Birth control pills cause brain damage

Note to self- dont pack so damn much.  While my backpack could have probably held more, I realize that 1 dress shirt and 1 less pair of pants would have sufficed. I deliberately did not bring jeans since they are heavy and take forever to dry after a good rainstorm- and we hit a few of those.  Shoes are a pain in the ass, but there was an absolute need for everything I took. Rockports with corrective insoles covered me for much of the trip but while they were drying, cross trainers filled the void on parts of the road where Mephisto sandals would have shredded my feet. Flip flops for kayaking and really wet days on cobblestones rounded things out.  Toys- Olympus E510. with wide angle zoom and telephoto have been my "go to" cameras for 6 years. Viewfinder when its is too bright to use the backscreen and multiple settings for various light conditions. 2 small backups- a FujiFinepix for general use- easily straps to waist and shoots 1020 video as well as Olympus waterproof- ...

Serbian Airlines made the trip 2 Vienna in 2 stages, Split to Belgrade in just under an hour- during which time they served a decent sandwich, coffee and bottled water- (Air Canada and Westjet charge for that privilege!) The Belgrade to Vienna run was 2 hours long- turboprop-I didn't think anyone had those any more, again a sandwich, no coffee this time, but a choice of juices. Customs was a breeze and the trip to downtown was a 20 minute bus ride through, judging by the smell, a coal gas plant and industrial area- hard to tell since it was dark.   The hotel was a 15 minute walk from the bus stop- thank God for GPS. AllYouNeed Hotel Vienna2 looked like a student dorm and the room itself an Ikea display complete with Billi shelving and wardrobes.  A quick breakfast this morning and then touring St Stephen's Cathedral by 10am- perhaps the most magnificent building I have ever seen.  A walk through the downtown core brought me to the Museum area for a tour of the Kunst ...

Monday September 8th,   The last full day before we return to Vienna. We arrived in Split Saturday afternoon and had a brief tour of the main old city accompanied by a local guide. The key structure is the Palace of Dioclecian, a Roman Emperor from late 3rd-early 4th centuryA.D. Originally located with its main wall running along the ocean, it is now several yards inland due to reclamation. Occupying 190 X 160 meters it was the emperor's private residence containing private living quarters, a large forum, temple to Jupiter and various other structures. A large mausoleum housing his remains was later converted to a Church ( he had a great dislike of Christianity and often punished it's converts) Much of the palace has been converted over the years into private residences, restaurants and hotels.A large bell tower, adjacent to the mausoleum provides a very impressive panorama of the city, if one dares ascend the many steep stone stairs and later on a set of steel steps to the top...

Friday ( I think?) night in Croatia and we are spending our second night in Hvar, an island due south from Split ( an hour by ferry)    As if being on an island in the Adriatic isn't enough, we took a 4 hour boat ride so we could travel to other islands in the adriatic where we swam, sheltered from a 2 hour pissing down rain storm and ate a reasonable lunch in the shelter of a bay on the island of Palmizana (almost like the cheese with a funny accent like a v over the z!) The main town of Hvar is has roots going back several thousand years. A fortress overlooking the town dates back to< I'm guessing here- 15th century. Architecture in town is a mix of Venitian and Moorish with ornate arched windows and doorways. The fortress walls in the lower part of town are barely visible as they have been blended into the walls of homes and commercial buildings. A main street is reminiscent of Dubrovnik , though somewhat narrower and shorter.   The harbour is home to small wooden f...

Never take shelter in a tunnel when it is raining!!!! This morning we set off with the best of inyentions- to see all the sites in Dubrovnik that we had missed yesterday. Things started off fine- a walk over and up to Fort Lovrjenac- a stone fortress outside of the old city walls which is, apparently used in the filming of Game of Thrones. Then a trip by cablecar brought us to the top of Srj mountain and the old napoleonic fortress. Inside the fortress, a display of photos and memorabilia from the 1991/2 seige of the city by Serbian and Montenegran military proved a sad and moving history lesson.  Wanting to get some photos of the city from different viewpoints, we chose to walk down the mountain rather than returning via the cablecar. This proved to be a rather strenuous zig zag over broken rock, pebbles and sand which took much longer than planned due to the rain damage from the massive storm on Monday.   Thunder cracked loudly overhead and a storm could be seen rolling in f...

Tonight we are in the Hotel Moskow in Dubrovnik. It's actually the Hotel Adriatic, but it was clearly built during the Soviet era- cement walls, very basic furniture and rather steire in appearance. Rated a 2 star, which is probably a stretch, it is home for the next 2 days. Across the road is a "beach" consisting of pebbles rather tha sand.  After extremely heavy rain yesterday, the water is mirky and the water coming out of the tap is brown.  The trip from Kotortook almost 3 hours due to a lengthy stop at the border. Apparently one of the major routes for drug trafficking and smuggling in general, customs officers were giving several vehicles a total search unlike anything I have seen elsewhere. They didn't rip out the seats but they clearly didn't plan on missing anything. Luckily our vehicle wasn't pulled over for inspection.  Afte checking in and grabbing a quick lunch our tour leader took us to the old walled city where we met a local guide for a tour of...

The promised rain and thunderstorms failed to materialize on Sunday, allowing us to spend the morning enjoying a pleasant but tiring 3 hours kayaking in the Bay of Kotor.  The afternoon was spent having lunch and walking around the town of Budva, located directly on the Adriatic a half hour taxi ride south of Kotor. Apparently having a better night life than Kotor, it boasts of attracting movie and music stars from around the globe.    Like Kotor, the main attraction was the old city, similarly surrounded by old stone walls and consisting of a maze of streets filled with tourists. In restrospect, we could have saved the taxi fare and stayed in town, but it gave us a break from all the cruise ship passangers flooding the town.  In the evening a hike up to the castle ruins overlooking the town proved an exhausting but revearding challenge as it afforded a magnificent view of the town and the eastern part of the bay. between the churchbells and the thunderstorm crashing...

Leaving the old city of Sarajevo by private bus, we quickly passed through the western side of the modern city, drab apartment blocks and elaborate commercial buildings, before heading south west towards Montenegro.  With three possible routes available to us, I wasn't sure why the driver selected the chosen path, shortest? most scenic? or scariest - perhaps all 3.  The road followed a meandering path along the sides of some rugged and rather steep hills that were mostly covered in evergreens. Reaching a town called Foca, about an hour from the border, the road began to narrow considerably as it wound higher up the slopes of a rather rugged mountain range. Severl hundred feet below.  a river rushed in roughly the same direction. Occasionally we would pass small homesteads bordered by low stone walls and fences, the owners working the small plots of land. Cows wandered freely, causing the driver to take evasive action on more than one occcasion.  At bends the road nar...