I nearly had exciting news to tell today, nearly…

The other day trener told me that the woman who cleans his apartments has injured her shoulder, and that they were looking for someone to do her work – you see, my dream of being a sobarica was to be fulfilled! *sigh*, then next time we spoke, he apologized and said that his wife had found someone else to do the work. Like a see-saw, yesterday he told me that the back up person had fallen through now, and could I please do the work! Yes, and yes – I told you, destiny!

This morning I was on my way to Podgora at 7.30 to spend some time with the current lady so that I would know what to do – I met trener in a cafe, chatted about rowing (small talk, building up to the real stuff) – and then asked ‘so, what do you want me to do?”. Oh dear. He looked embarrassed and said ‘nothing, her shoulder operation is not for a month now’. See? Dashed!

He bought me coffee, offered to give me money (for my work with the rowers) offered to pay my taxi home, offered me his first born, so embarrassed was he for wasting my time. But I hadn’t seen Podgora before, so nothing was wasted, and the café we were sitting in was Café Ahipara, because of relatives there… I then got to walk along the beautiful track from Podgora to Tucepi (divine) visit my darling cousin Zlata in Tucepi, and then walk the lovely stari put (old road) between Tucepi and Makarska.

It was a lovely morning – I covered about 10 kms, had two coffees….

I have to face it – I am not destined to be a sobarica, not in this part of the world anyway, not in this lifetime.

Apart from that little adventurous tale, I have a couple of photos to show you –and I want you to see if you can work out what these are...

If you guessed No Parking Signs, then you are right! I wonder if this trick would work in New Zealand??? And any thoughts on why it works here??

autumnal thoughts

The earth is tipping on its axis. Rumour has it that spring is trying to make an appearance in New Zealand, and Autumn is trying to do the same here. There are leaves dropping and blowing around despite the mid thirties temperatures.

I swam this morning at eight – it was gorgeous - and then ventured out to the beach again at four. The wind had come up (Jugo) and there were waves crashing over the edge of the wall on the riva. When I tried to climb down the rocks into the sea, the waves tossed me against the rocks – sea water and blood are an impressive combination – shoulder, wrist, knee…

We have the last of the tourists here – more Italian voices now. I spoke with a lady the other night who is, it is fair to say, a little negative about Makarska at the moment. “I’m just waiting until Croatia gets into the EU and the property prices increase, then I’m selling everything up. We don’t even get real tourists here anymore – just (insert here an eight letter word). They don’t know how to behave, they are so common”. I was surprised that these people weren’t real - apparently they eat… (gasp).. sausages!

“What about the Italians?” I naively asked – ‘Ej, they are only from Napoli, not real Italians – no style..”

Well for the record, yesterday there was a delightful Italian family at the beach next to me – charming children, a family having a lovely holiday.

It’s easy to forget when you are used to holidaying at the beach in New Zealand (you know, kiwi bach holidays) how wonderful the time here would be if you are a child and perhaps get to see the sea once a year. To be honest, there are some visitors who behave as though they have not been to the sea before. I saw a young woman the other morning – I will try to paint the picture for you- please use all your powers of imagination.

It was about 7.30 in the morning, the sun was not quite peeping over the Biokovo Mountains, and there was no one else on the beach, just us at the rowing club getting the boats out and a few partying souls who had decided when the clubs closed that the stones on the beach looked comfortable enough to sleep on. I suspect that this young woman may have had little contact with the sea, and a lot of contact with 1980’s fashion magazines. I saw the ‘big hat’, big glasses, and gold and diamond stilettos coming first – no mean feat on the beach- replete with a tiny polka-dot bikini… seriously. She stopped at various points on the beach to pose for her admiring boyfriend. She then spread her beach mat on the concrete pontoon where we launch the boats, and struck a few poses while he stood in front of her performing football stunts with his feet and his head – you know what I mean.. he had a soccer ball with him. No points for guessing where this couple were from – I suspect it wasn’t New Zealand or Australia though. Goodness, I sound as though I am judging!

