Friday evening

In the evening we planned to go to the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum, but got delayed by dinner. We found a great wee restaurant not far from the accomodation. You choose how many courses you'd like, and then the chef surprises you with whatever he feels like serving. We choose 4 courses, but that was a bit misleading as there was a starter which didn't count, and a 'pre-dessert' which also didn't count. The portions look small, but it was hard work fitting them all in.

Amsterdam

 

 I had a great trip to Amsterdam catching up with D. The flight is just over an hour long, so it's very easy to get to. We stayed in a nice B&B just across the canal from the Hermitage. It was a make your own breakfast arrangement with delicious fresh bread and pastries delivered each morning.

Off to Amsterdam

I went to a public lecture the other week held at the university on the joint history of Scotland and Poland over the past few hundred years. It was really interesting. I'd had no idea that there was trading and migration between the two for so long. Apparently there's Polish-i-fied Scottish place names in Poland, and one Scottish chap was mayor of Warsaw a few times over in the 1600s. Fascinating.

In other news I'm off to Amsterdam on Friday for the weekend. D is there for work, so we'll meet up for a brief holiday. We've already got tickets for the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum which are open late on Fridays. I think Saturday will be markets, shopping, and one long cafe crawl.

We're staying at a nice B&B next to a canal which looks very lovely. Photos will follow.

I also have to do a presentation on Wednesday for class on gender inequalities in the labour market, hence the blog post, the spotless bedroom, many loads of washing ...

Random signs

Some are fairly self explanatory; others, I have no idea about.

Last day in Dubrovnik

On the last day I went for the walk around the old town walls. Unfortunately my camera battery died. I did my best to eeck out as much life as I could. The walk around the walls provides beautiful views across the city and out to sea.

It was around 30 degrees the whole time I was away. As I had a flight in the afternoon and was staying at the other end of town, I planned to spend the morning roaming around the old town. It was too hot and crowded for that though. I ended up buying another bikini and towel and went to Banje beach for a few hours.

No pics of the beach unfortunately. It's hyped up in the travel guides, and it is a nice beach, but there are much better beaches to go to in the area. Still I had a nice swim and sunbathe. When I was in the water I felt something knocking against the back of my heels but I couldn't see any sea weed. The water is so clear you can be neck deep and still see your feet. I eventually worked out it was little fish swimming into me.

The bus to the airport was an odd ride. The buses are coordianted with Croatian airline flights. I flew with another airline, so went to the airport a few hours early rather than take a taxi at 5 times the cost. It turned out I was the only one on the bus. Surely a regular service would be more profitable?

Lokrum island

Tuesday was my last full day in Dubrovnik. I got up early to get the boat to Lokrum island - it's really close, about 15 minutes on the boat. Unfortunately it was a bit windy, so the sailings were delayed, I didn't get a boat until 11.30.

Lokrum island is really small, you can walk around in about an hour. It's a national park with some old ruins and peacocks roaming the place. The beaches are pretty much rocks with some ladders for getting in and out of the water. I went to one set of rocks and lay on a very uncomfortable ledge with a ravine under the middle of my beach mat. I took a wander further along and found the only section of pebbles on the island. Well done me.

It was beautiful swimming, so clean and clear, and warm too. Showers seem to be standard at beaches too, so you can get rid of the salt before you leave.

There were signs up about the place asking people not to smoke because of the fire risk. I had a chuckle at a group of English women who were most indignant about a smokefree island. I guess the idea of forest fires is just so foreign for Brits.

Ice cream

There's ice cream stores everywhere, and it's so cheap - 50 cents. I ate some everyday, sometimes twice. My skin was really bad when I got home!

Dubrovnik guesthouse

On the Monday I had a bus ride back to Dubrovnik. I stayed in a different part of the city, down by the port and bus station. It was a bit of hike up the steps to the property, but as you can see, the view from the window was something else.

By Monday night I was truely full of pizza and pasta - time for a change. I sought out a fat juicy steak with vegetables - exactly what I needed. On that evening it started to get really windy, I think it was the change of season setting in. The owner of the first place I stayed said in winter the wind rushes down the hills, getting up to 200km/hr.

City wall

 

  

  

  

  

 

It's about a half hour walk to the fort remains at the top of the mountain. I was on my way down when a girl walked past me and yelled "a kiwi!" It was the ol' 'o for awesome' t-shirt I was wearing. She was so impressed she said I'd made her week. Haha, we're everywhere.

It's like trying to photograph the Grand Canyon ...

 

  

 

This place really is just so beautiful - no picture could do it justice. You need to imagine driving for an hour around the coast of these magnificent, imposing mountains, with clear blue water on the other side and pretty little towns periodically popping up.

