Dubrovnik

Reaching Dubrovnik after an entire trip well off the tourist path has been a significant shocker.
Stalls selling trashy souvenirs, people yelling at locals in Spanish, Italian, and English, and overpriced, less than delicious food have taken away from the awe inspiring town.
But if you get your timing right, you’ll have a few blissful minutes to glimpse the sun setting behind the fortress wall – all alone.

Internet

Finally a half decent internet connection and one I am pretty sure I can’t destroy.

I managed to knock out internet in a small and overly expensive café in Sarajevo. I disconnected the keyboard so I could plug in my USB key and file a couple of photos for work.

Apparently I knocked something I shouldn’t have.

The guy came over randomly pulled on something then shook his finger at us.

The internet flickered to life.

I hit send on my e-mail.

Then I pulled out my USB key.

The internet died completely.

The e-mail did get through somehow.

But, we high-tailed it out of that café pretty quickly.

Kraška Ohcet

Images from Kraška ohcet, a traditional wedding festival for Slovenians living in Italy.

Getting ready

The groom heads a procession to meet his bride

On their way to the church

Dancing in celebration of the wedding

Going home to meet the parents

More mosquito complaints...

I’ve got good news and bad news.
The bad news is that the mosquitoes in northern Italy love me as much as the ones in Cuba, Saskatchewan, Uganda and Thailand … which is good news for the mosquitoes.
I currently have six of the ugliest welts/bruises around mosquito bites. The bites are almost a week old – this is beyond ridiculous.
Seriously, who is allergic to mosquito bites? Besides, apparently, me.
I guess the good news for me is, here I don’t have to worry about West Nile or Malaria.

A walk in the park?

The difference between hiking and mountaineering is subtle until one is actually on the side of a mountain.
Then it becomes extremely obvious.
Hiking is a gentle stroll through alpine meadows while singing and enjoying water from little streams.
Mountaineering is virtually climbing – clinging to cliffs, scrambling across rocks and sliding down trails of slippery shale.
I, unfortunately, was not hiking. And I didn’t realize it until stepping off the gondola at 2,300 metres.
Then I was committed, or I should have been.
Everyone I was with kept pointing out beautiful little wildflowers or the amazing views. I’m not going to lie. I didn’t see much except the next place I would put my foot.
In the end, my experience on Mt. Kanin, in North West Slovenia, was positive.
I survived, had only two moments of refusing to step any further and ate delicious soup at a little mountain hut, the fourth highest in all the Alps.
Today the biggest climb I will make, is out of bed.

On eating well

Slovenian food is amazing.
Everyone talks about going to Florence and Tuscany seems to be the buzz word in foodie circles these days, but seriously they’ve got nothing on the things my Teta (great aunt) Mira can whip up.
I’ve had fresh strudel with apples, raisins, ground walnuts and almonds and chocolate. There has been peppers stuffed with ground beef, pork and risotto rice, and bathed in rich tomato sauce.
We had a spinach and cheese pastry with hommade goulash.
With every meal is bread with a crusty outside and soft inside and fresh sheep’s cheese from a huge round.

Let me put it this way – it’s a good thing I am walking lots!!

For her the bells toll

The bells at the local church chime at every hour all day and all night. Usually during the night I can ignore them, but they do a particularly loud and musical chime at 6 a.m.
It is the official wake up bell for the community.
I am looking forward to sleeping through it.

Equally loud, but significantly longer is the chime at 8 p.m. Historically, this was the time when all the girls in the village had to be home.
My guess is the long chime before the hour marks was to give the girls a chance to get home.
So the tradition has stayed in place, the bells sound amazing, but the girls get to ignore it.

Unattended Bags

So being on the road again has given me the urge to restart my blog after almost a year.
There always seems to be a common thread when I travel and that is a significant dislike for pointless, overzealous security.
And unfortunately for me the French seem particularly good at this.
While flying through Paris on route to Slovenia I had to switch terminals, which meant leaving a secure area, clearing immigration and taking a bus.
Before reaching the exit doors everyone was rerouted by angry looking, but mysteriously quiet airport security. People from at least three or four flights were funnelled away from the exit doors in to baggage holding areas where they left us for almost 45 minutes.
No one said anything until almost the end, when the rumour moved through the group that the police had been called because of a left bag.
Apparently it was third time it had happened that morning – it was only 11 a.m.
Left baggage in the departure area seems worrying, but in the arrivals? Maybe the person got stuck in a long line in immigration.
Isn’t an unattended bag less scary once it has been taken off the plane??

Not blogging right now

Instead of blogging I have spent way to much time watching movies. When I blog it’s usually because I’ve been following world events, but when I follow world events from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan it stresses me out immensely.

• Congolese refugees are streaming into Uganda
• Somali pirates capture an oil tanker
• Protests are going on in Bangkok still
• A black man was elected President of the United States

I feel like I am sitting on the side lines and watching these events pass me by. It makes me ache and want to scream. What am I doing here?
So I don’t blog right now.
I watch movies.
But I am almost finished with the movies now and nearly have another book review finished so I will begin blogging again.

…. I hope.

Where is TIA?

I am both excited and worried.

I’m excited because it looks like the new President of the United States will be Obama. This makes me very happy – for more reasons then I can list.

I’m worried because one of my favourite blogs – TIA (short for This is Africa) has disappeared! Completely and Totally. If anyone knows what happened please let me know.

I’m excited because tomorrow I hit the road for La Ronge, an area three hours north of where I live. Myself and another reporter from the paper will be doing some reporting on issues more north of us – the so called “Northern Notebook”