Maybe I am. I was with a friend this morning drinking coffee on the riva (the main street) and a few groups walked past in kostumi za kupanje (togs!). I heard the phrase ‘dress code’ muttered. I also heard it stated categorically that these would not be locals. This is tantamount to walking through Mt Eden Village in your speedos (men) and bikini. Bez weightwatchers.

Whatever, a few more weeks and tourists in their togs in shops and cafes will be a dim memory. For some it will be a sigh of relief after working so relentlessly for three months, and for others, it will be the end of paid employment until next tourist season. Diversity needs to be the new buzz word on the Makarska Riviera just in case the tourists don’t come.

Fishermen's evening

Friday evening was a ribarska vecer (with a ‘ch’) – a fishermen's evening. I think I have mentioned the café at the far end of the riva, Arbun, tucked under the trees at the side of Sveti Petar, the one with mainly men drinking coffee (incidentally, they no longer blink an eye when I drink coffee there after rowing (yes, in my rowing clothes)) – anyway, the men there could loosely be grouped together as fishermen, ribarska.

And the ribarska vecer was full of stalls selling fish – grilled over hot embers – small ones, even smaller ones, and octopus. It was a hot evening, and added to the heat of the fires and the smoke, that end of town had its own microclimate going on.

Striped t-shirted men were cooking and selling behind the stalls, a band was playing and a festive air was lent to that corner of town.

I talked once before about big wheels of bread filled with spinata and feta sir – then pressed flat. Well, there they were on a stall, 5 kuna a piece. I bought one, and it was so delicious that I bought another – and then just to make absolutely sure, another, and a photograph! Deliciously salty and garlicky and oily.

I didn’t try the octopus because historically octopus and I haven’t had a close relationship, and to be honest, I’m too impatient to eat the fish here with all of those bones. Fish is one of the things that New Zealand does really well (my opinion¸- although I have heard locals opine about the fish here).

There certainly seem to be a lot of the little fish in the water at the moment, obviously being chased underneath by something a lot bigger, eyeing them up for breakfast. This morning when we were rowing there were rainbow arches of the fish leaping out of the water.

I said I would mention the rowing – and so I shall. My job there is nearly done grasshopper – the fifteen or so little boys (and two girls) that I started with at the beginning of the season are nearly all flying solo (except for one last little nine year old who lives in a world of his own and gets a huge amount of enjoyment out of just organizing the shoes into rows as the boys remove them to jump into boats – oh, and he gets slightly disturbed if someone moves one – which they do to try and wind him up..) Where initially I had a row of little birds sitting on the wall to take turns in the double with me, the birds are all out there doing it in singles now. They are so cute – the one photo that I want to get is when trener tells them to bring the double out, and like a centipede, there are about 8 of them all trying to carry it together without dropping it.

The association with the rowing club has brought me a huge amount of pleasure. The boys have so much respect for trener – they don’t complain about the quality of the boats or the blades – they don’t fuss about which boat they are given, or if they have to wait a while to get a turn to row in a boat. They are polite and grateful and diligently roll out of bed four mornings a week to come to rowing.

This morning one of the older women who swims where we are training was catching the little silver fish to take home, and was having trouble with a ginger stray cat hanging around (there are heaps of strays on this part of Sveti Petar – some mornings the cat smell is disgusting). Every time she turned to try and catch more fish, the cat tried to make a move on the fish she had – Roko¸ a cute and very aware 9 year old was watching, and next thing he and Frane and Marko were racing over the kamena (rocks) chasing the cats away. But so intent and serious. They then reported back to the old lady with a shrug of shoulders and hands on hips like little old men. So cute.

Some of these little ones have been rowing just for the summer and are now returning home to other cities like Zagreb – hopefully they will keep the rowing up and continue this excellent sport. And with numbers depleted and rowing time back at 8 in the morning again soon, I will be back in a single myself, being told to row to Krvavica!
 

