Croatia Tues 9/25

Gads, the Dennis Drizzles continue with our newest victim of his scourge of the civilized world..Shirley. Hopefully this morning she will feel better but she had it last night. Being the ever accommodating husband I opted to sleep on the couch in the living room, probably not my most astute decision. Have you ever tried to sleep on a vinyl couch? Its like trying to fall asleep on piece of wax paper; it's cold, sticks to you every time you move. So I get the wise idea to put a quilt on top of the vinyl and sleep on the quilt. What a difference, now it was like the whole couch was coated with a combination of teflon and WD40. I almost fell out of "bed" twice. I'd

roll over and start the rapid decent to the floor. So at 3 am this morning I went back to bed.

Shirley is better so we complete the morning routine and decide to head into Old Town to get some breakfast. It is absolutely, completely, to the gunwales packed with tour groups, clogging up the passages coming to dead stop in the middle of the pathways while their guide lectures. So we make like spawning salmon going upstream and finally make it to the restaurant for breakfast. Breakfast is probably more British than American, because it comes with baked beans, but still good. Carroll and I both had two over easy eggs, two sausages, two pieces of bacon, a dabble of bake beans, some fresh tomatoes and a small piece of toast complete with butter and jams and coffee and fresh orange juice. Shirley had a pan de chocolate, orange juice and hot chocolate. Its good and it is nice to have everyone at a functioning level. We pay the bill and head out on

the great suitcase hunt.

Going on a great suitcase hunt with these two women is like an excuse for them to do some shopping on the pretense of looking for a suitcase. Carroll buys a pair of earrings. They find a local post office and spend about twenty minutes while I am outside looking at the facade damaged during the recent war and rebuilt. We stop at the tourist information center and, of course, they state there is a luggage shop but at the opposite end of town. Shirley volunteers to trudge back thru the masses and see if they have suitcase that will work. Carroll and I sit in kind of dumpy street bar and wait. Lo and behold!!!! She returns with one that will most certainly work!!!!

We are going out to dinner tonight and the taxi will be here tomorrow at 1:00 pm to take us on a two hour ride to Montenegro, if the border crossing goes smoothly. We eat at a place right by the "Pile" (the

entrance to old town). The wind has picked up and the temperature has dropped and so for the first time we are all in jackets and sweaters. The restaurant is nice and we opt for indoor seating which is actually semi-indoor as the eating area is open on two sides. I have a lamb fillet which is excellent with hash browns and green beans, Carroll has veal cutlet with rice and potatoes (?), and Shirley has a Salmon with croquettes which she says is too salty. At the end of the meal I have cleaned my plate, Carroll states she is stuffed and can eat no more and leaves some on her plate, Shirley's is too salty and she is still feeling the effects of being ill, so there is about 2/3rds of her plate still with food. They come to clear the table and ask the ladies if they liked the food. They state as previously said. They comped us both Carroll and Shirley's dinner!! Our entire bill for two glasses of wine, my drink, a bottle of water, my dinner and the croquettes came to 385 Kuna about $55. We felt bad so left them a tip equivalent to the two compensated dinners.