The European Weather Sandwich

We've returned to Poland.  Got lost in Slovakia but overall and aside from the unbearable 16 hour drive (again!), all went well.  We drove during the day this time and I got to see some of the spectacular views along the way.  I'm most impressed with Slovakian castles and forts.  They show up out of nowhere as you drive along the highway.  I tried my best to photograph them all, but wasn't able to hold my camera at the ready the entire time.

I was in Poland for about a week and a half before we left for Croatia and now I'm here for another week and a half.  The way I see it, Poland is the bread (rain) and Croatia the sandwich filling (sunshine).  In Poland, temperatures have been in the 60s with almost non-stop rain while Croatian weather was in the 80s and 90s with almost non-stop sun.

Croatia:

Poland:

Granted, Croatia suprised us with some heavy rains, but all except for one happened in the middle of the night.  Aside from Isabella, the rain bothered us not at all though we did have to run out of the camper at about 3am to gather laundry we had hanging out there as perimeter.  Isabella, however, happy to have her car enjoy the warm night air, left its sunroof open and woke up to flooded seats. We then figured Isabella's sunroof for a rainmaker and constantly reminded her to close it.

It rained only once in Croatia during the day and that rain was no joke.  Our campground experienced a flash flood not especially enjoyed by tent residents.   We camper dwellers gloated--Schadenfreude 'r us.

Not complaining about the rain in Poland though.  I like rain, especially the warm summer kind.  Also, I will be apparently returning to record temperatures combined with humidity in the American Midwest.  

Dalmatian Sights

While there is no doubt that camping sucks, Croatia itself is beautiful.   For instance, just about a mile from our campground is an old abandoned fort. 

We've also visited a couple of small towns, nestled in the hills and surrounded by the sea.  Skradin is a town of barely four thousand and is near the Krka National Park.  Getting there was as gorgeous as the town itself.  We drove down into a valley and the first thing we saw was a lovely cemetery (I adore cemeteries, but more about that in a few posts from now).

Primosten is another small town, this one closer to our campground than Skradin.  It's a tourist destination par excellence but with a breathtaking cemetery atop a big hill.  I wouldn't mind resting here for eternity.  

Also breathtaking sunsets over the sea, viewed just steps from our camper.

Croatian Culinary Delights

The already mentioned shrimp

Delicious grilled calamari

Blue mussels

Two types of street food:

 Crepes, here known as pancakes

 Tiny little fish, deep fried on the spot, served with bread

Croatian wine purchases:

Croatian Adventure Continues

 The rather dubious comforts of camping.

Definite joys of Croatian cuisine.

PS: Croatian wine, while pleasantly refreshing, brings with it a headache of truly continental proportions.   

European Vacation

The Solaris campground is huge.  It includes hotels, mobile homes, campers, and tents.  And people from all over Europe.  I've heard German, Polish, Russian, French, Hungarian, Croatian, Italian, Bosnian, Czech, and English.  We are in the camper city part of the grounds.  Unfortunately, tents are erected in-between the campers, even in the smallest of spaces, obstructing views if not camper exits.

Everyone has their own way of doing things.  One of the things that we all seem to have in common, though, is that no one cares about the way they look.  Both men and women, no matter age or body shape, wear whatever beachwear they find attractive.  I am totally on-board with this type of body freedom though have to admit that tiny speedos, even on slim and attractive men, skeeve me out.  After living in the U.S. for as long as I have, I've thoroughly outgrown this European manfashion.  American-style swimming shorts are worn by only a small, woefully too small, handful of men.

Finally, camper living has its own rules.  For instance, taking a nap inside the camper during the day is highly inadvisable.  Inside temperatures easily reach 100 degrees.   It is also wise to hang laundry out on lines all around one's camper area so as to border the place up.  Otherwise, you wake up to find newcomers' tents and cars spread out all over your dining area.  And never, ever forget to use the restroom before going to sleep.  Finding your way there in the dark while trying to remember your way back without tripping over tent lines is a challenge not easily overcome. 

Drive Thru

We have successfully arrived at our campground on the coast of the Adriatic.  The drive was loooong!  So loooooong!  Here is a brief recap:

Slovakia: Welcome to our tiny and cute country.  Please drive slowly through our many villages and hamlets. 

Austria: Welcome!  Please drive quickly through on our efficient, clean, and well-groomed autobans. 

Slovenia:  Ha!  What the hell are you doing?  Using us as a hallway to your vacation destination?  You're just like all the others!  GIVE us 30 euro NOW for no more than 5 miles of country road.  Fuck you very much!

Croatia:  Welcome to our wonderful country!  Be so kind as to give us 5 euro and we'll give you endless miles of highways through the most beautiful countryside ever!  Enjoy the views while leisurely driving to the seacoast.   You are so very welcome!

Croatia or Bust

We are about to set out on an 11 hour car journey to the gorgeous Adriatic coast in Croatia.  Our drive will take us through Slovakia, Austria, and a bit of Slovenia.  

Since we're traveling Polski-style, our car is filled with everything from toothpaste to onions to bread & butter.  Food is said to be expensive in Croatia so pantry r us. 

