Dalmatian Cooking Classes

Curtis signed us up for a cooking class.

Apparently when Steven and Curtis went to Thailand last year

their cooking class was a major highlight.

We initially met our hostess in a café.

She told us a bit about how to read the language.

(Which would have been nice to know before church on Sunday. 

I must confess that singing three consonants for one note was a high ratio for me 

and it took me four versus to figure out how some of the accents made the letters sound.)

In this diet everything is about freshness.

They go shopping each morning.

They smell their fish to determine freshness.

and they pick what they are going to eat for the day based on what is at the markets.

Virtually very town has a market.

Our cooking teacher took us to all of the markets.

Here is a video of us at the bread market

I lived on the Mediterranean for a year.

Every morning by my apartment in Nice the locals set up a market that took up a good portion of the main street

and by early afternoon they took it down.

Every.

Single.

Day.

As an American who focuses more on market efficiency, this totally baffled me.

What a waste of energy.

But today, it finally clicked.

Their priority is freshness.

Not market efficiency.

It definitely has its charm.

Even if it is totally inefficient.

She said that rooster is better than chicken because they have more muscles and fat, 

so we opted to make a rooster soup.

It was fun.

Our teacher took us to her home

She lived in a charming little Dalmatian-style home.

Which is made of thick, square stones and traditionally has

green, shuddered windows (her shudders were blue, because she likes blue)

(These Dalmation-style homes found in Split. They are not cooking teacher's)

The houses are tiny inside.

But so very charming.

As is the food.

Croatian City of Split

Monday night we arrived in the city of Split, Croatia. Initially, I was not impressed.

We had just come from these absolutely charming, medieval cities with incredible natural beauty.

When we arrived in Split it seemed to me a lot more industrialized - graffiti, traffic, business.

Everything I don't miss. 

Everyone loved the apartment we were staying at, but I love gardens and rustic charm,

not inner city apartments

so I wasn't as in love as everyone else.

Steve had signed us all up for a bike tour so we were up the next morning to take a bike tour with Duje. He and a few of his friends own Red Adventures.

By the end of the tour, I was in love with Split.

Duje really made the tour.

He from Split, born and raised.

He is a lawyer, but got sick of it and now works at this business with his friends.

The best part about the tour is that Duje is both cool and intelligent.

He speaks excellent English with a distinctive Australian accent.

I had so many questions about Croatia that he answered for me.

He introduced us to the very best ice cream all the locals eat.

Told us cool places to eat.

And gave us a view of Croatia from the perspective of a local.

We toured the town, got the history and then he took us to this park.

Look at these views!

(Mom, the Island of Vis is visible from this park.

We didn't make it out there, but Duje said it is an incredible place.)

In the park there is an old Jewish cemetery from a Jewish population that lived here in 1573.

I am fascinated by the Jewish dispersion and gathering, so I loved this.

Duje told us about the rampant corruption in this gorgeous country.

This is the city hall. Workers used to occupy just the bottom two floors.

Now they occupy the entire building.

They have two people in ever office.

There isn't nearly enough work for them to do.

But why?

Padded pay checks.

Loads of paid vacation.

Excellent pensions.

Money laundering.

Every Croatian we talked to said that corruption is a huge problem here.

But why?

I think a lot of it is that this is the way it was when this was part of Yugoslavia.

Communism had a lot of rampant corruption and it is sort of part of the culture now.

I kept asking him, why don't people stand up against this?

Obviously no one likes it.

He told a story of a whistle blower.

At first, everyone applauded her.

But then she lost her job.

Was unemployed.

Started working for Transparency International - which he said is no longer in existence in Croatia.

He also said that the law is very arbitrary.

Keep in mind that the Balcans have been ruled by numerous regimes over the centuries,

some have been better than others.

But when they were ruled by communist regimes and facist regimes, they were very controlled in what they could and could not say.

And I would imagine that this has an impact on the culture of standing up for integrity in the government.

I will write more about freedom of the press in another post, but that is a very impactful factor as well.

Apparently Split, Croatia is an incredibly athletic town.

Their population is under 200,000,

and yet they have an entire boardwalk of Olympic medalists from Split.

When Ginette came to Croatia last time she was in Zagreb, Croatia when the city received its Olympic champions.

I remember her telling me the story.

