Bosnia...NOT - 17 November

Alexis, Lara and I had intended to rent a car today and take a road trip to Bosnia for the day. However, we woke up to thunder, lightening and a torrential downpour and quickly came to the conclusion that a trip to Bosnia today would be really stupid. It’s a good thing we are all highly educated women and can figure these things out. We decided to stay dry instead which meant staying on the ship and getting some work/writing done.

Mid-morning I made a quick trip to a grocery store nearby when the rain let up slightly. I have been on the lookout for Christmas wrapping paper and someone told me they sold it in this store. Yes, I do realize that it is a sickness to be wrapping Christmas presents in the middle of November and still on the ship. In my own defense I would just like to say that by planning ahead I can mail the presents to my brother and his family from Miami rather than hauling them back to Virginia and then to Idaho. So there you have it. There is a very logical reason for my disorder. At least I’m not playing Christmas music yet!

When I got back to my cabin, I hung up my wet clothes to dry and got back into my pajamas and lounged around my room for the remainder of the morning. Unfortunately, my coziness on this yucky day was marred by the absence of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. When I was growing up my mother had a habit of baking chocolate chip cookies on rainy days so now I have a Pavlovian response to rain. Rain = chocolate chip cookies! They are inextricably linked together forever.

At noon I got a phone call from Suzanne (from the party last night) inviting me to join her and Mike for lunch in the city and an afternoon of exploring the area on the other side of the bay. The weather had improved drastically so I said I would love to join them. We made our way into town and found a vegetarian restaurant that they had scoped out on previous treks through the area. We ordered one of everything (at least it seemed that way) and soon dug into the tasty dishes. It was sooooo good! We shared all of the dishes and were stuffed to the gills by the time we were done. We spent about two hours there enjoying the food and the conversation while a rain storm moved in and then left. By the time we emerged from the restaurant, the sun had come out again. Excellent timing.

It was then time for our exploration of the shore on the other side of the bay from where we were docked. We got on another city bus and were deposited in the middle of hotel alley. Since it is the off-season, the area was quite deserted and we had the place to ourselves. We soon found a path that wound around the shore and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery. We discovered that we had a phenomenal view of the ship on the other side of the bay and took several picturesque photos of our home. It was a beautiful area with very few people and we enjoyed the moment to the fullest.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon there until the sun started to set and we made our way back to the bus stop. Since we were enjoying ourselves so much we decided to prolong the day and go back to the city center and get some dinner. Rather than try someplace new we went back to the restaurant from last night. We had another phenomenal meal and were very glad that we weren’t eating ship food tonight. We’ll get enough of that on the trip home from Spain! Afterwards, we returned to the ship and I spent the remainder of the evening blogging and reading. The day started out being rather disappointing but it developed into a most excellent one.