oil – Energy and Time

Croatia day 25: Zadar

September 13th: We started by grabbing breakfast at the bakery near the bus station.

A slice of meat pie, and an apple pastry

Bakeries all over Croatia are multi-purpose. They’re breakfast places, and early morning coffee shops, as well as serving desserts and breads. (This was also true in Iceland.) One breakfast staple is a flaky deep pie with either cheese or ground meat inside.

The main task for the day was for me to find a medical clinic and get a blood test that I usually have once a month. My doctor insisted. 🙂 The first clinic I visited could not do the test, but directed me to one that could.

Me at the first clinic, waiting to be told that the test could not be done here.

On the way to the second clinic, we passed a “pyroshop” claiming to sell “pirotehnika”. My head swum with fantasies of hundreds of new ways to make fire. But sadly, it was only selling sporting goods like bicycles and scuba masks.

When we reached the second clinic, I had to show my vaccination certificates again, and wait a bit, but the doctor doing the blood draw was very professional. The charge for the test was 65 kuna (= about $10.72). That’s the full price; I was a foreigner with no applicable health insurance. Results were emailed to me in a little under 2 hours, about the same time as the Express Lab in Fort Collins takes. Makes “socialized medicine” (= “affordable health care”) start to sound reasonable.

The only minor snag was that “prothrombin time” was abbreviated PV, not PT. Because the Croatian word for “time” is “vrijeme”, naturally. So “PT/INR” became “PV/INR”.

Zadar is the oldest continuously-inhabited Croatian city, going back further than just Roman times (when it was called Jadera). The easiest way to get to the Old Town was to walk further out the harbor and cross over on a foot bridge.

Random columns dot the landscape. I just column like I see ’em.

I found the local EDM bar, but it was too early for anyone to be dancing.

Finding lunch took a long time. We could have just eaten near where we were – there were at least 2 open restaurants – but Carol was fixated on a particular street-food restaurant, so we walked a kilometer to get there. But it wasn’t open yet, and there was nothing near it, so we ended up walking almost back to where we started, through sights we had already seen. I think we need to start taking that “bird in the hand” idea a bit more seriously.

Carol had some mammal with gnocchi, and I had the seafood pasta.

Our main goal for the afternoon was the Museum Of Ancient Glass.

Bulk glass raw material, from a shipwreck near Mljet, 2nd century AD

An optical illusion mosaic “Old man and young boy”, made from glass tiles. Don’t see the young boy? Try turning it upside down.

The theme of the main exhibit was originals and imitations.

On raised stand, a glass bowl with ribs, 1st century AD. Below, 3 attempts to imitate it.

Some ancient tableware sets were all-glass, including plates, bowls, cups, vases, and jugs for wine and oil and vinegar.

Some public benches in Zadar are for sitting, but some are for lying back and resting.

For dinner, I had “mixed shells”, mostly clams and mussels but with a few razor shells. Carol went for the seafood risotto.

Around sunset, we went to listen to the Sea Organ and see the Greeting To The Sun.

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 24

O diese Lust, immer neu, aus gelockertem Lehm!
Niemand beinah hat den frühesten Wagern geholfen.
Städte entstanden trotzdem an beseligten Golfen,
Wasser und Öl füllten die Kruge trotzdem.

Götter, wir planen sie erst in erkühnten Entwürfen,
die uns das mürrische Schicksal wieder zerstört.
Aber sie sind die Unsterblichen. Sehet, wir dürfen
jenen erhorchen, der uns am Ende erhört.

Wir, ein Geschlecht durch Jahrtausende: Mütter und Väter,
immer erfüllter von dem künftigen Kind,
daß es uns einst, übersteigend, erschüttere, später.

Wir, wir unendlich Gewagten, was haben wir Zeit!
Und nur der schweigsame Tod, der weiß, was wir sind,
und was er immer gewinnt, wenn er uns leiht.

Oh this desire, always new, from loosened clay!
Nearly no one helped the earliest ventures.
Cities were built despite that on blissful bays;
despite it, oil and water filled the pitchers.

We draw our gods at first in daring plans,
which grumpy fate destroys for us again.
But they are the immortals. Look, we can
at least hear him, who hears us in the end.

We, a thousand year lineage: mothers and fathers,
filled with future children, always more,
that, once outstripping us, will shock us, later.

We endless venturers, what time we own!
And only Death, discreet, knows what we are,
and his profit, when he puts us out to loan.

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 10

Alles Erworbne bedroht die Maschine, solange
sie sich erdreistet, im Geist, statt im Gehorchen, zu sein.
Daß nicht der herrlichen Hand schöneres Zögern mehr prange,
zu dem entschlossenern Bau schneidet sie steifer den Stein.

Nirgends bleibt sie zurück, daß wir ein Mal entrönnen
und sie in stiller Fabrik ölend sich selber gehört.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu können,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluß ordnet und schafft und zerstört.

Aber noch ist uns das Dasein verzaubert; an hundert
Stellen ist es noch Ursprung. Ein Spielen von reinen
Kräften, die keiner berührt, der nicht kniet und bewundert.

Worte gehen noch zart am Unsäglichen aus ...
Und die Musik, immer neu, aus den bebendsten Steinen,
baut im unbrauchbaren Raum ihr vergöttliches Haus.

All we've gained is threatened by the machine, for
as long as it has a willful spirit and won't obey.
To show the lovely lingering of masters' hands no more,
for its resolute building it cuts the stone in a stiffer way.

Nowhere does it hold back, so we once break free
and it stays oiling itself in the quiet factory.
It is life - it thinks it knows best, and when involved,
orders and creates and destroys with equal resolve.

But to us existence is still enchanted; still source
at a hundred places. A play of purest force,
that no one touches, who doesn't kneel and admire.

Words still come softly to the Unsayable ... and
the music, ever new, from trembling stones,
builds in useless space its house of prayer.