Second Stop: Dubrovnik , Croatia-Part Two

After visiting with the Sapro family, we headed back to a little town right outside of Dubrovnik. I cannot remember the name of the town, but that won't matter for the story that I am going to tell you.

When Count Dracula our tour guide let us all off of the bus in this little town, he told us that we would have some free time. He said that we all needed to meet him at 11:30 near a little booth where paintings were sold.

Melissa and I neither one had a watch with us, so imagine our relief when we saw this huge clock in the middle of the town. Notice that the clock says that it is about 10:47; we figured that we had about 45 minutes to look around the little town, and to find a bathroom. (Finding a bathroom in Europe is not as easy as it might sound, but I will save that topic for another day.)



Melissa took my picture at a little quaint outdoor cafe.



I took Melissa's picture in front of this interesting little palm tree. We both thought that it looked like a large pineapple.



We had a perfect stranger (although I don't always recommend this) take our picture standing in front of the Adriatic Sea.....It was so beautiful!



We spent a few minutes watching these little boys trying to catch some "fish."



I wonder how many of these "fish" they would have to catch to make a full meal?



You can see in this picture how striking the orange roofs are against all of the green trees, light blue sky, and the deep blue water. Needless to say, my pictures do not do this place justice.



We saw so many churches everywhere we went. Most of them were so old and had so much character and history in them. This particular one obviously survived the war. Notice the orange roof.



You can see in this photo that a chunk of the bell tower is missing. I don't know for sure, but I imagined as I saw it, that it probably happened during the war.....A piece or two may be missing, but God's house still stands, amen?



Everywhere that we went on this European adventure we saw the most unbelievably ornate buildings. I loved this one in Croatia. Look at the cross and the hands carved into the marble. This was just above a door; I don't know what the building was, but it was so pretty. I loved that it survived the war too.



Well, after finding a bathroom and taking in all of the sights, we looked up at that big clock in the center of town and saw that it was 11:28....We had two minutes to get to the designated meeting spot, which was plenty of time.........

We thought.

As we arrived at the "spot," we noticed that no one from our group was there. Not even Count Dracula the tour guide. We looked around in all directions, and we did not see one soul that we recognized. I looked at Melissa and I said, "I don't have a good feeling about this." Neither did she. We could not imagine that every body on the tour would be late.....but the clock said it was 11:32 by this time.

We decided that we would start walking toward where the tour bus was parked....And sure enough as we were making our way around the corner.....there was Count Dracula our tour guide......And he was mad! He started to yell at us! He said that he and every one else has been waiting on us for fifteen minutes! He also informed us that he was getting ready just to leave us behind!

In a foreign country.

All. By. Our. Selves.

(Can you imagine?)

We told him that we did not understand, because the clock in the middle of town said it was just now 11:30. He looked at us very aggravated and yelled said, "That clock is not right!" (This is good information to know....now!)

So we followed him back to the bus (full of tired and cranky people), where he proceeded to insult us and make a wise crack about us being late. He said, "Youths! They don't care what time it is!" (We were the youngest people on the tour that day.)
He made a few other wise cracks, but due to his very thick Count Dracula accent, I couldn't understand everything he said.

It's probably just as well.

As we were driving back to Dubrovnik, he did apologize to us in front of everyone. He told every one that we were going by the time on the town clock, but it did not work. He said he realized that we would not have had a way to know that, since he did not tell us.

The moral of this entire story is, "Wear a watch and never ever trust an old town clock."

I'm just saying is all.

Here is a picture I took of Dubrovnik (The Walled City) from the bus. It is truly an amazing sight to see.



This is a picture of a portion of the wall that surrounds the city. If I am remembering correctly, we were told that this wall was constructed between the 12th and 17th century. It is unbelievable!



And last but not least, here is a picture of two girls who are both very happy that they did not get left in Croatia! (And please just ignore my big sunburned forehead...Thanks!)




Kenny, if you are still awake, I want to apologize to you for the length of this blog post today. I know that you don't like when I ramble on for so long, so I am truly sorry. I hope that the sleeping you did while trying to read this blog post does not interfere with your ability to sleep tonight. Maybe, if this continues to be a problem for you, you should try reading my blog at night.....You know, you could treat it like a good bedtime story. :)