Skip to main content

Far and Wide

(originally published by EdinburghExchanges -go here for bigger versions of pictures!)
(also vlogged about at length at Etudiante X -go here for less static versions of pictures!)

Image


     Yes, we're in France. Yes, we're studying. Yes, we're really trying very hard to speak our foreign language. But we've been doing that for A WHOLE MONTH now. It's time for a break.
     Zadar is nothing short of breathtaking. A coastline pocked with tiny beaches and bathed in warm water lead from our hostel (the Drunken Monkey- HIGHLY recommended) to the Old Town, which seems to have been built around its plentiful Roman ruins rather than making a tourist attraction of them. Monasteries and wells galore, a walled garden and the remains of the forum are all surrounded by normal high-street shops and low-price restaurants, as well as bountiful amounts of icecream vendors.
Image
On our second day it became apparent that for all sixteen of us to get to Krka national park (again, highly recommended) it would be cheaper to rent a couple of cars than to get on buses, so for the low low price of 115 kuna per person, about 15€, we got our first roadtrip. Then a 9€ ticket bought us access to the park and a return journey on a beautiful half-hour boat ride out to the secluded spot. We walked, we ate, we swam in the waterfall. Not bad for a saturday afternoon. On the way home, driving myself and six friends down the mostly-deserted motorway with Eye of the Tiger on the radio and the sun sinking below the mountains was one of the happiest moments I've had since leaving home. 
     Then we went and sampled the nightlife. Then, the early-morning life. At 5am, when the scantily-clad women had stopped dancing on podiums, the cheap shots had stopped being served, and the impeccably mixed dance-house-rock-blues-everything DJ had packed up for the night, we walked home along the beach. Incidentally, skinny-dipping, in French, is un bain de minuit.
     In nearby Nin, there are pits of black sand which apparently have a combination of vitamins and minerals that make your skin super-soft. It also makes you look like someone could take your life, but they could never take your freedom. I'm sceptical about the skincare properties of the stuff, but it sure was fun to play in the mud for a while, and it helped get rid of the last of our collective gueule du bois.
     I knew nothing about Croatia before going there apart from that it was sunny and everything was relatively cheap- no one mentioned the clean streets and lovely architecture, the friendly locals and the stupid amounts of things to do. I still have a few kuna left, in reserve for next time.
     Also, we found a kiwi tree.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Calgary, Alberta

Yesterday I ran around the city a bit, trying to see as much as possible for as little as possible...      It was hard.      The walk from Sean's place in Renfrew was long but scenic. Cold and crisp, Calgary did turn out to be mostly suburb, with a pretty concentrated centre with all your usual tourist hangouts just south of the Bow river where a lot of money can be spent very easily. Like $14 for going up Calgary Tower, $9 for a student ticket to the Glenbow Museum, and all those malls! They're all interconnected, so you could probably walk from shop to shop most of the way across the city without having to see sunlight. This is probably the idea behind the Plus Fifteen, too- a heated walkway above the streets so the Calgarians don't have to freeze in winter.      The Glenbow offered your normal mix of traditional art, weird modern stuff, rooms full of the extensive and glorious history of Alberta, all 150 years of it,...

You Say It Best...

(originally published by The Student )      Watch any western, any black-and-white adventure film, any rags-to-riches adaptation, and you'll realise we've seen this all before. The guy gets the girl, the evil tyrant falls and the True King rises, be it Middle Earth or the Mid-West. We've seen these scenes repeated across time and space, and we know how it goes. Without the speech, the scene still goes the same way. New film The Artist proves this, without saying a word. Aside from the picture-perfect cast and a dog which will reach cult celebrity status any day now, the film addresses the transition between '20s movies and '30s talkies, and a sparse use of sound which offers a challenge to the film-makers.      In one scene, uncharacteristically static, a pair of old friends meet and greet, swap stories, laugh- the details, irrelevant, are replaced by an emotive score and some close camera-work, all of which makes us feel no less connected to the...

Edinburgh Exchanges

     I've also just jumped aboard the Edinburgh Exchanges blog, which contains snippets from students around the world on International or Erasmus exchanges. I do so hoping with all my heart that this will not entail any deadlines. http://edinburghexchanges.wordpress.com/author/jajderian/