**Photo Update: A vision of our walk to the city bus stop the morning after. If you want to experience the most Spooky Beautiful in the whole world, get up at 5:30 A.M. and walk within Dubrovnik’s walls while the city is still turned off. From 10am to midnight, you can’t walk inside the city walls without touching shoulders. Early morning feels like you’ve fallen through the looking glass.**
Currently
We are sitting in darkness in a teeny and amazing wine bar called D’Vino in the middle of a multi-block blackout because again, Dubrovnik is spooky. Apparently this happens a lot because with the heat this intense and so many air conditioners going at once, the fuses just can’t handle it and everything goes dark at once. And it’s for who knows how long because we’ve been here for 45 minutes with no lights on and no one is concerned in the least except for us because we can’t leave until the credit card machine starts working again.
Nellie also shouted “I’m a philanthropist” trying to imitate Charlie from Always Sunny” right as the lights went out, the music stopped, and everyone stopped talking, and it was just great. The sommeliers seem to have good humor about everything though, because they keep shouting things from hidden corners like “the night is dark, and it is FOOOL of terror!!!” We like it here.
Yesterday
We very tired from the continued heat wave (we really should have researched the humidity in Croatia before we packed giant bags full of things like pants and any clothing in general that touches our skin) and we ate, covered in sweat, at a nearby “Authentic Croatian” restaurant. All was totally cool but we’re glad we held off on dessert after hearing the table next to us let their server know that the apple fritter would’ve been totally fine except the pastry chef accidentally included a piece of squid (the kind with all of the tentacles) into the cake.
That would have been awesome to observe on it’s own; it was way better when the server ran back to the rest of the servers and whispered stuff and they all called the pastry chef out in plain view of us and pointed at her and told her what she did and when started collectively giggling at her really loudly as she became angry/dejected and ran back into the kitchen. It actually made us want to go back there.
Earlier Today
We spent the afternoon on this tiny little island right off of Dubrovnik that our dear friend Rebecca recommended called Lokrum. It is pretty awesome; a little 10 minute boat ride and 5 minutes after you spill off of the boat like smelly sardines with all of the other tourists, you are alone in the middle of the woods and don’t see another person for 40 minutes.
I’m not trying to fully embarrass myself, but it should be said that for someone who spent much of her childhood playing Kings Quest and the Legend of Kyrandia on her old desktop computer, this place is like coming the hell home. Every path you take is this windy, spooky little paradise and there are tame peacocks and rabbits hoping everywhere. And all of the trails are canopied in these high green arching towers of magical trees and tall bushes that you’ve never seen before anywhere else.
There is an awesome part of the island closer to the tourist drop off that is a student-curated botanical garden, and the whole purpose of the effort is to see how a variety of tropical flora species thrive and react to Croatia’s staunchly Mediterranean climate. The things that grow in there are so cool – everything from what looks like life size pineapple bushes to giant aloe plants to these tall pine trees that only grow their branches vertically and look like they trim themselves into towering inverted icicles.
Needless to say, that island is magical. And a peacock followed us for about 1/2 a mile; it was probably one of our spirit animals.
Tomorrow
At 5:30 A.M, we will (groggily and grumpily) depart for the airport to finish off our European tour in Italy. We are sad to leave Dubrovnik and all of it’s shiny, marbled, Pearl Of The Adriatic glow, but we look forward to eating ourselves silly and getting a new passport stamp.
Oh and P.S.
Since we finished this post, all of the staff has ditched us and gone to hang out and drink in the streets of Dubrovnik. They are so lucky that we have good consciences and are staying here until the credit card machine works.