Scoreboard

And quickly, just while I remember it, to Milano.

We had booked to stay at a hotel (Best Western) near the airport, a mere shuttle from the airport – followed by a mere shuttle back to the airport to take the train into Milan central – talk about speed tourism. It was 4.00 pm when we left the hotel, back to the train station by 4.10 and then onto a train into the centre by 4.30 (huff puff!) In between that time I managed to down an excellent coffee (in a train station! I thought that there were set rules about coffee and train stations!)

There ensued an (almost) heated discussion regarding the quality of coffee. But we won’t go there (unless you press the matter of course..)

Ok – there are score-cards – France wins for Cheese and Wine. And Bread. Italy wins for Gelato (no surprises there) and for the audacity of their men when flirting. The jury is out on the coffee issue – admittedly there was a bad cup in Monmatre – but I still say that the coffee in NZ is not bad.
None of the countries gets any points for queueing, because they don’t. NZ wins hands down on that, especially at airport baggage carousels. New Zealand has to move on from wearing black though, and brighten up a bit. France wins the style in clothes, but loses a few points where street signs are concerned. They do get a few bonus points for the fields of sunflowers, the macarons, and because they sound sexy when they speak English. They do not get any bonus points for their toilets (generally). I’m not saying which country wins for the remaining category: Men. Field work is still being completed. You asked.

Milano. We managed to get into the city and take the metro (points to France and Italy, well done on their public transport systems) which we have managed to conquer in each city we have visited, arriving at the Duomo with time to spare. Alas, alack – in our haste (and the 39 degrees), we had not remembered to wear long sleeves or cover our shoulders, so we couldn’t go inside. Hysterical laughter followed. We are seasoned travelers after all, and we know, we know, we know about the Catholic aversion to shoulders.(As an aside, we have discovered that where shoulders and knees are not ok, cleavage is - interesting..)

The heat was draining us, although our humour remained intact (superglued?) – we went looking for La Scala, and unbeknownst to us, when we were standing in the square in which it is situated, we did not recognize it for what it was. We then wandered for another hour and a half looking for it, only to find it eventually with the assistance of a very kind elderly gentleman. At which point reason left us completely and we both raced into a McDonalds and downed a half litre of ice cold coke each! And it was sssoooooo good.

By nine we retraced our transport steps (metro – train - airport-shuttle – hotel) and ate a quick meal in the restaurant there. Or rather I did – Branka had a sudden aversion to paying a 3 euro cover charge - at which the waiter had a sudden aversion to me being the only person eating at the table and became a bit surly. Nice goats cheese and walnut salad though...

Another 4 am start to catch the plane to Split – a brief argument in the tax refund office which I didn’t win (but I shall, mark my words, I shall), and finally bussed back to Makarska.

It’s a funny thing – after the grace and style of France, the end of the rally, my mind started to prepare for the trip home to New Zealand. The first night back here I hurried back to my routine (don’t we love the familiarity of a routine) went to yoga and was greeted warmly by my class. They said they missed me – I felt part of the community again! The next morning I went to rowing and the children’s faces lit up and they said ‘you’re back!’. (Remind me to talk about my little rowers some time soon).

We are funny creatures aren’t we. I have been spending a bit of time with a lovely lady called Minka – as a young woman she was plucked from Bosnia and transported to Russia where she trained and became a top ballet dancer. She now lives in Switzerland and although retired, she still teaches some ballet classes. We were solving the problems of the world this morning while we drifted in the sea (didn’t take too long, but may wind up the discussions over kolaci (with a ‘ch’) tonight), and she said that she doesn’t travel so much during the year because even though she doesn’t work full time, she loves the feeling of being needed and important to those few students that she has. Ain’t that the truth.

Lyon

While I’m on a roll, I don’t want to forget to mention Lyon – we had decided to return to Croatia via Lyon and then Milan (16 euro ticket, who can argue with that) which while a bit circuitous, was an attractive option.

