Croatia - Where Dalmatian Is Not Just a Good Mascot

The Award from last blog, shamefully, goes to Camille. The rest of you need to work on your creativity skills...girls like guys with skills. Maybe next time you can bake me a cake or something.

There's an old gag that reads that the first fire station was founded on the border of Dalmatia and Sardinia, and when it came to choosing the mascot, the choice was obvious. Not the Sardine. Way not manly enough. Plus, they saw it as a waste of water that could be better wasted on top of burning rubble, and also, they were more likely to want to start fires to eat their mascot.

Croatia, as you may not have known, as I surely didn't prior to being enlightened by Dana, my most patriotic Croatian student, invented the neck tie...or more accurately, the cravat. It makes a lot of sense when you see that the Croatian spelling is Hravatska.

On my train ride into Hravatska, I met this really nice Canadian couple who were as enthusiastic about second hand smoke as I am. We enjoyed the truly scenic mountain train ride that rivals the Rockies without a doubt.... noo dooot abooot it. Beautiful! But we realized very quickly that the pristine scenery was to remain outside only, and that no smoking signs in Bosnia actually mean "no comments about others' smoking," because we quickly got the Bosnian equivalent of fuck off and die you worthless shit! response when we pointed out the no-smoking sign, eh! That was immediately reinforced by the conductor who came in to collect tickets, whilst smoking.

Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette. Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette. You'll see St. Peter at the Pearly Gates and say that you hate to make him wait, but you just have to smoke another cigarette.

That's okay because Bosnia was soon behind me and the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen would soon appear before me. The bus ride down the coast was extravagently beautiful, putting to shame the fjords of Norway, the Turkish isles, the Baltic, it all falls before Croatia. There's just something about it that makes your jaw gape. There was also a woman I talked to briefly who was the sigularly most beautiful woman I have ever met. She was in the midst of napping and then woke up, talked to me for a few minutes before returning to her slumber (I have that affect on women). But then somehow she left the bus without me even noticing; for a few moments I convinced myself that I made her up, but there it was, the proof that I didn't: she left her number. Okay that didn't happen, but her recommendation for the cafe I should go to was a small consolation prize. The white coffee at Caffe Talir was one of the finest cups of coffee I have had in Europe (either that, or a month of drinking Nescafe instant made me so grateful for real coffee, that you could have given me anything really).

Dubrovnik is as picturesque as it is historically important. The towering walls hanging over the rocky coast, which at times soars to an astonishing 25 meters, are impressive; the fully refurbished city after suffering a shocking mortar attack is impressive; the fact that the Croatians all speak English, to the extent that they feel it necessary to roll their eyes when you ask if they do - of course they do...dumbass, is brilliant. What impressed me most was the city's history.

Truly, Dubrovnik can be said to be an embodiment of Res Publica - the public good, that I talked about so much in my book: (Enter - Shameless plug for my own, well written*, but hopelessly marketted, book The Dream Unfurled). The city looked after its own. Grain was stored to such a degree that the city could withstand a brutally long siege, and sold to its populace at below market prices. One of nearly a dozen graineries could hold 1200 tons of grain in enormous silos. The poor were looked after, medical care was provided for everyone, and they established offshore quarantines to keep the plague from entering the city. In otherwords, if this was today, America would have to destroy Dubrovnik.

*This statement is of questionable objectivity.

When I got off of the bus, I was mobbed by throngs of hungry landlords hoping to let me use their rooms in exchange for my cash. After a royal rumble of considerable proportions the selection was down to two. A mother and daughter tagteam, and a greasy guy. The greasy guy did have a better location and price, but there was something about him that just said...

