The Adventures of Chris

I’ve been spending a lot of time indoors surfing the internet this week, hence the lack of posting. Ok, I just realized that sort of doesn’t make sense.
I’m watching Andre Agassi play in the U.S. Open. Although I consider myself to be a patriotic tennis fan, I have to admit that I wouldn’t really mind if he lost. I know everyone wants him to pull out a miracle win, but let’s face it, it won’t happen. First of all, he’s too old (he said he could barely stand after the last match). Second of all, Roger Federer could probably beat God himself (ok fine, maybe just take him to a fifth set tiebreaker). I’d rather Andre Agassi went out while the getting was good, instead of limping out after taking a beating.

I recently made two purchases - a Casio G-shock and an Epson P-2000. The first is a digital watch with four alarms, world time zones, and rugged look. The second is a portable hard drive with an lcd screen so I can back up digital photos on trips.

I’ve also been trying to decide which rain jacket color to get. Here’s the story - I used an REI coupon back in the spring to get a Marmot Precip rain jacket. The problem was, I couldn’t decide whether to get orange or dark green. Because the coupon was set to expire, I just bought the green one, thinking that a dark color would be suitable for different situations. I wasn’t sure, so I kept the tag on the green one. The problem is,the orange one looks more sporty and “young” to me, but it’s not as versatile. Still, I keep thinking that I’m overemphasing the versatility aspect because this is a rain jacket - not something that I’d be wearing to a black tie dinner or federal court anyway.

The jackets look cooler in real life. Wow, by looking at these, you’d think I was choosing between wearing a rectangle of poo or a rectangle of carrot.

I’m prepping for a wedding weekend. Two weddings in two days in two cities 300 miles apart.  I just might break my personal record for the number of fake laughs in one weekend.

Back from a Vegas weekend. I’d been wanting to go since June, when I was in the midst of bar study. It’s strange. When I’m confronted with a stressful situation, I always feel the urge to go to Vegas. I think a certain kind of comfort lies in mounds of crab legs and hot craps tables.

We went to the Killers show. They played some tracks off of their upcoming album. They seem more synth-based and less catchy, but we’ll see. It would be tough to match their last album anyway. The highlight of the show was when they played All These Things that I’ve Done and this 40-ish year old woman standing next to me got ultra-excited, raised her right arm in the air, and began singing along. By the way, that song has a lot of power. The crowd really loved it.

Some other notes and tidbits:

- The Bellagio buffet is still great. Emeril’s banana cream pie is still great too.

- At Emeril’s, we had a really awkward waitress. She was cold without really meaning to be. She’d never laugh at anything, and at the end of the meal, she awkwardly shook our hands.

- The Stratosphere is much nicer than I thought it would be. They also have a relatively cheap and good 24 hour cafe there too.

- We were at a craps table with a Korean couple and the wife got into a huge shooting run, where she was actually calling out (in her thick accent) the actual combinations of numbers she’d throw (i.e. “fifty-one” for a six). She would also randomly yell out “oh baby!” and “eleven is the numba!”. It was pretty great.

- I’ve come to the conclusion that almost all black people only do two things at craps tables - bet the field and/or bet the hard ways. Mathematically, those are bad bets (comparing the payout to the odds) but time and time again, that’s all I see black people betting on. It’s amazing. It’s like they never even heard of taking odds. I even saw a black couple at a table splitting duties - the woman would bet the hard ways and the man would bet the field.

