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As you may have noticed I have been away for the last few days, this is because I have been on holiday in Istria in Croatia. We had a nice time although it did rain half the time we were there.

First Day - We arrived in the evening and negotiated the complex parking system. We went to the Hotel Cafe, one of five, for a coffee. They claimed to have 32 types of hot chocolate, the menu included various things like hot chocolate with lemon, or a darker chocolate one. I ordered one with banana. Sadly I was disappointed as I could not taste any banana in it. Everyone else was also disappointed with their food so we decided not to go to that cafe again. We spent some time getting unpacked and then headed down the coast to find somewhere to eat. After a while we found a nice cafe with 'live music'. The food was good but the live music was terrible, but they didn't try to charge us the 10% extra they said they would on the menu.

Second Day - We headed down to breakfast, and were greeted by a massive buffet. There were selections of ham and cheese; seven types of cereal, four of them chocolate; some Croatian desserts, yoghurts and fruit but best of all there was a man cooking pancakes. After stuffing our faces we decided what to do with our first full day. It looked warm but not that hot so we decided to go and see a canyon with stunning rock formations. After travelling through a long tunnel we arrived at a small car park. There was a map and signs depicting a route to the edge of the cliff. We walked down while reading the periodic information boards. Eventually we reached the edge and took a number of pictures of the valley before heading back while the weather got even hotter.

Next we needed to find somewhere to eat lunch, there had been a sign on the main road saying 500m (1/3 of a mile) to a restaurant in the hills so we decided to follow it. After driving for around 15 minutes, and we were beginning to wonder if this place actually existed, we at last found it. It seemed to be modeled on a hunting lodge and had lots of dishes like wild boar, I decided to go for a more traditional option of mushroom risotto followed by a steak. They were both really well done, probably the best meal of the whole holiday.

We headed back along the coastal road and on the way visited a small town with lots of original architecture. As we wandered around we also saw almost 15 cats. My mum had saved some cheese from breakfast which we fed to the cats as they would not come near us otherwise. As we fed three another two arrived until we had the whole cat family of one black parent and one tabby parent; a black, a tabby and a tortoiseshell kitten. They all seemed to be totally starving and gobbled all the cheese we gave them although they still wouldn't let us stroke them. As we wandered through the rest of the town we encountered many more cats many of whom looked very hungry but we had no more food for them.

Third Day - We woke up to a grey day, so decided that today was not the day to go to the beach. We went to a town called Pula to see the Colosseum there. Sadly the traffic on the way in was almost solid so by the time we arrived it was lunch time. We headed up to the Colosseum hoping to find some restaurants there. We wandered around and found a large number of bars and cafes which didn't serve food and a small number of take away pizza places. No restaurants near a tourist attraction?! Does that even happen? Eventually we found a restaurant attached to a hotel just before it started to pour with rain. After eating we headed to one of the cafes we had seen earlier and ordered our drinks. The waitress arrived and placed all but one of the drinks on the table. As she put down my sister's hot chocolate the mug tipped, and flew off its saucer. The cream landed on Evie (my sister) while the chocolate still in the mug smashed to the ground, spraying chocolate and glass all over the couple sitting at an adjacent table.

After our earlier adventures it was a relief to at last reach the Colosseum. We paid the £2 entry fee (much cheaper than the one in Rome) and began to wander around, while still trying to shelter from the rain. On the way around we spotted another cat hiding out of the rain under a stone arch. It was already soaked and refused to come out into the rain even for food, very wise. After looking around the museum and buying a small magnet for James in the gift shop we got back into the car trying to find the other Roman monuments but after getting stuck in traffic and at the end of a no through road we decided it wasn't worth it.

Fourth Day - We woke up to even heavier rain, so decided to head to the large city across the bay, called Rijeka. We parked and headed towards the center. In our path was a massive local fruit market where they were also selling some bags, so Evie bought a really big one for sleep overs etc for only £8, I looked for a bag I could use to carry my books at uni but none seemed suitable. We reached the main street and were amazed to see a branch of Topshop and further along a branch of Lush (which sells scented bath accessories). First we wanted to eat and spotted a restaurant near the main street. After eating we went shopping and after trying on a large number of things I at last bought a pair of jeans, my only pair that aren't too big, but Evie warned that as they are stretch they may get bigger too, sigh.