Of course, she speaks no Croatian, but the energy in the city was electric.

She told me about the congo line the citizens made in celebration.

How the crowd went wild over the bronze medalist.

It was so interesting for her to think about how exciting it is for a tiny country to welcome their champions home.

The pride.

Apparently handball is huge in Croatia and they tend to medal in that sport.

In honor of her experience in Croatia after the 2012 Olympics, here is her by Ivano Balic's plaque.

Split has a beautiful city center with the oldest known Cathedral.

We got to hear some traditional Dalmatian music.

Deocletian's palace was here.

The palace is the main reason why Split became a meaningful place.

We also visited an archaeological museum.

The highlight of that trip for me was Dragon. 

He was a man a little younger than my mother who gave us our tickets and talked our ears off.

He told us of how during communism, at least you felt like the government was looking out for you.

Now that they have democracy, it doesn't feel like the government is looking out for the people at all, but rather that they are trying to exploit the people.

He lives a simple life. His car is 37 years old.

The locals kept recommending that we see Solona.

It has ancient Roman ruins from this capital city.

It was pretty cool.

These are the ruins from an old coliseum.

The idea that Gladiators used to battle to the death here was something I didn't love, but that important fact aside, it was really interesting to see.

It also shed more light on why Romanesque cathedrals are Romanesque.

The thick stone walls and arches were definitely the style of the romans.

This was last night's dinner.

A meter pizza, as recommended to us by Duje.

It is a meter long!

War in the Balkans

The war in Croatia started in 1991. That means that many of the adults here lived through it. I asked Duje if he remembered the war. He said that Split was hardly affected by the war. They were bombed once. He was 10 years old. He remembers going to the bomb shelter. As soon as the bomb sirens went off, they got out and then the sirens went off again and they had to go back in.

Being a child, the significance of it was lost on him at the time. The kids were playing soccer in the bomb shelters.

When he told the story he only mentioned his mother. When I asked him about this he said it is because all of their dads were off at war. The fathers would come home every three months or so. They would bring with them shrapnel and bullets and the kids would trade them like baseball cards.

Looking back on it now, it all seems so surreal, but at the time, they thought nothing of it.

Duje thinks that there will be another war in the Balkans at some point in the next 20 years (not in Croatia, but probably in Bosnia). My companion from the plane ride to Sarajevo, Ninet, would likely agree. Ninet's current job is to work on easing the tensions in Bosnia and he said that the tensions are all still there just as present as they were before the war. I later learned that Bosnia (and Kosovo, for that matter) has a really strange form of governance. They have three presidents who form a presidency and together they serve a four-year term.  One is a Bosniak, one is a Croat, and one is a Serb. We were told that currently the Serbian member of the presidency is a complete jerk and it seems that since warring for land didn't work, that his strategy is to be such a jerk that the rest of the country will want to be rid of the Serbs and let them join with Serbia. It seems to me that this plan was a great idea to work with the three ethnicity, but at the same time, it perpetuates division. It just seems like everyone we talked to wouldn't be all that surprised if Bosnia ended up at war again. In fact, it almost seems expected.

Another issue of worry, is that when Bosnia rebuilt Mostar all of the minarets and mosques were paid for by money coming in from Muslims from other parts of the world. I don't think that this is inherently problematic - but all these years later - que ISIS. I think ISIS is entirely likely to be a problem. In fact, my cousin Wayne said that they saw someone wearing an ISIS tee shirt in old town Sarajevo. To be so bold... Also, the unemployment rate of youth in Bosnia (along with the rest of Europe) is very high which makes the young Muslims in Bosnia more susceptible to be recruited by ISIS.

Nationalism is hard for us to wrap our heads around in the U.S. because although we have an overwhelming amount of nationalism, our country is rather isolated. Canadians aren't trying to take us over or expand their country and neither is Mexico. In the Balkans, it is a little different. It sounds like Serbia, in particular, has a strong nationalism sentiment. Because of this, they can feel like people who aren't Serbian do not need to exist or are not as superior as the Serbians.

Siege

Another thing this trip has made me think about that I have never before considered is siege. I don't know any place in the U.S. or Canada that has been under siege in my lifetime, so I don't give the concept much thought. But Sarajevo was under a nearly 4 year siege. Dubrovnik was under siege during the Croatian war during that same time period. No electricity, no food, etc. These things happened within my life time. It is hard to comprehend, but siege is a real and, at least in some places, a modern thing.

