See You In America

Today is it, folks.  We are down to our last pair of clean underwear and everything else in our suitcases stinks to high Heaven.  We will spend the day packing, doing homework, trolling the streets & shops one last time, and double fisting the gelato.  Tonight is a huge celebration in Old Town and we are going to have a late dinner on the rooftop terrace and watch the fireworks.  It will be a nice farewell.  To the city as well as to our dwindling funds.  The people at our bank are naming a building after us, when it's all said and done.

Then there will be two long blog-less days of travel before reuniting with the surly bun and our beloved Denver.

Last night we rode a cable car up to Srd (Serge), the mountain that overlooks Dubrovnik.  Bosnia is just on the other side:

This was the view of Dubrovnik: (see the fortress walls surrounding the city?)

Say a prayer for flights, flights, and more flights.  Will blog again from The Land Of No Oxygen!

This Was Our View From Dinner Tonight

That is all.

The Logistics

We meet a lot of interesting people on these trips, not just the locals but other travelers, too.  Out of every nationality we have ever met, the Australians win the World Traveler Award, hands down.  A short vacation for them is one month.  A more typical vacation may be along the lines of 2-3 months.

Sign me up, matey.

It's easy to concentrate on all the positives of travel here on the post; the scenery, the food, the adventure, the sights, the people, and just the general experience of it all.  But there's a lot of logistics that goes into each trip we take.  In fact, we are able to fully enjoy our trips only because all these non-fun and non-exciting pieces are in place.  As much as we love to travel, I can understand why some people don't.  It's a lot of work.  Let's not even talk about how hard it is with kids.

For every lazy afternoon on the Adriatic, there is a five hour bus ride or a five hour layover in a third world airport.  Behind every luxurious sunset dinner is a month of setting aside money and a day of calculating currency conversions.

This trip alone has involved a staggering amount of busses and ferries.  The Africa trip involved flying somewhere about every 3 days---that's a lot of packing and unpacking, folks.  We have two more days of bliss, and then we fly to Zagreb, have a five hour layover, and fly to Munich.  We'll spend the night there and catch an early flight to Atlanta, where we will have a 3-4 hour layover, then the short three hour hop back to Denver, and the cab ride home.  We will drop our suitcases and turn around to go get Lucifer.  Then we will start the laundry, make a grocery run, and plan for the work week.

It's really all about the logistics.

For this reason, we are thinking that our next big vacation will be considerably simpler.  I think we will take a break from 11-hr flights and foreign languages and paying to use the bathroom and driving on the other side of the road and checking, double checking, triple checking the bus schedule.

This is not a complaint.  I spend a lot of time shaking my head at people who don't like to travel.  But as I konk out on the ferry, clutching my backpack for dear life and propping my legs up on my suitcase, I understand.

Then this happens and I forget all about it.

To The Walls!

So the city of Dubrovnik is surrounded by some honkin walls.  It has been a seaside fortress since like the beginning of time.  We are staying inside the old city while we are here and although it is pretty touristy, it is also kind of unbelievable.  In our country, we just have no notion of what "old" really is.

In order to blog from here, I have to use a different platform than usual (which is why the pics may look a little funny?), and I'm not able to use photo captions.

This is the rooftop terrace where we have breakfast, and also where I mostly do my homework:

Here is a view of it from the city walls--not bad huh?!

The walls are high, thick, and generally enormous.  They are a feat of architecture any way you look at it.  Napoleon was so impressed by Dubrovnik that he built two fortresses here, just in this one little area.

We even saw some American celebrities!

As you can see, it's not very picturesque or anything.

In the early 1990's there was a war all up in some of these Slavic countries.  Basically, Croatia declared itself independent from communist Yugoslavia, and then Bosnia (which is just right over the hill, you can see it from here) bombed the hell out of it, including this old area of Dubrovnik.  Obviously, aside from the horror of war, it was a travesty that they repeatedly bombed this architectural jewel.  The people here hid in the wells, and inside the strong arches of the alley ways.  Many shop keepers we have talked with have told us similar stories.  It's hard to imagine...

I will pay you $1,000 if you'll write my next paper for me.

Until tomorrow, peeps!

Cavtat

Today we took a quick detour to the next town over, Cavtat (TSAHV tot).  Compared to the tourist hustle & bustle of Dubrovnik, it is a sleepy little coastal town.  In fact, when we told some of the locals about what we planned to do today, they got a dreamy look on their face and sighed, "Ahhhhh, Cavtat..."

We spent the day eating, drinking, and meandering (um, what else is new), and I think we may come back later this week to swim in the Adriatic one more time before heading back to The Land of No Oxygen.

Before I even got out of bed this morning, I checked out the homework situation online (remember, I basically crammed the week before we left so I could go on academic autopilot these 2 weeks).  Anyways, I was reminded of an enormous paper I need to start on before we go back (read: plane ride home).  It's harshing my buzz.

The food here is my new reason for living.

That cake is orange with a chocolate ganache icing.  I made so much noise while savoring it that the Venezualan family next to us ordered one, too.  They had a book called, "What to Eat!" so we were affirmed in our mad restaurant choosing skillz.  But really, please, it's me.  Eating is what I do.

Time to get horizontal and finish my book.  More pics to come!

Dubrovnik in Pics

I was wrong when I said this place was constructed in the 1400's.  Much of the wall and the buildings were built as early as 600 A.D.

Enjoy the pics!

Dubrovnik

Greetings from ugly and boring Dubrovnik.  The city and its fortress walls were built sometime before the 1400's.  It blows my mind.  We are staying in the heart of the old city and all I'm saying is it's a good thing we don't plan to have kids because we are currently spending their inheritance.

It's a wee bit warm here, so we are chilling before we go up to the rooftop terrace to read, have a frothy beverage, and gaze out over the city.  Tomorrow will most likely be a day trip down the road.

I haven't done homework in like 3 days.

G has become Croatia's Fabio (truth) but that's a story for another day.

Will blog again soon!