Kristian and Frances

Time to update this most uninspired (lately) of travel blogs. A couple of things to catch up and maybe get back into the swing of updating. I miss a blog format that results in comments and responses, this format is, as I suspected, most unrewarding. Poo to travellerspoint for no anonymous comments. Srsly.

1. Spent the evening before last watching Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and which made me homesick with missing the comfortable contradictions of home. In the morning we had decided to splash out and go shopping for inspiring clothing, since I made the mistake of only really bringing my most practical and neutral clothing, and without colourful clothing I wilt and my self esteem suffers, so boo to that. Still, there are slim pickings in Prague for a girl of my nonstandard clothing size. But we found a couple of things.

2. Random things are always happening. We went out one day last week to discover that sculptures had been mantled all over our nearby square, Namesti Republiky, overnight. Including a pig on a diving board (which incidentally got stolen/damaged a couple of days later, but has now returned to his post). Last weekend we went to the United Islands of Prague Music Festival, which was also much fun, with different stages on different islands to walk between and discover, and we saw a bunch of random euro-bands.

3. Dismayed to hear on English-language Al Jazeera the results of the policy of new paternalism the Australian government has recently adopted to deal with problems in some Aboriginal communities. Reports find that poverty and unemployment are the root causes of the problem, so John Howard will ban alcohol and pornography rather than addressing these, taking away dignity and self-determination rather than restoring it... However a quick scan of SMH.com.au yields zero info. What's going on, homesters?

4. On Friday (tomorrow) we take a bus to Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad spa resort) to do the KV International Film Festival for 9 days. I am very very excited about this.

5. There have been storms every few days, with all the attendant spectacular clouds. The other day we went down to the river to watch the storm come in, and all the people with dachschunds and kids on bikes go by. The storm rolled over, but forty minutes later another one came, and we ran home in drenching rain. Perfect.

6. Have discovered the best place for a) Indian food and b) Vegetarian food is the Hare Krishna Govindas just around the corner. It is wonderful. A couple of times here I have actually ordered meat meals in order to avoid feeling like I have consumed instant heart attack. A couple of times I have walked home from my lunch of fried dumplings and four kinds of cheese with the most alarming chest pains. Goulash and cabbage seems positively refreshing after that. I still love you, Czech food, but oh I often think I will be glad to return to a land of light meals, especially on the hotter days.

7. Culture shock has been pretty negligible, actually. But occasionally things will happen that make us remember what a strange place we are actually in. One weekday morning we were sitting at home minding our business when there was a loudspeaker announcement saying that the Town of Prague was checking the city alarm system and an alarm would sound at noon. On hot days a truck rolls around the streets spraying cold water on all the passers by. One evening I was sitting in the little park by the church and someone's pet rabbit appeared under my seat, twitching its little nose at me. It ran around the park for an hour or so while I wrote in my notebook, and then its owners chased it around and cornered it and put it back in its basket and off it went home. I can't think of anything else right now but it's little odd things like that. Cars not stopping at pedestrian crossings unless you play chicken with them.

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The above is the old town part of Dubrovnik, Croatia. Dubrovnik is probably my equal first favourite place that we've visited, along with Cordoba and/or Granada.

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The wonderful roof tiling that adorns every building within, and around, the old town of Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is a good case-in-point of Europe as a hole. A beautiful commericial old town, surrounded by a ring of similarly nice things, surrounded by a growing sprawl of bland suburbs and apartment blocks. With Dubrovnik though you need never see these!

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The view over the old town from the seaside city walls. You can see the walls that surround the old town.

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The place where we swam in the sea! This is a small island a few hundred metres off Dubrovnik, the water is wonderfully clear, like in Western Australia. There are no beaches as such, just rocks that you have to wade in from, which is quite frightening, especially if you're like us and didn't bring your wading shoes!

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The coast of Croatia, heading north from Dubrovnik towards the island of Hvar. The entire coast is breathtakingly beautiful.

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More coast! A little island with a little lighthouse.

