I'm back.... or "snapshots from Croatian vacation"

I'm back. And I'm already cold (is it just me or is this Canadian summer kind of fading?). I was actually standing close to the BBQ today just to feel the warmth of the fire. But, Croatia..... well, that was the real summer. The one you easily get used to.

Botel in the heart of Rijeka City

I managed to go there for a little more than couple of weeks, and it was totally worth the 7 hours of uncomfortable ride in the first plane and then an hour in the second one to get there.

When I stepped onto the Zagreb's airport ground, all I felt was a nice, warm breeze.

That is,  before my parents managed to make an incredible noise, first arguing about the parking lot (which had nothing to do with me) and then showing their affection, hugging me and asking me if I'm hungry (cause apparently I seem to be thinner every time my mom sees me).

Downtown Rijeka

We hit the road to Rijeka, a beautiful city on the coast, where we were about to spend the first week of my vacation.

My father was holding a photography exhibition there and it happened so that my good friend Ana was living there at the moment so I got the spend lots of time with her too, as well as with some of other good friends.

I used to live in Rijeka, so being there after so much time brought lots of memories back, making the stay so much more interesting and intense.

Rijeka is a big city on northern Croatian coast - it's a harbor city, seaport with shipyards and heavy industry.



A part of it is Trsat - the old fortress where it all started back in the early times. Today, there is also the Sanctuary of our Lady of Trsat, representing the guardian of the travelers, especially seamen.

To get to the fortress, you can take the road - but more interesting path is the stairway from downtown all the way up, with it's 561 stairs (that's how much we counted).

Trsat stairs	Stairs downtown

According to the legend, it's impossible to count the stairs due to the devil who got mad and mixed them up once and for all, making them "constantly changing". Even today, people of Rijeka swear that the number of the stairs is is different every time you try to count them.

Korzo

Rijeka is an old city - full of stairs, narrow streets, old buildings and monuments. It's also a modern, European city, where people are open minded and good-hearted, full of classic and street art, culture and bursting with flair.

One of old buildings (with wide selection of windows)

We did all the average tourists do - which we rarely did before - visiting the old Trsat fort and counting the devil's stairs, eating in amazing restaurants, taking walks at night in the vivid main street called Korzo, enjoying cold beers on the boat club, going onto the crowded beach and eating pancakes there.

View from Trsat

We also did all the things we normally do when we're on the coast - eating bread with pate and tomatoes (traditional Croatian meal when on vacation), eating tons of watermelons, drinking beer in the apartment till the early morning, sharing stories, laughing and having fun remembering old times.

The time passed by real soon and we had to leave Rijeka and go back home - to my parents town. That was a different kind of week - lazy, relaxing kind of fun where everything is about my mom's delicious food, spending time with family and noticing how things changed in the house.

One of Zagreb's typical cafe's downtown

I've also spent two days in Zagreb.
I got really surprised by what they did downtown - making the city looking awesome.

It's full of tourists, and for the first time I actually had the feeling they have something to see. People dancing in the streets, playing music, walking in traditional national costumes, beautifully decorated cafe's and restaurants - a feast for eyes, ears and soul.

Zagreb downtown in the mirror

I did everything I wanted to do and therefore my vacation was 100% successful.

I've spent quality time with my family and had a great time with close friends.
I ate octopus.

I ate pasta with truffles.
I ate pate and tomatoes and watermelon.
I swam in the sea and sunbathe on the beach (the real beach).
I felt the scent of salt in the air, as well as rosemary, lavender and all the other scents of coastal, Mediterranean vegetation.
I drank home made liquor.

We had a great, hot weather and everything was perfect. If by any chance you plan to visit Croatia though, make sure you take more than couple of weeks to spend there...

Black and white walk

The weekend was cold and rainy. Black and white kind of weekend, no colours outside, all damp and grey.

No sun, no reason to get out of the house.

However, camera in one hand and film in other made me go outside to see if there's anything worth capturing.

Actually, I needed more practice with film developing so I bundled up and stepped outside.

Sprinkles of rain somehow made me think of home, because I know that my friends are experiencing sprinkles of sea right now, sunbathing at some beach, somewhere on the southern part of Croatian coast.