- I saw Jason Terry, point guard of the Dallas Mavericks at the MGM Grand. He was playing craps. He was betting $500 on the pass line, no odds (another bad bet). I almost wanted to tell him to bet $100 on the pass line and $400 odds, but he 7′ed out so fast it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Btw, he’s listed at 6′2′’ but he’s 6′ tops, and he’s got pencil thin legs.
Jason Terry –>
- We also saw Flavor Flav at MGM. I just read on Wikipedia that he used to be a heavy crack user, but now he’s totally drug free except for the “occasional blunt.” When we saw him, it looked like he had had a few “occasional blunts.”
- I played the horse racing midway game at Excalibur where you roll the ball into the red/blue/yellow holes to make the horse move. Damn I love that game. I don’t even want the prize. I just love the game. It’s the perfect combo of competition, mental toughness, and geekiness. It’s so nerve wracking when you’re in the lead, and you just need a few more solid rolls to win it. After choking down the stretch in one game, I finally won one. Right before I won, I looked up and saw my horse in the lead, 6 inches from the finish line. Knowing I needed only one more good roll to win, I looked down and rolled the ball. The ball quickly sank into a red hole. I was so elated that, even before my horse hit the finish line, I raised my hands in the air and pointed at the sky. I have no shame. By the way, say hello to Diego the lion and Franz the elephant. I know what you’re thinking. It’s true. Diego has really great hair.

- I was told of this billboard below. This is seriously one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

I’m back in LA. It’s 530am and I’m still jetlagged and feeling the urge to have a European late lunch that would likely include pizza or spaghetti..and gelato. I’m just glad to be surfing the net at high speeds and typing with a normal keyboard that has the y and z in the right place.

I just polished off a Word document entitled “Things to Do 8.20.06.” It includes such categories as HOME, TRIP-RELATED, and SCHOOL-RELATED. [This entry has been upgraded to Geek Level Yellow] These categories are subdivided into Priority and Semi Priority categories. [This entry has been upgraded to Geek Level Orange]. I feel a lot better now that I’ve got a list of all the things that need doing. Yes Susan, I know Nancy and I are very similar, but Nancy is much better at making her lists fancy. Mine are just bullet points with headings.

Yesterday I went over to Susan’s house to have dinner with her parents and aunt/uncle. We showed them some pictures of our trip, and her uncle told me that I was like a professional photographer. Suddenly all the camera money I spent (on my digital SLR, memory card, extra battery, camera backpack, etc.) was vindicated. I will now share my digital photographic tips with the world. Tip #1: Make sure the thing you want in the picture is in the viewfinder. Tip #2: Click the shutter button. Tip #3: Look at the LCD to see if the picture is blurry. If it is, go back to Tip #1. I’m being sarcastic of course, but actually I learned on this trip that a lot of people don’t know about Tip #1.

I’m currently wondering if all parents, as they get older, start to become overly concerned when it comes to every detail of travel planning. It’s like when you turn 55, you start thinking that everything’s a big deal, where making the wrong choice could lead to complete and irreversible disaster. You turn 55 and suddenly catching a ferry to Victoria Island, British Columbia becomes just as stressful as if you were catching the last boat leaving from a planet that is going to explode. My parents do this, and I’m really wondering if that will happen to me.

I’m going to be updating my trip entries soon, probably in chronological order (I have to. It’s under TRIP RELATED, Priority) and adding some photos.

Also, happy belated birthday Steph!

Dubrovnik - August 6, 2006

Today we took a ferry to the island of Lokrum, which is right off the coast of Dubrovnik. It’s so close it looks like you could almost swim there or row your own boat there, but it took a solid 20 minutes to get there.  Well..it’s an island, complete with its own hiking trails, monastery (it seems that there are a lot of monasteries in Croatia), and FKK (aka nude beach).  It’s also got to have the world’s largest concentration of cicadas.  I’ve never heard a collective hissing that loud before.

Lokrum isn’t really where the young and hip hang out, and the beaches are pretty rocky and not as user friendly (i.e. the rocks are ultra slippery and the shore drops off to deep points really fast). But the water is really clear.

We returned to Dubrovnik and went to walk the walls.  The city is surrounded by really high walls, so you can climb the walls and walk around the city.  It was awesome.  The views on all sides were great, and how often do you get to walk the walls of a fortress?  The wannabe photographer and wannabe macho soldier were both satisfied.

Afterwards, we went to a photo exhibit on war photos, which included photos depicting images from Kashmir, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Palestine.  Pretty somber stuff.

Then we went to see the “Heroes of Dubrovnik” area that they set up to honor the Dubrovnik residents that died during the shelling of Dubrovnik in 1991-92.  Once again, not the place to throw a party.

