Room With a View

After my day with the boys, we headed back to Kat's family's home. Staying with her family (or one's family in general) gives you more of a personal feel for a country. The neighbors in the village definitely took notice to our diverse looking group and we would greet them with enthusiastic waves on our way back to the house. You get more assimilated with the day to day life as opposed to staying in a hotel. And in this case, we had amenities that compared to a hotel - warm chocolate croissants in the morning, laundry available, free wifi and dinners in the company of influential Croatian residents.

It was especially interesting to stay at the home of someone who had such an impact on the history of a country, a former US Ambassador to Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria. I quickly became aware of how uninformed I was as a child of the '90's of the severity of the situation here. At a young age, it's difficult to grasp the concept of war unless you are unfortunately faced with it. Their current home, a former olive oil mill, was completely shelled and gutted from the war. As was much of the area, you could see the renovations that were made after the war and how much war can devastate an area and a generation.

In much appreciation for their hospitality, we took Kat's family out for dinner that night. Well they took us to the place. We wouldn't have known about it otherwise as it was set up in the hilltop of Dubrovnik. On the ride up to the top of Dubrovnik, in between games of "would you rather: Bill Clinton or Mick Jagger" in the car, we pulled over to catch the sunset and take some photos.


Our lovely host family.


One photo of the girls.


One of the guys, very GQ.


And one of Jeff and Kat caught up in the view.


I called the dinner "Meat Fest" because they put two large platters of meat- slow cooked veal and lamb on hot coals, with a large serving of potatoes on the side. We dined outside and enjoyed the company of our hosts.


Stay bitten ;)