north of Albania April 2011, Dubrovnik, podcasts

We spent much of the time in the car listening to stories and to podcasts. One podcast was about Global Warming. What do we do now? asked the host. The scientist-guest answered, "get working on the solution now and stop this silly bickering about if it is true or a hoax. It's happening, and now faster than anyone ever predicted." What convinces me is the melting polar ice--or at least polar ice that doesn't stay as frozen as long.

We also listened to a story about the Great Chicago fire of 1871. This story I downloaded from the Johnston, Iowa public library. I also listened to Black Like Me a story written by John Howard Griffin which focuses on a few weeks in 1959 when he takes a drug to darken his skin. He tours the Deep South--Louisiana, MIssissippi, Alabama, Georgia--to experience the racial situation first-hand. How nice it is to be able to use a library in Iowa from all the way over here.

After picking up Maura at the Tirana airport at 11:45 pm, we left immediately for Croatia. Since the airport is on the way north, we decided that we should simply get started instead of driving all the way back home, going to sleep for a few hours, and then getting BACK in the car early in the morning. Maura was coming from Rome where she had been for a Counsellor Fly-In sponsered by a couple colleges in Rome that attract high school graduates from the States, and from anywhere else actually. The International colleges invite the counsellors so they will go back to their schools and talk nicely to students about the prospects of a post-secondary education from a school in Rome.

We drove until Dubrovnik. We had been there last DEcember. The highlight of the stay was the walk around wall of the old city. Maxim and I walked on the wall again this year.

When we where in Dub last year, the water was quite turbulent. This year, I was flat as a pacake and beautifully clear.