As the last afternoon of the rally rolled on, we had to make a decision - take the bus back to Toulouse and travel on from there, or take the early bus to the train station – we weighed it up - hot bus at 1 in the afternoon leaving the organization crew and friends early, or play it by ear and see what happened.

At three we were offered a lift by the Lyon crews - so no bus, no train- perfect. What we didn’t factor in was the return of the vacation crowds from the seaside – think Easter Weekend in Auckland on the Southern motorway. The motorways were jammed, and the last vestige of energy in those hot cars seemed to be reserved for road rage – principally directed at our van towing a large trailer full of rowing boats! It was so hot in the van that at one stage I considered removing all of my clothes… and when I finally decided that I was desperate enough to drink my bottle of Orangina, it was close to boiling point!

Five hours later we arrived at the rowing club and unloaded the boats, re-rigged them and put them away in the clubhouse. A pleasure just because it was a different clubhouse, and normally we are doing this job in the dark, in the wind and the rain after an autumn regatta.

Lyon is a lovely town on the banks of the Rhone and the Saone Rivers – such beautiful rivers, beautiful scenery and fabulous boat houses. Strange, but there are people in Lyon who don’t row.

We went out to dinner to a fabulous old restaurant called St Georges which is famed (amongst other things) for a desert called the Norwegian Omelet – or what we know as Bombe Alaska, the icecream in flambe’ meringue. If you are lucky enough to have a birthday when you visit the restaurant, the desert is delivered with a flourish, a rendition of Happy Birthday, and spectacular sparklers. As luck would have it, it was my birthday this year, so a desert was delivered at our table and I won an Oscar for acting. It was delicious.

Walking through the carpark building I was surprised to see an enclosed campsite – very neat and tidy, children playing, washing flapping… and was told that it was ‘homeless people’ – probably not French, probably Roma. Thought provoking.

Anyway- Sunday morning I joined the Lyon rowers for a (long) row – but first had a good look around the boat shed – fantastic facilities, including heaps of boats, ergs, a winter training pool, and fantastic shower facilities. Again with the ‘how could anyone in Lyon NOT row’ comment.

But most touching was the fact that after the row (at eleven o’clock)¸ some rowers who had been to the Canal du Midi, plus others who had simply returned from vacations elsewhere, gathered under the trees for aperitifs – out came the baguettes, the pate, cheeses, olives and wine. And each person was greeted affectionately with a kiss on both cheeks and a big hug. I love this French way of life – I love the elegance, the grace and the style. I love the gentle voices and the shoulders shrugged and the extravagance of the gestures.

We spent that evening strolling around the city, looking at the lights, exploring the traboules,(cooling off in the fountain) and drinking more panache in the hot night air. Oh, panache sounds so much more sophisticated than ‘shandy’ but that’s what it is – and it tastes good in this sort of heat.
Thank you for your hospitality Lyon, particularly to Bruno who was our host – it is a beautiful city.

And then to Milano….

 

France and more

Well dear armchair travelers, I’m back in my wee apartment in Makarska! I can hear the vacuum cleaner going next door as Branka puts her house in order, but all I have managed so far is a quick sweep of the floor and rush down to the sea.

It is incredibly hot here – pushing 40 degrees, and the sea water is about 27 degrees – it wets you but doesn’t cool you, although I found a patch in the sea today that I swear has a fresh water spring coming up under it. It takes patience to stay still over the one spot though, and I guess it looks a bit odd from the shore.

So. How to catch up on the last fortnight and not bore you with too much detail…

1. Paris - I swear that they have moved some of the more famous stuff since I was there last year (you know, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame) and the signs in the streets are singularly unhelpful. We decided that the signs are to help those driving cars around the myriad of one way streets in the general direction of the famous things, or else they are just there to amuse those Parisians who are annoyed that they are still in town with the American Tourists when the rest of Paris is elsewhere.

