Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Day 2 of the vacation in a way followed the same trajectory, the same plot chart as the first.   All of the details are different of course, but  ‘smooth start, everything goes kerflooey, all’s well that ends well.’
We did get up and on the road early, as planned, it was 6:05 in the morning when we left Maribor.  We’d been warned there might be traffic jams so when they appeared, we weren’t surprised.  The first one, we were still in Slovenia, and we managed  to get off the freeway before we became part of the line and, even though it was slowing us down, we saw a lot of beautiful scenery.  Hilly woodlands, small farms here and there, ponies, sheep, cows.  The second one was at the border, which is kind of weird because Slovenia and Croatia are both in the EU.  They were just looking at everybody’s passport and waving them through, so it didn’t take too long.  There were a couple of others, but we still got into split at about 1 o’clock, and our ferry was scheduled for  3.    So, no  pressure.  We wandered around the dock area a bit, but mostly just waited and then…three cars before  us, they were full  and we were out of luck.  Had to wait and catch the 9 o’clock ferry.

Well, we were plenty pissed off but there was nothing for it.  So, we locked up the car and walked into town.  Split is kind of amazing.  Smooth paving tiles reminded me of Dubrovnik, and there was an old castle, and the old town area was a lot like Prague’s, interesting little shops down every narrow street.  The prices at the restaurants on the waterfront were insane, so I was bitching about that, and it was blazing hot so everybody was complaining about that and we weren’t the only ones, you could see on  the faces of many a passerby that they were beaten by the heat.  (I am now sitting in a cool room in front of an open window at 1 a.m. after a cold shower and I broke out in a sweat just writing that, that’s how hot it was)  But, we eventually found a burger place that was only mildly extortionate, and the food was good, and we went to the beach and went in wading even though we’d left our swimsuits in the car and the kids just went in swimming wearing shorts, and then we went to the market place and bought some fruit and I got myself a new hat and Isabel said  she  was glad we missed  the first ferry.

The one at 9 o’clock  which was a cool, uncrowded ride with the lights on the randomly dispersed islands floating over the water and a big, orange moon rising.
And here we are on the island of Vis.

We are at our Air B and B in Maribor, Slovenia, and a lovely little town it is.  The trip down  was  relatively uneventful.  We were on the road by 8:30, about  an hour later than we’d planned, but traffic was light the whole  way, and we made very few stops.
We got here at just past four but our  contact (Pavlina, but it turned out to be a guy.  We’re not sure if his girlfriend is Pavlina and it’s her flat, if he is using a fake profile because maybe people are more inclined to  rent from a woman than a man, which would strike me as silly, or maybe Pavlina can be a man’s name in Slovenian, i.e. not Pauline but Paulie) was not reachable.  So, we went into the  center for some sightseeing, which turned out to be way more than walking distance, and it was seriously damned hot, so we eventually got on a bus.  We dabbled our feet in a  fountain, walked a bit along the river, had some pizza (which was not cheap, but it  was massive) and some ice cream, and came back.  On the way back, a baby on  the bus started screaming because I was trying to play peek-a-boo with her.  That happens sometimes.
The language is incredibly similar to Czech, I find I can  read about half the signs (which is about as much as I can actually read in Czech).  Thanks is hvala, which is easy to remember because chvalit, in Czech, is the verb ‘to praise.’  Please is prosim, which is the same.  Strawberries are jagody, but that’s the same in most Slavic languages, putting a g where Czechs would put an h.
Tomorrow we are getting up early, we want to make the ferry in Split at 3 o’clock, so I’m out for the night.  Good night.

When I meet somebody at a party  or social event and they ask ‘Who  are you?’ I consider that a perfectly legitimate conversational opener, and I introduce myself and/or give them my whole life story, depending on the mood  of the moment.
If somebody answers my Facebook friend request with ‘Who are you?,’ I still consider that legitimate because they’ve got a right to know.  Some people are very selective about who they talk to, and some people have a good reason to be.  Some people have been burned, and are cautious.  So, I tell them who I am.