Then the sun set and the bats came out.

We went back to the cool terrace at our place to look over the harbor at night and struck up a conversation with a white couple.  Both were law-related people (he just graduated, she’s just starting school).   I used my mini tripod to help them take a photo of themselves.  Having geeks around is handy sometimes.

For dinner, we went to Lokanda Peskarija, a seafood place right on the harbor.   Susan noticed that the food on other tables, served in a black iron pot, looked good.  I asked the waitress ordering the food in the “black pots” and she looked confused for a second and said “all food come in black pot.”   Hooray for me.  Although one of our tour books (Brandt guide) said the calimari was the best, we found it to be only ok (Mimice was better), and the seafood risotto I got was too salty.  I’m striking out with every risotto on this trip.  I am convinced that risotto is one of the toughest foods to cook.

For dessert, we had gelato at Dolce Vita.  It was described as top notch in the Brandt guide.  Guess what?  It wasn’t.  What a surprise.  However, earlier in the day, we tried a scoop from Sladoledarna Dubrovnik (on the main road in the main square).  That place was way better, and the server even would scoop the ice cream, toss it up in the air, and catch it on the cone.

That’s it. Tomorrow we’re off to Korcula.

Dubrovnik - August 5, 2006

After a long bus ride where I slept intermittently, I awoke to see Susan taking some pictures outside the window. A few hours before arriving in Dubrovnik (around 6am), we were driving along a really picturesque coastline with steep cliffs, red roofed houses, and crystal blue water. I tried to get some pictures, but I was too busy falling asleep involuntarily and smacking my face against the bus windows.

When we arrived at the Dubrovnik bus station, we didn’t know where we were and where our hotel was. We got on the bus and decided to do what usually works - get off the bus when most of the other people get off. That didn’t really work, but we found an information center which was totally unhelpful. I’m finding that “information centers” in Croatia are really misnamed. All we ever get from the workers is a shrug and a “sorry.” I’m really getting to hate the word sorry here.

After some troubles, we found our hotel, which was just outside the Ploce (Ploh-chay) gate of the old city. The place we’re staying at it called Villa Adriatica and its a privately owned room (called a Sobe). The owners are some Dubrovnik family who run a combined sobe/souvenir shop/excursion booking/currency exchange place. Quite a combo. We were told the room wasn’t ready yet, but that we could store our luggage in the meantime.

We took our first walk through the old city. Dubrovnik is an old medieval town, surrounded by huge fortress walls, set on the Adriatic coast. The walls make it feel very medieval, and yet the water and red-roofed houses make this place seem more touristy. I keep thinking of the Lord of the Rings (2nd one) where Aragorn goes riding around the walled castle preparing for the attack. That was a hideously nerdy reference. Oh by the way, I was standing in the way of a pizza store owner and when he wanted me to move, he gruffly said “sorry” and gestured me to move.

We had lunch in the main square, at a place called Express. The sandwiches were very basic, the tiramisu had no coffee flavor, the coke was a ripoff, and the waiter had terrible BO. After that, we walked the side streets and Susan got a swimsuit and I got my first opportunity to block other women from using a dressing room so Susan could go get her swimsuit tag removed.

Swimsuit in hand, we went to the beach. As we walked towards the beach, a man gestured to me and showed me a “menu” of things to rent, such as a beach chair, umbrella, and floaty things. I shook my head and kept walking. The next thing I know, the guy is gesturing angrily and yelling “sorry sorry!” I turned to him and wanted to say “look dude, it’s cool, I don’t want a beach chair.” Turned out that was a private beach and the payment was mandatory. These damn Croatians and their use of sorry….

We found a public beach and barely found enough room for two people. It was packed with euros, all of whom seemed to be very golden, mostly skinny and young, and loved smoking. I am still getting used to how most euros seem to be much skinnier than Americans. It seems like a lot of the young euro teenagers are literally sticks, and they don’t come close to filling out until their late 20s at least. American kids are pretty fat I guess. The beach was very rocky, but at least the water was nice. Adding to the amusement were the girls that decided to go topless, especially the one who always felt the urge to periodically stand up and repeatedly spin around slowly, while brushing her hair back.

