Sunday, August 2, 2015
Cock-a-doodle-dooooo!
Well, I can tell you that that sound is truly onomatopoeia. Maybe I should rethink that dream of having my own chicken coup if I want to sleep past 5:30 A.M.
For breakfast we an assortment of foods, accompanied by two kinds of coffee, one of which was Turkish coffee. We also had drinkable yogurt.
"You can't get it in the States," I was told. I've seen it as a sweetened kid's version, just not as an unsweetened version I saw in front of me.
Marijo's mom brought out some more figs. Mmm... The scraps sat on the table.
"Throw the scraps to the chickens."
I walked them to the chickens. They went crazy running for them!
"See, nothing goes to waste here!"
I felt like I was back at my relatives' places in Herzegovina, hearing that phrase.
"How long do the chickens lay eggs?" I asked.
"About five years. And when they stop...?" Aurora paused. "Chicken soup!"
"How long do the roosters last?"
"They all go about the same time. You don't know what gender the chicks are 'til they grow. And if we have too many roosters? Chicken soup!"
After breakfast, we drove through Metković to get to Narova Vid, home of Roman ruins. It was escavated in 1995.
"If you look, there are no heads on the emperor," Marijo began telling me, upon entering. "A new head goes on with each new emperor." Marijo was an excellent tour guide.
"Augustus romanization helped build roads. Napolean helped build roads. That Napolean was good for us in that way," he said. We continued around the museum until we exhausted all the sights.
"We're getting frog legs next. Don't think you got away from it!"
I smiled in agreement.
We walked to Duđe and Mate, a restaurant across the street, and ordered our lunch snack. The plate arrived.
"You'll like it. It tastes like chicken!" I was told.
Here goes nothing. I took a bite of what was the lower half of a frog. The meat on its legs was concentrated into small bulges around its bones.
It shockingly did taste like chicken. Very tender chicken.
We watched kids jump into the water from a small bridge. One kid even back flipped. The group of men at another table, also watching, started clapping for the boy. Another boy stepped up, hesitant, and jumped out.
"He must not be from the area," Aurora told me. I suppose the natives have had practice with their dives.
Marijo knew the man who worked there, who I presume is the owner, and asked to see their catch, so I could see them up close. He pulled out a container from the water and opened it up. Live eels, packed into the container, swimming around each other. I put my hand in to pick one up. Slimy, but surprisingly strong. I thought it would feel more like a worm. I didn't realize how thick of a spine and muscles it would have.
After this excursion, we continued on to Ston, to see an old salt bed and the Dubrovnik walls. The salt bed has been how salt was collected for hundreds of years. It's still in operating order, but it's not as financially efficient as other methods to get salt.
After wandering Ston for a bit, we sat down for drinks.
"Do you want to go up?" I was asked about the Dubrovnik walls. "We'll sit here and wait."
"Don't tempt me," I responded.
"You should be able to do it in a half hour."
"Oh... alright."
"I'm starting the timer at 2:17 P.M."
I walked around to the wall entrance. 40 kuna to enter. I was so excited. My mind started imagining myself standing there hundreds of years ago. Just walking up to the wall lookout was beautiful, but I had some distance to go. I made it to the top of one of the peaks, and then realized it was in fact possible to climb all the wall to the top of the mountain.
I can do this, right? Well, at least see how far I can go. I started running up the stairs to save time so I could get as far up as possible. But after jog-climbing, it takes a toll on your thighs. Especially when you're out of shape. I had already been gone twenty minutes. I'd have to sprint to the top and back down, and I'd still not make it down in time. I went as far as my little legs would carry me before throwing in the towel.
I need to come back here one afternoon in the future and climb to the top. With someone by my side, though. I was too lonely doing something like this all alone. While fun, because I can go at my own pace, it's better experienced with someone.
I practically ran down the steps back to the bottom. I was sweating profusely. So much that I was dripping in sweat all over. Way to go, Mer. Walking go the bathroom and wiping off as much sweat as possible mitigated the situation, but didn't solve it.
Gross.
We left Ston and drove to Dubrovnik. As we drove along the shore, I saw a schooner anchored in a cove. This was where I saw The schooner three years ago, that I had wished I could be so lucky to be on it. In this moment three years ago, I never could have guessed I'd be where I am today.
Aurora and Marijo dropped us off at the hotel and we said our goodbyes. They truly are such wonderful people for how kind they were this weekend.
The hotel had a gorgeous view of Dubrovnik. Certainly a different experience from last time I was here.
I looked at the map of Dubrovnik.
"Let's go to Fort Lovrijenac. It's right here."
And of course- more climbing! We walked up to the top for some amazing views of old town Dubrovnik. Then we came back down and went to walk the city walls. It took us about two hours, since we stopped and relaxed periodically. We neared the end and took pictures at one last look out point.
"Closing time!" A man told us.
What perfect timing!
After all the climbing I did today, I was more than ready for dinner. We decided on Konoba Jezuite, a restaurant with outdoor seating near a Catholic church. This choice was mostly because I was tired of Terry looking for the "best" restaurant, and figured most restaurants would be really good. And I just wanted to sit down and eat.
"I bet you Jezuite translates to Jesuit," I said to Terry after looking at the menu.
"Nah, I bet it's Jesus."
The waiter came around, so we inquired about the restuarant name.
"We're right next to St. Ignatius church, known for its Jesuits."
That's the nice thing about European languages as an anglophone- words often sound similar enough you can piece together a meaning.
"What do you recommend?" I asked the waiter.
"Definitely the tuna steak, since it was caught a few hours earlier."
I'm sold. As was Terry, since he ordered the same.
Olives and bread were served as a welcoming snack with our Croatian white wine. Dinner was fantastic, as always.
Though we declined on dessert, the waiter brought out two small glasses.
"Grappa with herbs for the man and a Cherry brandy for the lady."
Was it a stereotype to bring out those flavors for each if us? Probably. But I really liked my cherry brandy, so I didn't mind.
Since we were so close to such a beautiful church, we walked in and sat down with reverence. The lights were pretty dimmed, but it was still open to the public. Gorgeous architecture. After five minutes, the lights flicked off and a man came down the aisle.
"We are closing."
Perfect timing! We've been pretty fortunate with timing on this trip.
We walked around a bit more. I bought ice cream, then we started to head back to the hotel for the night. We saw a poster of the damage done to Dubrovnik in 1991-1992 during the war. A few buildings were burned down, but many were hit. As we were talking, we passed by a man who overheard our conversation as he was cleaning up his booth. He chimed in to clear up our disagreement.
"Before the war, I had close friends who were Serbs, but once the war began, everyone picked a side and it was never the same...Dubrovnik was blocked by the sea by Navy, by air by planes, and by land by the Army. We had no food or water coming in for days..."
After some research into the seige of Dubrovnik, I can only imagine the horrors that Croats living here endured from the war. The fact that they've rebuilt so much and brought Dubrovnik up as such a popular destination really shows how strong these people are, and how much they love their homeland.
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