It's All About Who You Know

If you know Jeff and I well at all, you probably know that Jeff is the adventurous member of this marriage.  He is the one dreaming and scheming new (and to some people, crazy) things for our family to do.  And he is definitely the member of our family with the most serious case of wanderlust.  So it is not surprising that sometime last spring (I think that's when it was...see, I don't even know when it was!) when Jeff told me that he had had a proposal for a presentation at a conference that would take place during our semester in Budapest accepted, I barely registered the fact in my mind.  I'm not sure I could have told you that this conference was taking place in Dubrovnik, or that Dubrovnik is in the country of Croatia.  And I'm quite sure I could not have told you that the conference was sponsored by the Alliance of Universities for Democracy.

So a few weeks ago, when the time to attend this conference was drawing near, I decided to Google Dubrovnik.  I realized that I really ought to take some interest in this trip we were about to take.  After seeing pictures of Dubrovnik online, I started to feel a little excited about this five-day part-time work trip (for Jeff), part-time (for Jeff)/full-time (for the other Boumans) vacation.

Having now been to Dubrovnik and back, I can only gush  like a star-struck adolescent, with completely inadequate words, about the wonder and beauty of Croatia, especially the Dalmatian coast.  So beware that the following could be a paid advertisement for the Tourism Board of Croatia!

First of all, the wonder of our drive (in a rental car) there can only begin to be approximated by listing all the different things we saw and experienced in one twelve-hour period:

• We drive to Croatia on October 22, Bastian's sixteenth birthday.
• Pennsylvania-like landscape and fall colors
• innumerable hawks on fence posts at the side of the highway
• animal overpasses on the highway
• snow deep enough to have been plowed
• lots and lots and lots of tunnels, including two that were three miles long!  (Breath-holding strictly not advised.)
• landscape changes first to more mountainous (not quite Colorado-like), then to semi-arid (California-like?)
• citrus groves
• palm trees
• pomegranate trees
• olive trees
• road-side stands selling mandarins, pomegranates, honey, and olive oil
• two rainbows
• As we reach the Adriatic Sea, the landscape is mountainous, both on the mainland and in the numerous large and small islands dotting the Croatian coastline.  By this time, our mouths are hanging open, and we can only look at each other as if we must be dreaming.
• amazing clouds and light as the sun begins its evening descent
• cruise ships - two or three - I think it is the first time I have ever seen one, aside from TV.  They are both strangely attractive and strangely frightening - bigger than many of the small towns they are beside.

 Finally, Dubrovnik, "the pearl of the Adriatic", according to Lord Byron, and "Paradise on Earth", according to George Bernard Shaw.  (Who am I to disagree?)  The Old Town is surrounded by walls that were originally built in the 8th century and took their present form in the 13th century.  It has mostly narrow streets, many of which are on steep hillside and thus stepped.  Vehicles are (mostly) not allowed.  Oh, and the streets are made of marble.  It was like stepping into a storybook, perhaps (as I've said elsewhere) Inkheart or Kiki's Delivery Service or The Cat Returns. If all that is not enough, the sea (all along the Croatian coast) is a beautiful, crystal-clear aqua in which you can see the bottom until the water gets too deep.  We all swam, yes, in late October.

Really, I could go on about our three-day stay in Dubrovnik forever.  Forever and a little longer, if I started writing about the rest of the Croatian coast that we saw.  I won't go on forever, though.  I'll just end with a few thoughts.  1) I have a new dream of where to spend my later years.  See picture below.  2)  I can't imagine not coming back here.  Next time, I think a camping trip down the coast and through the islands...  3) Mamas, it's OK to let your babies grow up to be academics.  Thanks, hon, for opening that email about the AUDEM conference in Dubrovnik.

I think this (top right) looks like the perfect place to spend the empty nest years.

If you'd like to see more pictures, I have a 45-picture album called "In Love With Dubrovnik" on my Facebook page.  If anyone really, really loves us and wants to see all 750 pictures we took, make a date with us.  (Even while we were taking them, Jeff said, "No one loves us enough to look at all of these," but we just couldn't stop!)