Dubrovnik, an unexpected love! (The town...not a new man!)

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Dubrovnik

I had booked my accomodation through a new travellers website and was surprised yhe owner offered to pick me up from the Dubrovnik port. Especially as I had only paid 15€ for a single private bedroom with shared bathroom and kitchen. We arrived to the spacious 3 bedroom house which is situated on the very top of the hill surrounding Dubrovnik and we sat down on the outside balcony which looked out over the entire harbour and surrounding islands. The owner wad delightful and very helpful with maps and a list of places to see and I was happy to put my bag down and deal with my bed bug issues after I had had a long relaxed skype with Mum and Dad. I also messaged Mikaela and Aaron who were due to get into Dubrovnik later that day. After a long enjoyable shower...something I truely appreciated after a wek of having mostly cold showers over the toilet in the boat...unfun. I unpacked my entire bag carefully and seperated my clothes into piles to head to the local laundry. My amaxing host offered to wash for me and I gave her my whites and bright colours to be washed seperatelt while I took the dark colours to a laundry as I didn't feel right asking her to do more than two loads....yes strange that in one small backpack I could have 4 loads of washing? No, not strange for me at all.

I organised to meet Aaron and Miki at their accomodation which was strangely only two blocks away! I was so excited to see her after being away for so long, we even had a movie moment where she was running down the stairs and I was running up, I dropped my bags of bug ridden clothing, spread my giraffe arms and we hugged (this worked well as I was on the lower step)...... *ohhhhh*. Haha We caught a bus to town and dropped my laundry off before walking through Dubrovnik old town and stopping for lunch at a cafe and an icecream afterwards. I collected my now clean and hopefully bug free clothes and we headed to the beach to peole watch, sit in the sun and catch up on our new adventures and discuss details of Miki and Aaron's upcoming wedding, which she had amazingly planned online and by phone - amazing. It felt like we had only both left yesterday. We decided to have dinner in town at the seafood place reccomended by the owner of my accomodation which turned out to be one of the most delicious meals on our trip. Aaron doesn't eat seafood so Miki and I didn't have to share. Dubrovnik even put on a fireworks for us just on sunset so it was all perfectly timed and meant to be! We wandered town for an hour or two and I saw some of my crew mates from sailing before catching the harry potter like night bus back to our accomodation to have a quiet cider on the verandah. The night view was just as spectacular as it was during the day. Also my land lady came up with icecream for me and chatted for an hour or more. Have I mentioned this accomodation is the BEST!

Next day I got my washing from the land lady who had kindly done it for free. Remember it was the whites and the colours? Well now my whites WERE coloured....bugger. Must have done only one wash. Big bugger, whites now ugly greeny blue colour. But I spent the night in a clean bed free of bugs and now at least all my clothing was bug free. Yay. I went to meet Miki and Aaron and we walked the Dubrovnik castle walls early in the morning as any later is too hot. Afterwards we rewarded ourselves for our efforts with a slushie and lunch. We wandered town and discovered a grocery store which sold our favourite cider as Mik and I have only discovered drinking this year we thought we should celebrate by drinking together. But it's 10am?! Yeah? And? Your point is? Haha We happily cracked our bottles open and 'cheers' in the street, one passerby did say "it's only 10am!"

We bought tickets for a boat trip to the local island of Lokrum and while waiting listened and watched a young Italian couple play with their 3 year old son. I realised I could understand what they were saying...my Italian is at 3 year old level, whoops, better work on that! Haha We caught the boat over and wandered to the rocky outcrops, found a slightly calmer area for swimming and spent a long long time paddling and chatting and generally relaxing before we came to shore and did exactly the same thing while lying sunbacking on the beach. Aaron got tired of our girly chats and read a book. It is a hard life, but someone has to do it. ;-) It was strange because although we were 1000's of miles away it felt like a trip to Maggie Island for the weekend.

We found a cafe on the island and got icecream and fresh fruit salad...so refreshingly yumm. Then had a quick foot dip in the waters by the pontoon where Aaron nearly dropped the camera lense. Whoops. Back in Dubrovnik Mik and I scoped the shops, got some groceries and I found some colour remover for my white clothes. We caught the Harry Potter bus back to Mik and Aaron's accomodation and tried a pizzeria close by for dinner which turned out to be tasty. Mik and I were full, but there is always room for pancakes for dessert, and a bakery stop for breakfast next morning as Mik and Aaron were heading off to Bosnia. We all chilled in their accomodation for a while before I walked home and realised how extremely steep the hill to my house was. Oh and about 300 steps too! Arg...sleep!

Next day I slept late, managed to use the colour removal in the kitchen sink and save some of my clothes, not all recovered and some had to be thrown out....a sad day for my backpacker wardrobe, my faithful clothes had had their day. I managed to walk down the horrible incline and steps to the local grocery store to buy milk and groceries for dinner, the joy of being able to cook myself a healthy lunch and dinner was so wonderful. I drank my last cider while watching the sunset and chilled out over ice cream with my land lady. Chill out zone and recovery place...found. I also booked another 3 nights here.

I had decided not to be a complete hermit and go back to Miljet to see the famous national park which we had missed on Croatia sail due to horrible weather conditions. I had to line up for 30mins to get a ticket and then discovered Dubrovnik bakeries don't sell sandwiches for lunch, I checked in three! It was 2 hours to Miljet and then a small fee to pay to enter the park which included a boat ride to the monastary on the lake and a bus ticket. I have little patience for public transport and lining up and waiting so after a short time I decided to hire a bike for the day. It was apparently only 4km to the entrance. Easy riding. Except it was a verticle incline for 75% of that 4km and was hoping the pain all over my body was the fact I had done no exercise since travelling in April and not me about to have a heart attack. Haha

When I got to the entrance it turned out I needed to also buy an expensive map...I passed and bought water instead. I found a long drop toilet in the woods and thanked my Mum for telling me to always carry a packet of tissues for 'all occasions'. I asked the forest ranger for directions and biked another 3km to the boating dock to the monastary. I walked around on the tiny island and thought if I had to be a monk, this would be an excellent place to do it. Quick swim stop before boating back with a creepy old guy taking photos of me and trying to "help" me off the boat....my butt didn't require assistance, creep. I then biked the last 8km to the other end of the park and had a few swim stops on the way. I did try the auto timer on my camera so I could get a picture of me actually IN the water but that caused some drama. First I lost my thong, then in trying to recover it, I scraped my knee on a rock as I then fell over, slipped again, managed to grab a rock and my camera, then slipped AGAIN still holding camera and thong and sucessfully managed to not get it wet. Miracle. Oh and I got a photo. Aren't I clever! No need for more pictures...one was enough. At the very end I was going to take more photos but I think it was a nude area....there was a family there, I didn't stick around to make introductions. I biked back, went a different way home on the advice of a different park ranger, almost killed myself going downhill on a mountain bike track riding a road bike (badly I might add). Recovered, decided to walk the bike instead of ride....and finally arrived back in Dubrovnik to cook myself dinner and skype my best friend/adopted older sister, Jenny.

Over the next two days I did very little, it was devine. I skyped, I took long walks to the cove, I walked my killer hill and tried to take a few weeks off the gestation of my food baby, to no avail, as my spectacular land lady kept feeding me ice cream...yum. I made food, read food, for myself. Eating out is not always fun, sometimes it's nice just to make delicious chicken, zuccini with pesto sause and pasta. I did purchase some amazing traditional material and ribbon from a quaint seller in Dubrovnik old town, so stay tuned around April 2013 for my sewing projects! Haha Bus to Split...6 hours. Arriving at the bus station for the 'hourly' bus only to be told, "actaully today, you have a 2 and a half hour wait". Priceless. Thanks Dubrovnik bus station. At least I was dry inside and out of the rain.

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