Caption Competition!!!!

We came across this sign in (surprise, surprise) Dubrovnik. I thought it'd be a nice pic for a caption competition. My first thought: 'Get outta my parking-space!'

Over to you in the comments ;-)

Some Islands in Croatia

Ok, this is going to be a long one, so don't say you weren't warned....I'll do all the islands here and I'll do a separate post for Dubrovnik.

So, we spent 7 days on a boat in Southern Croatia which was lovely and relaxing and probably the longest we have ever not needed to pack our bags and move on. Here's a pic of our boat which did actually have sails but they only got put up once to show off.

And here's a pic that Nate took of the water because he thought it looked like oil and it kinda did.

So the first stop was the island of Korcula which was a cool little place. The highlight though was definitely Massimo's Bar which is pictured below. You got to the top via a ladder and the cocktails were hoisted up on the outside via a kind of dumb waiter on a pulley.

Here's us enjoying our cocktails at the top.

They also had ridiculous amounts of cats. We walked around one corner and I counted 14! Here's Nate with several of them after he shook his plastic bag and they all came running to see what he had.

And here's a little kitten we found. Too cute!

The next day we went to Hvar which is another one of the islands. They had a castle up the top of the hill so we went up there first. Here's a pic from the top. What a view!

We also found some gigantic dandelions on the way there. Here's a pic of Nate with a regular one and with the mutant one. Crazy!

The next day we went to Trstenik which was a tiny place but it had two wineries. The first one is quite well known and it was terrible. Two wines to taste and an awful woman working there. The next was fantastic. A really great guy and his son. The son was bottling and sealing the bottles while we were there. Here's a pic...

The wine was tasty and we decided on a bottle of red. The guy insisted we taste it again before we bought it. No complaints! We bought the red, borrowed some glasses and went and drank it on the beach. When we took back the bottle and the glasses the guy offered us more! I asked Nathanael to take a picture of me pretending to pour wine out of the vat thing and he insisted that I didn't pretend. Again I agreed. This one was the prosek which is like a dessert wine. Delicious.

And here's me and my new best friend.

Here's a pic of the beach at Trstenik. Out of shot to the left is a fair bit of rubbish which I've found is fairly common. Also, you can't see the sea urchins! They are evil and plentiful. Nate just brushed one with his hand and got some spine things stuck in his fingers. Apparently they can be pretty nasty if you step on them. Ouch. You just have to let the spines grow out eventually. Kinda like splinters.

We went to a few other places but they were fairly quiet. There were heaps of cats everywhere though. Here's some watching us eat dinner.

And one place was so boring some of the other guys resorted to skimming stones. And we also visited both supermarkets about 3 times each. haha.

Overall it was really good. We got breakfast and a three course lunch (oh yeah) on the boat everyday. The room had a double bed, cupboard and a surprisingly large bathroom (bigger than one we'd had in a London hotel only a week or so prior). And it was nice to relax and do nothing which probably sounds a bit rich from someone that has been unemployed for ages. haha

Montenegro

After the cab ride to the border we stopped to get our passports stamped and then continued over on foot. Here is Nate somewhere between Albania and Montenegro. Another crazy cab drive followed.

We stayed overnight in Ulcinj which is fairly close to the Albanian border. The next day we jumped on a 7am bus to Kotor. The roads were pretty windy and a little girl on the bus was throwing up most of the way there. We managed to get stuck in yet another traffic jam but thankfully the stunning coastline made up for it all.

When we got in to Kotor we went straight to our hotel in the old town. The light in our bathroom wasn't working so we got upgraded to a much bigger room with the biggest TV ever! We did do some sight seeing but we managed to catch several interesting shows on German/Austrian MTV. The highlights included "Double Shot of Love" which is a show about two bisexual twins looking for love ('nuff said) and "Rock of Love" which is the one with Bret Michaels from Poison, also trying to find love.

Anyway, enough about TV (we don't see one often - not in English anyway). Here's a pic of a church in the old town with the mountain in the background.

Outside of the old town though it was pretty run down with lots of derelict houses etc which was a huge contrast to the old town where we saw some seriously rich looking people that must have just jumped off the cruise ship or one of the many yachts in the port.

Kotor is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site (there must be a few coz I reckon we've been to at least 15!). It has a city wall that is pretty impressive and the views are just amazing.

Here's a picture of Nate as we were climbing the wall.

They also had quite a few cats, but that was nothing on Croatia but I'll get to that in the next post. I think I'm going to do a special set on Flickr which is just "Cats Around the Globe". Here's one of the Montenegrin variety.

Albania

So. Tirana, Albania. What can we say about it? Well, for a start, communism fell in 1991. Albanian communism was so hardcore, they told China it had sold out on its ideals. Prior to 1991, there were no roads into or out of Albania, and there were only about 600 cars in the country, all of them for party officials. Having only been able to have cars for the last 18 years there's still sights like the ones below to be seen in the more rural areas.


They have however very quickly grasped onto commerce and entrepreneurism. Here's a picture from a market we stumbled across. Mmmm tasty, tasty rabbits. Just out of the frame were some turkeys too.

Oh and it's definitely a waste-not-want-not society. Here's a streetside banana stall with the oldest, ripest (blackest) bananas selling for 10 Lek, and graded upards to about 35 Lek, I'm fuzzy on the exchange rate, but 35 Lek is around 50 Australian cents.

You may be wondering about the sights in Tirana, well one of them is in the picture below: Mt. Dajti, complete with Austrian and Swiss designed/built cable car.. There's a few other day trips to historic towns etc. but y'all've seen castles before.

