September 30 2011

September 29 2011

Knocked down and drowning but still caught my eye.

September 28 2011

PechaKucha Night #9: Verge

This was my first PechaKucha night. I was hesitant to go because I was feeling pretty tired but it turned out to be an amazing night celebrating Calgary’s art culture. There were guest speakers talking about ‘the verge’ each had 20 slides that were 20 seconds long. Pretty cool and makes me proud of the city I live in.

September 27 2011

I’m pretty sure this is why Europeans are in better shape than North Americans.. they have to run to all of the exits. Maybe we should adopt this too.

10 hour flight today. I hope they have good movies.

September 26 2011

In Germany for our last day in Europe. It made me miss Croatia a lot.. A $15 euro dinner that was very underwhelming left me wishing that I was back on the beach eating fresh fish.

Home tomorrow.

September 25 2011

Suzana and Meri brought us Mostar and Medugorje in Bosnia. It was absolutely amazing! You could still see the war wounds (literally) on the buildings and gave this eerie feeling in the city. It really was beautiful here and made for an amazing last day.

We leave tomorrow for our flight to Germany and a lovely hour of 520 am.

September 24 2011

More family members! We had a lunch that was out of this world and lasted a few hours. It was amazing to see how important friends and family are to them and makes me wonder why this doesn’t happen as much in Canada.

September 23 2011

We left Dubrovnik and headed to Makarska to meet some of the family. We’ve only been here a few hours and I already feel like I’m being spoiled.

Meri on the right and Suzana on the left.

September 22 2011

I really wanted to do a kayaking tour while here and decided on a 15 km one around a nearby island called Kolocep. The itinerary said that we stopped for lunch and being from Canada that means between 11 and 1. In Croatia lunch is 3 to 5 so I was a bit panicky when I couldn’t see any restaurant close by and had no food in my kayak.

I was a bit distracted from my hunger because of the cliff jumping (yes, I jumped off the baby one.. ) and exploring caves on the island. One cave we had to swim underneath a rock to get into, it was pretty amazing!

My arms are now officially Jell-O and I have plenty of blisters to show!

September 21 2011

Left Brac and made it to Dubrovnik. First things first we found our hostel which was pretty hard to locate, it’s like a maze in old town. I needed to use the GPS on the iPad to get us there (we didn’t want to wander around because there are so many stairs!)

We decided to walk around the City Walls today. It was amazing and pretty impressive that they rebuilt everything to look like this. In the 1990’s Dubrovnik was attacked and 65% or the old town was demolished. You wouldn’t be able to tell walking around there today..  They sure do a good job hiding the war.

September 20 2011

Island hopped again to visit a gravesite of my distant relative on the island of Brac. Pretty neat to experience that. I really hope I found the right one!

September 19 2011

We went hiking in Split because it was a lot cooler from all the rain and the storm. There were churches built right into the mountains which I though was absolutely amazing. You couldn’t go into them but I tried peaking and it seems like they are still in use today. I thought this was amazing!

Not too many people were taking the hike up to see these..

September 18 2011

I was sad to say goodbye to Vis but we island hopped over to Hvar (youtube Prince Harry in Hvar!) and I found it spectacular here.

After we swam around all day we toured the fortress and watched the sun set. Then dinner from 830- 10, I could get used to island life..

September 17 2011

 

We decided to stay another night in Vis because we loved it that much! We decided to take a little adventure and visit the blue cave on Bisevo Island. We then went to a beach and no matter how much sunscreen I put on it wasn’t good enough. Might be tough wearing a backpack tomorrow..

Beautiful though and such an amazing day!

September 16 2011

Vis Island.

The lonelyplanet guide told us that this island would be difficult to get to and might not be worth the hassle. We tried it anyways and absolutely loved it the second we got off the boat.

30 degrees, three different beaches, one scooter, fish caught the day of, pizza like you’ve never tasted before, and ice cream. Rough life.

September 15 2011

Split. We we got here it was 34 degrees so the first thing on my list was to get to the beach. The first few beaches were a bit rocky for me so I kept walking and ended up finding a pebbly beach. In my mind it really didn’t matter because all I wanted to do was cool off! It was a beautiful beach and the water was amazing.

After I cooled down enough I took the long walk back into the old town. I decided to do some sight seeing while I was there and really learn the history of this town. The whole old town is built out of the original Diocletian's palace. It is the biggest palace I’ve ever seen! I decided that I wanted to go to the museum which is the basement of the palace and a place where there aren’t stores and houses. It contained old bathtubs that were a few thousand years old!

This city is really neat! I think it will take more than a day to really get acquainted. 

September 14 2011

We spent the morning taking a look at the upper lakes. I couldn’t leave without seeing them, what if they were better!

We took the bus to Zadar just for the night. We got bombarded with people asking us for homestays so we decided to give it a shot. Everything looked fine and dandy until I tried to sleep. I couldn’t, at all. If it wasn’t the people it was the goat or a dog or the lights.. not the best experience.

Zadar was beautiful. It was a super small “old town” and the place where I first got to swim in the Adriatic. It was soooo warm! Right where I swam was a natural organ. Pretty neat! I’m sure I filled up my memory card filming it.

After a look around town we ventured back for our restful sleep (haha) and then headed off to Split.

September 13 2011

Day Four

Last night was the first night I actually slept! Thank goodness for earplugs, I didn’t hear a single sound.

I woke up and tried to have a shower but it was freezing. It sure jolted me awake. I packed up my bags and set off for the botanical garden. It was beautiful and I saw a few things that I studied in my classes there!

We hop on the tram and head for the bus station to head to Plitvice Park. THis was the first place I saw somebody begging for money since I’ve arrived. Got on the bus to take a 2.5 hours bus ride. I didn’t see too much because I fell asleep for 90% of the ride.