Objects in the mirror are creapier

It begins
Here you can see the fearful masses of large North Americans flowing down the streets of Dubrovnik.

than they appear

So I went with the ladies. The room was nice enough and they left me to my own devices after I'd paid. They told me on the way up that their last clients had gone with the other fellow and came to them after he had threatened to beat them up for something of little consequence, like not liking the room he was offering or something small like that. Good choice. The only problem was how high up it was. I decided to count after my first hike down. It turns out it was exactly 416 stairs, or thereabouts. To put that in perspective for all you North Americans, that's approximately 1 week's worth of exercise, or 20 minutes on a stairmaster. Whichever comes first ;)

I decided to splurge a bit and go on the war-walking tour of Dubrovnik, where we were immediately round up and marched off...to our first discussion point. It was actually kind of a dangerous walk. There was a strong, STRONG, wind they call boura (I don't know how it is spelled, but it sounds like burro if you say it with a proper accent and an -ah instead of -oh at the end). It means tempest wind. It was blowing so fiercely that it was blowing this huge sign, weighted down by an iron bar, all over the place. When the bar started slipping, the guide moved us elsewhere, which is where a restaurant torch turned into what the Germans call Flammenwerfer (a much cooler way of saying flame thrower).

The most fascinating bit of information he shared was the Croatian suspicion that croatian-born Tito was not the Marshall Tito known and revered throughout the world. You see, as the story goes, Tito was born to a working family, and was himself a blue collar man, born and raised in Croatia. The man that ruled Croatia, however, was a gentleman, proper and well educated, able to speak four languages fluently, but entirely devoid of a Croatian accent, lacking its charicteristic diction....That's interesting. What's more, he sidled up awfully snugly to the Serbs, which is apparently a Croatian no-no. In fact, it's become such a faux paux, that it is written right into the constitution that a Croatian government is never again allowed to form a union with the Serbs, which will prove interesting when it comes time for Serbia to apply for membership in the EU. The guide presented the possibility that the true Tito was killed in the war, but so important for the national vigour of the resistance, that another was created in his place.

Dubrovnik for all its beauty and historical significance has two characteristic flaws. First, and foremost, it is packed with cruise-monkeys...no offence intended mom and dad (Hoo-hoo Haa-Haa). To be fair, I am biased against cruises for my own personal reasons that some of you are already aware of, and the rest of you will be forced to wonder about with desperate longing. But it's fascinating to watch them literally descend upon the city like a Tsunami of big hair and dollar-sign eyes buying everything in sight without even an attempt to say even hello in the local language. I think I was treated better than others actually, mostly because I look too poor to be on a cruise ship. One couple from Chicago - I love people from Chicago (Z, don't you know any single women from there?) - paid for my beer after a few minutes of conversation at a restaurant. Perhaps for the same reason I was being treated better by the locals.

The second flaw is there is virtually nothing to do in Dubrovnik at night. This is forgiveable given that it is dictated by the first. So, I went and saw a rather pitiful, but still redeamingly funny movie (note: I am likely to like movies that when given the choice, most people would have difficulty deciding between it and self-mortification as entertainment) called My Super Ex-Girlfriend, with Uma Thurman, Eddie Izzard, and Luke Wilson. I enjoyed the fact that she through a shark at him, that was a fancy bit of CGI. It was worth the 3 bucks I spent to see it, but it was crap. But don't take it from me. Sheri Linden of the Hollywood Reporter wrote:

The Ivan Reitman-directed comedy manages to sap the charm from everyone in its cast. and John Wirt of the Advocate described it as soulless and dimwitted.

So the next day I made my way rather uneventfully to Split. I spent only an hour and a half there given to my propensity for poor planning and an altogether misunderstood notion of the difference between summer and fall timetables. So I don't have much to add, except...Coool place.

From there I got on the ferry to embark upon my voyage to the mysterious land called Italy. Some of you may have heard of it. For the fourth time in as many days I ran into a South African couple (or as the Aussies say, Saffers). So we had a couple of drinks and talked a great deal, culminating in their extending an invitation to me to come to South Africa. I told them that I've wanted for some time to come to South Africa to go cage diving. I think that would be awesome; at least more so than cleaning out the wet suit after my return to the boat.

Next Stop: Rome...

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