Zdravo!
Thats hello in Croatian!
News since my last post is plentiful, but to cover it all would consume most of the blog.
Charlotte and I are now moved in and the house has been "warmed" with a really great gathering a few weeks ago. There were a fair few drunken moments and people, especially belly who seemed to suffer from mild amnesia.
Other interesting things have been continuing to do badly at football, and really getting frustrated. Still, we plough on!
Me, J and Charlotte will be heading out to Belfast this weekend for a short stay. I don't know what there is there, but it’s another country and capital to tick off the list. Should be good, and with flights that are cheaper than a night out in Manchester I really love these budget airlines.
Talking of cheap flights, I have sorted mine and Charlottes summer holiday. We will be heading out to Split in Croatia and then the plan is to hire a car and drive down the Adriatic coast to Dubrovnik and back again. Should be good fun, dodging the land mines!
Hopefully there will be other trips away too. Long weekends to European cities are so cheap these days, the opportunities to experience places and cultures are so accessible. I fancy Poland, Germany, and France...in fact there isn’t anywhere I would rule out! Well, maybe Iraq!
I have also expressed my interest in joining the Wild East Tour with Mark, Anton and Shiz when they go on another long weekend break. Would be a bit more rustic than my normal holiday!
I will try to be more regular with my posts, and the next should be after Belfast!
Have a good one!
News since my last post is plentiful, but to cover it all would consume most of the blog.
Charlotte and I are now moved in and the house has been "warmed" with a really great gathering a few weeks ago. There were a fair few drunken moments and people, especially belly who seemed to suffer from mild amnesia.
Other interesting things have been continuing to do badly at football, and really getting frustrated. Still, we plough on!
Me, J and Charlotte will be heading out to Belfast this weekend for a short stay. I don't know what there is there, but it’s another country and capital to tick off the list. Should be good, and with flights that are cheaper than a night out in Manchester I really love these budget airlines.
Talking of cheap flights, I have sorted mine and Charlottes summer holiday. We will be heading out to Split in Croatia and then the plan is to hire a car and drive down the Adriatic coast to Dubrovnik and back again. Should be good fun, dodging the land mines!
Hopefully there will be other trips away too. Long weekends to European cities are so cheap these days, the opportunities to experience places and cultures are so accessible. I fancy Poland, Germany, and France...in fact there isn’t anywhere I would rule out! Well, maybe Iraq!
I have also expressed my interest in joining the Wild East Tour with Mark, Anton and Shiz when they go on another long weekend break. Would be a bit more rustic than my normal holiday!
I will try to be more regular with my posts, and the next should be after Belfast!
Have a good one!
posted by Mini @ 8:11 am
6 Comments:
At 11:59 am,
anton said…
Erm...last time I looked Belfast was in the UK! I agree that it would be better (and much much cheaper) to pull out and let the Irish deal with it, but I don't think they want it either!
There won't be any landmines where you are! Fighting in Dubrovnik only lasted a few weeks in late 1991 and then remained pretty peaceful ever since.
Luckily all the nice touristy parts of Croatia generally avoided the war – it was mainly the rural areas with high proportions of Bosnians and Serbs that took the brunt of the fighting. Now these areas have been ‘cleansed’ they are almost 100% Croatian and generally peaceful. For any evidence of war damage/mined ares you'll need to go into the Serbian enclaves in the east - Vukovar was heavily shelled and mined in the north east. Knin in the north-west was also badly damaged. I think most of Bosnia is still wrecked to some extent.
At 1:32 am,
Mini said…
Well if you can count Transnestria (or whatever the hell it is called) as a country, then I sure as hell can count Northern Ireland as one!
FWIW, it was a very interestinf city, and travelling around the Shanklin Rd and Falls Rd area was an education and probably not too dissimilar to some of the things that have happened in the country's you travel to on your Wild East Tour!
The 40 foot high steel fencing around housing estates, barbed wire around playgrounds and gardens, cameras at all angles, tower blocks where the British Army were located on the top 3 floors with snipers etc, looking over the troubled areas, war memorials, memories of past devastation.
You don't always need to travel far a field to a wierd and wonderful country for examples of a war torn country, with religious/ethnic diversity and problems. Its right on your doorstep!
At 11:07 am,
anton said…
I’ve never claimed that Transdneistria is a real country since nobody in the world (even Russia or Moldova) recognize it. I think you are getting me and Shiz mixed up!
Yes, I agree with you that Northern Ireland/Belfast is the most un-typical part of the UK. I was certainly interested in going, but decided I would really need 3 nights there and two full days to try and see a bit of the place. Like Belly, I estimated it’ll cost about 150 quid and I thought that seemed a bit expensive for not much more than 24hrs. I’ll be very interested in hearing tales and seeing photos though.
At 1:07 am,
Mini said…
Yeah two full days was just enought for us to get in everything we wanted to see.
Friday night we saw the nightlife in the University area, which was an eyeopener!
We did the main city on the Saturday, the "Titanic quarter", docklands, and then the Shanklin/Falls Road etc. We went to the new development and also took in a few bars and pubs.
On the Sunday we did Stormont in the morning and Belfast Castle in the afternoon, plus the cathedral and a few other bits and pieces.
We covered everything, so your abut right in saying two days.
Stayed in a nice little hostel for £11 a night too, which was probably in keeping with your sort of accommodation!
At 7:48 am,
Pie said…
"Friday night we saw the nightlife in the University area, which was an eyeopener!"
An eye opener in the sense you took us to a gay pub Mini-Man...?
At 5:19 pm,
ShiZ said…
Heh! Leave poor Transnestria alone. I think its doing well enough to be recognised as a sort of country (although the powers that be deem it unofficial). It has its own currency, stamps, passport, centre of power, armed forces all of which are totally different from Moldova! It also uses a different alphabet to Moldova.
As a British citizen, I'd class Belfast as a capital city like yourself Mini, but I wouldn't necessarily expect a foreigner to do so (though I'd hope they would), all a bit grey really the whole UK breakdown, with England being the simplest as London also happened to be the capital of the UK too!
Ho hum, I'm sure theres more imprtant things to worry about, so I'll leave it here
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