Day 10 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

Hello all! We made it to Dubrovnik! The weather is generally good, except for the occassional shower that's welcomed us every now and again. Dubrovnik is an amazing and spectacular little town. From the airport approach, you could easily identify the walled city from the city walls surrounding a tight group of red tiled buildings. It looks really cool. We took a bus from the airport and arrived at the town gate where this woman came up to us and seemed to be the lady that we were renting an apartment from. When we passed the street that she had emailed me, I started to question who the lady was and so I told her, I think you have the wrong couple. I showed her the address and the name of our person and she said sorry - yes you are on the right street. So we parted ways with the nice tall Croatian woman and headed up our street, which really was a series of stairs - I think 5 sets - to our little apartment. There, we were met by this man, who was very friendly and introduced himself to us as the husband of Ksenija, the lady we were renting from. He was very friendly and then proceeded to chat us up. Let me just say that he was a colorful individual who told us probably way too much. Michael wants to interject his commentary and told me to tell you all that "breast" and "venereal disease" came up in his stories (while I was sitting there too, mind you!)...so you get the gist that this guy was just a big time story teller. Since he was the owner, he basically had a captive audience. Finally, he must have seen that I was shifting uncomfortably, and so took his leave.

So that was about our first hr in town. After he left, we started our own adventure walking about, looking for a place to eat. We've come to trust Rick Steve's suggestions in his guidebook, so we headed out to one of the recommended restaurants. He didn't steer us wrong - it was delicious! We had a seafood risotto that had mussels, shrimp, and squid as the main ingredients and I loved it completely. I think Michael liked it as well, but he said if it were him, he would add sausage to the meal. While I'm a big sausage fan, I think I had enough in the last week to pass on the added ingredient. After our meal, we checked out the immediate sights. We saw people walking along the top of the city walls, so we were determined to find out how to get there. We walked and walked up and down the cobbled steps only to finally get to the front of the city by the gate and see that they charge 50 Kuna per person to walk the perimeter of the walls. Can you believe it? That translates to $11-12/person. So, we decided we would do that tomorrow.

We're now sitting at this outside bar/outdoor cafe/internet place after dinner, watching more soccer...who knew we would be such avid fans! Not so much, it's a when in Rome thing I guess. I do have to say that their soccer is more exciting than American soccer. Maybe it's just the crowd reaction that's gotten me more into it too. Anyway, it's time to give up the computer or else they'll charge me an arm and a leg, so I'm gonna sign off for now. We're headed to the beach tomorrow, then maybe off to a nearby island, then of course, walking the city wall perimeter. Hope you all are well! Ciao!