But, when you’re in the middle of a discussion, a healthy exchange of ideas, as it were, and somebody says ‘who are you?,’ it feels more like ‘who the fuck are you to make a comment on  this’ and it’s messed up.
The background: the conversation was one British person berating another British person for having  an opinion  on the Roseanne Barr situation, and he genuinely seemed upset that somebody should have an opinion on something happening in a different country.  So, I jumped in  to say it’s one world and everybody should feel free to comment on any aspect of it and, as an example, pointed out that despite being American, I comment on Brexit all the time. (I think Brexit is stupid)
That’s when I got the ‘who are you?’ comment.
Well, I didn’t respond directly (I have the blog, haha!), partly because I didn’t feel like engaging with a xenophobic twatwaffle, and partly because maybe him and the other person are friends in real life and just like slagging each other off on Facebook and I just jumped into the crossfire.
That’s it.  That’s the  whole story.  I  thought I would have more to  say about that.

Anyway, tomorrow morning, bright and early, we are leaving for  Croatia.  We’ll  take two days to drive down, spend a week or so,  and then amble slowly back.  The place we’re staying says they have wi-fi, so I should be able to continue with the blog, but it’s a vacation, so if I skip a day just because I feel like it, well, that’s O.K., too.

This news came out three or  four days ago, and it is news of  such Earth shattering import that I’m amazed everybody’s not talking about it.
I still get the same number of posts with recipes, and animals in costumes, and four year old kids who can play  the piano, or dogs who can’t figure out a magic trick (I got a big kick of those, actually), or pictures from peoples vacations, or people saying ‘I can’t believe what Trump just said,’ or whatever.
Why isn’t everybody talking about the discovery of  water on Mars?  Knowing that on the very closest planet to us, the first planet we are ever likely to colonize, a planet still very much within our own solar system, there is water, is a darned good indication that there is water all over the place, that every solar system in the universe is likely to have a planet or two with water. That is an  absolutely stunning revelation, and a huge step forward in the old Drake equation.

That should be the site of our first Martian colony.  Throw a dome over it (it would have to be a very big dome, the lake is apparently 20 miles across, but construction should be easy with lower gravity and not much atmosphere, and robots to do the work) and voila, you’ve got all the water you need for bathing, drinking, and growing crops.
Then, there’s the fact that life as we know  it originated in water and I’ve heard plenty  of people hypothesize that where there is water, there is probably life.  If that turns out to be true, we may well yet find some life on Mars, although it’s likely to be some kind of bacteria, or blind  fish at the very most.
Europa, a moon of Jupiter, has way more water than Mars, of course, a whole one world ocean of  it, trapped under its own  ice, but Mars is a lot closer so we’ll go there first.
I just don’t know  why everyone isn’t talking about this.  It is stone cold amazing.

I don’t know how many  people have seen the story, I think mostly the people who are obsessed with arguing about everything, and people who pay a lot of attention to Sarah Silverman.  Seems she’s catching a bit of flak for something she tweeted in 2009.
It was a joke which was very un-PC, certainly by 2018 standards, which are starting to be a bit restrictive for my tastes, but apparently wasn’t enough to  raise  eyebrows at the time.  It wasn’t as if these  were notes in her diary that are now being revealed, it was a tweet, which she put out in  public, and I think it’s still  there.
I thought it was kind of a funny joke.  She tweeted: “Is it still child molestation  if  the  child makes the  first move.  I’m  going  to need  a quick  answer on this.”  I almost literally lol’ed, but it’s late and people are sleeping.
Anyway, one of my Facebook friends, from one of the Bernie sites I frequent, posted “Sarah Silverman is a disgusting piece of shit” on a black field with  a couple  of thumbs down emojis.  I’m pretty  sure that the tweets are just an excuse.   A lot of Bernie people  have never forgiven her for  her ‘You are being ridiculous’ quote.  That, in my opinion, is  ridiculous.  She  backed Bernie in  the primaries, so she’s cool  in my book.
And, as far as I’m concerned, she can go ahead and keep on not being PC.  She’s a comedian, for fuck’s sake.