gijasue's blog

This is going to be a multiple part post, partly because there’s a lot to say and partly because I don’t have enough time or patience to do all the photo stuff in one sitting.

First, I’ll tell you about the trip there. Since we didn’t take a plane it took about a day and a half to get there. As I said before, we “drove” there. I have drove in quotes because part of the trip was on a ferry crossing from Italy to Croatia, so we obviously didn’t drive over the water. Since the trip required us to get to certain places at certain times, I was a bit wary about the whole driving thing and getting where we needed to be on time. Since we’ve been in Europe, traffic jams, bad route directions and potty breaks (as well as stopping because the girl threw up from motion sickness) have been a bit of problem as far as slowing us down and making the trips take longer. Since this was a work trip as well as a trip into a new country (Croatia) it made me a little nervous.
As we left Germany (which was pretty quickly) and headed through Austria, at first the snow was even more prevalent (as seen in this photo with the snow on the logs), but as we crossed into Italy and the mountains turned into hills, we left the snow behind and headed toward warmer weather and ancient castles.

We needed to get to the Ancona harbor and check-in with the boat by 7 p.m. and we weren’t sure how long it would take us to get there. Luckily, it wasn’t hard to find the harbor or the car ferry signs (although it was a bit hard to figure out which exact place we were to go to) and we got there with about 45 minutes to spare.

Of course, the whole process was odd. After we checked in, they said we needed to go to passport control but when we got there, it was closed, so we thought there was some other place to go and started looking around. As it turned out, the place was closed, but opened two hours before the ship sailed which was also the latest you could check in.

Anyway, we figured it out and got back into our car to drive it on the ferry. It was amazing to see how large the ship was and all of the trucks that were loaded onto the ship (backwards!) while we waited our turn.

Getting onto the ship, we found our cabin which, because of our lateness in signing up, was supposed to be one of the most expensive. It turned out to be three bunks with about a foot and a half between them and a little bathroom with a teeny shower. We really wondered what the cheaper ones were like.

Wondering around the ship before it sailed (at 9 p.m.) we found out that nothing opened until it sailed. The biggest thing on the ship, other than the restaurants, was the duty free shops (thus the waiting until it sailed part).

So, we set about getting the girl ready for bed, but by the time she was all tucked in, the intercome was going on about the safety rules and we were leaving the harbor. The girl, of course, had to watch, so that set her sleep time back another half hour or so. As it was, it was probably about 10:30 by the time she settled down for the night.

As you can imagine, a thin mattress and pillow in a chilly rocking cabin didn’t make for a great night’s sleep. But I’m sure we all managed a few hours before my alarm went off at 5:45 a.m.

Here’s a picture out of our cabin window in the morning. Since there were a lot of islands right off the coast of Spilt (Croatia), where we docked, we were going pretty slow before we got there.
The had told us that breakfast was free with the room and it started at 6 a.m. Around that time someone came and knocked on the door (I guess they don’t want anyone sleeping in a holding them up).

A. didn’t want to get up so I started dressing her while she lay — thinking that at least I could have her dressed enough to carry to the car. Well, she woke pretty quickly then and we were in the restaurant having our meager “buffet” breakfast of bread, hard boiled eggs, European lunch meat and cheese. It was at least enough to keep us going for a while.

As it turned out, there had been quite a few trucks parked behind our car and it took a while for us to even see our car out of the door to the car deck. To the left is a photo of us getting into our car to get it off the boat. On the right, below, is a photo of the outside of the boat with some cars waiting to get on.

But we finally got our car off the ship and wound our way out of Split toward Dubrovnik.

Tomorrow: Pt. 2 The drive and the city of Dubrovnik.

J. and I saw the movie Nanny McPhee this evening.

Don’t be so surprised, they now have English movies in the small theater in town. From what I hear, they used to have almost only English movies in the theater, but 9/11 happened and then there was a new owner and they stopped all together. These last few weeks have been a trial run and if enough people come to the movies, they’ll keep them. So, in the interest of continuing movies, we’re trying to go to them whenever possible.

