Day 17 – May 16, 2010 – Rainy Dubrovnik and the quest for good Mexican food

Today, we were docked in Dubrovnik on an overcast, rainy and cool morning. After doing some research on the city on WikiTravel (my new favorite site! Check it out if you’re traveling somewhere!), I found out that the most notable thing is the Old Town district, which is a completely walled, fortressed city in one area of town. It’s got marble streets and beautiful medieval architecture. The rain made the stones shiny in this really lovely way that made it great for pictures.

The three of us headed out and braved the sea of umbrellas, this time equipped with our own, in search of history, beauty, and of course, good food. We first changed some money into the Croatian currency, the Kuna. One of the main attractions is walking along the wall, which we decided to do next time because it was just too crowded with crazy tourists made crazier as they were armed with umbrellas. So we walked through the streets of Old Town, which of course now are lined with all sorts of shops, restaurants and bars. We’re in the port until 9 pm, so on a nice night, it will be really nice to have dinner outside in one of the outdoor café’s.

We found food on this little side street and sat outside while it cleared up and the sun came out. We all opted for versions of their lasagna, mine spinach and I was amazed when it came out completely homemade and made to order. It’s not often you find that! It was delicious and luckily we saved room for gelato too!

I also learned that the neck tie, or Cravat, originates from Croatia. Who knew!? So there were a few tie stores exploiting that fashion entomology.

The most interesting thing was actually a very sad historical event that has left it’s mark all over Old Town. During the conflict in the early 1990’s between the Serbs and Croatians, the Yugoslav army heavily bombed Dubrovnik and you can see bulletholes and some larger marks of destruction all throughout the charming old town. There’s a memorial and map of the bomb damage at the entrance to the city, which was just devastating to see.

Once back on the ship, we all decided to try out Tequila, the Tex-Mex restaurant on board. Now, I didn’t expect to get any Mexican food while in the Mediterranean whatsoever, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been seriously missing the burrito food group in my diet. I figured since the NCL is an American cruise line, they would be pretty good at producing at least decent Mexican or at least southwestern cuisine. I was so sadly mistaken… I knew it wasn’t going to be good when the salsa was crap, the chips tasted like cardboard, and the guacamole was like pureed imitation avocado. It was just not a good sign. So I ordered a margarita and tried to stay positive… I had a grilled veggie enchilada that was ok, but there was really no making up for bad salsa. The only thing that was tasty was the cheese quesadilla we had for an appetizer, but really, how can you mess one of those up!?

After dinner, we had Dancing with the Stars in Spinnaker Lounge. Pieter and I went to watch, while Eric and the others worked. We got a new cruise director this week, so it was my first time seeing him in action. He’s great, but a little strange…sort of reminds me of a European game show host in a way. He speaks five languages fluently and regularly on the ship to try to appeal to all the different passengers’ nationalities.