10 November 2010

Milocer, Cetinje, and Dubrovnik

Recently I convinced the powers that be that it would be an excellent idea to let my offices in Belgrade and Pristina have a retreat together in a third country (and in case any of the PTBs happen to read this it as a really good idea-lots of productive things were done). Our first choice was Greece but I was not disappointed when the meeting was moved to Montenegro. I've never been before and it allowed me to tick off one more country on my Former Yugoslav Countries to Visit list.

We ended up in Milocer which is quite literally the poster city of Montenegro. Go ahead and Google image Montenegro and some of the first, and most reoccuring images you'll find is this:


It's not my best photo ever...heck it's not even the best picture I took but I managed to do a permanent delet of all my pictures. Without my awesome brother I wouldn't have even recovered this one. In any case, that's Sveti Stefan island. It used to be a fishing village but is now a hotel. The whole island is a hotel. The whole thing. I've always wondered if, given the choice, would I want to live near the water or near mountains? Well I've decided that I'll move to Milocer because it has both. It's one those incredible places where the mountains run right into the sea and between the bases of them are inlets with beaches. Rocky not sandy beaches but I was never one for laying out anyway.






Sigh. Really wish I hadn't lost all the great pictures I took. Ah well. Moving on...I also got to visit Kotor which is a fairly quick taxi ride away. Kotor is one of Montenegro's walled cities and was completely charming. I lost those pictures too so you get to see the few that were recovered.













As a group we took a quick day trip to Cetinje which is a mountain town, not coastal like Milocer. From our very (very very) loquacious and informative guide I learned that Montenegro has four climates. I certainly could feel the differnce. In Milocer it had been very warm and downright balmy but Cetinje was cold. Like see your breath in the air cold. We visited a few places but it was really the view that interested me.



On our last day we had a pretty good amount of free time so three of my colleagues/friends and I went to Dubrovnik, Croatia which was only about a 2.5 hour drive away. So yay for me...another country ticked off my list!! I have far more pictures of Dubrovnik since I hadn't deleted them. It's a charming coastal city, the old section walled like Kotor. It was a bit odd though because everything in the old city was the same color which made it all feel not quite real.






 Way too many stairs here for me. Almost every alley off the main road involved stairs. No thank you.




 I've never been to a church dedicated to Saint Blaise. That was very cool.



 See what I mean re the monochrome? Roofs all one color and stone all one color.



I wish I'd had more time in both places but I will definitely be going back to see more. And this time I won't delete the pictures.



24 October 2010

BRAAAIIIINNSS!: Or, the 2010 Silver Spring Zombie Walk

Last night, Andrea and I took a much needed break from annual and quarterly report editing to check out the 2nd annual Silver Spring Zombie Walk. Although we did not dress up this year, I'm considering definitely participating in the revelry next year.

AT first, we had a hard time finding the Mob of Zombies. It was mostly a couple of zombies spread out here and there.
Zombie Co-eds

The one on the left definitely wanted to eat our brains, the zombie on the right, she was a vegan, and also had a zombie kitten. :)

Please meet Zombie Hello Kitty.
I love that even the kids came out.

"Brain-bow Brite"

And then...the mob of zombies came running down the street in search of...BRRRAAAAIIIINNNNSSSSS!!!!!

Please remember that Zombies are people too...

And finally, I leave you with one parting view of the Silver Spring Zombie Walk...
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

17 October 2010

Maryland Renaissance Festival

A couple weeks ago, or maybe it was a couple couple weeks ago but I've been busy so sue me, Lauren and I went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I realize more and more every year what a geek I am and the fact that it annoys me that costumes at the festival didn't all match the Henry VIII storyline really drove that home. Why bother to have a storyline at all if people are going to wear whatever strange costume they have left over from last Halloween?  Regardless, its always fun to go and eat fair food, be amused by costumes (whether they match or not), browse vendor wares, and speculate as to how many buildings are permanent and how many get broken down at the end of the season.






Henna tatt station

Never really got the point of everyone walking around wearing some poor fuzzy animal's tail.



Bee people




 Yes...this is exactly what they wore in 1543 at Henry VII's court. Spot on.

 These people got it right! Well done. Especially on that cod piece.


 Court ladies taking a break for ices. Love it.

 Uh huh.

 Thinking steampunk dude must be swealtering.

My favorite costume of the day.
 
Crab pretzels?! What are these?!

Freaking genius. That's what they are.

 
Look! I make Gateaux! Now if I only knew what gateaux was...