Fifth Day - At last it was sunny again, we headed to the beach. We were promised sandy beaches on an island called Krk. After driving for over 2 hours and then parking in a flood of water from the previous nights rain we at last arrived. Sadly the beach was stony but there was sand under the water. We did lots of sun bathing while reading and then ran into the water trying not to think about how cold it was. We swam out to some floating 'safety boys' which looked like mini banana boats. After getting my balance I lay on one for a long time before swimming back to shore. We then headed back to the hotel to pack.

I'll be posting some photos here soon once I can get that organised so check back. I hope you enjoyed reading this, if so say hi. I'll be posting again soon about my A-level results due on the 17th which decide if I get into Uni.

If you are wondering who James is all will be explained soon. He told me I should write a blog post after his party and I told him that he should, as we are both much too lazy it hasn't been done yet. I will try and get him write one this weekend but we may get distracted.

Comments ( 0 ) - Date: 15/08/06

Everyone has been using Flickr for ages apart from me so I though I would give it a try. For those who are thinking shouldn't you be revising, you have exams at the moment, yes you are right but I am very very good at avoiding work. I already have a yahoo account so that made signing up easier although there was a bug while I tried to choose a screen name and Lydia was taken, sigh, so as usual I am funkylydia there, although the yahoo account is a real pain as even funkylydia was taken there, and I thought I had a monopoly on the nic funkylydia, ah well. So onto the photos.

First some sunsets I took a few days ago, the first one is from the top floor, and the second is from the garden about 5 minutes later, they look surprisingly different considering.

Next I thought I would show you two of my cats, the ginger one is Goldcrest and the tabby/tortoiseshell is Roxanne. They are brother and sister which explains why they look so similar.

Comments ( 2 ) - Date: 14/06/06

Everyone has been worrying about rising petrol prices, the Americans seemingly the most noisily. Helpfully The Economist released a graph showing petrol prices, hopefully this will put some perspective on the situation. All figures are in USD and per US gallon.

Firstly as we know that people in the US are paying about $2.40, lets compare this to other places. Obviously prices in Canada and Mexico are pretty similar to this, as otherwise people would be popping over the border to fill up. Canada is slightly more expensive and Mexico is slightly less expensive. But what about Europe, surely a suitable comparison? Well in the UK it is $6.00 this is $4 of tax and $2 is the price of the petrol, and is more than double what people in the US pay. Germany, Italy and France all pay around $5.70 still double the US price. Eastern Europe is slightly cheaper at around $4.00. Australia is similar to this at just under $4.00.

So you ask, are the Americans in fact getting a really good deal? Well there are some countries where you pay less. The Oil producing ones are the cheapest. Saudi Arabia is still only $1 with no tax at all. While Indonesia and Venezuela are even cheaper. Russia, also a producer has prices of $1.50 while China is slightly more expensive.

Who pays the most though? Well that would be the Turks, they pay $6.70 per gallon of petrol, 150% more than the Americans. Looking at the whole list of 28 the US comes 18th (first being the most expensive), so if you are living in America you are paying less than the average person for your petrol. Try living in the UK where we come only 3th. Maybe its time for everyone in America to get rid of their 4x4s and get a more environmentally friendly car, it might be good for the environment too.

Comments ( 9 ) - Date: 14/05/06

On Sunday night (actually Monday morning) the worlds most stupid mugger decided to appear outside my house. At first I just heard shouting and as it was 2am I decided to try and ignore it. But no they carried on, and I discerned some words, 'give my your f***ing phone' shouted at top volume. So as this sounded bad I decided to check what was going on. I looked out the window but couldn't see anything as they were further down the street and there is a tree in the way. But I could hear him demanding their phones, still at top volume, great way to not get noticed. I could hear the people arguing among themselves, the mugger then demanding just one phone. One of the women said that she was going to call 999 (emergency services) and the mugger said that he would do it for her, why would he do that? One of the girls appeared at the closer end of the street and seemed to be on the phone to someone.

After a little longer and more argument they all appeared opposite my house. There was a group of two men and three women who were being mugged and the mugger a quite big man in his 30's. He didn't seem to have any weapon of any sort so targeting a group of 5 people seems a little silly. There was more argument and then the mugger hit one of the girls who fell on her back, and her boyfriend said 'how dare you hit my girlfriend' and hit the mugger back. At this point I decided it might be time to call the police so I headed downstairs to ask my parents what they thought. We were about to call the police when I saw the reflection of a blue flashing light in the lamp post. The police had arrived.

I headed back upstairs to my room, as there was a better view from there, my sister had got out of bed and was looking out the window. We watched as 2 police cars and a van pulled up, maybe more than one person phoned the police. The police seemed to have got the mugger, and I knew it was the right guy as he was shouting again, and after 30 mins of his voice I recognised it. He was struggling so much that three police officers were needed to hold him. A police van then pulled up and they put him into the back. He then decided that it would be a good idea to try to break the doors open so was banging on them with all his might, the only affect this had was to irritate everybody. The police were also interviewing the people who he had been trying to mug and they seemed to be taking statements. After another 10 minutes or so the police departed and we decided it was time to go to bed. It was was now 3am, we had lost an hour of sleep, typical.

I have been looking at my stats recently, mostly to put off working. And I noticed that I got more page views in the last two days this month than I got in the whole of May 2005. Which is just incredible. So hello everyone. I don't know if you are reading this but if so hi.

Comments ( 0 ) - Date: 02/05/06

Google Video now has a top 100. With some very amusing videos. Incredible Machines is probably the best. If you remember that honda advert, where there was a chain reaction with each movement causing the next, these will remind you of them with 13 minutes. There is also this short clip of a kitten falling asleep.

Comments ( 2 ) - Date: 15/04/06

I was reading the Eidos forums today and DABhand mentioned the GameSpot video review of Big Rigs. It was probably one of the funniest things I have seen in ages. It does seem to be a very bad game, but the reviews are all amusing, Wikipedia has a nice summary of the whole thing and also links to the list of commercial gaming failures. You will notice our old friend Angel of Darkness was included in the list. I then found a link to Something Awful's Game Reviews, they wrote one on Deus Ex which was very funny as it was so true. For example:

Eventually all the conspiracy theories are wrapped into one tightly-woven ball of clichéd movie plots, and J.C. Denton is required to fly to Area 51 in a black helicopter while wearing a tinfoil helmet and ripping out the gold fillings in his teeth so the government can't intercept his alpha waves and steal his plans for a cold-fusion device while he sleeps. Well, the conspiracy stuff isn't that bad, but you'll probably think you're watching an episode of "The X-Files" about halfway through the game (and not one of the episodes where Moulder has to hunt down some genetically engineered, fire-spitting, psychic earthworms that have taken over a redneck laundromat).

So true and they gave it 42/50 (which is basically 92/100 as its between -50 and 50) so they were being nice. A must read there. I wonder if they will write a review for Legend, fingers crossed.

This concludes another poinless blog post from Lydia

Comments ( 0 ) - Date: 12/04/06

As you may have noticed I now seem to be adding one or two news articles a day, which is keeping me really busy. Not to mention the fact I have A-level exams in under 3 months, so its all rather stressful. I don't know where its going to end. Yesterday was incredible, TR Legend Demo, My AS Results and Physics Coursework (water from a bottle if you are intrested).

Anyway you will probaly have noticed that you can now comment on the news, I also noticed that the blog comments wern't working, that has now been fixed, so feel free to comment again.

Comments ( 0 ) - Date: 10/03/06

Amusing event of the day, or something of the sort. I arrived in chemistry today and found five members of the class sitting on the desks with their legs streached out and their backs against the wall. This was possible due to the fact that the chemisty lab has long desks rather than seperate ones. Our teacher then came in and didn't seem bothered by the fact that half the class were sitting on the desks as long as they could still take notes so we continued the lesson as normal. About half way through the lesson a group of people who were being shown around the school arrived. I heard them comming so I had the benefit of seeing them raise their eyebrows as they came in. Our teacher said to the parents that he didn't mind us sitting like that and carried on teaching while we all tried no to laugh. I'm somewhat curious as to what those parents now think of the school.

Comments ( 0 ) - Date: 25/02/06