Kotor old town

 

  

  

  

  

  

The old town is lovely to walk around, with little winding streets and plenty of interesting features - an old well here, an former prison there. It has lots of shops aimed at tourists, and them some regular businesses mixed in too, like lawyer's officers. There was washing strung between windows, so I guess there's apartments too. It was pretty noisey staying in there, but when you're just on holiday for a short time it's not really an issue is it.

Birthday cake

Yum - the cakey part was dense with walnuts, and the butter cream so light and fluffy.

The pasta had a tomatoey sauce with seafood. It was really good and I tried a few versions on the trip. There's a strong Venetian influence through the region due to historical ties - so there's pizza and pasta everywhere. It eventually became a mission to find alternatives to eat.

Kotor, Montenegro

On Saturday I had a 2 1/2 hour bus ride south to Kotor in Montenegro. It's a small town in the shadow of the most amazingly beautiful mountains. The drive was just spectacular.

It's a short walk from the bus stop to the old town where my hotel was located. It's was all very informal checking in - nothing to sign, the receptionist just gave me a key and said 'it's the only room available'. This made me a little worried. I'd booked a single room, so was thinking maybe I've been downgraded to a closet. Instead I had a large room with three beds. I went down to ask if this was correct - three beds for one person. The receptionist just laughed and shook her head. Sweet!

I then went for a wander about the old town. There's a spectacular old wall with forts running up the back of the city which I made a start on. There was thunder and fork lightening in the hills, closing in on the town, so I headed back down before seeing it all. I popped into a cafe for a slice of birthday cake and cup of tea.

Lopud island

In line with my mission to have a beachy holiday I took the ferry out to Lopud island, the second of the three Elafiti islands. There's a small port with shops and restaurants on one side of the island. I walked across the spine of the island to Sunj beach, which was a beautiful walk through lush green bush.

There was a bit of a breeze in the morning, which made some great waves for splashing in. The beach is about 95% covered with deck chairs which are hired out. They wouldn't have been expensive, but I just can't bring myself to pay to sit on a beach. And to take up so much of the beach, well my socialist leanings just wouldn't let me use the chairs even as I was trying desperately to keep sand out of my dry clothes and lunch.

Speaking of lunch, I'd been to Mea Culpa, a local pizza place of some repute, for dinner the night before. The pizza was so huge it fell over the edges of a large dinner plate. I managed to chug down 1/3 of it, then took the rest away in a box. So I spent the day lazing on the beach eating left over pizza and grapes. Though now I'm quite happy to not eat anymore pizza for a while to come.

The beach was pretty clean, but a girl came out of the sea holding a cucumber that she'd found while swimming, then I had a butternut squash wash up in front of me. Hmmm?!

After a lovely day on the beach, I wandered back to the port for ice cream and a cold drink. I bought a few trinkets from the souvenir shops and wandered through a local park.

On the way to the island three English girls sat down next to me on the ferry and started complaining about the weather! In Croatia! Seriously, some people shouldn't be allowed passports.

Sipan island wanderings

I'd been thinking the beach on the other side of the bay looked better than where I was so went for a wander to investigate. I was quite wrong, I had it sweet all along. But while I was at it I climbed the hill to get some pretty views.

The water really is that clear - you can walk out to neck deep and still see your feet.

Sipan island

On Thursday I caught the ferry out to Sipan island, about a 1 1/2 hour ride. Most people ot off the ferry and crowsws onto a mini bus. I had know idea where it was going, but figured everyone else looked fairly confident. It took a 5km drive across the inner part of the island to a little harbour on the other side which is where I spent most of the day.

There's concrete pathways running along both sides of the harbour, but if you walk far enough you can find some olive trees to through your beach mat under and clinmb off the rocks into the water - heaven!

Dance Beach

A bit shakey I know, but I forgot to take stills! It gives an idea of what the beach was like - it's effectively a pile of rocks, with some ladders to climb in and out of the water. There's some concrete slabs laid down to create some flatter surfaces to sunbathe on. It got pretty busy with kids in the afternoon seeing who could do the coolest flips off the rocks.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Had a fan-bloody-tastic holiday; I feel like I've had something of a summer now, albeit a short one!

I had an early (3.30 am) start to make my way across the city to the airport, eventually arriving in Dubrovnik at 10.30. I dropped off the bag and then went wandering. I popped down to the bus station to book my ticket to Kotor, Montenegro for Saturday, returning Monday, then went for a wander about the place. I ended up finding a beach close to the accomodation so got changed and took a swim in the Med.

As you can see from the pics taken out the window, the old town was a few minutes walk away from where I was staying. There's a small beach at the end of the car park, and another just over a hill, which I where I went swimming.

In the evening I went into the old town for dinner - pasta with seafood, followed by creme caramel. I think there may have been a pre-dinner ice cream too!

It's an old medieval town with little winding streets and a big wall winding around it, just beautiful.