We arrive at the park and try and get things organized (ie. find a place to stay). We ended up picking a hotel because the campground was too far. We venture into the park and are amazed by the beauty. Every single water fall was beautiful for different reasons. We didn’t have enough time to see the upper lakes so we decided to see them before we head to Zadar.

September 12 2011

Day Three

Last night I tried to go to bed at 8 pm but in a hostel this can be a bit complicated. Roomies coming in at 2 am and other ones departing at 6 am there wasn’t much time for sleeping. I’ve slept enough for a day of sightseeing though!

It started off at St. Marks church, the iconic church that most people have seen at least once. The usual picture of the couple standing in front of it, you know the one right? I was one of those people snapping shots of it! For all the photographers out there, I’m sorry if you’re cringing at the thought of another cliché shot. You just can’t go to Zagreb and not get one!

After that, we took a little stroll around all the parliament buildings and looked at the architecture. At this point, nothing was really opened so we decided to take the walking tour of the upper town. Beautiful.

We saw the Zagreb cathedral, the biggest church in town, surrounded by renaissance walls. Then went to the market (Dolac) and bought some fruit. Here is where we almost got ripped off buying water (24kn for two small bottles where we later found one for 6 and triple the size!)

We ended our tour on Ilica where we picked up some gelato and headed for a nearby park. Not a bad way to spend the morning.

I decided I wanted to head out to see the botanical gardens and decided to take the walking tour of the lower town. Here I learnt a lot about architecture, city planning, and parks. It was a really nice walk but unfortunately the garden was closed by the time I got there.

Later I decided to try out a museum of Croatian history. It was neat to read about Ban Jelacic and his role in the 1880’s. The towne sqaure that I’m staying near is now named after him. Trg Bana Josipa Jelacica.

For dinner, we met up with a guy staying in our room and went to a cute little patio a few blocks away. We had poor service but we weren’t sure if it’s proper etiquette to leave a tip, so we did. After our tip the waiter said the most to us and seemed overly happy. We knew we did something wrong!

After dinner we went to the museum of broken relationships. Very interesting concept, where people donate an item in memory of a failed relationship. There were some pretty neat items there!

After the museum, I set off to meet my third cousin (great grandparents were sisters!). She took me to a little bar and we sat there and chatted the time away! It was a really neat experience to meet someone who is part of your family history. We don’t really have a  lot of opportunities to do things like that!

We’ll if you’ve read this far I give you credit. I’m sure you didn’t really want to read my blog for a history of Zagreb. So here are my thoughts so far: big city with a small town feel, great people, great shops, great food, and a slow casual paced city where cars actually stop for you!

September 11 2011

Day two

We get on the plane and ask the stewardess if she thought our bags would have made it. She said with a smile "Oh most likely!". With our flight from Frankfurt delayed again I’m worried about our layover to get on our third and final flight to Zagreb.

Most of the plane ride had to be the worst turbulence I've ever experienced. From the fatigue and hunger I almost ended up a puker. The lady sitting behind us was screaming and started crying and the one beside us didn't look to good herself. It was a very unsettling flight and left me begging for some solid ground. We get off the plane (yes we made it!!) and jump onto an overcrowded bus, much like that of the 99 bline during rush hour. I'm trying to hold in my stomach contents as we make our way to the terminal.

Next, security. We didn't know our gate number for our flight nor was it posted anywhere on the departure board. We finally found our gate to go through another security point. Yes the fourth one so far.. I set off the alarm with my watch for the first time. I had the lovely pleasure of dealing with security in Germany.. Not the best place! We clear security and then head to our gate trying to find gravol along the way. No gravol but the stomach made it and so did I. We arrive to a mild 35 degrees Celsius..

September 10 2011

And I’m off to Croatia!

Day One:

Day one I set off to leave on my journey around supper time on Saturday. The plane was packed and I had a slight feeling that it would be late leaving... Not good when you have a 90 minutes layover with a terminal change in Heathrow on Sept 11.

I decided to stay up the whole plane ride to watch movies (and possibly fight off jetlag). I kicked back and watched: Something Borrowed, Water for Elephants, and Bridesmaids. Pretty decent movies! It gave me a chance to actually sit through a movie (and stay awake) for the first time this summer.

We land in Heathrow and get our move on to catch our next flight. Boarding starts exactly when we landed so we start running through the airport. I figure if I make the flight and my bags don’t at least I’m in Croatia. After we bustle through both security points we finally make it to our gate. The plane was delayed because of all the connections! Perfect! We made our flight!! Hopefully our bags did too!

September 9 2011

Kiersti, one of the most amazing human beings you could ever meet, is set off to Africa for 9 months.

We’ve only spent one year in the same city together (this year will be no different) and yet whenever we meet up it’s like we saw each other yesterday. It takes a pretty special person to maintain a friendship like that, one that I will never take for granted.

I love you Kiersti and have a safe and amazing trip!!!

September 8 2011

Two days..

September 7 2011

Zucchini and banana bread for the 14 hour trip to get to Zabreg. Who wouldn’t want to travel with me?!

September 6 2011

My dog, the love of my life.

The grey hairs are starting to show more and her body is continually letting her down. Even after all of that she’s still wants to be a part of everything and pushes herself to make that happen. I think that we can learn a lot from dogs..

Picture taken after a long day of gardening.

September 5 2011

Not many of these left around Calgary..

September 4 2011

My Mom and I rode our bikes to the Farmers market to get more tomatoes for our salsa! Riding your bike around town really is the best way to spend an afternoon.

Thanks Mom, I had a blast!

September 3 2011

Made a meal primarily of food from my garden. It makes me pretty excited to be able to do something like this.

September 2 2011

September 1 2011