Right to Bear Arms

In Bosnia, as with all of the former countries of Yugoslavia, there had been an arms embargo imposed by the U.N. prior to the war. In one of the books I read, all of the Bosnian men got together to try to fight the Serbs, but they didn't have weapons with which to defend themselves. They didn't have a militia. Hence, the genocide where tens of thousands of people were extinguished overnight happened with little defense against the armed Serbs.

The History of the Tie

Ties originated from Croatia.

I found this intriguing because the French word for tie is cravat.

Croats are the people Croatia is named after.

The French word for Croatian is croate.

 Cravat - sounds and awful lot like Croat to me.

Well, there is a reason for that. Back in the day, the Croat ladies gave their soldier boyfriends and husbands scarves as a reminder of them when they went to war.

The Croats fought a war with the French, who are always at the epicenter of fashion.

The French liked them so much that they started wearing them

and these are the roots of the modern day tie.

A Balkan Perspective on Freedom of the Press

As I wrote about earlier, on my flight to Sarajevo, I became completely engrossed in this book written by the chief editor of a newspaper in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Throughout the book the author is determined to have a top-notch newspaper which reports with nothing but the highest standards of reporting. One of the challenges he faced was getting the government out of his newspaper.

Initially, the government at least partially subsidized the papers. Apparently this was common in the Balkans, especially under the communist rule. This is a weird idea for an American, because as far as I am aware, the papers in the U.S. have never been subsidized in anyway by the government.

At one point in the book the government is trying to control his paper and they threaten to take away their funding. Having hired someone to handle the newspaper like a profit-making business, he said - fine. We don't need your money and we certainly don't want your control.

But then the government passed an initiative that they could choose the paper's editors, and possibly the journalists. Insane, right? This idea was so foreign to me I found it almost jaw dropping, but this is how it had been done for decades in this region.

The author took the government to court over this issue and won.

I was so proud of him.

(Then, of course, I happened to sit next to the man on the airplane who was Bosnian and a war correspondent during the Bosnian war and personally knew the author and said he was a top-notch reporter.)

So throughout this trip, these ideas have been turning around in my head. As we were heading to our bike trip, this reporter with a recording device went up to Steve and said, "I work for the radio. Today is World Press Freedom Day. Do you think the press is free?"

Not being Croatian, Steve declined to answer, but I was intrigued. At the next stop light I went up to her to ask her - does she think the media in Croatia is free? Her answer was "No, of course not." and then she asked me if I thought the media was free. I said that I am from the U.S. and yes, I do. She said that in Croatia, of course if you say something against the government they would not do anything to you, but the media is not free. (She had her recording device on throughout the whole conversation.) That is about as far as our conversation got; I don't think we fully came to an understanding.

On our bike tour, I asked Duje about the state of the media in Croatia and he explained that the government appoints the editors and the journalists. That was the key missing fact in my conversation with the woman from the radio. No, the press is not free here.

You may be wondering why this is so significant. In part, it is critical for exposing government corruption. Here, the politicians get away with their money laundering and corruption because who is going to expose them when they grant the journalists their jobs? That is why the communist governments controlled the media. That is why I believe one of the many factors behind the corruption here is the lack of complete freedom of the press.

Several years ago I attended a lecture by a woman who was both a reporter and a lawyer. She gave one of the most intelligent and insightful talks I've ever heard about first amendment rights and the press. She pointed out that a great majority of the cases we study in U.S. constitutional law are litigated by the newspapers. The media were the ones who instigated and pushed for the Freedom of Information Act, which allows citizens to access government records which, prior to the act, were inaccessible to the public. The woman said that she will buy a print newspaper even if she is the last person on the earth to do so because of the importance and impact that the press has on our society.

When I got up this morning Curtis was reading an article about how Donald Trump being president may threaten the freedom of press in the U.S. (I don't think he was reading this article, but something similar). The article was particularly intriguing to me because of the above-mentioned thoughts. I am not trying to make an overtly political statement for or against Donald Trump, but what I am trying to say is that freedom of the press is extremely important - even if we don't like what they have to say. The press has a very long history of being very critical of the president. Obama said that being in the Whitehouse was like being on American Idol, except that everyone is Simon. That is the way it was with Abraham Lincoln. Nobody likes being criticized, but the freedom for the press and citizens to do so is vital for informing the public, exposing scandals, exposing corruption, etc. It is a part of our checks and balances.

