Kotor, Montenegro

We had a gorgeous drive from Trebinje to Kotor today – the scenery is gorgeous around here… it would be a lovely area to explore without being on a tight schedule, I think! Gorgeous! The colour of the water here is just stunning. And here we are at Kotor again. When I was here in 2016, I was kinda disappointed that we weren’t going to Dubrovnik that trip, but now I’ve been there and am back here – I think I prefer Kotor. It’s like a mini-Dubrovnik, similar feel, winding little streets packed with delightful cafes and kooky little shops – but less overtly touristy (I mean, still plenty touristy but less ‘in your fucking GoT loving face!’, touristy).

I remember trying to take a photo of this when I was here last time, but there was always so many people streaming in (this is the main entrance to town under the fortress walls) that I didn’t manage it. I love the old stone work and the carving… I like to think of the hands that crafted these hundreds of years ago, not ever knowing they would stand the test of time the way they have. Oh, and the weird little permanent Christmas shop that I noticed last time I was here, seems to have survived the pandemic! Seriously would not have expected that… was tempted to buy one of these hand painted wooden Santas to take home to show them some support, but I remembered myself and how much I fucking hate Christmas and resisted the temptation admirably. 😛 So after a little wander around, I found myself an out of the way cafe in one of the back windy streets and treated myself to some bruschetta and a spritz so I could just watch the people going by. Kotor is definitely a fun place to be, I’m not sure I’d suggest staying here for a few days, unless you were using it as a base to explore the region, but it is quaint and lovely. Some of our group were mad enough to go for a walk up the fortress walls in 36C heat… there’s quite a bit I’ll do for a photo op, but that ain’t one of them! Have to say, the cruise ships really kinda spoil the view. They should make them anchor around the corner and tender in to port… (like we did when we were on the enormous Regal Princess!) .You can make out the walk that goes around the walls and then up to the mountain to get the views over the city… there’s a small church up the top and apparently it’s not particularly noteworthy, but fuck that walk in this heat!

Usually Simon was full of useful information about the towns we were visiting and the local history etc. On the way into Montenegro, he told us the one thing he said the Montenegrins are s truly proud of was how lazy they were held to be! He said it’s a reputation they revel in, and are absolutely proud to be as lazy as humanly possible. He read us these Montenegrin Commandments (which were on postcards everywhere) and said people here are will do just about anything to get out of doing work…

So in the spirit of embracing my inner Montenegrin, I decided to spend the remainder of our time in town relaxing with more spritzes for the people watching! Having raced around like a mad chook last time I was here, it was nice to be able to just chill and enjoy the scenery.

After our visit to Montenegro, we were back on the bus – poor Kris was stuck in traffic for ages – 50 mins to move 4kms – so we were a bit behind schedule. And it was off to Budva once he managed to get to us.

The drive there was equally beautiful as we wound our way down the coast. Still in Montenegro so no time wasted in border checkpoints.

Budva is a completely unknown quantity to me, having never been there before and knowing very little about the place… but this is what the ‘Budva brochure’ looks like:

There’s a gorgeous old town happily situated on the mouth of the bay, but unfortunately due to our late arrival, we weren’t going to have time to go explore that. The hotel we were staying in was right down on the beach in the ‘Budva Riviera’ which sounds super exotic…. until you realised it’s full of cashed up Russian bogans and it’s fucking Spring Break out there! Our hotel was the dodgiest one on our entire itinerary… when we checked in, we were given a key, remotes for the AC and a television and strict instructions to check everything was working before everyone head out for dinner. When we stepped into the room, it was obvious that people had been smoking in there and there was a super strong smell of bleach – never a good sign! (Undiluted bleach I late found out because my PJ pants fell from a towel rail to the bathroom floor and it stripped all the colour from them – not happy, Jan!).

Anyway, ‘outside’ there was party sounds in every direction. Turns out that Russians own 80% of the real estate in Budva, so that is the primary language spoken here, they are noticeable everywhere with their shaved heads, shiny tracksuit pants, white singlet tops and big gold chains and ubiquitous cigarettes. Though it turns out due to the war in Ukraine, there are not as many Russians travelling here this year as normal, so a lot of the hotels and resorts have had to market really cheap holiday packages aimed at young people all over Europe to put bums on beds this season… so it is kinda chaotic out there.

I had low expectations of a good nights sleep – and those were met admirably by music from several parties reverberating through the hotel until the wee hours.

Hold the refried beans!

Went to dinner tonight at a little Mexican restaurant in Bulimba and was pleasantly surprised with the food.  There’s not a lot of choice in our general area for Mexican so we’ve probably ended up at Montezuma’s more often than they deserve.  The place we went to last night was called ‘La Quinta Mexican Cafe y Bar’ on Oxford Street and it was fantastic.  Dodgy quasi-Mexican decor but the food more than made up for it.

