Dubrovnik (AKA Paradise)

We had the hotel reservation but we needed to buy the flight at the airport. Despite that Zagreb is the capital city of Croatia, the airport is very tiny. There was one small restaurant open that served sandwiches. We were starving so we both bought one. It was a very easy, short flight over, but would have been a 6 hour drive. Though, it would have been nice to drive along the coast, all the car rentals in the whole city were sold old by the time we enquired about availability. The ride to the hotel was unbelievable. The drive was all along the windy streets of the coast. Our taxi driver was very strange though. We wanted to split the cost so we asked for 2 receipts but he said it was against his policy to do so. We couldn’t understand why. As soon as we arrived, we went to find food. We were summoned to eat at a pizza place by the owner. He was a young, cute Croatian who insisted on providing us with an endless shot after shot of grappa made by his grandfather, although we were still feeling pretty hung over and besides, the grappa really was not very good. We ordered pizza and a salad and then he insisted that we sit and eat with his friend who was sitting at a table next to us. Meanwhile, I talked up the friend who was nice, but not very good-looking while the owner taught Beth how to make pizza, and then she took on the task like her second job, haha. I said to the friend, “what time will you go to bed?” and he replied “now”. I said, oh, really? Clearly confused and he said “ya with you”. I laughed and said “nice try”.

Once we got enough of the pizza-making skills and the free, bitter grappa we began to head home, but meanwhile met 2 young Canadian guys just out of college traveling the world. I admired them because this is exactly what I wanted to do when I graduated college! They tried to get us to stay out but we needed to go to bed. It was already much too late for what we had already gone through that day. So we took a bunch of pictures with them instead and then they joked (after we told them about our job), “so where are you guys staying, the Hilton?” And we said yes. They were impressed, it was by far the nicest in the town.