Yum food

There were a series of masterclasses and demonstrations. I went to one about making French macaroons - they're quite laborious but if I had an oven that worked properly I'd really like to give it a go. The chap presenting the masterclass also had a stall selling them, so I treated myself. Mmmm.

I also went to a demonstration by a woman who's put together a book with prominent Scots reminiscing about the food of their youth, with recipes. I splashed out and used this week's grocery money to get a copy. I found a cheaper copy online when I got home, but it's a nice souvenir.

The top picture is of Arbroath smokies, smoked fish from Arbroath. I walked past that spot again closer to lunch time and there was a long queue. You get a whole fish with the skeleton pulled out in one go, wrapped in a paper napkin with a fork. I bought a below average venison burger, I wish I'd gone for the fish instead.

In other news, I have a supervisor for my dissertation - now I just need a topic. Eeeck. The semester starts in late September. I plan to take two courses this semester, then in the new year just concentrate on the dissertation. I'm interested in domestic violence policy, but I'm a way off narrowing that down to a workable topic yet.

My trip to Croatia is in a week and a half. I hadn't realised until today how soon it is. I'm looking quite forward to some warm sunshine, lazing on the beach, and just generally mooching about. I have a trip to Montenegro too, just for two nights in Kotor. My cousin was just there two weeks ago and raved about how beautiful it is so I'm getting quite excited.

It seems like autumn's closing in, there's the odd brown leaf about and it's getting darker earlier. Urrrgh. I'm trying to prepare myself mentally for the winter months - it's the last one before I head down south next year. I can do it.

Foodie Festival, Holyrood Park

I went to a food festival in Holyrood Park today, you can see the palace in the background. The festival runs for three days and is a mixture of stalls selling products and demonstrations. Some of the stalls were the same as you'd see at the farmer's market, but there were some interesting products too. I quite liked the carrot chips with paprika.

Free limes

On Saturday evening I got given four limes as I was walking down the road, so spent Sunday making various plans to use them. I ended up making a Key lime pie, but it's actually just a lime pie as they weren't Key limes. It's not too far off from a lemon meringue pie - the centre is made with lime zest and juice, sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, and I added some cream to thin it a little. It came out really good, but I've eaten the whole thing all by myself over the past week.

Today my friend popped in to work to show off here new baby and was talking about how people throw money in the pram when she's walking down the street. She has £2.50 so far, and the baby's just 7 weeks old. Apparently it's a Scottish tradition.

My big news is that I'm off to Croatia in the first week of September. I'm staying in Dubrovnik for a few days, then I think I'll head over to Montenegro for a bit. I'm looking very forward to it. I'm keen to laze on the beach and do some sea kayaking.

Zoo

Last Saturday was J's last weekend in Edinburgh, so we went to the zoo for a picnic. It was a really nice day, but we were getting frustrated with the lack of animals on show. Many of the enclosures are dense with foliage making it difficult to work out if there's animals in there or not. there's signs up telling people to persevere as there are animals in there, somewhere.

However, the previous weekend some baboons escaped from their enclosure and have been roaming around the zoo ever since. We saw them leaping from tree to tree over a pathway with the poor zoo staff standing below scratching their heads. It totally made the trip.

In teh evening we went to the old favourite kiwi burger place for some delicious food - the best milkshakes in Edinburgh :)

North Berwick

North Berwick was a really nice day out. We caught the train there, which is about a 30 minute ride from the centre of Edinburgh. We managed to tick the list of things one must do in North Berwick - climbed North Berwick Law, ate fish n' chips on the beach, played 'golf', ate ice cream. We were planning a bbq on Portobello beach for dinner, but it started to cloud over so opted for saussies cooked in the frying pan at home - not the same aye?!

St Andrews

Had a trip up to St Andrews again. The weather was a bit cool and rainy, but we still had ice cream from the popular little ice cream shop - they even sell hokey pokey. It's a pretty little town to walk around, with some very impressive ruins. It was graduation season so there were some very nicely dressed people parading about town.

Film festival

The film festival was good fun. I'd been feeling a bit poor since my spur of the moment trip to Carcassonne, so was planning on going to two films only. At the beginning of the festival I went to a recording of a radio show for the BBC - 3rd row. It was great fun and got me all excited about the films on offer so I decided to dip into the savings and treat myself. I think I saw about 6-7 films. Moon and The first day of the rest of my life are my two recommendations.

There was a big screen set up in the centre of town which showed a couple of free films on weekend. When I walked past Narnia was showing, so we stopped at enjoyed the NZ scenery in the middle of a medieval town.

Art College show

J and I went to the final show at the College of Art. The courses are broad ranging - fine arts, architecture and design. There was some beautiful glass work on display. It got me inspired to try it myself. Some of the graphics student were selling their wares, which is where I bought the t-shirt. I really like it, it's one of my current favs.