So some months ago I started a new job and there we had christmas vacation for the whole company. This means I had to take vacation days. At this point I already had big plans in my mind how and when to spend the precious vacation days and where to go so I decided - if I had to use my vacation days I wanted to go somewhere. And it had to be warmer then at home. And maybe at the sea. But not too far as it still had to be cheap enough so I can already afford it. So the next step was to convince my friend to come with me and brainstorm for possible destinations together. It was just when Dubrovnik came up when we both were sure that this is the perfect plan. So this is how my first time traveling after Colombia brought me to Dubrovnik for five days in January.
To tell the truth, even if I was really looking forward to it before, it was quite hard for me to get motivated to book the flight, plan the trip and so on. I didn't even tell my family that I was going so at one point my friend asked me: "Are you sure you want to go? If you don't, I won't be mad", and I was confused because why wouldn't I want to travel again after such a long time? And I realized that I was kind of afraid to leave because of the hard time I had coming back the last time I left. I somehow feared that I would enjoy it that much I wouldn't be content in just staying in Austria anymore. I worked so hard to finally be happy just being in Austria and I didn't want to ruin it. Somewhere in my mind I thought that when I go traveling again, I should be able to go more often afterwards and I am not at that point yet. Right now it is more like working to travel later. So I held back in making travel plans and even when I somehow planned a trip - because that is just what I do - I couldn't enjoy looking forward to it because what if it was a mistake?
Luckily, the feeling faded as soon as I saw Dubrovnik from the window of the plane and I got so excited. Really, I couldn't have thought of a better destination for my first trip after Colombia. The city is just so beautiful. The old town is like just out of medieval age, surrounded by a huge wall on which you can actually walk around the city and have such amazing views into the city and onto the Ford Lovrijenac next to the old town. It didn't hurt either that it was sunny almost all the days and at least 10 degrees more than in Austria. Also, the city is one of the filming places of Game of Thrones. I really like the series (and the books as well) and so it was another bonus for going to Dubrovnik.
We took the first two days to just stroll around in the city, visit some of the places where they filmed some scenes of Game of Thrones, relax in the sun on some rocks outside the old town and enjoy the breeze of the sea, do a picnic on top of Ford Lovrijenac, pass through all the touristic spots, get souveniers and postcards, try the croatian beer and watch the sunset over the sea. It was like being in spring already.
One thing I always enjoyed about traveling is meeting new people. So when it came down to choosing where to stay, we decided for a hostel as there are always people that have tipps for you where to go and you might even meet somebody you spend one day or another with. And when we arrived at the hostel, another girl just arrived as well and it turned out that she was staying just the same time as we were and we ended up spending the whole time together. She even convinced us to rent a car and go to Montenegro. Which was definitely one of the best decisions on the whole trip!
So we got up really early to get our car, drove about 2 hours with many stops around the Bay of Kotor to take photos and then arrived at Kotor. We really didn't have plans what we can actually do there and we were quite suprised that there were castle ruins on the hill where you can walk up - which we did. It was 280m and many many steps to get to an amazing view and an even more amazing cat. There we just relaxed and enjoyed the sun and the panorama (and the cat) and took many photos. We also strolled around in old town of Kotor but there were kind of the people missing as it was January. Then we decided to drive to another viewpoint up in the mountain and watch the sunset up there.
I really think after those days I had enough sun go through another two months until spring starts and the sun comes out again in Austria. And the best part about it is: I have this scratch map at home. And now I can scratch Montenegro! And now that I am back, I am already making plans on where to go next. But also, I feel kind of relieved of my worries about going to travel again. It is like now I can even enjoy being in Austria even more.
As I already wrote I have even more traveling plans in mind so this year I will hopefully write more often. Let's see where my life takes me next!
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