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The small town of Hvar. You can see the entire town in half a day, but you inevitably want to stay for a week or two. This is the view from the fortress which sits atop the hill.

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A typical street in Hvar. You can see the fortress in the background. While cars don't drive on these streets, the occasional scooter will attempt to run you down.

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View of Croatian forests and such from our train! The forests of Croatia are so beautiful that I might be tempted to say they are more beautiful than the forests of California!

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Zagreb railway station. Zagreb is the capital of Croatia. We saw about 4 city blocks of it.

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And a bit more of Zagreb. It has trams.

What greeted us in Prague... it's taking time to settle into the life of a man o' pleasures and time...

Tourists like us - may I correct this to say tourists like the prolific English louts/bucks party arseholes who I want to murder in cold blood. Viva la imperialism?

*Sigh*. Sorry, make that a *violent projectile vomit*. I had no idea it had gotten this bad.

Meanwhile, we saw the Czech movie Tajnosti today which stars a Czech singer I like named Iva Bittova, whose music is very wonderful and I recommend, although she didn't actually sing in the movie. She was kind of a pent up mother character who finds many parts of her life unsatisfying, and tries to return to something simple and true through music (which is why it is remarkable/important that she isn't really able to sing, in spite of the actress being a singer, an easy temptation for a director would be to have her finally come out of her shell and sing wildly at the end, but in fact that doesn't happen), and it was very beautiful story which made K and I feel happy to be in Prague. We have been a bit homesick since getting here, and I think this because we will be here for such a long time and that's a bit scary.

Something else good that happened today is that we found a really good supermarket reasonably close to our house. By really good I mean it has a variety of fresh and seasonal ingredients as well as more than two kinds of cheese, which is something that has been obviously lacking in the smaller supermarkets round these parts. It is definitely a start. I can't wait to start cooking for myself again! I am rubbing my hands in anticipation. We move out of our hostel and into our flat tomorrow.

Hello friends and family.

I realise I have a lot to catch up on. I have been a bit less inclined to update than Kristian recently, and everything is a bit scrambled in my head. So I think I will work backwards, and probably not all in one go.

We're in Prague, and this is lovely but also a bit strange for me, because of my strong feelings for it and the fact that the city has changed a lot in the last five years, and is quite different in spring/summer as compared to winter (as I expected) and although I will always love the city's history and its culture which is known to me, I would this time around forgive other people for thinking the city brusque, messy and sleazy (not only in the sex way, but also the commercialism). There are some changes I'm a bit sad about, so it's bittersweet (but definitely sweet) to be back. The knowledge that it is tourists like me/us that have brought about these changes makes me sad as well.

Of course the city is just as beautiful as ever, and I still know it like the back of my hand. Last night after we arrived there was a lightning storm, so we turned off the lights and just enjoyed it. It felt like we were back in Marrickville/Sydney again sort of. I danced around to daggy Prague radio in the hallway. I do believe I heard Midnight Oil as well as a lot of late 90s sounding house music. ICQ uh-ohs mixed in, that kind of thing.

It was a hot day today, the weather's been strange in general, and I got my worst sunburn thus far today, even though I put sunscreen on. The only result of that was that now I have pretty patterns on my back, haha. There seems to be cool changes in the evenings to break the horribleness, but all day we saw people pouring water over each other and even having watergun fights

Cesky Krumlov was so gorgeous, we really enjoyed our time there and had some awesome vegetarian food, even at a place we expected to only serve meat. Our crazy bus to Prague only cost AU$10 (for a 3+ hour journey) so we will definitely be back, even to have that meal again!

Ljubljana is very cute as well. In one of my categorising moods (probably on the bus from work going through newtown), I divided sydney hipsters into the "cotton" variety and the "polyester" variety, and Ljubljana seems to be entirely composed of the cotton variety, you know, the kind of hip young person who rides bikes and reads books and is unafraid of colours other than red, white and black. Nice. Got to go. Love!