First full day in Dubrovnik (10/16)

St. Blaise, the gothic church next door to my abode’s alleyway, is beautiful to behold, but such proximity has a downside. The belfry starts its work, clanging at 6:00 AM on Sunday morning. That would be six clangs. Big ones. Repeat at 7:00 AM. The eight clangs at 8:00 had their way with me – I arise, unwilling to be jostled from another dream in the next hour with nine. Church wasn’t my destination, but I do have a rendezvous with Mike and Colleen at 9:00 AM at the Onofrio Fountain. Big smiles are exchanged and in a moment the day’s schedule is set: first up, we walk the wall.

As with most fortresses, the broad walls of Old City are constructed so that the town’s former protectors could patrol them, looking out for potential invaders. Every few feet, there are openings in the wall for guards to shoot arrows, chuck spears, blow spit balls and the like at anyone foolish enough to threaten the town. Nowadays, we tourists of many tongues wag them as we circumvent the city along the wall and ooh and ahh at the spectacle of the sights – the sea, mountains, outer town, inner town, harbors, boats and islands all combine to ensure that you know that you’re in a fabled place.

The day is hot. Like lizards on a stone, we often stop to absorb the sun. In several spots along the southern wall soaring straight up from the Adriatic, I look down and see people sun bathing on the rocks and swimming at the fortress feet. Lilting up some 25 meters to me come excited yelps in Swedish, German, French and Croatian. Being European, the women are nonchalant about the whereabouts of their tops. Being an intrepid American traveler, I pretended not to notice.

Sometime in the afternoon, it is nap time for Mike and Colleen, so I say farewell at a pier where their hotel passenger boat picks them up. After a few moments of wistfully watching them putter toward their luxurious cliff-hanging accommodations, I dash off to don a bathing suit and then made my way to a particularly delicious looking jetty of rock, just off the southeast wall, surrounded by an inlet pool of sparkling azure-green water. I took a breath, leaped, and sparkled with it.

Bush and Eddy Everywhere

Tonight I wander about peeking in one bar and restaurant after another searching for something unexpressed to myself, perhaps a vibe or a sign that reads: “Oh Joe, There You Are, We’ve Been Waiting For You, Please, Please, Step Right In!” There is no sign found with that message, but my stomach did eventually give a sign that it would make me uncomfortable if I did not quickly choose a place to eat. A pizza and pasta place recommended in Lonely Planet just off the Placa pulls me in with delectable aromas and a smiling clientele.

“The liter pivo (beer) and a small veggie pizza” I tell my waiter. I’m glad to have my guide book to absorb me as I wait, but hardly turn a page after my ever nosy ears pick up a conversation across the room.

It became quickly apparent that a man and woman (from Chicago) at one table had become acquainted with three women (from France, Sweden and Norway) at another and are in deep discussion that goes something like this:

Norway: “We in Europe just don’t understand how you could have elected him twice… I mean, OK, the first time, you could say you didn’t know, but…

Chicago: “I know, I know…we hear the same thing everywhere we travel in Europe, but you see we’re from Chicago… we didn’t vote for him... the country is really divided.”

Sweden: “I’m sorry it happened, the whole world is sorry because, unfortunately, what America does affects us all.”

They talk while my pizza bakes, while I sip my beer, while I pay the bill, and I listen attentively, but for that hour nothing much more was said, simply repeated in different expressions of exasperation.

With a full tummy and a brew-influenced swagger, I decide to find the Mayor.

I find him at his perch outside the western gate. There he sits at an outside café table, whether it’s open or not, and leaps at the arrival of each tourist bus hoping to sell his rooms. His usual jovial countenance seems diminished as I approached him. “Hey Mayor, still hustling rooms”, I call out. “Hey, Garma, hey are you happy, because you know I want you to be happy”, Eddy replies as we shake hands. “It’s a dump, Eddy”, I said. “I will make it better” he said in a wounded voice as he pulled out the ubiquitous cell phone and begins pressing numbers. “No, no, no, I’m staying put.”

We sit down in front of the café. He tells me his story. Forty years old, makes a great living renting six rooms in his house to the flood of Dubrovnik’s tourists. He gets the bodies in the room, his mother cleans. Never married but impregnated one of his guests a year ago, a Bosnian, who wrote to tell him she’s pregnant but wants nothing from him. His quandary: pay her a lump sum of $20,000 that he judges is the tally of 18 years of monthly child support suitable for living in Bosnia, or pay as you go. His girlfriend will kill him if she finds out, but he doesn’t want to marry her anyway because she has a six year old son that’s not his. “How can I bond to him, he’s not mine!” This wasn’t a question; nonetheless, I tell him the tale of my sister’s adoption of Isabella and how I learned that a child bereft of your genetics can still conjure love and devotion. He grunts.

“This is depressing”, he reveals, referring to hanging out at night in the cold waiting for tourists. “I haven’t always been living here, you know. I visited LA and stayed with a friend who was trying to be an actor. But he had no charisma. But I do, so when I met someone who worked with Robert Dinero, I told him that I could be his stand in guy. I look like him, you know.” It was then that I had my “aha” moment; this is why he looked familiar to me when we first met – he’s a slightly taller, bulkier, folic-challenged, Croatian Dinero!

“How did it turn out?”

“Nothing… had to leave… visa expiring.”

Because he’s the mayor and knows everyone, soon there are three other men at our table. Eddy tells each of them that although I live in America, I’m really Croatian… just forgot to learn the language, or visit during the last 40+ years. They each nod their understanding.