The Consequences of Accelarating the Itinerary

Greetings all from beautiful, sunny and, for the first time on our trip, oh-so crowded Dubrovnik, Croatia. Yes, the summer tourist season in Europe is in full-flight and has run into us with a vengeance. We now find ourselves dodging massive tour coaches full of Floyds and Ethels from Birmingham and Boston and lunging past their compatriots as they photograph up a storm while blocking the drawbridge to the old town.

As we now pass into the last month of the overseas phase of our tour and find that we are accelerating our itinerary to an almost "If its Tuesday, it must be Belgium" mode. In the past 6 days, we have been in 3 quite different countries - Turkey, Hungary and now Croatia. And I know when we are, perhaps, moving too fast when:
- I have lost my capacity to rapidly convert currencies - perhaps the only thing that was truly keeping my mind sharp while helping mitigate the impact of over-refreshment on the delightful red wines the last three countries have on offer.
- We go to pay for our morning Americanos with a pocketful of change representing at least 4 different currencies. I have given up remembering the origins of the various florins, kuna and lipa that jangle in my pocket - choosing to refer to them all as rupees for simplicity.
- My limited competency to utter even a few passable phrases in the host country"s language has apparently dried up completely. Although, I was amused to find that the Hungarian word for "Hello" appears to be pronounced "See ya" - go figure!
- My darling wife and ever-so-patient travel companion tried to take my Swiss Army knife to my admittedly weathered Eddie Bauer travel shirt. She was only fended off by a threat of no evening gelato and a promise that I would discard this shirt (as I have discarded about half of my wardrobe so far).
- I called this place "Budrovnik" this morning.
- It took me three days to discover that the locals here do not even call their country "Croatia". It is, in fact, called Hrvatska. This begs a larger question as to why we don"t call countries by the names they are given "at home" - Deutschland, Nippon, Sverige et al.
- I have had it with trying to navigate my way around yet another čšđł§!!! computer keyboard and figure out how to cut and paste text and transfer photos in full-Turkish dialogue boxes.

Well, this can only mean one thing - time for another of our famous week long "vacations-within-a-vacation" - a time honoured tradition on this tour which we plan to deploy again this week at a yet-to-be uncovered but surely idyllic place somewhere on the coast of Croatia. And then we begin our slow march northwards - sailing to Italy and then making our way back to the city of light and magic from where this wonderful adventure began for our return to Canada.

With a pat on my own back for typing "y" as a "z" on this Croatian ,or is it Hrvatskan, keyboard as has been required throughout this posting and apologies for not being able to figure out the apostrophes, best wishes to all. Now off for the promised gelato in this, the last outing for my wounded travel shirt.