- Michael M.: Too much going on. Life in flux, etc..
- Sunshine: Wow, I was soooo happy to see a new post in my rss reader. I was hopping this is already the comeback! :(...
- gandalf: Did you only get caffeine through Dr.p or did you drink coffee as well? I’m interested, since...
- neeka: nine kilos… wow… :) happy holidays to you, michael, and to all your loved ones! veronica
- m: It was a bargain. No strings attached.
Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Maribor, Slovenia.
Portoroz, Slovenia.
• AlienMelon
• Burger.si
• Heck
• Izklop
• si.blogs
• Sloblogi
• Blogorola
• Natalija Verboten
That’s Split in the distant background.
I’m back from the island of Brač. Some unorganized thoughts:
* I was stunned by the omnipresence of Slovenian beer Laško there. Someone at that brewery deserves “Manager of the Millennium” award, because in two separate locales I visited they had neither Karlovačko nor Ožujsko (two local brands) but did have Laško. And there is green-goat paraphernalia everywhere. (See picture above) I suppose one can be a Croatian patriot and still love Laško (see: Balkan Baby) but beer in this region is such a politically sensitive subject that I’m just amazed Laško is even available outside of Styria, much less Slovenia.1
* Slovenes are the quietest tourists that ever toured. I think they’re on the polar opposite end of the spectrum as Americans, who seem to speak so that the entire beach can hear them. (Or at least so that Croatian women can hear them.)
* A brief visit to a real estate agency on Brač will cure you of the idea that Slovenian properties are expensive.
Asking price: €2,000,000.
* I decided to give up on caffeine for the holiday, just to see what would happen. Well, what happened is that I had a total system collapse. I couldn’t believe it. I always thought that the effects of caffeine were partly psychological, or that I had built up such an immunity to it over the years that it no longer affected me. But it hit me hard. I was constantly drowsy and unrested. On the third day, I had a three-hour nap in the afternoon; then went to bed at 8 p.m. because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I had to give up after that because I was at serious risk of sleeping through the entire vacation. The withdrawal period apparently can take upwards of five days, so I might give it a go some other time. Still, it was an interesting (and depressing) thing to learn about myself.
* I still think about sharks when swimming in the Adriatic. I hope you burn in hell, Discovery Channel, you lousy bastards.
That’s all for now. I’m spending this week in Berlin (as promised) on a press junket of sorts, but if I can get to a computer I’ll try to write a few words from there. Otherwise I’ll be back soon.
- On the subject of availability: I saw two Australians chugging Laško from 1-liter plastic bottles, something I haven’t seen here before. Another thing generally missing here: Croatian beers. Supermarkets will have a few foreign brands, but I’ve never seen Karlovačko for sale. The people at Karlovačka pivovara need to dump whatever losers are running the firm and import some of Laško’s managers. [back]
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The reason for omnipresence of Laško pivo in central Dalmatia is that they bought a Kaltenberg brewery in Split a couple of years ago. There they bottle Laško pivo and Kaltenberg.
Those were some nice observations.
It’s nice to hear you’re still alive, yet sleepy.
Ouch, and I thought coffee is something one can stop drinking any time … Especially during holidays.
You may need a laaaaarge umbrella for Germany… And it seems a lightning rod would be OK for some places, too
Caffeine is physically addictive. If you withdraw at once you get hypotensive.
Quote from wikipedia:
—-
Because adenosine, in part, serves to regulate blood pressure by causing vasodilation, the increased effects of adenosine due to caffeine withdrawal cause the blood vessels of the head to dilate, leading to an excess of blood in the head and causing a headache and nausea. Reduced catecholamine activity may cause feelings of fatigue and drowsiness. A reduction in serotonin levels when caffeine use is stopped can cause anxiety, irritability, inability to concentrate and diminished motivation to initiate or to complete daily tasks; in extreme cases it may cause mild depression. Together, these effects have come to be known as a “crash”.
—-
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Tolerance_and_withdrawal
Like withdrawal from all drugs, I would suggest you don’t go “cold turkey” but you withdraw by slowly lowering your dose over time. I guess thou I’m a bit too late for that now.
“Slovenes are the quietest tourists that ever toured.”
But, unless a huge contingent of Germans have moved into Slovenia and have been labeled as the Official Designated Drivers, Slovenes are the most, how shall I put it, SPIRITED drivers plying their car conducting abilities, at least while vacationing in Croatia. They must have either a strong Death Wish or incredibly responsive automobile insurance companies covering their, uhmmm, abilities.
Darko, the explanation is simple: That Is How Real Men Drive.
@Alcessa no it’s not!
@Micheal, my house is in far better condition, and has indoor plumbing, no war damage either, to think I’m asking a measly $79,500! and for a location in a neighborhood of our gulag that is low on grafitti, a neighborhood where no shots have been fired in about 5 years.
