Hot enough for ya?

In case you were wondering, no one asks you that here. But (in case you were also wondering) it IS hot enough for me here, thanks very much. It`s been 95-100 during the day for at least the past week. At night it cools off nicely, maybe to somewhere around 75 or so, which is perfect, so we open the windows and let the house cool down. During the day we just keep everything closed, which works well enough, I guess.. I mean, hot is hot but it helps to be out of the direct sun, and inside it`s generally around 85 during the day.

Slovene is coming along. I have a new teacher and I`m trying to see her twice a week.

Work is still fairly busy but we`re hoping it will slow down even more for August (or maybe not -- at least it`s air-conditioned!). We hear that the beginning of September is very quiet so that`s when we`re planning a visit to the NJ area.

The image above is from our brief escape last weekend for some sun and swimming. We went to the small town of Baška on the island of Krk, which is about a 2-1/2 hour drive from here. It was crowded, but the beaches and water were clean, and the water was warm. We did a lot of napping and swimming (perhaps `floating` would be more accurate-- we`re lazy swimmers). On Saturday we went to a different beach which is only accessible by boat -or- by a 3 hour hike over a giant, rocky hill and through a canyon and back up and down another hill....Which route do you think we took -- the boat or the hike? It wasn`t crowded at all, and we loved it. Most of the beaches here are not sand, but instead are covered with small, smooth stones. Now that we`ve spent some time at the beach, we`ve decided we prefer the stones to sand. They`re lovely and warm when you lie on them, they`re easier to anchor an umbrella in, and they`re much tidier (they don`t blow around in the breeze and they don`t creep up the back of your swimsuit!)

The area surrounding Baška is a strange looking place -- imagine some enterprising individual established a resort nestled in a valley on the moon, added some salt water, and several thousand scantily-clad people. And lots of gelato stands. Really, it looks just like that.

Today I`m catching up on some paperwork and maybe we`ll take a drive this afternoon to a moderately-sized lake in a nearby town, Cerkno. The lake, Cerniško Jezero, is mysterious: it`s known as The Disappearing Lake. Due to some strange karstic phenomenon, one day it`s there, and the next it`s not. And then one day it`s back again... You get the idea, I`m sure. So we`ll go, but we`ll prepare ourselves for disappointment just in case it`s the Cerkniško Puddle today.

Have a nice day, and a fun weekend!

Hugs,
-S

Yep, it`s time to get this monkey off my back! I`m just doing a super-short, speedy update just to let you know that we`re still alive and well and still digging life here in Ljubljana. Sorry for not updating sooner, but first Brian came to visit (04 May) and we went on vacation together. Up until then we had been working a grazillion hours and so I just had no time. Then, when we got back (15 May or so), our internet connection was kaput. To make a long story short, we had to sign up for new service and that took another month to get set up. This brings us to almost the end of June. And then my FlickR photo hosting service expired. And then I was thinking about the 9,187,004 photos that Brian and we took since the last time I updated, and that was enough to make me head for bed, crawl under the covers, resume fetal position, et al....

But now I`ve renewed my FlickR account, and I am someday going to label and post those pictures, abeit slowly*. *in between working and completing/submitting all of the crazy paperwork you have to complete if you are a foreigner living and working and owning a company here. And we plan to take some little bit of vacation time here too, of course, although the idea of taking more pictures makes me shudder (pun intended - that one is for you, Bri).

So, patience is a virtue, good things come to those who wait, blah blah blah and so forth. Hope you`re all doing well and enjoying the summer.

Hugs,

-S

Too pretty to eat?

This is a Romanesque broccoli-cauliflower cross, or, as it's translated here "yellow cauliflower". I've also seen it called other names, but most are similar to 'roman cauliflower', 'mediterranean cabbage', etc...

I'm not exactly sure what it should be called since it's a hybrid, but unless you'll be standing at your local grocer or seed distributor demanding access to this green goblin, the name's not so important. In this picture it looks like a conch shell, and it REALLY does look like that in actuality. It looks like a vegetable that deserves undue attention, such as a song about it, or at the very least, a blog mention.

When we first saw it at the market I genuinely thought it was too pretty to eat. We passed by it for a while, pointed at it, made admiring sounds and nodded approvingly, but didn't buy any right away.

We got over that.

We bought some a while back and cooked it up; it was very good -- more flavorful than cauliflower but without the tell-tale broccoli taste (I find that broccoli can sometimes taste like cabbage, especially if it's old).

When raw, this remarkable veggie's chartreuse green color is arresting, and the whorl pattern is hypnotic. Unfortunately this color fades to a light yellowish green when it's been cooked, but that doesn't make it any less desireable.

I hope it makes its way to the U.S. at some point. Or maybe not, so then you'll have to come here and find other astonishing things, in addition to odd edibles.

You can go HERE to read a good article on the fractal nature of this vegetable. I thought it was interesting.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/Romanesco/