Returning to our sobe, I found that the bathroom had a weird problem. Turning on the sink faucet would cause a drain in the floor to overflow. That grossed me out (I hate the idea of drains working backwards). We also found that our sobe had two fantastic perks - the air conditioning and the sweet terrace that overlooked the harbor.

For dinner, we ate at Spaghetteria Toni, a place recommended in our tour books. It was alright, although Susan’s pesto was surprisingly mild flavored (doesn’t all pesto have garlic in it?) and my 5 cheese pasta was predictably cheesy, but not overly so.

Btw, we had gelato at two places, Gelato Prolinska and Gelato Fontana. Fontana, next to the Onofrio Fountain, was solid.

Tomorrow is day 2 in Dubrovnik.

Zagreb/Samobor/Bus to Dubrovnik - August 4, 2006

Remember that dessert place that I hated? I wasn’t feeling well last night (which I attribute to the dessert), and that, combined with the rainy weather, caused us to miss the bus to Plitvice Lakes this morning. I didn’t feel as bad about missing the bus after seeing the weather. Instead, I opted to test out the super shower, and found it to be very satisfying. There’s nothing like great water pressure and high water volume.

Instead, we went to the bus station and got tickets to go to Samobor, a small village about 20 km outside of Zagreb. When we asked to buy the tickets, the woman in the booth actually started laughing, and then reassumed her serious face and said “Yes, Samobor is very beautiful.” That’s never a good sign when the bus ticket seller laughs at your choice of destination.

Samobor was totally deserted, probably due to the bad weather. The tour book pictures of the town portrayed it as a cute mountain village, with a creek running through it. Well…the skies were gray and the creek was brown. Not a great first impression.

Samobor is known for four completely unrelated food items - a cream cake, Bermet (an aperitif made in the town), really hot mustard, and sausages. We went into a local bakery to try a cream cake. It was good, sort like an egg tart from dim sum, but not really. I tried to tell the bakery worker in Croatian, that it was delicious. She had no idea what I waw talking about. Then I panicked and resorted to the universal thumbs up sign. Then she nodded, smiled and said “super.” Super.

Then we walked down a small street and saw a sign for a very small (I mean one really small roomed) shop that said “Bermet.” Bermet is the aperitif that the town is named for, although all of the travel guides recommended trying it first before buying a bottle because “it’s an acquired taste.” So we went into this small one roomed shop where the woman in there gave us each samples. She told us her family had been making Bermet for 8 generations. Susan, while impressed by the story, couldn’t down her sample, so I had to take down two to save face. Thankfully, they sold a half bottle, so we could buy that and not feel guilty about insulting 8 generations of that woman’s family. Here’s wher they made the Bermet.

For lunch we went to a restaurant to try the sausages. I thought it was sort of funny at first, but when I got my food, I realized that the sausages here are seriously good. I think it’s the best sausage I’ve ever had. I don’t really feel 100% comfortable saying the prior sentence out loud, but I have to give Samobor sausage its due. It was that good.

The restaurant also had what I considered to be very funny placards on the boys and girls bathrooms.

When we got outside, it was raining again, so we busted out the umbrellas. I’m starting to get annoyed with the umbrellas. See picture for an example why.

We rode the bus back to Zagreb and rode the tram (which I am now calling the Zagreb Free Tram because no one checks tickets on it). We ended up getting on the wrong one so we got a tour of Zagreb and got dumped off somewhere we’d never seen. I got to see the Dinamo Zagreb (soccer team) stadium. We had to study a map to find the right tram back, but hey, its cool, since the tram is the Zagreb Free Tram, right?

Back in Trg Jelacica, Susan and I looked for some warmer clothes, since the cold rain made us rethink our awesome packing strategy of not bringing anything warm. Susan got a longsleeve t-shirt, but I couldn’t find anything that looked decent.

We then had a great dinner at Restaurant Boban. Every tour book said this place was good, and they were right (for a change). The spaghetti was great here.

After that, we returned to the Regent Esplanade to get our baggage before heading to the bus station. We had a plan to brush our teeth at the fancy hotel bathrooms before boarding the overnight bus, but because the bellmen were so damn attentive, our sly plans didn’t really work out as well as we planned. We still brushed our teeth, but it wasn’t smooth. I gotta remember that the next time I plan on brushing my teeth in that situation, I’ve got to have the toothbrush in my pocket beforehand.

At the bus station, we found our 11pm bus at the platform. It was surrounded by tons of passengers who were all smoking. We loaded our two big luggages into the cargo compartment of the bus and walked away when the driver gave us the tags. The problem was, storing each bag costs 7 kuna, and this guy didn’t speak a lick of English, so he kept vigorously pointing at the bag, getting angrier until we realized he wanted money.

That was the end of the day.

August 3, 2006

I bought a dual voltage hairdryer at Brookstone before I left. This morning I tried to use it and it almost exploded after 2 seconds of use. Yeah yeah, I bought a hairdryer.

During our stay in Zagreb, Susan and I planned to upgrade our hotels from the “basic” Hotel Central to the very plush Regent Esplanade. All of our tour books said that the Regent Esplanade was the bomb diggity (I’m trying to use that word more now) and it sure was. The check in area was 3 individual desks instead of a single registration counter. After checking in, the hotel gave us some wine to welcome us. This was good too, since I had worn my cleanest, nicest polo shirt for check in. Too bad I left my gold chains at home. Inside the room, they gave us a free bottle of water and some nice apples. That’s how you know you’re in a nice hotel room - they give you some water for free. There’s something ironic about that but I can’t pinpoint it. The bathroom has two sinks, a tub, and something I am super pumped about - one of those “rain shower” shower heads. I’ve seen those in Sky Mall catalogs and always wanted to try. There were two bad things though - the tour books recommended trying both the in-house restaurant and looking at the “Emerald Ballroom.” BOTH were closed for repairs.

I tried a second bank for cash in some travelers checks - Zagrebecka Banka. We went into the main branch in the main square, and they had a machine that printed out tickets with either an A or a B, followed by numbers. You’d get a number, sit in the waiting area, and wait for a teller to call you by calling the number on a screen. The main decision was whether to get an A or a B ticket. We got a B ticket. Guess what kind of tickets are the ones for travelers check exchanges? A, of course. I had to go back and get another ticket with an A number. Then when I got to the window, I was told that I needed my passport to cash in the travelers checks. I didn’t need it at the bank yesterday, so I had left it in the hotel. So basically I did almost everything wrong.
On the walk back to the hotel to get the passport, we stopped at a shop to get a little alarm clock. We need to wake up for a lot of early buses, and our watches are a little too weak for the job (almost anything is too weak to wake me up, but Susan is a bit more normal). We got this interesting pink squarish one that I like. After that, we bought a long skinny pastry that was fried dough with some kind of cheese in it.

After getting our money at the bank, we walked through the Ulica section of Zagreb, where they have a lot of shops. The Dolac farmers market was closed, so we went to see Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a big 13th century cathedral in the Kaptol section of the city that has a big organ and some weird writing on the wall. Then we went to see Lotrscak Tower, a 13th century tower where a the same guy has been firing a commemerative cannon at noon every day since 1967. I don’t know what’s more amazing, that a 13th century tower still stands, or that there is a guy who hasn’t missed work since 1967. Then we visited the Stone Gate, where there is some religious painting that people pray in front of. I know my descriptions of religious things are really unspectacular sounding, but that’s how it is.

I thought this sign was awesome.

Croatians invented two famous things - neckties and mechanical pencils. The last name of the mechanical pencil inventor was Penkala, and there is a brand with the same name. After doing some looking, we realized that Penkala is a really expensive brand who makes mostly fancy pens. So much for that gift idea.

