Dubrovnik

12 June 2009

"Did you see that?"

Cat #2 hopped through the window and onto the chair and had run out of the room.

"What do we do?"

There are two cats loose in this house.

"Is the front door open?"

"I hope so."

Seconds later Cat #1 returned to the kitchen and jumped out of the window. We were still trying to eat our dinner. Our "hostess" had insisted we eat some plumbs (from her garden?) and sit in her kitchen to eat. By the time the cats started jumping, the others had retreated to their rooms and we were alone.

The meal itself was grim. The canned corn was our main staple at the meal. Everything else was there for decoration. How do I explain this? We were only going to eat the corn, but the hostess, her family and guests (we can't tell who is a guest and who is family) were all witnesses to our pathetic meal, so we brought in all the food we had: chip crumbles, avjar (eggplant and pepper sauce), 2 dried bread heels, and leftover pasta salad. All of this old food was just for show. We were sitting in our hostess' personal kitchen, so we already felt awkward - we didn't want to feel any weirder by having her see us eating only corn.

Sobe are rooms in someone's home for let. Sometimes you end up in a shared apartment situation and sometimes you end up falling asleep staring at photos of somebody's kid. This sobe is somewhere in between.

We don't know this lady's name or even her address (I'm not positive we could find the sobe on a map), but we are staying with her for as many as four nights.

All we know is that she is very generous and had ten toothbrushes in various states of decrepitude in a cup sitting on her medicine cabinet. I'm pretty sure that at least some of these toothbrushes are currently in use. Hopefully, they are all used for different cleaning tasks (the grout in the tub, around the faucet, etc.)

The lady at our last sobe (whose name we also don't know) set up our stay in Dubrovnik (which was really nice seeing as we had no internet and no way to reserve anything ourselves). Although, if we had arrived without a reservation, there would have been no end of little old ladies trying to rent their extra room to us. As soon as we stepped on the bus, we were swarmed. I'm glad we didn't have to sort through the little old ladies to try to find a decent one. We lucked out in Korcula when we did exactly that, but I'm not sure how long our luck would have lasted.

Dubrovnik is spread out like Brasov, Romania. The bus station is some distance from old town, and our sobe is somewhere sort of in between.

Yesterday, we spent the middle of the day in old town Dubrovnik walking around and taking photos.

We spent the afternoon lying on rocks like iguanas at the ocean. We swam a bit, but the water was so cold I couldn't feel my toes, so I wasn't in for long.

Our day ended with the discovery of internet at our sobe and our meal of corn and dried up bread.

Korcula: My New Home

6-11 June 2009

I am now in Dubrovnik, but wishing I was still in Korcula. Korcula is definitely my favorite destination on this trip. The water was nice, the old town was picturesque, and everything except the fruit market was relaxing.

(The sellers spotted us as fresh meat and were almost chasing us around the small circular market area. Rather than suffer through an elderly woman telling us that we should taste her cherries one more time, we left and went to the grocery store to buy produce. If only they realized that their tactics are intimidating and overwhelming...)

Two minutes walk to the bus station. One to old town or the port. It couldn't get much better. I absolutely have to return to Korcula. Korcula is the first place on this trip where I felt like I could seriously live. I can totally see myself renting a room for a month or two and just relaxing.

The place where we were staying even had bats! We watched them climb out of the wall one night and crawl back in a different night.

While in Korcula, we watched the Moreska, a traditional sword dance peformed in Korcula for 400 years. Korcula is the only place where you can see this dance performed with real swords. We were warned not to sit in the front row because it was dangerous - that a woman had been hit in the head by a piece of a broken sword and had to have stitches. Undaunted, we sat in the third row and enjoyed the show, sparks flying (literally). Once I noticed one of the performers throwing his sword to the side and picking up a new one. Another man (in charge of the swords) picked it up. It was bent!

The Moreska tells the story of a beautiful maiden, Bula who loves the white king but is imprisoned by the black king (who says he loves her). The white king comes to defend her honor and rescue her from the black king. Battle between white and black armies ensues and in the end, the white king triumphs and Bula is set free.

Split

5-6 June 2009

Split is a lot bigger than I was expecting. I suppose I was expecting a small coastal town with red roofs, but I got a thriving city. The red roof bit was true, particularly in the old town, but small is far from reality. I don't mean to give the impression that Split is enormous, just that it's bigger than expected.

Our time in Split was spent wandering around the Diocletian's Palace (a UNESCO world heritage site), going to the fruite and veggie markets, and attempting to relax at the beach (I say attempting because I was cold and stayed completely clothed). Greg tried to get some sun, but really there was none to be found.
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The one cool thing we saw in Split was a handball game played in the ocean. We saw a poster advertising a tournament, so we walked down to the beach to check it out. Apparently, the ball isn't supposed to touch the water, and the guys in speedos are trying desperately to keep the ball in the air using any means necessary. In order to earn extra points, the guys to fall into the water as spectacularly as possible trying to rescue the ball.

I was glad we'd be taking the 5pm ferry to Korcula. However, BEING on the catamaran was a completely different story. The wind was strong and the seas were incredibly choppy. I was horribly seasick and scared as well. The water kept hitting the bottom of the boat and making this awful sound. The boat rocked so that on one side of the boat we could see only land (out of the windows) and on the other, we could see only ocean. And back. And forth. And back. And forth.

Anyways, Split was okay, but definitely not my favorite and I don't think I'll go back.