Of course I left out the crazed sword chase two years ago down the block, but those idiots are gone now.
Katja, I am sorry: I meant Slovenian men. You know.
Alcessa,
I’ll stick with the excellent insurance company explanation for the overall reason why Slovenians drive so fast.
As fas as why Slovenian men drive so fast, I always presumed it was because they were driving home to their Slovenian women.
As to why Slovenian women would break speeding laws??? I’ll leave that answer in the capable keyboarding hands of this blog’s female readers. I won’t venture into those fearsome waters; it’s more dangerous than Michaels’ imagined sharks.
lol
DarkoV: I like how you left that statement open-ended -> “As fas as why Slovenian men drive so fast, I always presumed it was because they were driving home to their Slovenian women.” It could be a bad or good thing I guess?
Darko: I expected “because they were driving AWAY from…”
and had some problems thinking about your diplomatic “home” notion.
But you know; I wasn’t kidding. You are not worth much if you drive according to the rules or carefully - that is my experience, I wouldn’t want to claim it is the general rule. To me it seems the most logical explanation
slovenian driving.. a nightmare yet to be covered by Discovery…
What drives me nuts when driving from (or to) the seaside is the all these tourists who drive at the maddening speed of a disoriented snail suffering from artritis…I mean… It the speed limit is 100 kmph, you just don’t drive 80 kmph, do you now?
However, I managed to get from Krk to Ljubljana yesterday in two hours flat. OK, the fact that Croatians are building highways that seem suspended in mid-air did help a bit
Yes it is very unfortunate what with all the car accidents caused by Slovenian drivers. It is therefore in a quest to find the answer to this problem I propose a sitting protest. Ah, I see most of us are already seated. So ready, steady, go! That’ll teach ‘em.
Yours etc.
Mr Fictitious
Regarding the beer: I once had a long theory laid down to me by a Croatian friend. He said that it’s simply a matter of a right perception of the market - while a couple of years ago Croatian breweries were busy pumping out new, fancy beer labels in hope of mesmerising the higher-middle and higher classes, Laško just simply went with relatively cheap beer of relatively high quality (compared to what was available on the market at the time) for the average Joe (well, Ivica). By the time the Croatian breweries realized they were doing something wrong (the aforementioned higher class just doesn’t go for something as mundane as beer), Laško had a staggering market share, including working class converts that used to drink Croatian beer. And since it’s not technically imported (it’s bottled in Split), the political issue is somewhat aleviated, as well.
I didn’t say Slovene driving in general doesn’t leave a lot to be desired. But I’d say that the main problem is not Slovene driving (which is very safe compared to the way the locals drive), but the curious huddling reflex Checz and Polish drivers have. Namely: They tend to drive in packs of three cars, just some 15-20 kmph below the speed limit, creating a massive tailback and making it very difficult for anyone to overtake them.
And if you do manage to overtake them one by one, they will gesture at you vehemently, for you are obviously disturbing a holy ritual by breaking the holy driver’s trinity.
slovenian driving.. a nightmare yet to be covered by Discovery…
They tried it once, but noone lived to tell the tale …
“And if you do manage to overtake them one by one, they will gesture at you vehemently, for you are obviously disturbing a holy ritual by breaking the holy driver’s trinity.”
Pengovsky, Hilarious!!
I think they play football in the same Triumvarate manner, namely boring as hell.
I once followed a colony of Czechs (colony being the correct descriptive for Czechs, like, say, “Flock of geese”), on the Magistrala for over 50 km. I finally had to pull over at a gostiona or I simply would have driven off a cliff to eliminate the frustration of boredom those Czechs were causing me.
Nek oni idu k Vragu!!
Alcessa, for someone who just got her license, you are brewing up quite the speeding storm!
There’s only one solution for Slovene driving…
Legal copilot-window-mounted machine guns NOW !
@DarkoV: Yes! Finally, someone who understands
@Disablez: Bring a whole new meaning to the term “riding shotgun“, no?
lol, nice travelstory!
greetings from leoben, they got wlan in the prisioncells now… hrhrhrhr
Hey there travaller… you’ve been tagged. See pestro.blog.siol.net/2007/06/27/sedem/
I hope you’re game
Yikes. would you mind correcting my typo?
Laško:
I wandered into the liquor store of a far-out, redneck suburb of Victoria, Canada the other day and was totally taken aback when I saw a Slovenian beer sitting on the shelf. They had half-litre cans of Laško Club for CAD$2.50! It’s pretty good too.
Infact it appears Laško is somewhat widely available:
ratebeer.com/Ratings/beer/beer-Distribution.asp?BeerID=47194