Thoughts of a Nomadic One

As I stepped off the bus from Split in Dubrovnik, numerous Croatian ladies approached me. Armed with maps in their hands, they proceeded to show me their house/room/sobe on the map. While this may sound strange to some of you, others will have heard or experienced the attack of these room hawkers in Eastern Europe. Although I encountered a few in Prague, Krakow, Budapest, they were merely passive hostel runners. The 6-7 old women here were like coyotes looking for meat! I politely refused each approach and then I heard the dreaded question, "Are you Japanese?"

FUCK!

Though I can understand the difficulty in differentiating people within an ethic group a few continents away (actually, by the end of this trip even my parents will be able to differentiate by ethnicity due to my tan!), perhaps one shouldn't assume? I don't assume that anyone that looks eastern European to be Polish, Russian or etc. And people should not assume that North American English speakers are American.

After my great escape, it took a frustrating hour in the 33C heat to find the phone #, telephone card and call my hostel owner Mladen for a pickup. After quickly checking in and dropping my stuff off, I went off to explore the old walled city of Dubrovnik. This area was exceptionally pretty and well restored even after being bombarded and put under siege by the Serbians in the Croatian war for independence. The white stone walls set between the light blue Mediterranean sea and the rapidly rising rocky hills and mountain. However, to me, it lacked the simple charm of Split.

Since I missed breakfast, lunch and only had a slice of pizza for my previous dinner, I decided to splurge a bit on my final meal in Croatia. I looked around to find a cheap and deserted restaurant in the old city. I had mussels and a seafood risotto for an amazing price.

The rest of the evening was uneventful except that I had a double room to myself and watched one of the many terrible movies I would see in the following week. The movie called Ripley's Game had John Malkovich and Dougray scott.

I'll be catching a flight to Munich and then Istanbul early in the morning!
Mollim!