Corporate America Runaway

Photo: Dubrovnik Old Town at Sunset

For the ‘best of’ Croatia Photography - click here!

For All snapshots of Croatia - click here!

The first thing that struck me was the smell when the taxi dropped me off at my hostel in Dubrovnik. It wasn’t a fowl smell – quite the contrary – it was a beautiful spring flower smell – completely stunning. I went for a brisk morning run along the water – the air was cool but perfect for running. While I was running someone was out cutting grass…and it smelled so fresh - flooding my brain with memories of spring! It’s a weird feeling to experience spring when you never had a winter – I felt like I was cheating in a way…but it was a welcome feeling as spring and fall are my favorite times of year in the states.

The television in Croatia includes about 5 channels or programming – 2 of the 5 are in English – airing some old, American sitcoms - Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Home Improvement, Full House – definitely stale TV. I hope that the people in Croatia really don’t think that those shows represent the US…they are about 15 years behind! My first two days in Croatia were spent on my own going on runs, doing a ton of walking, exploring Dubrovnik and watching crappy television. After that, the real fun began - my friend David showed up from NYC to join me for the next 10 days. David is one of my dearest friends from NY. We met through our mutual friend Miles (see Greece post) and became close friends through running. I know this is a bad analogy – but in my head David, Miles and I represent my Will and Grace lifestyle…they are my Will and Jack. David absolutely hates this analogy, only because I told him that he would represent Jack and he had a hissy fit…which just solidified the ‘Jack’ character even more. I have no idea why he felt that the analogy was so terrible – he is the only person I know that breaks out into show tunes in the middle of a run or in public, he dances by jumping up and down, he shops more than I do, and he owns lime sherbet colored underwear…I mean really – do you blame me? He spent 10 days trying to convince me that he wasn’t like the Jack character…but the 10 days just solidified my thoughts more – especially when he broke out into the Footloose song in Venice (more to come on that in the Venice post!)

All joking aside, David is a fabulous runner, a crazy partier, a wonderful listener, and spending time with him is like drinking pure caffeine. He has more energy and enthusiasm than I can normally take…kind of like a little puppy that just never stops playing. Regardless of how perky he is in the morning – I love him to death. We became friends through the normal channels of socializing and partying in NYC – however, he’s a bit different because we’ve spent more sober hours together than partying hours. When you have a running partner, that means that you are talking to this person uninterrupted for hours and hours during a week. I seldom had this experience with my other friends, I spent about 5 solid hours of solitude with David a week – completely sober and normally half awake. You really get to know people when you are forced to talk to them for miles and miles – you know their family, every bit of their work life, their strengths, their fears, their bowel movements, their sex life – you name it – nothing is off limits. So –I consider David one of my very closest friends – as we got to know each other I found that we had a ton in common – except for our attitudes in the morning. We would talk about past relationships, views on people, our own control-freak personalities – I often thought he was the exact gay, male version of me when it came to relationships…or does that mean that I’m really a gay male…who knows…I’ve been called worse. If I could run as swift as him I would be happy regardless. So when David showed up with his blond faux-hawked hair in Dubrovnik – I was overjoyed to see him. Plus – the fact that I had worked out all of my transition issues the two weeks before with Miles in Greece, made my meeting with David even that more care-free. Poor Miles, he really got the short end of the stick! David and I had much to catch up on. We were staying in an adorable apartment in the Old Town Dubrovnik. The apartment was filled with antiques and even had a little patio that we could sit on for afternoons of wine and cheese. The Old Town was enclosed by thick ancient walls, it is one of the best preserved walled cities in all of Europe. There were no cars inside the walls, and the narrow little street ways were enchanting every where you turned. Even though I had been in Dubrovnik for 2 days already I hadn’t yet explored the Old Town at all. I decided to save that for when David came as we were planning to stay 4 days within the Old Town walls of Dubrovnik.

I had never really seen a walled city like this before. Sure – there are tons of little walled towns in Tuscany – but Dubrovnik Old Town was the largest I had seen. It was also built into a steep hill on one side and bordered the Adriatic on the other side. The hill side wall was steep – but well worth the climb as it gave you amazing views of the city and the Adriatic as a backdrop. We walked around the whole wall stopping for a beer at a little bar on top of the wall. I’m sure the bar wasn’t from ancient times – but I wasn’t complaining as it was probably one of the most unusual places that I’ve ever had a drink! Later that day David took the plunge – into the chilly Adriatic. When we were up on top of the wall, we noticed that there was a number or people laying out and swimming along a very rocky area outside the city walls. Since David was fresh off the plane from experiencing winter in NY – he wanted to experience some summer. There were actually quite a few people at the little ‘swimming hole’…mainly Germans in speedos…and then David…he fit in just fine. I was cold just watching him, but I was happy just sitting there reading up on all of the celebrity gossip that I had been missing as David brought me trashy magazines from the US…and Twizzlers of course!

[read on]