We had some delicious tapas for starters, fajitas for mains and some really yummy deserts – Mexican doughnuts for me and Chocolate Nachos for Yale…. yes Chocolate Nachos!  They were thin/flat nacho shapped chocolate sweet biscuits served with hot chocolate fudge and cream and ice cream and even though I’m not normally one for chocolate, I tried a bit and they were really good.

I’m definitely going back there again….. I wonder if they’d let us hold a Tequila Party there!  🙂


Angel’s first Tequila Party c2003.

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Sleep deprived to party tart in 6.3 seconds.

Okay.. so I spent yesterday doing the things I’ve been dying to do… the really important things yes?  Like finally getting my nails done…. 🙂  Happy dance at having beautiful nails again… and God bless the strange little men at  Eastman Kodak who invented SuperGlue…. without whose help I would never have been able to hang in there for five weeks of manicure-less hell that is Asia Minor and the Subcontinent!  🙂

Last night … more catching up with loud relatives (the loud bit is probably in my head)… only this time being tortured with corriander, being roped into photographic duties and being compulsorily required to oooh and ahhh over new baby.

Them – “Do you want a cuddle Borys?”
Me – “Oh no… just returned from the third world, full of germs you know… cough cough”

Translation:: ‘ “Do you want me to fall into a socially unacceptable blubbering mess of infertility related despair on your lounge room floor?”  :S  It’s getting harder and harder to be happy for people with their gorgeous new babies… and especially hard when I’ve not yet caught up on the whole lack of sleep thing.  Overwhelming jealousy, long nurtured frustration and inability to interpret spoken language does not a taciturn Borys make. I deftly sidestepped the possibility of a neurotic breakdown by avoiding small emotional grenade and decided to go out and hang with decidedly non-breeding friends instead.

Went to party, party, party…. intending to hang for about an hour or so and then come home.  But I was delightfully detained by second favorite brother-in-law and ended up staying out until 0130!!!!  :S   Not good for the sleep whole deprivation thingy!!!!!  🙁  

Today – Slept in until 1030 – that’s a new record for me… might have been the fantastic hot water bottle I had – thanks 😉    Angel had some little friends over to watch a movie on the bigscreen… . how can three small boys make soooo much noise!  :S  Then had  NMdG and  MissCL over for dinner.  Watched a weird movie… Black Snake Moan and tried to go to sleep at a reasonable hour…. like about 0230!    :S

Am never going to recover from this lack of sleep thing!

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Drinkies @ Azerbaijan!!!

We had a wee anti-festival drinkies last night… and by wee… I mean wee!!   There was barely 8 of us… but we were a fairly committed bunch… intent on making up for all the serious amounts of lost drinking we were foregoing by not attending festival this year.  And I must say… judging by the bottles this morning, we made a fair dint on that goal!

For special fun and torture, I inflicted my some of my oldest friends on my newest friend…  And I must say the results weren’t as disastrous as they usually are when you throw someone new into a well established social group…. the new friend held up tolerably well, and the old friends (for the most part) behaved themselves.   So we had a pretty good night…  🙂    Shame that the Darkman and his gorgeous little KissGirl couldn’t make the party….. but that, no doubt, could have led to a very different night indeed!    😛

Dirty 30s Party!!!

I had my 30th birthday party on the weekend…. yes slightly over due I know, but I always said I’d turn 30 eventually!  Apparently it clashed with the RH Red and White, which was accidental I assure you! Turned out to be a warm and very wet night, so we had the party inside yet again!  One of these days we’re going to hold a party outside and maybe spare my carpets a little!

So it was out with the fedoras, feathers, furs, braces and funky clunky shoes.  🙂  Everyone looked really cool.  HdM came dressed as a sailor, NMdG, Darkman, Jimbo all made good gangster types, we had one Indiana Jones, and a few flapper types.  Best costume has to go to the Humbibble dressed as a Cigarette girl in a very saucy outfit.   I can’t actually remember a lot of detail from the evening – I had loads of champagne for the girls to drink, but I think things went down hill due to Darkman’s cheap tequila, which he always feels compelled to inflict on everyone else!  I spent the whole night laughing…. and I think there was dancing…. gotta remember to eat something when we’re drinking….. and I KNOW I accidentally walked into a discussion between Darkman and Surly about fisting (not something you forget in a hurry)…. and I have vague recollections of our intrepid sailor dropping his pants…. again!  …. also there may or may not have been some sort of pile up of people on the living room floor in a rather tragic swing dance incident!   But I am pretty certain the fisting was before the teqila… which is disconcerting on so many levels!

I woke up this morning feeling not too bad, except for the positively ridiculous pain level I was experiencing in my lower back!!!  Couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I’d done to stir it up…. and then I downloaded my photos this morning!  There was indeed some sailor type pants dropping action… and yes, there was dancing of a sort….. and undeniable evidence a pile up of people on the living room floor at one stage…. and there I am – at the bottom of it!   Mysterious back  pain no longer a mystery… Sigh.

All up it was a fun night.  I’ll have to send round some of the more incriminating photos by email i think.

dirty thirty 30s party