July 11

Mama no shoppin.
'Mama' had a rough morning because one of her tennants some how soaked a bed through the mattress and she was just in a fit all morning. She hadn't shopped for breakfast, so she pulled out some things lying around the kitchen, Sydnee (and I to a lesser extent) were starting to get a pretty grossed out by the lack of cleanliness in this house. There are cats everywhere (mom- I didn't have any problems with my allergies) and during breakfast Mama and this man that lives in the house (son, husband, brother- not sure) brought 4 little baby chicks into the kitchen. Sydnee and I both do not like animals and this action was more than we could handle. Mama also told us we had to be out of our room by 10 am, but that we could use the downstairs shower since we weren't leaving Dubrovnik until 9 pm (the man didn't like this and kept trying to tell us that if we were in a hotel we would have to check out at a certain time, at least we think that was what he was trying to communicate).
We put on our bathing suits and cleared out of our room. We went to the ocean for a couple of hours, the library (for their internet), split a pizza for a late lunch, and tried to make some decisions about our travel plans from Dubrovnik.
We went back to Mama's house for showers (quickly before the man kicked us out). As we were about to start our treck to the bus station (more on that later) a serious storm started brewing. A few blocks into our walk we saw people stopped in the street staring up at the mountain where lightening had set a patch of grass on fire. The fire would shortly be put out, because just as we ducked into an awning, all "hail" broke loose- literally. A torrential rainstorm poured down, hail and all. We waited it out (only about 20 minutes) and then continued to walk to the station. On our way, soaking wet by the way, we saw that the streets were flooded (until they drained into the ocean)- at least 3/4ths of the way up the car tires and we had to tromp through. We were laughing and squeeling the whole time, of course, though.
Now I have to eat my words about the overnight bus thing. Our best option to get from Dubrovnik to Zagreb was an 11 hour overnight bus, so we had to go with it. Sydnee and I had been dreading it all day, although I think we had forgotten the full extent of the misery from our last overnight bus. This time we both took sleeping pills, our sleeping bags, in addition with our neck pillows and eye masks. However- this bus ride was nothing like our last- we were on a very nice, huge double decker bus. Sydnee and I were both able to lay down completely and the ride was as good as any overnight bus trip can be (better even than I thought possible).



Our five minutes in Bosnia.