Istria and Opatija

The Roman arena in Pula, Istria.


Sanja Komadina, Zeljka and me, in front of the statue of Madonina in Opatija.


My adventures in Istria last weekend:

* Two concerts of Los Caballeros, the Croatian mariachi band.

* One plate of delicious lamb, slow-roasted on a spit.

* One big mistake: eating the undercooked lamb kidney at the urging of Tomislav Frkovic.

* Negotiating a settlement with a group of female German tourists after they rear-ended our car.

* Poaching a beach campsite.

* The big hilite was meeting Sanja Komadina, a friend of Sanja Pirsl (of Ron Landsman fame). She showed me all around Rijeka and Opatija, and we chilled for an afternoon with her friend Zeljka, a med student.

* The other main event was meeting up with my friend and teaching mentor, Maja Marijanovic. She lives in Pula, and gave Frki and me an afternoon historical city tour. I sat with a statue of James Joyce, who lived there for a time. Pula is lovely, and feels Italian. The great Roman arena imposes over the whole city. Joyce apparently did not like Pula; this puts me on the right side of Pula and the right side of Joyce, if you ask me.

Istria

I just returned from a weekend in Istria, including a stop at the Roman arena in Pula, and a personal tour from my friend and teaching mentor, Maja. I also had the chance to meet and hang out in Rijeka/Opatija with Sanja Komadina, who I got to know through my good friend Sanja Pirsl.

More on that to come when I get some photos. In the meantime, here is the website of Zare, my main man at the gym. http://honda-wwwhondazg.blogspot.com/. Check it out, and picture me lifting weights with this guy, four or five days a week. Yowza.

Jana and Jelsa

So work is slow in Croatia during the summer - a lot of holidays. So it gives me a chance to get to the coast and other places.
Last week I got to help Ogi and Marina at their new house in Sveta Jana, outside Zagreb. The house is a fixer upper. That day we mixed/laid concrete for a kitchen and bathroom, and I dug part of a septic trench. Here's Marina laying concrete:


Here is the captain of Slovenian ultimate, and good friend of mine, Kista. I visited him for a week on the island of Hvar, a ferry ride from Split. His gf Ana was also there for a bit, and we stayed with Kista's parents at their house in the town of Jelsa. Beautiful. Night life too.


Hvar, and much of the Dalmatian coast, feels closer to Italy than Croatia. The town center, which in the rest of Croatia would be called a 'Trg,' is in Jelsa called 'Piazza.' Here is the piazza in Jelsa:


Me, above Jelsa, after a day of running, throwing frisbees, swimming, coffee and beer: