COLUMNS
No Pomp Just Circumstance: Notes on Two Weeks of Croatian Dining
/ Nick Sylvester
08.28.07
//a//
On the flight back from Zagreb via Brussels to JFK NYC, the duration of which yours truly and his ladyfriend sat way deep in aisle 42, a light and all too frequent breeze away from a broken-door pisser, there was a black woman in a Delta stewardess outfit, handing out small sealed cuplets of still water. These are your standard-issue containers of water for a trans-Atlantic Delta coach-class flight, as far as I understand. The cuplet's aluminum peel-off lid had the name of its producer, DECANTAE, in one of those vaguely medieval tavern-type fonts. In small print around the circumference was something about the cuplet being "filled at Trofarth Spring, North Wales" and its "Composition" being "In Accordance With Results Of The Official Analysis February 1998." There were no further details about the analysis. Decantae is, by its own trademarked estimation, "The Prince Of Natural Waters." No explanation was given as to why or how one becomes or would even want to become "the prince."
//b//
Possible title for future piece: "In Search of the Prince of Natural Waters."
//c//
We spent two-and-change weeks vacationing in Croatia, June 30 through July 16, mostly in or along the Adriatic Sea: Dubrovnik in the way south; Lumbarda on the island of Korcula; a port city called Split; then up north to the small town of Njivice, on the island of Krk; the landlocked capital city Zagreb; with small stops in between the bigger ones obviously, at Mali Ston on the wine-growing peninsula Peljesac, at the historic city Trogir and another coastal town called Zadar, home of the Sea Organ. As waves crash underneath a set of large marble steps, water enters a series of thirty-five tubes with holes beneath sea level, and the pressure incurred produces this soothing multi-harmonic exhalation. It’s simple, but you can’t hear it if you aren’t quiet. The Sea Organ opened in April 2005, an urban architectural oddity now masquerading as a tourist trap, and so inevitably the kind of thing most people leave thinking "that's it?", often saying so aloud. They are their own disappointment.
On the flight back from Zagreb via Brussels to JFK NYC, the duration of which yours truly and his ladyfriend sat way deep in aisle 42, a light and all too frequent breeze away from a broken-door pisser, there was a black woman in a Delta stewardess outfit, handing out small sealed cuplets of still water. These are your standard-issue containers of water for a trans-Atlantic Delta coach-class flight, as far as I understand. The cuplet's aluminum peel-off lid had the name of its producer, DECANTAE, in one of those vaguely medieval tavern-type fonts. In small print around the circumference was something about the cuplet being "filled at Trofarth Spring, North Wales" and its "Composition" being "In Accordance With Results Of The Official Analysis February 1998." There were no further details about the analysis. Decantae is, by its own trademarked estimation, "The Prince Of Natural Waters." No explanation was given as to why or how one becomes or would even want to become "the prince."
//b//
Possible title for future piece: "In Search of the Prince of Natural Waters."
//c//
We spent two-and-change weeks vacationing in Croatia, June 30 through July 16, mostly in or along the Adriatic Sea: Dubrovnik in the way south; Lumbarda on the island of Korcula; a port city called Split; then up north to the small town of Njivice, on the island of Krk; the landlocked capital city Zagreb; with small stops in between the bigger ones obviously, at Mali Ston on the wine-growing peninsula Peljesac, at the historic city Trogir and another coastal town called Zadar, home of the Sea Organ. As waves crash underneath a set of large marble steps, water enters a series of thirty-five tubes with holes beneath sea level, and the pressure incurred produces this soothing multi-harmonic exhalation. It’s simple, but you can’t hear it if you aren’t quiet. The Sea Organ opened in April 2005, an urban architectural oddity now masquerading as a tourist trap, and so inevitably the kind of thing most people leave thinking "that's it?", often saying so aloud. They are their own disappointment.