Lazy girl! Lazy girl!

Recommended: If you come to Dubrovnik, consider a boat tour of some of the nearby islands. If you have the chance, try and go with Marco, captain of the SS Kate. Marco talks like a Croatian version of the Swedish Chef, wears a denim vest, and will insist that you drink large quantities of his homemade brandy, which appears to be flavored with dill and gasoline. Marco may also try and marry you off to his son, or perform native Croatian dances with your mom. No promises, though. Those things may have been special moments, just for the Utgoffs.
Highly recommended: The Troubador, a bar in the old city featuring live jazz, starting every night somewhere between 9 and 10. The waitresses are genuine beer wenches, and the musicians only know some of the English words to their set of old standards, which includes 'As Time Goes By' and 'All of Me.' If you make eye contact enough times with the crusty old saxaphone player, he'll drag you up in front of the crowd to dance with him. Also, the pianist is surprisingly good humored about letting you take pictures of your sister leaning on his piano.
Not recommended: Going to the Troubador on the same day as your boat trip with Marco. You probably won't be able to walk in a straight line on the way home. Also, if you miss breakfast the next morning and try to order some french fries from the hotel kitchen, they'll shout 'Lazy girl! Lazy girl!' over and over at you, even if there are a lot of other people around. And you still won't get any fries.

This explains SO much

We're at dinner in our hotel, having just enjoyed a dinner of mysterious fried substances and bread. Everything in Dubrovnik tastes the same, like the town fries it in a central deep frier and messengers it out to restaraunts, where they microwave it when you order. Mmmmm. Cuisine from behind the iron curtain is kind of lame, it turns out.

At dinner, I was telling my parents that I'm really scared I'm going to drop someone's baby one of these days. Instead of comforting me, they confessed to me that THEY had dropped ME when I was a baby! On my head! Onto a concrete floor! Suddenly, my total lack of hand-eye coordination and inability to keep track of my wallet makes TOTAL sense. At least they don't seem wracked by guilt, so apparently dropping babies isn't really that bad. Phew!
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Wooooooo!

I'm sitting in a bar drinking Croatian beer and playing quarters with my sister and my parents. We're listening to weird Croatian a capella music and getting totally trashed, and it's great.
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Rain

It's raining in Dubrovnik, and apparently that's supposed to continue all week. Bummer!

In other news, last night we decided thst it must be ok to drink the tap water here, since our guide book doesn't say not to, and my dad thought the rule of thumb is that western cities are ok. Although the former Yugoslavia is an exception to that rule about how countries with McDonalds don't fight wars, so maybe it's an exception to the tap water rule, too. Evidence to that effect turned up this morning when the hotel bartender advised Maggie to steer towards bottled water. Was he trying to make a buck, or am I headed for a bad case of Slobodan's Revenge? Updates to follow, possibly whiny ones.
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dubrovnik, day 1

I'm typing this from my hotel in Dubrovnik, at which we arrived last night. We haven't been into the old town to see the sights yet, but the hotel has been pretty entertaining so far. It has a great view of the beautiful harbor, across which we can see a whole cluster of the white buildings with red tile roofs that Dubrovnik is famous for. Even better, the hotel stereo system pumps hits from the 80s into the lobby 24-7. Maggie and I grooved out to the Aretha Franklin & George Michael hit 'I knew you were waiting for me' over breakfast this morning. It was actually our second breakfast. We woke up STARVING in the middle of the night, and Maggie convinced the desk clerk to let us in to the breakfast buffet that he'd just finished setting up so we could go to town on some cereal. Nice.

Our trip over was blessedly uneventful. We made every flight connection with plenty of time to spare, and Maggie met us as expected in London. I watched 6 episodes of the final season of The OC on my ipod, and enjoyed them thoroughly.

My Adventures Begin

I moved out of the apartment I shared with Maggie yesterday, and into the apartment I'm going to share with Nick. We spent the day unpacking our possessions (we only have three spoons), hanging pictures on the walls, and trying out every possible permutation for our living room furniture. It turns out I've become pretty girly in my old age, to the point where I can spend hours discussing the location of hypothetical end tables. It was fun, though, and I love the new apartment. Waking up in it for the first time felt like Christmas morning.

Sadly, I couldn't spend too long gazing lovingly at my new residence, because I had to get on a plane to DC this morning to begin my summer adventures. Here's my itinerary:

• May 25 - 26: DC
  
• May 27 - June 2:Dubrovnik, Croatia
  
• June 2 - 4: Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. We've recently been informed that the State Department has issued a travel warning about landmines for Bosnia. Neat!
  
• June 4 - 7: Sarajevo
  
• June 7 - 12: Budapest
  
• June 12 - 15: Athens
  
• June 15 - July 20: Paris. How many crepes do you think I can consume in 5 weeks? I'm guessing roughly seventeen gagillion.
  
• July 20 - 25: London
  
• July 25 - 28: DC
  
• July 29 - 30: NY
  
• July 31 - August 8:Roadtrip to northeastern locales TBD.
  
• August 9 - August 10: NY I get to see Daft Punk play live in Brooklyn! I'm so excited I've already got my outfit picked out. (It has big crazy rhinestones, because what else do you wear to a robot rock concert?)
  
• August 10: San Francisco. My triumphant return.
  

Check here for updates on my travels, and if your summer plans overlap with mine, let me know.