Croatia: Friday

First, the news to celebrate: this morning we found out that our paper won a best paper award at the conference! Yay!

I went to the morning session of the conference, while Tim and Maya went on a walk. They walked up to a cemetary and mausoleum that overlook Cavtat. Here are some photos from their walk:





I met them late morning, and we checked out of the Hotel Croatia. Here are some pictures of the hotel:



It turns out it wasn't the greatest hotel; it definitely wasn't worth the 5 stars. The staff was usually very helpful, but on several occasions, they had quite sassy responses to requests. The three of us walked into Cavtat, did some shopping, and had a fantastic lunch at an out of the way restaurant that was recommended by both our tourbook and the guy next to Tim on the airplane:


This afternoon, we flew to London. When we finally got to our hotel (it seemed to take forever to get through immigration and ticket lines), we were more than pleasantly surprised. It's a lovely place that we got for a great price (especially for central London), and we can see the Houses of Parliament from our window. And they have free (reliable) internet access. Yippee!!

Depending on how tired we are tomorrow evening, we might give you an update on our day in London.

Croatia: Thursday

Today was a slower day. This morning, Tim got up early to run against all of the SE crowd in a 5K. Not surprisingly, he won the race, which was an unexpected complication for the organizers. He got a small prize. Here's a photo.

Maya was still sleeping, so I had to stay and sleep in with her. Bummer, eh? Here's Maya ready for a new day after a good sleep:


More conference for me today. I did give Tim a babysitting break during one of my breaks today, and he went for a walk along the coastal cliffs. These are the only real photos from today:



Jamie presented our paper today; we enjoyed a celebratory drink after the fabulous presentation (and also in celebration of Drew's great presentation earlier in the week):


The area had their first big rainstorm in four months, so Tim and Maya were trapped in the hotel this afternoon. Then we went to the conference banquet.

We leave tomorrow afternoon for London; there might not be any more posts until we get back to the US since I don't know if we'll have Internet access at the hotel there.

Croatia: Wednesday

Whew. Today was the first day of the conference (the real reason that we are, after all, here). I had a day of that, though there's nothing really to share about it. Tim and Maya cooled their heels around the hotel this morning (and when I say "around the hotel" I mean on the shore outside and around the hotel). Here are some pictures from their walk:



Then the two of them went into Dubrovnik again. They went to a museum (the Rector's Palace) and then on a couple of walks with great views. Some more pictures:






The conference excursion this evening was into the old city of Dubrovnik, so we took a bus in to meet them (we were supposed to take a boat, but the winds made the crossing impossible again today). We went to a conference reception and then out to dinner with Jamie and my student Drew:

Croatia: Tuesday

The internet access is not good. Here's a quick update this morning while I do have some connectivty.

Yesterday, we spent the morning at the beach and at the pool. It turns out that Maya's a little waterbug. She loves it. We spent the morning with Jamie who arrived late the night before. Then we took a taxi to Dubrovnik (it was too windy to take the boat safely). We wandered around Dubrovnik, then stopped to have some dinner. The tour book claimed this was the best pizza in Dubrovnik, and it was fantastic. We then caught a taxi back and made an early night of it (if 10:30 can be considered "early"). Here is a smattering of photos:

The view from our room:


A street in Dubrovnik:


Boats in Dubrovnik's Old Port:


The sunset over the sea:

Croatia: Monday

Today we spent most of the day in Dubrovnik. It's only a few miles away, but it's not the easiest place to get to. This morning, we went over in a bus that stops at all of the hotels along the way (I think our hotel is the first), so it took about 45 minutes. We spent the day walking the old city walls. It's not that far in distance, but there's a lot of up and down stairs. While' I'll blame it on the fact that I was carrying Maya most of the way, the truth is I am woefully out of shape. Here are some great views from the walls:






We then had a lovely lunch in a Dubrovnik restaurant and wandered around the city some more. Here's Maya at lunch:


Maya also had a couple of firsts this afternoon: her first boat ride, and her first swim (the pools here are saltwater, which is fun for something different). Here's a picture on the boat (not great, but for what it's worth):


And a picture of Cavtat (where we're staying) from the boat:


And a set of (progressively deeper) swimming shots:

Croatia: Saturday and Sunday

We've arrived in Dubrovnik without significant incident. All of the flights were on time, nothing particularly stressful about the trip, other than some minor turbulence over the Atlantic. Maya did as we had hoped and slept the entire long haul flight. And most of both of the shorter ones (coach is apparently much more comfortable if you're only 2 feet tall). Bringing her carseat along was most definitely the best decision:


We've checked into our hotel (Hotel Croatia). It's great, and the reception is extremely impressive. We received a very personal greeting, were immediately handed our room keys (no imprint of our credit card needed!), and had a bellhop take our luggage up for us. When we got to our room, the baby bed was already assembled and made up, and we had even forgotten to ask about it when we checked in. We've also had time to take a little walk along the hotel's patios and down to the "beach" (which is just a set of stone steps that plunge into the ocean). We'll try this out (perhaps all of us other than Maya) and the hotel's two saltwater pools sometime later in the week.

Here are some views from the hotel:


We went back up to the room to clean off the travel grime; Maya immediately conked out:


Soon, we're off to dinner in Cavtat. I'll try to keep you all as updated as possible, though the internet access is not as great as I had hoped. It is free, which is good, and it also seems to be fast. But it's only in the hotel's public areas. The network is teasing me; my computer can see it from our hotel room but can't quite seem to get enough signal to get connected to it. I'll keep trying. More soon!

Finally Finished!

On July 12, the work began on our back yard. Yesterday, everything was finally finished. Here are some photos of the completed work:





Our extreme gratitude to Audrey and Arthur who've been keeping the dogs all this time. I'm sure they're looking forward to our return next week...

Maya likes the new yard:


Or maybe not: