Catch Ya Later, Croatia! Oh Myyyyy, Montenegro!

Weirdest blog post title ever. You're welcome.

So we woke up and Nina, Amy, Alex, and I decided to head back to the Old Town to have some breakfast, OR AS AUSTRALIANS CALL IT, "Brekkie". So cute. So we made the mistake of going to one of the restaurants along the main street. It looked pretty touristy, but we had no idea HOW touristy it was...

Ham and cheese omelet. Yes. They CHARGE for butter, jam, and honey?... PER PACKET?

So after our unnecessarily expensive breakfast, we decided to explore some of the dark corners of the Old Town.

Let's see what kind of seedy subversive adventures we can get ourselves into at 10 am...

AND THEN IT HAPPENED. THE RETURN. OF. THE. POTATO.

It looked exactly the same as the potato we saw before! Same shape, same color, etc. MAYBE IT WAS THE SAME POTATO?? Nina yelled what everyone was already thinking, "What's with all these potatoes!?" No one had an answer. It was just sitting there, in the middle of the street. Quiet. Too quiet. One lonely potato in a world filled with pots of boiling water...

That was one brave and mobile potato. Lemme tell ya.

Enough about the potato. You guys are obsessed with it. So we all headed back to the hostel, got all our things together, said farewell to our dear Amy, and set off for Montenegro! Goodbye, Croatia!

So here are my impressions of Croatia. First off, the group we traveled with was amazing, as I said before. We really lucked out. I think the Croatia we saw will not be the same Croatia in a few years, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to go. Its popularity in the tourist industry is rising, and I wanted to see it before it became too crazy. Croatia offered a lot of important cultural heritage sites and natural wonders. The beaches, the ruins, the cities, and the people were extraordinary. Its vast history and mixture of cultures was evident everywhere. The ONE bit of criticism I'd have would be the food. Don't get me wrong, I had some pretty amazing meals, like the Asian-fusion place in Dubrovnik. But this unusual cultural mixture should have made Croatian cuisine outstanding, and I failed to see that. Most of the foodstuffs I got I could get anywhere else. Although what I had was delicious, sometimes it felt like a knock-off, an imitation of other cuisines, primarily Italian and Slavic. The food that was more Italian-esque, to me, just wasn't as good as the Italian food in Italy, or in New York. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Slavic food to comment on that aspect. And maybe that's just the way Croatian cuisine is. But if it wants to build a tourist industry that rivals other countries in Europe, it needs to offer something more than its incredible sights and sounds. It needs a food identity, culture, or artistry that is  not only incomparably delicious, but is unequivocally Croatian. I want to go here and stuff my face with food that I can't find anywhere else, OKAY!? IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK!?

So that's my rant. Don't be mad at me. Okay, fine you can be mad at me.

BACK TO REALITY. So the tour company, G Adventures, booked us a private bus, which was very convenient. The trip from Croatia to Montenegro was only a couple hours, and most of that time was spent in line going through the border security.

Once we were through though, we breezed down the roadways and arrived at Perast, a very old town on the Bay of Kotor.

On the left is St. George Monastery, and on the right is Our Lady of the Rocks, built on an artificial island. To get to them you have to walk across the water.

After I pushed Nina into the Bay to see if she could walk on water (newsflash, she can't), Pat, Alison, Alex, Nina, and I walked along the coast into the town itself.

The dramatic geography surrounding this old town was stunning.

The area was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

Giant mountains dropping into a pristine bay, yeesh, talk about dramatic.

The town and the environment felt so ancient. We could almost feel the history around us.

IT WAS PRETTY.

I still get chills when I look at these pictures. And let's be honest, I'm no photographer. My camera is either a crappy phone with a battery life of three hours or a digital camera practically from the 1860's.

What does exaggeration mean? I've never heard it before.

As we walked along the main street, we saw some ruined buildings.

A little odd to see these ruins right on the main road of the town.

It was hard to tell if they were real ruins, as in a protected heritage site, or just abandoned buildings. There wasn't a sign anywhere, so we had to assume that they were abandoned. Strange, since this particular structure was right across the street from a very posh restaurant overlooking the water.

I'd definitely be down to eat some local cuisine with a view like that... but alas, we didn't have enough time here.

We had to meet the rest of the group shortly, so we quickly took some photos with this magnificent backdrop.

THAT'S what I look like!? Oh, wait, that's Nina. I'm on the left. Whew.

THEN I TOOK A SURPRISE PHOTO OF PAT AND ALISON.

Or tried to. Ugh, they sure know how to pose at the drop of a hat. Sigh, they're so freakin' perfect all the time. SIIIGHHHH.

As we walked along, we spotted a wedding party at another restaurant on the water. Yeah, this would be a pretty fantastic place to have a wedding.

We walked back to meet up with everyone and get on the bus. There was some confusion, for the bus driver assumed that we would walk through the town and meet him on the other side. Instead, we walked back to the original starting point. So we had to wait a while for him to drive back and pick us up. Which was fine, you know, I just got ants all over my legs from when I sat on the ground and got some serious bug bites because I forgot my bug spray. BUT NO WORRIES IT'S FINE I'M NOT COMPLAINING AT ALL.

So we got back on and drove to the main town of Kotor. We'd be staying here for the next two nights. The drive was short, and the bus dropped us off at the entrance to the Old Town. This time, we'd be staying in the actual Old Town itself! No vehicles were allowed inside, so we had to walk through the town to find our hostel. It took us a long time to find it, unfortunately. The streets were not clearly organized or marked, and it was hard to find any addresses at all. It also didn't help that none of the locals seemed to know anything (or they were totally just messing with us, which is something I would do, so, hah. Respect.). But eventually, our guide was able to figure it out, and we found our rooms.

Though that was kind of stressful, at least we had the beautiful Old Town to gawk at.

Our hostel was right across from that beautiful cathedral. After we dropped our stuff off, we decided to grab some food and DrAnKs!

I got a little bottle of wine for about three bucks.

Okay yeah, lemme just say, the food here is CHEAP. A whole meal would set you back no more than about fifteen US dollars. A WHOLE MEAL. Like, appetizers, drinks, entree, ALL OF IT.

So Nina and I split some locally made cheese and prosciutto! Delicious! I LOVE THIS PLACE.

And since we were so near the sea, I got myself some fried calamari.

I think I read somewhere that the fried calamari here was good...

But it was meh. It was pretty much identical to the fried calamari I'd find in New York, at a dive bar or something. Remember my rant from before? I was wondering if I was going to have the same food experience in Montenegro. From what I can remember, Alison, Alex, and Pat did not enjoy their meals at all. Nina liked hers, she had squid ink risotto, which turned her mouth into a black hole of despair. So that was a plus.

Maybe you had to know what to order? Or Montenegrin cuisine was just a toss-up. What might seem like a good idea may turn out to be wonderful or terrible. The next couple days would prove to be very interesting, I'll tell you that much...

After dinner, we were all exhausted, and had to wake up early the next day. So we went back to the hostel, lay our drunk little innocent heads on our pillows and conked out.