We are staying at a campgroung near the city of Sibenik.  

Author: User:Tieum512 via Wikimedia Commons

No tents, but campers of some sort equipped with everything but food.  

http://www.chorwacja.croatia4u.org/

Writing is Hard

My writing needs an enema.  Writing is hard and often feels as if, pardonne-moi, my brain was constipated.  No matter the years spent writing, setting words on a page proves daunting almost every time I do it.  I realize that even seasoned writers experience difficulties and knowing that helps.  Even so, when I sit down to do any bit of professional writing, ideas crowd in, begin competing with my better judgment, and I stop. 

Writing is lonesome.  I like talking things out, discussing, even arguing (I am not the quiet type).  I tried arguing with myself, but it didn’t work.  I kept agreeing with myself and admiring the brilliance that came out of my mouth.  Then I wrote it down and deleted it the next day.  Blogging has proven enjoyable, however.  Much more enjoyable, for example, than keeping a journal, which I tried as a teen and got bored of after three entries.  Blogging is public and, as such, I keep certain things private, censor myself from time to time, and edit.  Even if no one read it, I’d still think that someone might come across it and it needed to be presentable.  As my grandma always says, if you’re going out in public, make sure you’re wearing clean underwear. 

Academic writing is public as well, but the process is different and lacks any possibility of immediate gratification.  I sit on an article for a couple of years and then send it out for review fully expecting severe criticism.  After all, the point of academic writing is feedback, criticism, and revision.   Frankly though, not all academic reviewers are nice.  It might even be the case that some do not know how to phrase an opinion, however informed, in a way that does not order you and your ideas to get a different job.  This is strange given that our day jobs involve giving college students positive feedback; perhaps we care about niceties when it comes to our students but not so much when it comes to our colleagues?  Maybe that’s how we get the rage out?  

I recently reviewed a couple of article submissions for the first time.  I spent an inordinate amount of time making sure that everything I communicated was framed and phrased in a kind and productive manner.  Most importantly, I made sure to let the authors know that their brains weren't constipated and that they were, in fact, wearing clean underwear.  I'd like to think I succeeded.

Babcia Knows Best

My grandma (babcia) and I have always been close.  She spent much of my life raising my younger sister and me.  While I love the woman dearly, she has always had an overwhelming personality.  Over the years, that personality was tempered by the many tasks she performed in her jobs as a seamstress (she worked from home), housewife, mother, and grandmother.  Frankly, I think she's indestructible if not, in fact, immortal.  

GM with one of her two great-grandaughters.

But as my grandmother's 85th birthday nears, she is no longer able to perform her many personality-tempering roles and tasks.  She is still able to talk, however, and spends much of her day correcting, editing, chastizing, warning, reprimanding, suggesting, advising, and generally telling the world what is wrong with it.  She hasn't seen me in a year and a half and is now doggedly making up for lost time.  I've been back for barely three days and have learned many a valuable lesson already:

Butter Emergency: 

GM: We're out of butter.  Go to the store to buy butter NOW.  

PD:  Can I first have coffee, change out of my pajamas and wash my hair?  

GM:  You don't need to wash your hair.  

PD:  I do, my scalp itches.  

GM:  Scratch it and go.

PD remains calm:  We obviously have different priorities.

Jet Lag: 

GM:  Why do you sleep so late?  Get up.  

PD:  I'm jet lagged grandma, and need to get used to the time.  

GM:  Stop talking nonsense.

PD explains: Jet lag means that with the time difference and all, I... ahh, forget it. 

Hair: 

GM:  Why are your bangs so short?  They're too short.  I don't like it.  

PD:  I like 'em grandma.  They're short on purpose.  

GM:  You don't know what looks good.

PD admits defeat:  Clearly.

Clothes: 

GM: You're wearing that?  Don't wear it.  

PD:  I like it, grandma.  It's comfortable.  

GM:  It doesn't look good on you.  Change.

PD draws the line:  No.

Weight: 

GM: You need to lose weight.  

PD:  You know how it is, grandma, sometimes I gain weight and sometimes I lose weight.

GM:  When have you ever lost any weight? 

PD goes on an offensive: How long have you been experiencing memory loss?

Moral:

GM:  Why are you so lazy?  No wonder you've never had kids.  You can't be lazy and have kids.  God obviously knew this and that's why you have no children.  Stop being lazy.

PD loses it:  Jesus, grandma, really?!  Get a grip!

I'm here for 30 more days... 

Flight

Not as bad as anticipated.  Not bad at all.  A major improvement over the usual in-flight experience: an emergency exit seat (no need for a sideways ass slide into a sitting position) and individual video screens.  I determined the following about the three feature films I watched while not being able to sleep:

Cedar Rapids starring Ed Helms: The Forty Year Old Virgin meets The Hangover or winning naïveté and vagina jokes.

Limitless starring Bradley Cooper: Fight Club on non-FDA approved super Paxil.

The Lincoln Lawyer: Mick, all white and shiny against his ethnic background, rights all wrongs.  Exactly like every other film starring Matthew McConaughey.

While waiting in Frankfurt for my flight to Krakow, I saw the monkey story heard around the world on the front page of a German newspaper.

