Hard Job, missing vowels, colors and a Fokker

Last Thursday J and I went to the Zagreb, Croatia office. I had several business meetings (and is now dreaming up some more for the future). J got a few hours to walk around the center of Zagreb. Later that evening we got to experience a very fine Croatian meal which included some Croatian fig brandy, Croatian fish, Croatian squid salad, Croatian wine, and Croatian desserts. At 5:30 AM the next morning, one of my colleagues allowed us to ride with him on the four hour drive to Split, on the Dalmatian coast. Along the way we paused at a rest stop to look out over the canyon into the blue waters of the KrKa National Park. By the way, some of you haven't been waiting long enough for the images to load with maximum sharpness. These should be really nice images so if it's blurry, you have a slow connection and need to wait.

Later, he dropped us off at a hotel and came back later to pick me up for the meetings. After the meetings, we had a short guided tour of Diocletian's palace: he's the Roman emperor that killed a few Christians. In the beginning of his reign, he tolerated Christians but later decided not to keep them around. Read all about Diocletian on wikipedia.

Diocletian is also the first, if not the last, Roman emperor to voluntarily retire. He is also sometimes cited as the emperor that accelerated the demise of the empire by breaking it into four parts, so that there were four envious, suspicious, power hungry leaders. He was a Croatian and, therefore, thought it fitting to build his retirement home in Split, not far from where he grew up. It was a four star palace until he died and the Christians decided to vent some anger. They demolished all the statues and busts of Diocletian and completely ransacked his sarcophagus. They turned his chapel to the Roman god Jupiter into a baptismal room with Jupiter replaced with John the Baptist. They had other decorating ideas, too, but to avoid boring you too much I'll move on....


Split was just excellent (and cheap). Apparently lots of other tourists discovered that before me. In fact, I think if Croatia didn't have tourists, they'd be in dire straights. Check out my 50 or so Split pictures here.

We took a day trip to the island of Hvar. It's got some history behind it, too, which (don't click away yet), I won't bore you with. My pictures from the ferry ride from Split to Hvar are here. My photos on Hvar itself are here.

One thing you will not find in Croatia is an abundance of vowels. In fact, sometimes they just do without for the whole word. How about the Island of Krk? These folks would have been good programmers back in the long forgotten day when programmers had to use mnemonics of six characters or less. So we'd abbreviate "Next Value" with "NxtVal." Seems like Croatian to me.

Croatian is one of the Slavic languages. English is a Germanic language (and I always thought it was romantic! Uh, I mean a romance language.). Both languages are Indo-European.

Both Split and Hvar are on the Adriatic sea. The water is so clear you wouldn't believe it. Those tourist photos I used to suspect were photographically doctored are probably not.

We came to Croatia on a jet from Stockholm to Vienna and then took a small prop plane, a Fokker, to Zagreb. We left on a Fokker 100 from Split back to Vienna. I thought Fokker was long gone and Airbus and Boeing were the last two contestants. Guess not.

Descending down to Stockholm as the sun was low (as it is just about all day long) we saw the amazing number of islands and waterways. The water was granite grey, the island flush with green but dotted with the typical Swedish burnt red, custard yellow or white buildings. The green pastures were littered with the giant hay bails covered in the white plastic. The skies were blue with the white fluffy clouds. Contrast those colors with the colors in Croatia. Deep blue water with some greens mixed in, white rocks, white or grey buildings with the red Mediterranean tile roofs, and blue cloudless skies.

That's when I began to think how people correlate with the colors, or maybe it's the temperature. Hmmm. Guns, Germs, and Steel and Colors? I guess I have to factor in the Swedish winter's too where the colors change. In fact, most summer days have not had blue skies and white clouds: they had grey clouds and not much sun. No wonder Swedes worship the sun.

A few notes on the paint: The red paint so popular in Sweden uses a residue from copper mines, the most famous, which was in operation before the year 1000 is near Dalarna. This paint, although it tends to look old quickly is an excellent protector of wood. The wood can last hundreds of years in harsh weather with a fresh coat every 15 years. The yellow paint is sometimes associated with wealth because long ago the wealthy folks painted their palaces this color, I'm not sure why.

Excursion to Ireland

Part of D's job requires a monthly trip to Dublin. J joined him on this trip. They added a Saturday and Sunday to be tourists before the workweek.

After arriving on a Friday to some of the best weather possible in Ireland, D & J sampled the obligatory Guinness and some "meat and potatoes." On Saturday morning, they took the LUAS train into Dublin, from the outlying hotel. The LUAS was a clean modern train and the stations were clean and safe. Perfect for tourists. Once in Dublin and St. Stephen's green specifically, the cameras were brought out. You can view some of the photos by clicking on over to flickr. Don't forget to come back here.


After strolling down around St. Stephan's Green and Grafton street, they took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to Malahide, a quaint seaside town north of Dublin by about 15 kilometers. Malahide is a treasure trove of photo opportunities. There's also a little bookshop: Village Books. Mary, the owner, is a most well-read owner. She has a "Bookshop Ladies Guide to a Good Read" with numerous new and good novels. Some samples are Brick Lane by Monica Ali, Oracle Night by Paul Auster, Lie in the Dark by Dan Ferperman, Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseni, The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing, Atonement by Ian McEwan, anything by T. Coraghessan Boyle and anything by the Colorado writer Kent Haruf, and A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. Of course, D bought enough reading for a year.


Sunday was used for an all day tour by bus into the Wicklow mountains. This scenic ride was punctuated with a couple of tourist traps. One of the most interesting stops on the tour was Glendalough, the location of an 1200 year old Celtic monastery. The Celtic traditions gradually absorbed Christianity, often blending some old traditions with the new (1200 years ago) Christianity thing....At one time, the monastery was a thriving place for students all over the world to visit.

Summary, Ireland is a great place for anyone to visit. We as former South Carolinians enjoyed it immensely because of the kinship we have with the Irish. The western parts of South Carolina were settled by the Irish and Scots. They're both so green and also have old music traditions: the fondness for bluegrass, which owes it's origins to the Irish folk music. It also explains the fervent adherence to property rights, since the Irish and the Scots have a long history of having their property seized and reallocated. We saw more similarities, but that's another blog!

My trip to Täby - Easter Eve 2007 (5 photos)

Täby is a small town north of Stockholm by about 15 kilometers (between eight and nine miles). I took bike paths all the way which took me by some water and through neighborhoods, as you can see in the photos. The day was very clear and sunny but cold (9 Celsius = 48 Fahrenheit) and windy, which made it seem even colder.




The homes are very consistent in color. I am told that the Swedish government has an approved color list, much like my Home Owners Association in Colorado. Only these colors are permitted to keep the countryside looking consistent and to prevent eye-sores. The two colors shown in the photos are the most prevalent. I have seen some older homes in white or grays. I've also seen some modern homes in other colors.

This Easter, many homes had picnic tables and chairs in the yards for family gathering but I think the cold prevented the hoped for outdoors meals.

Bridges We Hope to Cross

Oil rigs might despoil the wilderness but a good bridge gets a waiver -- that's my feeling. Bridges have physical and symbolic beauty and Sweden has some nice bridges. The Oresund Bridge connects the southern Sweden city of Malmö to Copenhagen, Denmark, finished in 1999. It's the longest bridge in Europe that has both rail and automobile traffic. Wikipedia says "The bridge has one of the longest cable-stayed main spans in the world at 490 metres. The height of the highest pillar is 204 metres. The total length of the bridge is 7,845 metres, which is approximately half the distance between the Swedish and Danish landmasses, and its weight is 82 million kilograms. The rest of the distance is spanned by the artificial island Peberholm (Pepper islet) (4,055 m), named as a counterpart to the already existing Saltholm islet, followed by a tunnel on the Danish side. The tunnel is 4,050 m long, a 3,510 m long buried undersea tunnel plus two 270 m gate tunnels. The two rail-tracks are beneath the four road lanes. The bridge has a vertical clearance of 57 metres, although most boat traffic across Oresund still passes over the Drogden strait (where the tunnel lies). The bridge was designed by Arup."

A bridge in Uppsala (shown to the right) is impressive because it goes under the the water to let boats through. Usually, the bridge would go up to let boats go under or have draw bridge.

I stoll the photo of a "Sweden Bridge" from www.flickr.com. (Actaully I stole all these from flickr). It claims to be the biggest bridge in Sweden. My friend Ulf S. says: "I think the bridge is along the coast in Norrland called Vedabron. That part of the coast is called Hoga Kusten (High Coast)." Thanks Ulf, for identifying the mystery bridge.

The Vassa Museum - A Must-See in Stockholm

Even folks that eschew museums will like this one. You can see the whole thing in an hour and a half and there is only one thing to see: The Vassa ship that sunk in the bay nearby and remained underwater, mostly preserved by the cold depths, and later resurrected and restored. Most of the ship is original. The parts that are not are purposely made a different color so visitors can see the restored pieces. The whole story of why the ship was made and why it sunk less than 30 minutes into it's maiden voyage is rich with symbolism....In blunt terms, the King wanted to make an impression so he forced the engineer's at the last minute to add another deck and to have the heavy guns on top deck for the maiden highly publicised voyage. This made the ship more unstable - this told to me by Swedish colleagues but the web page seems to light touch that part. The King ordered a "Root Cause Analysis" which was quickly closed when all indications said it was the King's fault. Wikipedia has an excellent description of what happened plus some technical details.