(And wouldn't you know it, our cooking teacher today is a journalist.

When we get to Sarajevo we will be visiting my cousin Wayne. He is married to my cousin Susan who worked in the media for years. I am intrigued to hear any insight he might have.)

More Montenegro - Kotor, Budva, Herceg Novi, Etc.

We met this man from Poland on our way up the walls on the mountains of Kotor.

The walls go all the way up their mountains.

The mountains almost seem like fjords as they go practically straight into the water.

I don't have a picture of how cool these walls were.

Or how in shape you need to be to do hike these walls.

Tourism, I have discovered, is not for the out of shape.

Our Lady of the Rocks in the Bay of Kotor.

Budva was a random discovery.

We were driving by and thought it would be a fun thing to check out.

We stopped at the town and it turned out to be charming and amazing.

We passed by this tree and heard the howling of cats.

We looked up and there were five cats just hanging out in this tree.

We found this in Montenegro!!

I will post a very funny video about this discovery as soon as I get my hands on the video.

Video: here

Easter night Easter egg fight.

Steve won, in case you were wondering.

Ginette was the reigning champion, though.

Herceg Novi

Serbian Orthodox church and cemetery.

The gorgeous view.

Dubrovnic, Croatia

We then traveled to Dubrovnic, Croatia.

We were turned away from our first attempt to cross the border. 

Local traffic only, he said.

I didn't know anything about Dubrovniac when we arrived. It is an old mideaval town with a wall around out.

You can take a tour of the wall, which was highly recommended. We did it and absolutely no regrets. The tour of the wall was well worth it.



Us on the wall.

View through the wall.

We found a well on the wall and noticed it echoed really well so we thought of a song we all knew and sang. It took us a minute to get in sink, but I was surprised as we went along at how well it turned out.

Watch it here.

At another place with amazing acoustics we made some more noise: See here



In the city.



The view of the sea from the wall was breathtaking.





In the city!

Us being us:

Red Roofs:

It reminded me of Nice and Cannes with the red roofs on the houses.
Okay, I may love red roofs on houses.

We were sitting on the wall, deciding where to watch the sunset when Andrea read that there is a Serbian Orthodox church about to have mass. We decided to go!

The church was lovely. From what we read you stand through the entire service. It made me appreciate, for the first time, the stand-sit-kneel of a Roman Catholic mass. I never realized the alternative was that you stand the whole time! 

The men are on the left side, and the women on the right. Although we had read this before going in, we didn't really think of it when we seated ourselves and intermixed. Oops.

My boss is Greek Orthodox and has mentioned that they have chanters. Serbian Orthodox does too, so it was my first service with chanters. 

It was cool, but the hard thing was that I don't speak Serbian so I didn't understand any of it.

Mostly the entire service was singing.

One of the priests actually took out his i-phone during the service (while he was in front serving) and took a picture. We thought that was really...interesting. I'm not sure that is part of the Orthodox tradition.

We went to dinner at a place that sells traditional Dalmation cuisine. My meal (and I don't really love fish) was amazing. Totally not fishy tasting. I would advertise the place, but we were a little disappointed about the price.

We drove up to the top of Imperial Fort and got this view of Dubrovniac. The drive was incredibly uphill with sharp switchbacks. It is a two way street with only room for one car at a time. It creates for a somewhat challenging trip up there. Most people take the the tram, but it is expensive and we are all frugal :)

We then went to a concert by the Dubrovniac Symphony Orchestra.

The cool thing about this that in college I went on a study abroad to Paris. On that study abroad there was a guy named David Bassett. His family came to visit him in Paris while we were on the study abroad, and Andrea Bassett (my now travel companion and my sister's best friend) came with the family. On that trip her family went to an orchestra performance and it was then that she fell in love with orchestra performances. Serendipitously, here we are in the twist and turns of life, so many years later traveling together and going to an orchestra performance.

I love it.

Us with our Airbnb hostess!!

Dubrovnic is charming at night.