Romania circa 1992

I’ve decided that Mark’s house is in fact comparable to an Eastern bloc country. Romania August 1992 is what I believe is the current situation (Sunday 24 Sept) is. Though to be fair, it has substantially improved in a week (last Sunday it was Romania late 1990), though even then there was a working toilet and cold water running from 1 tap in the household and a rather uriney-esque smell coming from 3 of the upstairs rooms (sorry Mark, not being critical, just honest!). The smell has gone from two of the rooms and the carpet has been cleaned to a level where you’d feel comfortable taking your shoes off. I can only wonder what Mark experienced when he collected the keys (Romania immediately after the revolution, Dec 1989) when there was no water, no electricity and the place was on the verge of a civil war. But I’ve noticed that the average beer price has risen from 7p a pint to 19p. All I can say is that by the time the Bramall Rangers crew arrive in a couple of weeks (probably the equivalent of mass-tourism, easy-jet flights and stag-dos) Romania will have progressed to 2005 and they'll be Gucci outlets, McDonalds and Starbucks coffee shops everywhere and 1.50 beers. The power cuts, water shortages, secret police and food queues will have long gone…

someone who was really in Romania, 1990
http://www.mendicott.com/bbbform.htm

Knivskjellodden

It doesn’t roll off the tongue very easily but that's the name of the most northerly point in mainland Europe, though most people have heard of the more famous point nearby - The North Cape (Though there is a further argument that it's not even the most northerly point because it is technically located on an island off Norway connected by a tunnel)

Anyway it looks an interesting place and it can probably be done with a reasonable exploration of Norway in around 2 weeks. Ideally June-August would be the time to go and see the midnight sun at the same time. Norway is another place that I promised I would return to after going there on a geography field trip in 2001. We camped rough near a village called Gjerde and spent most of the day sitting in the sun or walking on glaciers.

Though holiday time is already starting to look very stretched next year as a trip to Spain with the Rangers is planned and I couldn't live without my annual pilgrimage of a week in Greece and a former USSR trip thrown in there.

And if you wanted to know where the most northerly Subway sandwich shop (Alta) or McDonalds is (Rovaniemi), here it is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_world's_most_northern

Hrvatska

An excellent week in Crotia saw me, Paul and Shiz visit Dubrovnik, Split, Trogir, Cavtat and Mostar. I would post some pictures on here, but that would take too long and I'm too lazy.

Goods
First time I've seen coastal Croatia and it really is as beautiful as people say.

Did some things I've not done before like eat Octopus (Dubrovnik) and go up to the top of a minaret (Mostar, Bosnia (and we went in with shorts and T-shirts on with noone being the slightest bit bothered) does this mean that muslims worship the US$/Euro more than Allah!?)

The view from our room in Dubrovnik

The climb up to the top of Srd Hill behind Dubrovnik

Bads
Having a sudden outbreak of vertigo on that minaret (or maybe that was Allah’s revenge)

The huge volume of tourists everywhere (in particular Americans)

The prices (3 quid a pint in Dubrovnik)

That Octopus was about 13quid

Arriving at the airport at 0655 to discover our flight was at 0710 not 0825 like we thought.

Overall though and excellent trip and I hope to be back soon.