feldmanlarry

Already this day I had fought T-Mobile, taken the cable car to the top of the mountain around the city, been to two museums, and walked the city walls. The dilemma I’ve been feeling these last two weeks since I hit the physical and emotional wall in Venice is between the need to rest and recover on the one hand and the desire to see everything possible. The desire to see everything has been winning and it won at this moment. I had to decide very quickly whether to go to Mostar, Bosnia the next day and rush through my list or take it easy tomorrow in Dubrovnik and skip Mostar.

I actually ran through the Strodun to take the last boat to the island, Lokrum. It reminded me how much I don’t like running. The ferry left at 4:00 and took 15 minutes with the last ferry coming back left at 5:00. I was the only one on the ferry, since other people realized that 45 minutes wasn’t enough time to fully enjoy the island. Here’s a view of the ferry on its way to the island.

I can never get enough of Kings Landing (the Old Town), this time from the boat.

I didn’t have time to walk all the way to the fort on top of the island. My favorite part was the peacocks running wild.

I’m embarrassed to tell you that I got lost around 4:45 with only 15 minutes until the last ferry. If I hadn’t found my way back on time I might have had to spend the night on the island or ask to be rescued. It was easy to find my way to water since it’s a small island but it turned out to be on the opposite side from the port. I used my 3G service (thank you T-Mobile even though I hate you) to see where I was on Apple Maps and get back with a few minutes to spare.

This left two items on my list to do and I was going to be gone most of the next day. So I went immediately to find the Rochester Institute of Technology branch campus in Dubrovnik that Keith attended in 2013. I got a picture of it when I was walking on top of the walls.

I spoke with two Computer Science students who were doing something similar to what Keith did. Keith was there for a quarter of 11 weeks while these students had a full semester. Keith lived a ways away in view of the big bridge that I saw the next day. He took two classes from an RIT CS professor and two classes with the local students. It’s hard for me to imagine how nice that must have been to be in a place as beautiful as this. There are bars after bars after bars in the Old Town and walking around here is a joy. I talked with a different RIT professor for a while. He was on his way to climb 400 steps to get to his apartment.

I got invited to have dinner with the Foreign Language club but I wasn’t feeling it. Instead I went for some exotic seafood. This dish had rare truffles, scallops in a crab sauce, and pasta dipped in oyster ink. The picture has a red hue to it because of the heat lamp outside.

I had to walk around a lot after dinner. This is one of may favorite places and there’s a picture of a big battle from Game of Thrones taking place here. This is the stairs going from the most important gate, the Pile Gate, down to the Old Town.

I started to question whether I had made the right decision to go to Bosnia the next day instead of just relaxing and seeing more sights in Dubrovnik. The part of me that wants to see everything won out over the part of me that wants to take it easy but the part that wanted to take it easy was complaining after this long day.