Eastern Europe: Day 3. Sept. 4-5, 2016

A man of my word, we hit the town hard last night and went to one of the top-rated restaurants on Tripadvistor (shout out to all my Tripadvisor reviewers out there -- you're doing the lord's work). After Lokrum I quickly showered, put on my finest Banana Republic t-shirt, and made my way to Restaurant Dubrovnik. I committed a serious travel foul by not taking pictures of the meal, but we ordered a bottle of local wine and had beef carpaccio, tuna tartare, black ravioli, tuna steak and turbot. I basically blacked out from fullness after the starters, but Marisa tells me I enjoyed the full meal. 

After dinner, we had drinks on the main thoroughfare of Old Town and people-watched. A table of Irishmen behind us provided the soundtrack to the night as they serenaded an outdoor bar of ~100 people with drinking anthems for 90 minutes. The highlight was spotting a couple from our plane walking the streets of Old Town. During the flight, and after they had both bombed two glasses of wine in 10 minutes, the man spilled a full glass on light wash jeans. He was wearing shorts last night but appeared to be having a good time despite losing his favorite pair of pants.  

If you ever need the Wi-Fi code to Cele, it's 12345678. They take cyber security very seriously. 

Who has two thumbs and got cocky about conquering jet lag? This guy. After returning to our apartment at a decent hour, Marisa fell into a deep slumber and I stayed up until 3 a.m. watching YouTube videos and waiting for the Ambien to kick in. Unfortunately, when both of us awoke, we were both experiencing the lethargy that infamously hits on the second day of any international vacation.

So, we decided started our day with a light lunch, pictured below: 

Papardelle with beef steak. 

(It's really dope that calories don't count on vacation, or else I would be in serious trouble.) Still feeling groggy, we washed down our pasta with two Americanos each and made our way over to the Dominican monastery, where Marisa pretended not to be embarrassed by my lack of art history knowledge. My favorite part was learning about the patrons who commissioned massive, religious paintings and inserted themselves in the bottom left hand corner as these little gnome-like figures. If I ever pay for a major piece of art, I want to have a dominant presence and occupy no less than a third of the work. 

It then began raining, and we used this as a valid excuse to come home and take a two-hour nap. We also began searching for alternate destinations since Albania was beginning to look like less of a possibility. The revised itinerary is below, but we will be heading north instead to Bosnia and Herzegovina for four days. The con is that we really wanted to go to Albania. The pro is that most people I know haven't been to Bosnia and Herzegovina, so I'll still have something to brag about. 

There was a torrential downpour at dinner, but we braved the rain and made it to (another) Italian restaurant. In order to stay warm and forget about our saturated pants and shoes, we had a "few" of the local drinks. We're both carboloading to maintain our endurance for the remainder of the trip.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Dubrovnik and the weather is supposed to rebound a bit. We're hoping to get some more sun before heading up to Mostar, where we will be spending four nights in a museum/hotel. 

9/3 - 9/7: Dubrovnik

9/7: Travel from Dubrovnik to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

9/7 - 9/11: Day trips from Mostar to other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

9/11 - 9/15: Kotor, Montenegro

9/15: Back to Dubrovnik.

9/17: Depart Dubrovnik for PDX. 

Eastern Europe: Day 2. Sept. 3-4, 2016

Day 2:

We made it into Dubrovnik last night after about 17 hours of travel. We were greeted by our hostess Marija, who walked us from  Pile Gate (the entrance to a castle wall, no big deal) to our attic-turned-loft. Along the way, she asked where we were from. Marisa said Oregon, and I began to explain where in the US it was located. Marija waited for me to finish describing its location as the “state directly above *had motion for above* California" before telling me she knew exactly where it was. I haven’t said a word since.

Because of the conversion, our apartment is funky, with really low, sloping ceilings in several rooms. The pros are that it is located directly in Old Town, has a beautiful view of the sea and has a five-star AIrbnb rating. The con is the shower:

Sup?

We both got a little snooze in on the plane, so we decided to have a nightcap at a bar 100 meters from our apartment. I’ll get a pic of it tomorrow, but it’s a (literal) hole-in-the-wall that is situated on the rocky coastline and overlooks the ocean. We each had a beer, and as is customary, we both agreed that it was the best beer we had ever had because any local beer in its native country is the best beer in the world. At the base of the bar is one of dozens of ladders leading to the Adriatic Sea, serving as an entry point for certain former high school swimmers to show off for the multinational tourists.

After our drinks, we grabbed a late-night snack before trying to navigate home. We got lost several times before a drunk local pointed us in the right direction by pissing on the stone wall in an alleyway. We knew at that moment that we had probably made a wrong turn, so hats off to you, buddy. We appreciate the tip.