Actually, since this movie was at 5:30, it still caused a bit of a problem for us, timewise, but we managed.

So the movie … well, if you don’t already know, it’s about a family with seven children who have recently lost their mother. Unfortunately, these children are as beastly as they come.

When the movie starts, nanny number 17 is running out of the house after being there for only a little over three days. When the father goes back to the agency to hire another nanny, they close their doors and send him away.

Fortunatly for him, Nanny McPhee is nearby and makes her presence known a few times before showing up at the door. From then on, McPhee controls the house and strange things happen to the children when they disobey her.

McPhee is a kind of strange mix between Mary Poppins and a humorous Harry Potter witch — the children, of course, being the Muggles in the latter case.

Although some people thought this was a children’s film, I think only older children would really understand it and then they might feel uncomfortable if they had ever been bad. I wouldn’t take A. to it at her age and probably not until she was 8 or so. But since I’ve never raised a child older than she is now, I can never be sure of myself on this.

In the end, I enjoyed it. It was lighthearted fun and fairly interesting. But I do have to say that I would like to figure out the reason for some of the strange things that happened — not the least of which is the reason for the alteration of McPhee’s appearance. Oh well, I guess they are some of life’s unanswerable questions.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

— Virginia Woolf

It’s very interesting that the last two daily thoughts have been something relating to my life at this time. The way this one relates is that tonight I took a one night cooking class. My first one ever!

Actually, it was more of a showing and eating class, but who would quibble with such a small thing?

The important thing was that it was an Asian cooking class with a Korean teacher. Right up my alley. Both J. and I have had an incredible hankering for Korean food, especially since it’s hard to find a Korean restaurant here or even in Munich.

So, I learned how to make kimbap (literally translated dried seaweed and rice) but most everyone else called it sushi. It’s actually the Korean version of sushi rolls (without the fish) and I like it better. I also learned how to cut the meat for bulgogi. Which is a Korean style of marinating sliced meat and then grilling it. We also learned how to roll spring rolls, but I don’t consider those Korean or plan on making them very often.

After she showed us those things and had a few people try out the techniques, we ate the same kinds of food we were making but most of it was stuff she had cooked previously. It was great and I stuffed myself to the gills.

The funny thing about these recipes that she give us and the stuff she showed us is that it was so easy. When I was in Korea I it just all seemed so hard and the recipes were so badly translated into English that I never cooked any of this stuff. Not to mention that it was so cheap to eat out, that I had no reason to cook any of the stuff.

Now I will try to cook some of this stuff and slake this need we have to eat all things Korean. For those of you who know what kind of cook I am, you know I’m going to need all the luck I can get.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life…and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either then they know how to use. — Samuel Johnson

This was today’s daily thought and it kind of hit home.

Money and time. That’s one of the things that is so frustrating about my job right now.

I get paid by the hour and I’m contracted to work 25/hrs a week. At first, I thought this was enough time to do other activities as well as spend some time with A. But, when the opportunity arose to work more hours, I took it. Although, after each week was up, I lamented the time I didn’t have to do other things, I was greedily adding up my hours and spending my pay in my head.

And I planned on what we would do with this extra money each month — pay off the bills, put some in savings, take more and nicer vacations. Until I was told that I had to cut my hours and they took away one of my projects.

At first, I was outraged. I’m good at my job, and I do it better than what was done before. How could they think of doing without me?

But after thinking about it for a while, and talking with J., I realized that the extra time I would have and the absence of stress would be worth the hours and money I would lose.

Now I’ll have time to take A. to the library again or on outings to the pool or movies (they just started showing English language movies in town). And I’ll finally get back into working out, after skipping so many workouts in the last few weeks.

Yes, money and time can be a problem. There’s never enough of either. But, I think that finding out what you can live with and be happy with is the most important thing in life.