Meanwhile, here in Toronto, I'm doing my best in this Canadian weather. There's a place close to me with a little marina. Kind of a hidden place with no people, perfect for a short walk. Always lots of animals around. No walkers, no bicyclists or runners. Just boats and birds.




Couple of weeks back I've been there, for the same reason, and there was a swan, sitting comfortably in a nest, guarding the eggs.

This weekend, she was still there, at the same spot, with her little offspring. Reminded me of an "Ugly duckling" story. There are more eggs there, maybe next time there's going to be a whole bunch of little cygnets.

Also, lots of ducks and geese. As I was walking, on my left side there were geese with little goslings, nibbling on grass and enjoying the peace which was broken only by the sound of my shutter. 

While I was trying to shoot the goslings (with the camera, just to be clear), I've became aware that there's whole army of other geese on my right side, waddling toward me, making sure the moms and little ones stay protected. Canadian geese are huge, and I was obviously outnumbered, so I picked up my stuff and carried on, leaving them at peace. 

The mean birds are everywhere, and I watched them messing with the swan and fight each other for food. Or for something else, who knows.

Black and white walk, among black and white boats, stepping into puddles and thinking about black and white stuff in life. And how white can become black easily. And the other way around. 

I kind of felt black and white myself. 

It looked like it's going to start raining again (and I finished the film) so I decided to turn around and go back home to my black and white cat. 

Setting up the dark room

It all started with a gift. A friend, older gentlemen who often comes by, visited a week ago and left me a box full of old photo equipment explaining how he doesn't use it anymore and wants to clear up the house. At the moment, I'd never have guessed that this will bring me to a whole new level of experimenting.

My eyes opened wide and my heart raced while I went thru the box and among other things, I found an '84 Canon T70. 

When I felt the weight of it in my hands, it instantly reminded me of my childhood and of photo cameras my father used to have back when I was little.

It was really interesting reminding myself on how to even use it. It might sound funny, but last time I used camera with film was probably when I was 14 or so.  I totally forgot about how to put the film in it (it's not rocket science as I thought when I was a kid). I totally forgot about how you need to rewind the film at the end. And having a limited number of shots made me felt constrained at first, as well as not knowing whether the shot was even successful or not! However, all that sounded like lots of fun.

So, after I played with it for a day or two, while wondering how will the photos look like, somehow I thought it might be fun to try and develop them myself. That was a long shot at first, but as I kept researching, I realized it's actually doable. All I need is an adequate space, some chemicals, trays, paper and a photo enlarger. 

And film. 

And safe light. 

And clothes pegs and lots of other knick-knacks that happen to be useful (but you figure out that after you start).

It was Sunday when I woke up with the definite decision that I'm doing it. Went back to Craigslist and Kijiji links from night before and set up a meeting with a guy to buy the enlarger thing. I went to buy chemicals and found out that it's not that easy to find them, especially on a Sunday afternoon (however, I did find a great store next day, that had everything I needed in one place and with very kind and helpful staff - FilmPlus, close to Dupont and Lansdowne)

So, after experimenting with chemicals and finding the right alternatives (cause I couldn't buy them on Sunday), I ruined my first film by exposing it to safe light (wrongly I assumed it's safe). I tried again and ruined my second film with bad use of chemicals.

The third film was half decent, but it was still not developed properly and ended up being too dark. Accordingly, the photographs were lousy too. But it was a beginning!

So next day I bought all the right ingredients and the fourth film was actually quite good, due to proper chemicals.

(I also bought that little box for developing film the next day; very, very helpful.)

So the second day, the second batch of photographs ended up being pretty good. I'm still getting used to the camera and experimenting with lenses, but it's exciting and very inspiring. There's still stuff that I might need to make my life easier, but it works! And I'm happy.

Also, still need to figure out the easier way to open the film container, instead of busting it with the screwdriver.

All in all, an amazing thing to do! Lots of work and waiting, but there's something special in it. Maybe it is so for me, and not so much for the real photographers who actually did this when I was still in diapers. But there's the right time for everything and good old stuff are sometimes the best. And even though it'll never be like a digital photo, it makes me smile :)