Mr. Good Fortune

After quite a logistically-challenging morning, we arrived to the Dubrovnik Airport's Hertz counter (i.e. a mobile home in the middle of the parking lot, shared by 3 agencies) a few hours later than we had planned. "Nothing to worry about," we thought, because we reserved the car online days ago! Uh...wrong. When we arrived, we were told that they just didn't (and wouldn't) have a car for us. Period. (Anyone else remember that Seinfeld episode? Just picture Will and I having that same basic conversation with an expressionless Croatian man in a 6' x 6' office within a mobile home.) After losing every argument of logic & also losing th

e "maybe if I curse at you, you will give me what I want" game (I was the only one playing that one), we ducked out & quickly tried to formulate a Plan B. My attempts to secure a comparable price from another agency failed miserably, at which time I just sat down in the airport parking lot, leaning up against my backpack in utter defeat. Meanwhile, Will sauntered over, randomly picked an agency, and immediately found an even better deal than my early and extensive online research had uncovered. Within minutes, we had the perfect little car for the next ten days of our trip!

We enjoyed an amazing drive along the main coastal road, getting stuck only once when we took a wrong turn then couldn't figure out how to get the car into reverse (there was a secret code that a nice passerby explained to us). :) A couple of hours later, we crossed the border into Bosnia & Herzegovina, heading north; the scenery instantly changed from beautiful coast to beautiful rolling hills & endless orchards and vineyards.

We arrived in our destination

 town of Mostar much later than we had hoped (i.e. after sundown), and were disappointed at the complete lack of street signs and our very limited guidebook map. I started getting nervous about finding a place to sleep as we meandered through the narrow one-way streets...but of course Will's endless supply of good luck soon landed us in the perfect little guesthouse, with our own double room and an incredibly gracious English-speaking host.

Time to snuggle in to my Bosnian bed...