Croatia etc.

Hello all,

I am currently writing this in our lovely youth hostel in Croatia! It's 32 degrees at the moment, the nicest weather I've had so far.

It's been a full few days since last Thursday. On Friday I arranged to go on a walking tour around the city, with information about the 1916 rising. Of course, the tour was cancelled due to the torrential rain! However the guide was nice enough to chat to us inside the oub anyway, for no charge, which was an infomative session. We sat in the downstairs pub which had a great atmosphere, quite a small pub and we were the only occupants.

Coming out of the pub I saw a whole load of cyclists dressed in boater hats riding around the city en masse. This was my first reminder about Bloomsday, to be celebrated the following day (more about that later).

Friday afternoon was spent keeping out of the rain. I visited the James Joyce centre, to prepare for Bloomsday and returned to a bookshop Ros had shown me the night before (the night before was late night shopping night, so Ros and I went to the bookshop and then to Bewley's Cafe for dinner. Yum!). The bookshop had two levels- neqw books and second hand books, so as usual I asked in the second hand section if they had any books on prams for Mum. The conversation with the eldery salesman was hilarious:

A: My mum collects prams...
Salesman: pams?
A: Prams. Like baby carriages.
S: that's a strange thing to collect...
A: Yes...so I was wondering if you had any books about prams?
S: Collects prams...you must need a lot of room for that...do you live in the country (as mentioned Dublin real estate is expensive)
A: No, I'm from Australia
S: Ah you must have lots of room then.

Sorry Mum, I finally managed to ascertain they didn't have any books on prams!

Once I made it out of the shop (and let me just say now I've had to post a few things home) I headed back to Ros and Boz's house and we decided to go to the local after dinner. After a few drinks (yes, for Melbourne people, Crowded House was sung), we all went home and retired to bed.

Saturday Ros and I woke up early and began our day with a brisk swim in the sea, at the Forty Foot bathing hole, a traditional bloomsday celebration. Let me say now, when it's 14 degrees its bloody freezing swimming in the sea! Bloomsday for those who don't know, celebrates a famous Irish author, James Joyce, and his book Ulysses, which follows the life of a man, Leopold Bloom, on June 16 1904. People like to have readings, dress up and act out events from the book. We also went to a nearby tower for readings and then had a bloomsday lunch at a nearby pub in Dalkey, an area featured in the book. It was a great day, and the refreshing swim such a healthy start...

Saturday afternoon was a quiet afternoon after our busy morning and previous night. Then on Sunday we went for a nice drive through the Wicklow Mountains to an old estate house and a shop called Avoca, which sold Irish homewares.

Monday I packed up and then caught an afternoon flight to Munich. I was quite sad to leave Dublin, but I know I'll be back as soon as I can! I then met up with Kat Green in Munich. We decided to catch the overnight train to Croatia, so we had about 3 hours in Munich station to kill. However, we caught the train to the Munich town centre and had a wonderful evening in the famous Hoffbrauhaus. We shared a 1 litre beer and I had a traditional German dinner of sausages, a pretzel and mustard. Good craic! They had the band going, singing a few songs I remembered from the Weinstadl (restaurant where I work in the summer). After a quick look around Munich (which is gorgeous) we headed off to the train.

We considered getting a sleeping car on the train, but as even the basic ticket was 88 Euro, decided against it (Kat has a eurail pass, so she didn't have to get a ticket). However, we were glad we didn't because we got a whole compartment of 6 seats to ourselves (like the compartments on the Hogwarts train). Kat had one side, and I had the other and we had better beds than had we got a sleeper (which we would have had to share). Anytime people got on the train, they decided not to disturb our sleep and so sat in another compartment. It also meant our luggage was really secure, as we could hide the important stuff on us, and someone would have had to climb over us to get at everything else.

So we passed on the train through Austria, Slovenia and into Croatia. The only thing to disturb our sleep were the frequent railway employees who would burst in to check tickets. We also had a few armed policemen burst in demanding to see our passports, which is a scary thing to wake up to (don't worry they only wanted to stamp them!)

We arrive at 8 this morning, having had about 4-5 hours sleep and trundled our way to the youth hostel. After a cool drink and a shower we set about exploring Croatia. That may have to be left for another day, as there's a queue for the computer and we're off to arrange dinner.

So hope it's not too cold over there, best wishes to everyone and Happy Bloomsday!

Anneke