We Do Adventure

We finally found it! Little Mexico. I blogged before about my reticence to deal in certainties when discussing life in Bosnia and Herzegovina but it could be Mostar’s only Mexican restaurant. We’ve lived here a year and we only heard about it last week. However, I now half suspect I’ll find and Indian around the corner or a Chinese take away just outside old town. Perhaps annoyingly, the restaurant was tucked away on the far corner of a building we’ve walked past a hundred times. However, we’ll not let that taint our enjoyment of this most welcome discovery. Its menu - the physical booklet that is – are the most impressive we’ve seen out here, boasting appetising photos and a Mexican history lesson, and a breakdown of what actually goes into guacamole! Without attempting a serious gastronomic review I’m going to say it’s well worth a visit. And in case you are in the area and want to check it out I’ve done you the favour of including a map. That way you may avoid walking quite as far a

Dubrovnik is known as The Pearl of the Adriatic, and for good reason. But we picked up some pearls of a different sort there earlier today. What follows is a bit of Aussie banter overheard on the city walls. Bloke*: So what do you do for work back home. Sheila: I work with Aboriginal communities Bloke: That must take some patience. Shelia: You’re an a**hole! I think it serves to highlight the tensions that can be linked to working with marginalised people – or it might have just have been it made us chuckle at the time! So if anyone has any more choice Australian wisdom, or serious thoughts about working with marginalised people, then do feel free the share... (*Bloke and Sheila may not be their real names!)

I’ve done a few name-and-shame posts in the past. This is the opposite. I’m going to kick off with a bit of credit-where-credit’s-due. Before our trip to the UK is asked some friends from my home town what local car rental companies they’d recommend. The response seemed to be that hiring from Gatwick Airport was the best option: it’s just down the road and we’d be flying in and out of there so it was convenient. Hertz were the cheapest for basic rental, although not necessarily for adding a second driver, so we made an online registration. When we came to pick up our Group B Fiesta or equivalent we discovered it had morphed into a Group C Focus, and at no extra costs. No complaints there! So after two weeks of racking up the miles around southern England I was beginning to wonder how things would be when I got back to driver on the right (or should that be right-hand side?) of the road. This is question everyone asks. How easy is it switching? Well, thankfully I’ve had no problems so f

Yesterday I promised a more Bosnian flavoured post. Today I break some sweet news, even if it is of an invasion. The picture has probably given it away already but this evening’s cause for joy (other than Spurs 5-0 win over Burnley) is this sight that greeted us at the end of the aisle near the cheese counter in Tus, our local supermarket. Yes, that really is a display of Tex Mex delights! This discovery came hot on the heels of the revelation that Mostar actually has a Mexican restaurant. We’ve not seen it yet but we now know where to look. Up until now we’d had no reason to assume anything other than that Mostar only had three types of restaurant: traditional national-cuisine ones, Italian-influenced ones and generic-grilled-meat ones. (Yes, we’re filing the plentiful pizza outlets under Italian!) We eaten in many of the above and several are very good but sometimes you find yourself yearning for a little variety. Faced with such a tempting – dare we say God sent? – display, what els

It’s been almost a month; in that time we’ve finished the Novi Most summer programme, cleared up Klub and spent a couple of weeks in the UK. Visiting England was an interesting experience, seeing familiar things but from a different perspective. However, I’ll not ramble on and on. Instead I’ll leave you with this ‘Alphabetical English Adventure’ list* and the promise of a BiH-related post tomorrow! Ben & Jerrys, Birmingham, Brighton, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, CBSO, CDs, Coldplay, Delirious, Double Deckers, family, fish and chips, FOPP, Ford Focus, food, football, friends, Gatwick Airport, Girls Aloud, Gunwharf Quays, Hertz, Hillsong, HMV, Hotel Chocolat, Jay-Z, Julie & Julia, Kettle Chips, KFC, London, M25, Mabel, Nandos, Novi Most, O2 arena, Oxford, pear cider, presents, punting, Sherbet fountains, Symphony Hall, tea, The Time-Travellers Wife, TK Maxx, trains, Vivid, WeDoAdventure, Wembley Stadium, You Get The Story When You Go. (*the lines of which may be read between, at your di