plain opens up before us: the neretva delta, a paradise of orchards, fields, canals.

fertile lands


we stop at a fruit stand and sample just about everything there is, including honey-coated almonds and delicious peaches. a feast for our taste buds! with the shopping done, we move on to the magistrala, the coastal road - infinitely more beautiful than what you get to see along the highway. we enter bosnia & hercegovina around 01:30 pm. we stop in neum for petrol and a couple of pictures, leave BiH about 15 km down the road, and are back in croatia. very scenic road along the coast: cliffs, little villages built into rock, and always the deep blue sea. we drive past dubrovnik, stop for a few photos of the old town just south of the city.

first glimpses of the gorgeous city by the sea: dubrovnik


we find a campground ("laguna") in a small place called plat. with the tent set up and after a bite to eat, we are off down many stone steps to the beach in a small bay. nice swim! we decide to go into dubrovnik for dinner, where it's a walk down many steps to stari grad (the old town), pizza, and then a stroll along stradun in the heart of stari grad. strange to think i've been here before, many years ago, when things were very different in this part of the world. also intriguing to think how many pairs of feet / shoes have worn the cobbles so smooth.

stradun, looking liquid


it's a gorgeous, warm evening, i take photos of the old town, and on the way back to the campsite, also of dubrovnik, all lit up, from a distance.

the lights of stari grad, dubrovnik

photos of day 02

holidays 2012 - day 01: vienna to drage, croatia

early rise, and we're off around 07:40. on board are 2/3 of our boy group: otto, the crocodile & heinrich, the bear.

heinrich, the bear, safely tucked away in the food box


it's a day of driving, almost a shame on such a hot and sunny day: south towards the austrian-slovenian border at spielfeld, on to maribor (slovenia) and then zagreb (croatia). first glimpses of the sea near jasenice, a narrow strip between the mainland and pelješac.

the sea! the sea!


we leave the highway near zadar, find a campsite with the promising name "paradiso" in a small place called drage around 4.30 pm, and after setting up our tent, we go for a swim in the lovely water off the pebble beach. aaahhh! so nice after all those hours in the car!

late afternoon at drage


we have dinner at a local restaurant, apparently also frequented by locals. first taste of the local cuisine - meat, of course. bedtime at 10, first night on the brand-new mattress, which makes sleeping even more fun!

photos of day 01

reactivation

so it's been nearly ten months since my last blog post: if i made any new year resolutions, one of them would be to blog more regularly this year!

i think one reason why i did not blog as much as i used to is the fact that nothing was happening with my writing: almost nothing new, no submissions sent out, no publication. i've been quite far from poetry (makes a nice title, doesn't it?) these past two years. over the last ten days, however, i have written five poems - that is two more than in 2009! they are all for my "elemental" project, the poems based on the elements of the perdiodic table. it is tough, trying to get back into the habit of writing regularly. today was the first time that i actually thoroughly enjoyed working on a poem again, it was like a flicker of how it used to be. i've also done a lot of research on the elements i still need to deal with - and it seems as if i have done most of the really inspiring, interesting ones. *s*

"there, between / heifer and cup-bearer, beloved of the god: the veiled bride, mistress// of the night. beneath the netting, her freckles seem to shift, like/constellations."

(from: europium (eu) - between io and ganymede, eleven minutes to six)

i don't want to dwell on the past too much, but in a nutshell: it was a good year, well, most of it.

moving was stressful, but it's great to live with heinz! i had expected to miss my old flat, at least occasionally, but i didn't. of course, the place is not big enough in the long run - so flat/house hunting is one of the major projects of 2010.

work: lots of lovely students, challening and highly interesting translation project (encyclopedia of western european languages) - although there seems to be hardly any freelance job without a fight for the money. i am going back to work on monday - finally! it has been too long.

we took a few short(ish) trips: croatia in may, carinthia (around my hometown) in july, south tyrol in september. lots of nature, hiking, swimming, tons of photos.

my social life suffered a little when i had lots of work on my plate and i turned into some kind of recluse for a while. fortunately i managed to break the habit in autumn, with the viennale film festival coming in handy.

what i found hard to deal with was the fact that i had to increase the dose of SSRI again in autumn, following some anxiety/panic incidents. i had a couple of hallucinations, too. i am sure that this was partly due to my confronting some of the demons from my past, and partly due to being worried about work (it was uncertain whether the english teaching project would be continues). i am seeing my therapist regularly, and we have tackled a few tough issues. but i have been feeling much better over the last couple of weeks or so. heinz has been a source of constant support and encouragement. :)

other stuff includes: farmville addiction (decreasing!), scrabble addiction, christmas in carinthia and styria, bob hewis's unexpected death, loved the book "the book thief", miss the writing community, 72nd out of about 1400 in the vienna photo marathon, boy group: otto, pruno & heinrich, facebook addiction, photography, the untimely death of one of my favourite singers - lhasa de sela, aunt resi's 100th birthday, puzzle addiction (reactivated), concerts: leonard cohen (#2!), bruce springsteen (#4), tori amos (#5, i believe), regina spektor.


here are some pictures (moving; croatia with the boy group; hiking in carinthia; h&m with aunt resi (100); leonard cohen & band; succulent; michi & alex with heinrich; michi with livia; ladybird):






















song of the day: haiti by the arcade fire.