They're here!

By popular demand, the pics from our Croatia + ventures are now up and ready for your viewing pleasure HERE. Considering we started with some 1400 amazing photos from the trip thanks largely to Patrick's (aka Papparrazzi Paddy) enthusiastic photo documentation, having the slide show down to 190 is pretty much a herculean feat, if I may say so myself. Unfortunately, though, weeding through all the pics has given me a bit of temporary photo burn-out, so I haven't gone through and "enhanced" any of them ... I'm afraid you'll just have to put up with them in their God-given darknesses/lightnessess. Ditto on the captions ... I'll get there, but no promises on when, where, or how. They say a photo speaks a thousand words anyhow, don't they?

Unplugged, incomunicado and blissfully ignorant

Though it may sound slightly implausible for someone whose daily work routine involves sitting screen-side 8+ hours a day, the last two weeks could quite possibly be equated to a chain gang member being relieved of his/her cuffs ... not one computer, not one TV, not one cell phone, not one MP3 player. In fact, our road trip car's radio barely managed to let out a few notes. Especially considering that we hit the road just as the Olympics Opening Ceremony was beginning and as the "Breaking News" banners flashed across the bottom of the screen warning of the impending WWIII to be induced by the Georgia-Russia invasion, some people might have gotten a serious case of the shakes being incomunicado. Not us. Only sun, sand (ok, so there wasn't much sand, mostly huge boulders, but you get the drift), mojitos, and oh-so-sweet blissful ignorance.

Funny enough, coming back, it really doesn't feel like we missed much. Coming back just after the Closing Ceremony of the games, it's as if the Olympics never happened after all the hype (admittedly, though, we are dying to know what happened. Can anyone fill us in???). And WWIII? Apparently already over, though my work email is filled with appeals from a healthy variety of organisations appealing for funding and advocacy support for the returning refugees. Most "exciting" reentry news? The tail end of the "Fay hype" and the announcement of Obama's running mate. As the world turns round .... do we really have to be plugged in??

Anyhow, enough of the chatter. Marcel and I headed to Cinque Terre, Italy for the first five days where we stayed in Riomaggiore, the smallest and less touristy (then again, everything is relative) of the 5 interconnected cliffside fishing villages and happily resigned ourselves to lounging on the beaches, hiking between the towns, floating in the amazingly refreshing Mediterranean waters stuffing ourselves with pasta, seafood, pizza, tiramisu, gelatto and sipping away on our wine and mojitos.

In short, all prep for the real venture ... joining up with another friend of Marcel's and "The Beast" (Patrick's trusty pimped out Landrover, later christened "Ludmilla" en route) for a road trip through Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Austria.

Thanks largely to the enthusiasm that comes with (Patrick) getting a new camera, we're still trying to sort through the 1400 photos that were taken on the trip, but for the moment, you can see some of the ones from Italy HERE, either on slideshow mode (upper right hand corner) or, if you're looking for more commentary on the trip, on "detail" mode (left hand side, under "Cinque Terre") ...

Countdown to the beast-fest

Two words: Landcruiser; Beast. With half of the office and a good number of friends being out on holidays right now, I can't help but count the days until our own summer adventures begin in August ... With the Beast as our humble home and the sun over our heads, Marcel, his childhood friend Paddy and I are heading off to Croatia for the ultimate camping cum road trip adventure, passing through Italy, Slovenia and Bosnia en route. A couple of our Croatian friends have kindly informed us that we have chosen the worst possible time to go, with all the rest of the tourists, but quite frankly, I don't care ... I have a feeling they'll be moving out of our way when they see us coming :-)