page 39 |
2005 BALKANS TOURBen Oostdam | Budva
|
| The morning on the bus had been mostly rainy and overcast so we did not see too much of Bar (where I was to return next week anyhow), Sutomore, Petrovac, the spectacular tombolo Sveti Stefan, and Milodev, but later in the afternoon the weather cleared up and I took a walk to the Budva shore. There was a fine fagrance in the air, and the road up into the mountains to Podgorica showed some spectacular hairpins. I decided to leave the Citadel for the next day and returned to my guesthouse for a long chat with Ivan Petricevic, the son of the owner, who spoke fluent English and was very well educated (knew about the Boer wars). |
 He also translated for his father, a retired Montenegran Army major, and his industrious stepmother Kola, who plied me with brandy and coffee. |
 My other next door neighbors: Tatyana and Vladimir from the Ukraine |
|
I spent the whole evening in the GRBALJ restaurant next door with my New Zealand friends talking about travel,
plate tectonics and whence came world's best oysters:
Chincoteague (USA), Moran's (Ireland),
Ston (Croatia), or Bluff (NZ). I also enjoyed looking at the performance of a gent at the next table, who was exposed to a one-sided conversation of an excited woman, while he looked bored, yawned behind his hand, excavated his ear with his index finger and curiously inspected proceeds, then pretended to be interested for a second before returning to scratching his back. While the New Zealanders slept late, I breakfasted with my other neighbors, eating their coarse Ukrainian bread and listening to the details about their work as a biochemist (she) and business trainer (he), presented in creditable English. I also did my laundry. |