For dinner we ate at Pizzacato, a pizza joint recommended by Lonely Planet (it’s amazing how much weight that book has). We ordered a couple of pizzas and a couple beers. Not just any beer - Ozujsko Pivo. Ozujsko signs are everywhere here in Zagreb, so we decided to get a few. Although it’s billed as the most popular beer in Croatia, I think it tasted pretty bad. Susan agreed. The pizza was ok.

After the pizza and beer dinner, we went outside, where it was pouring rain. Great. Luckily I had the plastic bag that doubles as my backpack cover. Unluckily, my umbrella’s handle fell off. I stuck it back on. Thanks China Shop.

Another of my tour books recommended a gelato place called Centar. We couldn’t find it for the life of us, so we ended up going to Vincar Gelateria and Slasticeria, east of Trg Jelacica on Jurisiceva. That place was terrible.
We walked back to our plush hotel in the rain, and then asked the concierge about getting tickets for the overnight bus to Dubrovnik tomorrow. The concierge, who reminded me a lot of Mr. Bean, called the station and told us that we had to get our asses down to the bus station to get the tickets since there were only a few left. Although it was 9pm and we didn’t exactly know where the bus station was, we decided to walk to it instead of riding the tram. The walk was kind of scary and dark but it was ok. After getting our tickets, we bought two tickets for the tram and boarded it. That’s when we realized that the tram system pretty much runs on the honor cIode. There’s a machine to punch your ticket but no one ever asks you to. So we waited, thinking we could use the ticket the next day. At the hotel, we asked an employee if we could use the unpunched ticket tomorrow. He scoffed and told us a story of how he found a 17-year-old ticket recently, dating back to the Yugoslavia days, and they still took it.

Tomorrow we might try to go to the Plitvice Lakes (I still can’t get the pronunciation - Plit-viss-ay, Plit-vitch-ay, etc.) if the weather holds. If not, we’ll have to figure something else out. In the meantime, the fancy shower is about to be used.
August 2, 2006

We had a train to catch this morning, so we woke up at 8am to get some breakfast, which is included in our hotel price. Since it was sunnier today, we had breakfast out on the patio. It’s nice having breakfast outdoors on a patio. I wish I could do it more often, but considering I don’t even eat breakfast that often, I shouldn’t worry about location yet.

We got out to the vaporetto station at 840am, where we tried to get on a vaporetto but were somehow punked by some Italian dude who closed the gate on us. That’s when Susan realized that the train left at 9am, not 915am like we thought. That’s when we got nervous. The next vaporetto didn’t come for a few minutes, and it still had to make a few stops in between our stop and the train station. 19 minutes later, two Asian nerds were seen sprinting into the train station (those nerds were us). We barely made it. As soon as we climbed on, the train departed.

The 6 hour train ride through Slovenia was nice. We met a nice, older Hungarian couple who told us about getting robbed in Italy. We also met a not so nice food cart pusher who looked like she was stoned. I bought a sandwich from her. It wasn’t good. The scenery was very…green, with a river that ran alongside the track.

I really enjoy riding trains, especially in Europe. There’s something about the big windows, the scenery, the sound of the tracks, and the toilets whose “flush” lever merely operates a door that opens, dumping the “goods” onto the train track below.

See how awesome I think the train is?

Just for the record, the capital of Slovenia is Ljubljana. That’s pronounced Loob-yana. Susan thought it was pronounced differently. I assured her that “Lubjub” sounded funnier anyway.

We pulled into Zagreb. My immediate impression was that Zagreb was decent, because there’s a park with a statue across from the station. All European cities should know that my opinions are made, Malcolm Gladwell style, in the first 2 seconds of getting off a bus or train. Our hotel, Hotel Central, was across the street. Lonely Planet describes the hotel as basic and the service as “coldly efficient.” They hit the nail on the head. We stayed in room 317. I like noting down room numbers sometimes because if I ever become famous, these details are good to know. The 2025 Lonely Planet can say “Hotel Central has basic rooms and coldly efficient service, but ask to stay in room 317, where Big Nerd stayed in 2006.”