Our night ended as abruptly as this section of the post, because we each took half an Ambien to mitigate jet lag.

Today, we had a quick breakfast in Old Town before getting on the 15-minute ferry to Lokrum, an island just off of Dubrovnik with ample places to swim, a beautiful view of the mainland and a small nudist beach. Hoping to see some Eastern European supermodels, we laid our towels down adjacent to this stretch of the island. Unfortunately, everyone there seemed to follow the global nude beach rules that require you to: 1) have fond memories of the 1940s, 2) not be a model and 3) make sure that everyone nearby knows that you are naked.

The view from Lokrum. 

We ate some lunch, slept a bit more on the rocks, and went for a few beers on lounge chairs that we stumbled upon on the other side of the island. A man approached us with a receipt machine and billed us 50 Kunas per chair. On vacation, international currency is play money and I don’t want to do math. I hope that was a good deal for one hour of chair time.

On the way back, we stood at the front of the ferry. I took a cool video of me saying “I am the captain now” and we got a picturesque view of the city as the sun was setting. I highly recommend the Lokrum day trip for anyone visiting Dubrovnik. It’s definitely not empty, but it's a great escape from Old Town and has plenty of room to stretch out. Old Town itself is like the Times Square of Dubrovnik, with more Australians in their 20s than locals.

At the front of the ferry. Marisa didn't get sick! 

The weather is supposed to get hairy over the next few days in this region, so tonight we’re going to try to eat at a restaurant with a view while it's still good. The incoming system also means that we may call an audible on our travel. There are three full days of thunderstorms currently expected to hit Valbona during our planned hiking days, and we don’t hate the rain but we just left Portland.

Eastern Europe: Day 1. Sept. 2-3, 2016

Day 1:

This marks the inaugural blog post of our trip through Eastern Europe. I’ve had internal and external debates about what qualifies as “Eastern,” and the best answer I could come up with is that a European country is Eastern if you’re not looking forward to its food.

Marisa and I will be out of the country for exactly two weeks, and will be visiting Croatia, Albania and Montenegro. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about why we chose this specific trip. The PC answer is that we really wanted to hike the Accursed Mountains in Albania and explore the beautiful cities of Dubrovnik and Kotor. The honest response is because Marisa has traveled extensively and if we were going to be around each other nonstop for two weeks, I wanted to minimize her elitism. I would like to be a tourist and make mistakes and not go somewhere she’s already been. That eliminated most countries.

Anyway, no matter the distance of the journey, departure day always brings two of my favorite things. The first is the chance to obliterate the airline I’m flying on Twitter. Given that we were flying Condor, which is what you would get if you bred Lufthansa with Spirit, I pregamed the flight by loading a few really good tweets into the chamber. And considering that I’m writing this first entry from the middle of a 2-3-2 formation, best believe Germany is about to get that thunder.

The second reason I look forward to the first day of any trip is because I get to eat at PDX, America’s best food court. Today, I had my sights set on the Pok Pok foodcart, an extension of the insanely popular, Anthony Bourdain-endorsed Thai restaurant in Southeast Portland. This food cart only serves their famous wings, which is great because that was the only thing I wanted to eat before a 10-hour flight. To be completely candid, Pok Pok airport wings accounted for about 5% of my decision to take this trip.

Guess who we discovered no longer had a food cart at PDX?

Instead, we pity ate burgers at Rogue Brewery and drank a beer to get to the perfect level of bloated where you’re uncomfortable for the first few hours of the flight. At the gate, a bunch of multilingual German kids conversed in fluent German and English, a classic intimidation tactic by the European youth. I confided in Marisa that traveling always brings out my American insecurities.

We land in Dubrovnik, Croatia, at 8:45 p.m. tonight after a four-hour layover in Frankfurt.

Full travel agenda is below. Excited to bring you actual updates that don’t involve the airport, Twitter or German kids.

-Zach

9/2: Depart PDX at 6:45 p.m.

9/3: Arrive in Dubrovnik at 8:45 p.m.

9/3 - 9/7: Dubrovnik

9/7: Travel from Dubrovnik to Shkodër, Albania. Spend the night in Shkodër. 

9/8: Take bus and ferry to Valbona, Albania. 

9/8 - 9/10: Valbona.

9/10: Hike to Theth, Albania, in the Accursed Mountains. Spend the night at a guest house.

9/11: Minibus back to Shkodër; bus to Kotor, Montenegro.

9/11 - 9/15: Kotor, Montenegro

9/15: Back to Dubrovnik.

9/17: Depart Dubrovnik for PDX.