Well done, monkey, well done!

Preflight

Thesis: Flying coach sucks big ole’ King Kong size balls

1) I’m almost six feet tall.  I squeeze in my upper body by planting my ass in sideways and then don’t know what to do with the rest.  Once I slid down, sat on the floor, and rested my head on the seat, thinking that would be roomier.  It wasn’t.

2) I’m a woman of a certain age, which means that I become aware of body parts hitherto unknown via excruciating pain.

3) Food has a distinct cardboard texture and flavor (I fly kosher though I’m not Jewish.  Airplane kosher food tastes like much higher quality cardboard.  You’re welcome!).  I tried not to eat at all on transoceanic flights but I get really hungry when I’m bored.

4) No individualized video screens with like a million channels, which means I get stuck watching Eat, Pray, Love and consider becoming spiritual.

5) About five hours into the flight, minuscule little boxes called lavatories run out of tp and need cleaning.  Flight attendants don’t care.  They’re too busy refilling the fragrant hand lotion selection in business class.

One may argue that flying sucks in general, but in my twenty years of travel, I got upgraded to business class once and none of the points above applied.  NONE!

Conclusion: We do not live in a classless society.

Arrival

I arrived at LAX on the third of July in 1985.  I don’t celebrate it as an anniversary, but it always reminds me about my first few months in the Promised Land.  There were Taxi reruns that summer and then high school began in September.  One of the things I remember most is the heat.  I had six classes that semester: four hours of ESL, PE, and math.  You’d think that it would have been the four consecutive ESL classes that got to me, but no, that wasn’t it.  In fact, I felt most at home during those four hours.  I didn’t feel embarrassed when I couldn’t answer a question or didn’t understand instructions.  None of us did.  PE, however, was the pits.  The class met at one in the afternoon and we did something outside most of the time.  Polish climate was much much cooler than it is even now, and definitely cooler than SoCal’s.  So there I was, playing softball during the hottest part of the day.  Adolescence is an embarrassing time of life, but add to that 90 degrees and a game this immigrant had never heard of, and you’ve got yourself one traumatized teen.  I’d look around and no one appeared to be bothered by the weather all the while sweat poured down my reddened brow. Then, manifesting all the color characteristics of a beet, I'd sit sweating it out in an un-air-conditioned algebra classroom. I may tolerate heat now (St. Louis + 90 degrees = midnight in July.  Bring it!), but I still don’t get softball. 

Flying Poles

As my departure draws near, I brace myself for my three flights (no direct flights to where I'm going).  I used to be terrified of flying.  Got so bad, I needed meds to endure even a short flight.  I mean, you don't even know who's driving!

The fear, fortunately, is no more, but the physical discomfort of being stuck in a metal can in the sky remains.  I can’t afford business class, so it’s the ever-shrinking coach for me.  As if the tight quarters aren’t bad enough, being thousands of feet up in the air makes me blow up like a balloon.  About an hour or two into a flight, I feel the hold of my shoes tightening and pretty soon, my entire body feels like the poor New Zealander's who got himself stuck on a compressed air hose: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13537084.  Once I made the mistake of wearing heels on a transatlantic flight.  Took them off for a few hours to flex my legs and when I tried to put them back on, my feet wouldn’t budge.  An unforgettable experience of a barefoot deplaning. 

It’s one thing to go across a few states and completely another to go across several countries and an ocean.  Plus, and this is somewhat anachronistic, I don’t think I can ever get used to the short time it takes to be transported into an entirely different reality.  Take my trip to Japan as an example.  Here I was, just hanging out in Missouri, and twenty hours later I was in Tokyo.  The two realities had little in common.  Flying doesn’t provide a good transition between different realities either.  If anything, it exacerbates the weirdness.  Whenever I take these transoceanic flights I feel stuck in some sort of an airplane netherworld.  I am neither here nor there.  I’m cramped in my seat, the cabin pressure making me woozy. 

I really didn’t relish the idea of a thirteen-hour transpacific flight to Tokyo.  My lower back hurt in anticipation.  My anxiety was not eased when I discovered that the flight was actually over fourteen hours long.  I remember that at one point during the flight I was sure that we only had a couple of hours to go.  Just positively sure that it was almost over.  I asked a flight attendant but she informed me that we were over seven hours away.  I cried a little and not on the inside. 

Dear Lufthansa, 

Please make an upgrading error.  I won’t tell, I promise.  I'll be on my best behavior.  I will definitely not get drunk, crawl on all fours, and grab other passengers' feet.*  No one will even suspect that I really belong in coach.

Sincerely,

Polka Dot 

*true story: a friend of mine took the Polish airline LOT a few years back.  One of the male passengers got drunk and did just that.  Flight attendants were not amused.   I haven't taken LOT in a while but a few years ago did so from time to time.  It is undoubtedly true that many of the male passengers imbibe large quantities of free liquor.  Contrary to the stereotype, however, they do so out of fear and not celebration.  In fact, as I observed, many of the men are afraid of flying, but in order to stave off an anxiety attack and, even more importantly, to appear macho, they drink.  The creepy crawler obviously drank right past the point of no return.