Live from Croatia

We were pleasantly surprised to find that we have free high-speed Internet in our hotel room, here on the remote island of Kolocep, off the coast of Croatia (near Dubrovnik). It is ironic that when booking hotels for business trips, Kyle has had many instances of asking if a hotel has high-speed Internet, being assured they do, and then, upon arriving, finding that it is either dial-up Internet that you have to pay a lot for it, or there is no Internet at all. Here, we did not even check about the Internet and sure enough, we got it!

We arrived in on Monday after having a quick flight change in Vienna. We had to briskly walk through the Vienna airport to make our next flight, but even at a quick speed, I was amazed at all of the stores and shopping opportunities. I always forget how little worldy commerce Belgium has until I go to any other European country.

Monday we hung out by the pool and relaxed. Tuesday we took the boat into Dubrovnik and wandered around the city for the day. It reminds us both a lot of Venice (minus the canals). But the buildings are all a beautiful sand-colored stone, which gives the city a light, airy feeling. We were able to find the bar that our friends Amy and Nate loved when they were here -- a little hole-in-the-wall place right on the ocean. It was beautiful to sit there enjoying the view.

Wednesday we took a kayak tour around the island we are staying on (Kolocep, pronounced Kolochep). Click here to see how far it was! We swam in this really cool cave and had a nice lunch in the other town on the island. Afterward we took the ferry into Dubrovnik for dinner.

Today we just hung around our hotel and enjoyed sitting out by the pool. I have decided that although I enjoy small islands, I could never live on one. This island has 150 permanent inhabitants and I think I would know each of their life stories in about 2 weeks.

An interesting thing here, as it is through all of Europe, is the topless sunbathing. There was a large group of kids out by the ocean today, all around 8-9 years old. Although most of them had on bathing suits, a few of the girls were only wearing their swimming bottoms. I mentioned to Kyle that I thought they were all close to the age where that probably should not be happening anymore. Just as the words were out of my mouth, though, we glanced to our left and saw a woman about 35 years old lazily walking around topless, so I guess young boys are just used to that sort of thing. The funniest part about the topless woman was that she was with her boyfriend and his friend. I just kept thinking it must be hard to be the friend and act like it is nothing to see the girlfriend of your friend lying around topless. I can tell you that we sat two tables away from them tonight at dinner and all I could think was, "I saw you topless today!"

Tomorrow we are renting a car and heading to Budva, Montenegro (staying in the Hotel Sveti Stefan). Kyle wants to be able to check off a few more countries by driving through Serbia and
Bosnia, but the thought of that scares me a bit. We will see...

(PS--I cannot find the apostrophe on this keyboard, so if some of this has seemed to be oddly phrased, just bear with me.)