Gessel On…

The cliffs at Sutro Baths at sunset.

Back at yyz and yet another snowstorm.

We only spent about 5 hours in Venice, between the arrival at dawn of the train from Zagreb until our departure by train to Firenza, but it was a perfect day. It was my first time there and it is by far the most photogenic city I’ve ever seen. It takes all the challenge out of photography that no matter where you look, no matter what time of day, there is some gorgeous and ancient structure or vista in front of you.
Sunrise

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Zagreb seems to particularly honor Nikola Tesla. He’s got a very nice street named after him in downtown Zagreb and an attractive plaque. Visit Sunny Croatia!

We had a wonderful meal at the Restoran Dvorisce. The local Croatian wine was very good and the food excellent: Carolyn had the spaghetti with crab and I had swordfish. The restaurant is stylish and clean and the service was excellent.

The night before we ate at Masklin I Lata, a cute little local homestyle restaurant with a great selection of local brandies. I had vegetable farina soup, Carolyn tomato rice. She had seafood risotto and I seafood spaghetti. All excellent.

Maps.

We went to a strip club in Zagreb on Andreje Hebranga Street at Ulica Gajeva. The club was stylish and upscale with very attractive women. Carolyn and I asked one of the very polite attendants what the process was and he helpfully explained:
A group of one or more men come in, and are charged an entry fee of 100 Kuna each (about $20 US at the moment). About two girls per guy sit around them and chit chat and smile and flirt (they don’t for a couple - they’re not quite that progressive yet). Eventually they ask you’d buy them a drink. The girls “drink only champagne” and while the rest of the drinks are very reasonable for a strip club (about 40 Kuna, but fairly light on the alcohol) Champagne is expensive: the menu lists 12 liters of champagne for 60,000 Kuna. Clearly the drink is a small part of the deal - the Champagne is not for the guest. If you want champagne, a strip club is not the place to go. They also list table dances (about 350 Kuna) and lap dances (about 500).

We had a few regular drinks, watched the girls go through their routines for a bit and then left. The wiki travel page seems a bit timid about strip clubs in the balkans, but the whole process was straight-forward enough and while not a bargain compared to US standards, not a rip off either.

The sex shop with the funny icons was close to another restaurant we went to. The strip club was minimally marked on the outside and we just happened to walk by the first night we were there.

Carolyn and Vera and Zolly and I went skiing in Tahoe; they stayed at Donner Peak and I spent the day running up and down Granite Chief at Squaw, the only part of the mountain no being blasted by enough wind to blow you backwards uphill. The snow got pretty heavy at times and it was very pretty.

Unfortunately the day before at (ahem) Boreal (ahem) I fell going pretty fast down their “black diamond” slope and bent my thumb back on the ice. The colors had faded by today and it is starting to move again.

I really want to make a “sports” personal GPS, something with an indestructible over the jacket/on the wrist/on the handlebar wireless display and a remote back mountable patch antenna on some kind of shoulder strap and a data recorder with heart rate monitor. My GPS showed a max speed of 40.6 mph, but it can’t really get the fast parts because I’m bent over then and it is hard to mount it where it can see the sky.

Where I learned to play soccer ride a tricycle and climb
Most of the playground equipment that was there when I was kid is gone now (I graduated in 1979 and started school there in 1969). But a few things I remember from the old days: the geodesic dome, the goal I used to play soccer in, and the little cement track I rode my tricycle on when I was 3.

Red brick coffee tofee brownie. Good food in guelph