2. Toulouse – lovely as always. We were met at the airport by friends of mine who delivered us to the hotel, and then met us again in the evening to include us in a meal at another friend’s house. It was just like a French Home and Garden magazine – so French! We sat outside in the garden for aperitifs, and then moved to the garden furniture for a gorgeous meal. I tell you, the furniture was all that curved metal furniture sold as ‘French’ in the shops at home! There is a huge Spanish influence in Toulouse, reflected in the number of people who speak that language - check out the street signs.

3. The rally – for those who don’t know about this crazy annual thing that we do- is a 206 km race (rowing) from Toulouse to Bezier. Normally I row – this year I was a ‘green shirt’ person, and organizator (Nz readers, this is a Croatian and French word, not a mistake), wearer of the bright green shirt which I have coveted for years.. particularly half way through the race when every part of my body seriously wants to die.

This meant that we had to attend the meetings in the evenings to discuss anything relevant from that day, make any suggestions and drink a bit of wine. It meant that instead of rowing the 206 kms, I was on a velo, a bike. We were Guitou’s Angels!

We were back and forth along the canal – directing boats and bikes across the roads, back to chase the last boats, up to the lead again – we covered more than the daily mileage, pumping our legs along the tow path.

I have to say that the canal path has a lot of stones and roots and that the velo seat was not designed with comfort in mind. There are parts of me that will never be the same. Enough said.

There is an environmental catastrophe happening on the banks of the canal du midi – the plane trees are dying. Scientists have discovered that a fungus of some sort that was present in the wood of boxes of ammunition brought into the area by the Americans in WW2 has now spread and is killing the trees one by one. In some parts of the canal which were beautifully shaded by these magnificent trees, all of the trees have been removed. They have tried drilling the trees and injecting pesticides, but to no avail. They are now sterilizing the soil where trees have been removed and are researching more vigorous strains of trees. I can’t imagine the canal without the shade of these wonderful trees.

The people involved in this event are wonderful – every year I come away with new friends and people who want to keep in touch. This year was no different.

The cup for ‘Fair Play’ which our team one about three years ago (brilliant crew that year – Ann, Marie, Yana and I, ably assisted by Sally and Rian, and Phil – just brilliant) was won this year by a team of deaf rowers from Paris. The cox was able hear but the rest of the team lip read and signed to each other. Difficult when I distracted one of them during a speech – he of course couldn’t hear that the mayor was still speaking and burst out in shrieks of laughter, only to be told off soundly by the cox. Ooops. My fault. All signals on the boat were conveyed by tapping the side of the boat.

The food was great, the wine was great, the company was great. There was no water in the Auberge du Jeunesse in Carcassonne for the evening shower – a bit of a dribble in the showers on the 1st floor but nothing on the second floor (try explaining the gravity thing to the deaf team when they can only lipread French) but realized that with a bucket pilfered from the kitchen, and water from the handbasin…. Good old kiwi ingenuity had us all washed and clean smelling in time for the meeting and the wine before dinner!

The language was more of a problem for me this year. Normally I can make do with my French – converse at a basic level - but this year, I was trying to find the French verbs but it all came out in Croatian! No help at all! Even in cafes, ‘hvala vam’ slipped out before ‘merci beaucoup’ did. I felt so useless as I had been told that this year Andre (the chief) was expecting me to be speaking French! And worse still, now that I am back in Croatia, I am completely tongue-tied again, only able to think of the French for things that I want to say!

Now there lies the huge task of organizing a similar event in New Zealand – being the guests of the organization, there is a payback. The word is out – there is a randonee in New Zealand in late March 2013. Hands up who wants to help organize this extravaganza!! I’m taking volunteers now….skill base required is a sense of humour and a sense of adventure. We are not going to limit the fun to rowing (payback time on the velos!) and may even include some extreme adventure stuff. We can’t make it the same as the French one, so lets go completely different!