Waiting out rain that may or may not come

The worst thing about my accommodation here is that it is about a mile and a half from the city center. Which means that when a rain cloud suddenly shows up and it starts to sprinkle, I have to decide whether or not i want to try to run home (where I was going to head in the next hour) or write more on my blog. Shocker that staying in the city wins out. It could also have something to do with hanging out longer with my new friend Aaron from Sydney who i have been hanging out with all afternoon. It's nice to share the travel experience with someone. I think he thinks I am crazy for having zero plan, little desire to see sites, and no desire to have a plan, but he is trying his best to not be too critical.

This morning I woke up, went downstairs and made myself a cup of tea, went back up to my deck and had breakfast (the usual bread, nutella, and jelly) while looking at the gorgeous view of the deck.

I came back downstairs right as my host mother was coming out of the bathroom with her pants still mostly pulled down. it didnćt really phase her one bit that i was there. she just sortof held onto her pants with one hand (didn't actually pull them up) while patting my cheek affectionately with the other, like she does every morning. Pretty hilarious. and wonderful. Then she told me to have a "vvvery nice day" and I went on my way. I freaking love Dubrovnik.
So I went back to the Hotel Belvedere and took about a million more pictures today. it was even more creepy than yesterday, because Aaron and I actually went through some of the buildings. we were talking about how different it would be in the states or Australia if a building like that had been left empty for so long. All of the windows would have been smashed in. there would be squatters all throughout it. here - that is not the case. There are definitely busted windows and graffiti, but it is surprisingly still very intact. I am fascinated by it. I think I must actually have a lot of my dad in me, becaues I have now decided that my new love should be renovating old places. I would love to learn how to do that, and come in and fix up a place like this. I wish that I could transfer my pictures so that people could see what it looks like. I am literally fascinated by this place. In my American way, I cannot imagine that this place hasn't been fixed up. there is so much potential there! (this is probably exactly what my dad said to my mom before they bought the blue house in st. elmo, and most of us know how that turned out...)

So Jean and Nichol (John and Nichol) are the 2 kids I met zesterday at the hotel. By the way ' excuse the z and ys. I have the option of either going to the internet cafe that has the time delay, the american keyboards, and the cappuchino, that is much more expensive or the internet place that is cheap, has no time delay, a million kids playing video games, and croatian keyboards. this afternoon, i picked cheap. no cappuchino for me.
They were the funniest kids. They came running down the hill looking for bandages because they had just wrecked the scooter/motorbike that their friend had stolen. They were incredibly overdramatic about it, and looking back, i am not sure if it was because they were actually freaking out about what to tell their parents or bc they were actually trying to scam me and were going to steal from me (which is a real possibility). but either way, they didnćt steal from me and we did have a pretty amusing conversation as we walked along. thez came down to the water where i was reading, and we hung out for a bit while i tried to clean out their wounds. then we hiked back up to the road, where they had thrown their backpacks into the middle of this big pile of briars (still not sure about why they did that one - they said soething about hiding them there in case the cops came). so they spent about 15 minutes trying to get their bags out, asking for my help a bit, and then we walked back towards town. eventually i started feeling uncomfortable, so i juts stopped, started taking pics, and they kept walking.
it was uncomfortable, for different reasons, taking pictures of the hotel while they were there. initially, i asked them what had happened to the hotel. they looked at me like i was a bit of an idiot and said, "ummm...the war. did you KNOW there was a war???" i said of course i did, while all the time hoping that they didn't ask me what i know about their war. the truth is that i am typical american that knows very little about what goes on in the bigger world. and a typical american who has no concept of what it is like to try and build a country, and a tourist industry, back up after a devastating war that destroyed my country and my city. I asked if they hated Americans like me who come in and start taking a milllion pictures of the ruins of the war. they both got quiet, looked down, and said it was ok, but it is obviously a sore spot.

on my train from florence to trieste, i came across a copy of part of the NY times in english. one of the articles was about the new industry taht takes tourists into slums in a lot of different countries. the article talked about the pros and the cons of it, but the basic gist that i took from it was that this seems like a strange practice. i was sortof appalled while reading the article. Yet, that is basically what i have done the last 2 days as i have explored this hotel. i have taken far more pictures of it than i have of any museums, statues, or historical sites.

I am not sure why i am fascinated by tragedy and by what comes out of it, but it has been on my mind a lot since i have been here. i am much more interested now in learning about what actually happened 16 years ago. but, honestly, i am even more interested in the people now than in the history of the war. how have they been affected by the war? what has life been like for the last 16 years? how long does it take for a city to recover? how safe do they feel now?
all questions taht i can't really ask anyone here (maybe my gelato man who speaks fabulous english and who now recognizes me on sight? does that make me cute or fat?)


also - one last note - the whole time i have been in this internet place, the guy running the plce has been playing queen. he is on one side of me jamming out to queen while the 9 year old boy on the other side of me is also singing along. hilarious. some things are timeless, maybe???