Of course, why go all the way out of the city, when right in the centre of town you can take a toy electric car, a mini-quadbike or a mini-motorbike for a spin around an unfenced, public square?? Oh the thrill of seeing the adolescent employees hurtling around on the two right wheels (who needs the let ones anyway?) of a mini-quadbike, inches from pedestrians.


Oh, and on the way to Montenegro in a taxi, who did we see? Mr. Ed!!! So of course we pulled over for an autograph. It'll be up on e-Bay soon, keep an eye out for it.

There's no way to put up enough photos here to really capture the wonderfulness of Albania. It's a crazy place, but only because it's as far as we could see, it's a country that is so rapidly moving forward. There's a wonderful sense of optimism about all the little enterprising street-vendors. We constantly compare it to Mongolia. There's plenty of poverty, but it's balanced with hope. I'd love to know what it's going to be like in ten years.

Key West

The last stop for Nate and I in the US was Key West. What a great place. Very cool vibe and totally different from anywhere we'd been so far. We read somewhere that someone once said that they shook America and all the nuts fell to the bottom. Well that's Key West.

For some reason the place is full of chickens. Yes, weird i know. They are just cruising around and waking you up at sunrise like annoying peacocks on Rottnest. We saw a few squished chicks on the road too:(

Anyway, one of the local dishes is Conch fritters. Here are some we sampled... More dough then conch, but still delicious.

The first night we went down to the pier to watch the sunset and drink some booze. It's a bit like Broome where everyone goes to watch the sunset. So here it is...

While we were drinking the guys next to us saw these two approaching and asked for photos. Neil and I thought it would be amusing to get one too. Afterwards we were like "who the hell were they?", but it turns out we actually knew them! They had been finalists in that Can you Duet show we'd seen taped in Nashville. haha.

Anyway, turns out that the guy who I asked was actually famous too! He's Gabe Garcia and he was runner up in their TV show like American Idol for country music. So here's me and my new best mate Gabe. Check him out on youtube if you don't believe me!

Next day we spent the morning jet skiing around the island. Here's a pic of Christian and Casie on their jet ski.

That night we jumped on a 65ft yacht to do a sunset wine tasting cruise. Didn't learn anything about the wine but it was plentiful and Christian and Nate got to drive the yacht so everyone was happy.

On the way home we noticed a sign for a deep fried hot dog. Even though Christian wasn't hungry he decided this was not an opportunity to be missed so here he is with the hot dog. It was filled with cheese, wrapped with bacon and then deep fried. Luckily the bun wasn't deep fried too, although I'm sure that's available somewhere.

The last day we got up early and started the journey to Miami to jump on a plane. Lucky we did start early though as there's only one road into and out of the Florida Keys and we got stuck in a mega traffic jam. Not 2.5 hours like the one in Tennesse but still fairly rubbish when you have a flight to catch. Here's Christian showing the international sign for FAIL with the traffic jam in the background.

Florida City continued

Ok, we're really behind!! I'll try and catch up so the next few may be brief. We had about 10 days without internet which was way too long. Internet, don't ever leave me again!

Anyway, just a quick note on the previous post which Nate didn't finish(!)...

So, we went to the Robert is Here fruit stand to get some of his famous fruit milkshakes. There's a cool story about Robert that goes something like this...

As a young boy Robert's dad sent him out to sell cucumbers on the side of the road. After a whole day Robert hadn't sold any. His dad could not believe that people wouldn't want to buy delicious cucumbers so the next day he sent him out with a sign saying "Robert is Here". And he's been there ever since. Now it's a bit more than a fruit stand and they specialise in tropical fruits, jams, honeys and all sorts of delicious treats. Key lime honey is surprisingly tasty.

Let's be honest though, these 'milkshakes' come with a spoon and it is impossible to suck anything through the straw so they are hardly milkshakes as i would know them, more like ice cream blended with fruit and perhaps a dash of milk. Don't get me wrong, they are super-delicious. Here are some of the guys enjoying them. I had pineapple and coconut the first day and blackberry the second but there was about 20 or so flavours including their famous Key Lime.

We grabbed a Key Lime pie too which is one of the local specialities. Yep, it was delicious. I forgot to take a photo so here are some tiny bananas.

We also saw a sign for the Florida Panther which is think is just about as real as the Nannup tiger. Here's me and Chrizb looking terrified.

And here's Neil enjoying the serenity while taking a break from Canoeing (which is hard work!). Luckily there were 75cent beers back at the shop where we got the canoes. Oh yeah and a massive croc and some manatees! Hooray for manatees.

Crocs, 'gators and manatees - Part 1

Our next stop after Orlando was Florida City which we only stayed at as a way of getting close to the Everglades national park. For those of you who don't know and can't be bothered googling, it's an area that looks like a bayou or swamp but is actually a really, really slow moving river delta (or that's what I remember the park ranger saying, though my memory is often flawed).

There's a huge variety of wildlife in the everglades and I've put up a couple of photos of some of the more common stuff. My apologies for the formatting of the pics; I just can't get them where I want them. We were there in Florida's dry season, when the water is a lot lower, which explains the abundance of 'gators in one place. Those big black birds are buzzards (aka black vultures).

The ugly turtle is a Florida soft-shelled turtle. At first he was just a head in the water which looked really weird, but then he came out to bask and posed for a bunch of photos.

Our morning was spent walking a couple of very short trails admiring the wildlife, and the afternoon was spent paddling canoes, but I'll put up those pictures in Part 2.

TTFN!