The currency in Croatia is the Kuna (some places take Euros, but Kuna is king here). $1 USD gets you about 5.7 Kuna. The travel books that I read indicated that euro was widely accepted, but we started to realize that this wasn’t the case, so we set off to find a bank. We decided to walk to the main square, Trg Josip Jelacica. Trg means square in Croatia. I’m trying to figure out if it’s pronounced “turg”, “trig”, “targ” or heck, even “square.”

While walking to the square, we noticed that there is a ton of graffiti in Zagreb. I wonder if people just figured that painting over it was pointless. We also tried to ask some tourist agencies about tours to Plitvice Lakes, a national park that is 2 hours away, but no one seemed to be able to help us.

I went to the Raiffesen Bank to exchange some travelers checks that I had, but I was told that the bank takes some obscenely big commission for every single travelers check (suddenly bringing a lot of travelers checks in small denominations looks like a bad idea). I opted to hold out. We then walked around, where we went to a Topman Shop (a clothing store that is big in Europe), Susan bought a very tasty chocolate cupcake with Nutella, and we bought a calling card. All the “pay phones” here don’t take coins. You have to buy calling cards from newsstands and use those instead. We tried to ask a ton of people if we could use the card to call the US, and we never got straight answer. My travel books said that a lot of Croatians speak English. That was probably written by the same dude who said that Croatians love taking Euros for payment.

We also tried to look for umbrellas. It wasn’t easy to find one, but luckily, we found umbrellas for sale at a place called “China Shop.” “China Shop” specializes in selling extremely cheaply made junk, but we had no choice, so we got two small umbrellas, mine in standard black and Susan’s in a very fashionable plaid pattern.

We had the first part of our dinner at Mimice, which is a fish place that Lonely Planet recommended. For the bargain price of 80 kuna, we got one fried fish (called an Oslica) served fried with its head and tail cut off, some fried calimari and french fries. I ordered the 3 kuna “sauce” side dish, which included some weird tartar sauce. The fish was full of bones, but good. The oil from the fish also ruined my shirt.

We had the second part of dinner at McDonalds, where we got a Greek Mac (the name says it all), strawberry Mcflurry, and a fried apple pie. I was hungry and I wanted to try all of the foreign stuff we don’t have in the US. The Greek Mac consisted of a meat patty (I’m not even sure it was beef) with lettuce, some kind of dressing, and onions, served in a pita. It was ok. Ironically, the Croatian word for pie is pita. Just for the record the other candidates I thought of ordering were the “McCountry” (which I think is like the Big n Tasty) and the “McToast” (which is a ham and cheese sandwich).

And that was the end of the first day in Zagreb.

Venice - Day 2 (August 1, 2006)

We woke up today and had our complimentary breakfast.  I love European complimentary breakfasts.  It all started with my first one at Hotel White in Rome.  It’s all about the tasty croissants and pastries, with some great fruit.  That’s all I really need for breakfast anyway.  They had an apricot jelly filled croissant (better than I thought it would be), some rolls, some miniature pears and peaches, and some yogurt.  Good stuff.

We started out with a walk to the morning Venice Fish Market, which is pretty close to our hotel.  We saw a lot of fish that I’ve never seen before, along with some nice looking fruit.  Then we took a traghetti, a gondola that goes across the Grand Canal, for 50 cents a person.  It’s neat because you can stand during the ride and it’s the cheapest way to get into a gondola.

We rode over to the San Sofia area, which is right across from the Fish Market and right next to Ca D’Oro.  San Sofia is a pretty nice area for buying things because the prices are reasonable and they even have a supermarket (named Billa) so you can buy stuff like water for less than rip off prices.  I found out at Billa that it costs 5 euro cents for plastic shopping bags (a shopped ratted out someone who “stole” a bag.)  I also got my first chance to get a Fanta Limon and a bag of hilarious candy whose name I will reveal later.  After doing some shopping, we went to Ca D’Oro, which is a former palace that now houses some art and has a very famous top floor balcony that overlooks the canal.  1 minute after paid the entrance fee, it started pouring rain, so we couldn’t see the courtyard area.  We did get to see some art and the famous overlook though.  As Susan and I were looking out over the balcony, I realized that tons of people were taking pictures of the overlook with only Susan and I standing on it.  That’s when I started doing corny things like trying to smile and look thoughtful.  It’s nice to know that I made at least 50 peoples’ photo albums today.

After returning to the hotel briefly, we had lunch at Vecio Fritolin, a seafood place that was near the fish market.  I had a seafood platter consisting of scallops, sardines, octopus, and some cod.  It was very flavorful, except for the shrimp, which interestingly enough tasted like nothing.  I mean absolutely nothing.  It made steamed shrimp at Chinese restaurants seem flavorful.  Susan had some melon and proscuitto, which was good, and we shared some handmade tagliatini with mushrooms and scallops, which was excellent.

We then hopped onto the vaporetto to the Academica stop so we could go to the Peggy Guggenheim collection.  After walking around for what seemed like a long time, we found the Guggenheim spot only to find out that it’s closed on Tuesdays.  Ouch.  That hurt.  I’m still not sure why a bus worker told us to go to Academica when the Salute stop is actually closer to the Guggenheim.  Anyway…

We then went back to the Piazza San Marco area to go to the Doge’s Palace, where we tried to find out more about the secret tours they give, which we’ll try to book on August 17, when we return to Venice for one day.  The “secret tour” booking person was a real pain in the ass.  The brochure says you can’t book more than 48 hours before the day you want to go, but she told me that she was booked until August 8.  I asked how that could be possible if they only let people book 2 days, at the most, before.  She then replied with some giibberish and then told me to book “3 or 4″ days in advance.  I then asked if there was any limit to how early I could book.  Then she said to do it over the phone.  I asked again, and she pointed to the brochure again.  Finally, on the third time, she said “you can book it as early as you want.”  Thanks moron.  Then we went to the Basilica San Marco.  Big place.  We went up to the loggia area, which is the top floor balcony with nice views. It offers some good looks at some mosaic pieces and the only chance at photography in the basilica.  Then we walked around the basilica.  It’s big. 

After that, we walked around San Marco a bit, and then hopped on a vaporetto to Academica (again), this time to go to Dorsoduro and to get some gelato at Nico’s.  Susan got hazelnut-chocolate-coconut and coffee.  I had chocolate hazelnut (bacio) and mint chip (after eight).   The gelato at Nico’s is really good.  I was so impressed that I went back to get another 3 scooper, with melon, cherry, and peach (pesca).   The peach was good, the melon was good, and the cherry wasn’t that good.  Too artificial.

After walking along the Zattere (the waterfront where Nico’s is), we hopped back onto a vaporetto and rode to Lido, an island off the main part of Venice.  Lido is like a tourist beach town that’s different than Venice.  For instance, there are cars.  We were determined to find a beach, so we walked down the main street until we found one.  Then we walked back and had dinner at a some place whose name I’ll add later.  I found out that Susan resents the “cover charge” that euro restaurants charge (i admit its bullshit, but I’m not as bothered).  We ordered some gnocchi, spaghetti, pizza margherita, and fritto misto.  It was all pretty solid, and for Venice standards, a bargain.  We topped it off with a half carafe of white wine.  Damn wine is cheap here.  It almost makes up for the cost of bottled water.

Then we rode the vaporetto back to our hotel.  I tried a bidet for the first time.  Andrew, don’t tell mom and dad, they’ll get scared.  Now we’re packing for our train ride to Zagreb tomorrow.

Side Notes

It was going to rain today so I crafted a rain cover for my camera backpack with a plastic shopping bag and some masking and scotch tape.  It worked pretty well when it did rain.

The co-owner of the hotel was really happy when he saw Susan’s Keen sandals.  He was happy because he said he saw some hotel guests with them, thought they were cool, bought them, and now his wife makes fun of him all the time about them.  Apparently she thinks they’re ugly.