Three weeks ago Jeannine, Crista and I had a girls trip to Dubrovnik. Our airplane landed at about 11 in the morning, and the father of our family-style run hostel picked us up. He gave us a brief history of the city on our drive to his permanent and our temporary home. Upon arrival, we received french toast and a "slightly" alcoholic drink, perhaps to make the 100 euro key deposit go over more smoothly. Then we were off to eat a feast of fish and walk along the city walls of the city, which, after viewing, make me happy I was never assigned the task to stealthily infiltrate or attack Dubrovnik.
The next day we were off to a little island of Lokum, where there was a very refreshing dead sea. There were also lots of peacocks, a large hill with a fortress on top, and an Australian dude from our hostel. When we returned to the hostel, we hung out with some cool folk and had an laugh inducing conversation with two Portuguese guys about guilty pleasures while drinking organic wine that the hostel father had driven 800 km to retrieve. In my opinion, that was 799 km too far, but I'm not a sommeleir.
Our last day we wandered around a bit more, looking for more beaches and tasty food. We succeeded. We returned to the hostel that night to gather with others to eat cake that the hostel mother had baked for one of the hostel-stayers birthday. The hostel father proceeded to pour us wine, and lots of it. We had a chat with an Aussie who has a plan of travelling for 8 years via gift, who some inspiring stories of generosity. We left, bellies full of cake and wine, and with minds at peace after 3 days of relaxation.
Soon enough, back in Vienna, Stephen, who has been sorely missed since he returned to Ireland in December, came for a week long visit. In my opinion, this was way too short, but hey, we'll take what we can get. While a week didn't seem like much time, it was long enough for Stephen to turn me from an avid coffee drinker (seriously, I've been drinking a mug every morning for the past few years) to an avid tea drinker (I haven't had coffee since Sunday brunch, and I wasn't even trying to quit drinking...)
We had a lovely time hanging out in parks, eating delicious ice cream, taking day trips for a picnic at the lake in the rain, and going to the park for the men to play some strange Irish version of what I know as hockey. Hurling, it's called. Erol also visited for a day, and we made it out to my favorite Heuriger for some wine before a Eurovision party at Jeannine's. Hey you US people, do you know what Eurovision is? If you don't, you might be better off staying a virgin unless you have some professional Eurovisioners to guide you through your first experience, as I did. Anyways, photos from the week!
Phil helping Jeannine to just "swing herself around," as I suggested she do
This slide was quite enjoyable
A man in lederhosen metal detecting
I don't know what's happening here, but I like it
Zawodsky, the heuriger
The man usually behind the camera
Splitting a liter of wine between 6 glasses is a trepidatious matter
Eurovision party
Eurovision notes
Eurovision snax: Dickmacks (i.e. ready to go, mediocre smores)
Get ready for these guys, St. Polten and Melk!
It started raining about 2 minutes after we sat down here
So we moved to shelter to have our picnic
