European Summers ...
Despite the occasional shootings, being called names either to your face or behind your back (if you work in a good neighborhood) and living on salaries that would not be tolerated in any other profession, most teachers, including me, like their jobs. There is, however, one significant drawback to teaching that I have resented as long as I can remember. If you like scanning for good deals, buying things on sale, if you get pleasurable shiver running down your spine when you negotiate a twenty-five percent discount on a new outfit, then teaching is not for you. Teachers never experience discounted airfares or holiday packages because they can only travel during high season.
In the past, we have never felt any need to leave the Czech Republic during our summer holiday. Having worked in some exotic place during the school year, we were only too happy to arrive in Czechia with the last school bell still ringing in our ears and stay put in our cozy house. Of course, we would travel to other places in Czechia to visit friends and relatives, but never crossed the border until it was time to start a new school year. The summer of 2022 was to be different. Just like millions of others, we succumbed to the travel fever induced by COVID. We were no longer content with living in Uzbekistan during the school year and spending a peaceful summer in Czechia. No! We needed more. After carefully considering our options and looking at the overpriced travel packages we decided to explore the small country of Montenegro.
“Do you know that, according to history, one of the Austro-Hungarian empresses drew her personal guards from Montenegro?” was Anni’s reaction when I told her where we were heading. “Supposedly, they were the tallest and strongest men of her empire.” Anni is a good teacher and a good neighbor, two reasons why I would nod and agree to practically anything. But in this instance, I really believed her. We tend to remember even trivia well, if it relates to us on a personal level. Anni and her husband are both giants. Their two boys are hovering around 190 cm and the two girls are not too far below that. It made sense to me that Anni would remember the tidbit of info about oversized Montenegrins. “I’ll check it out for you,” were my parting words to Anni. Later on, I looked it up and one website confirmed that, indeed, ‘the Montenegrins are the world tallest people, with an average height for males of nearly 186 cm and an average female height of 171 cm!!’
Standing in the arrival hall of the capital city of Podgorica, which means literally ‘Under the Mountains,’ I couldn’t help but scan the people around me. Were they taller than average? This impromptu research was of course useless, because I had no way of distinguishing the tourists from Montenegrins. The same problem persisted even after we arrived in Sutomore (translated as Sunset by the Sea) – our final destination. The many Germans rubbing elbows with the Slavs of different East European countries did not make my research easy.
Sutomore is situated about an hour from Podgorica. Limited real estate, consisting of a narrow band of land between the sea and the mountains forced people to build into the mountain sides. The advantage of this limitation is that the area doesn’t have too many hotels. The accommodation consists mostly of houses for people who live there and the rentals. One such house divided into two units was to be our home for ten days.
Our host picked us up at the train station. The road from the station did not waste any time meandering and almost immediately took a sharp uphill turn at the foot of the mountain. It was a one-way road better suited to mountain goats.
The first time we left the house to start our treacherous descent to the sea I turned to Dave, “They should have issued us helmets when they showed us the house.” Dave looked at me, puzzled. I pointed down the luge-like street leading to the shore. “I feel dizzy just looking down.”
After we gingerly navigated our luge run to the shore, grabbing onto the garden fences for support, we got a full view of the beach. “OMG. Unbelievable!” we exclaimed simultaneously. We could not see the sand for all the umbrellas planted in it. I wanted to continue my exclamation with a scream, “This is a horror show. Whose stupid idea was it to go on a European seaside holiday in July?” but I held it in because I remembered distinctly saying to Dave, “It will be fun. We have not done it yet.”
It was forty-four degrees when we arrived. Europe was cursed with a heat wave that people aptly named Lucifer. To survive I ended up wetting my hair to cool me down so often that I ran the risk of growing moldy. What crazy people go to a place that hot? It reminded me of the UAE when I saw tourists arriving in Dubai at the end of August for their dream holiday. We worked there, we had to be there. But they? Obviously, they had not done their research. “Did you really plan to stay in your room most of the day, venturing outside only when the sun goes down?” I remember thinking. We were guilty of the same mistake in Montenegro. Don’t feel bad, I reminded myself. Long COVID lockups affected the sound judgment of better people than you.
Neither Dave nor I enjoys lying on the beach slowly roasting ourselves. Our routine became to descend to the shore lined with cafes for a breakfast of cappuccino and burek (filo pastry filled with feta cheese) hot from the oven. We would stay there for the better part of the morning, sipping our coffees and observing other middle-aged couples silently readjusting their excess weight on chairs made for much slimmer people. Young men walked around flexing their abs and young women strutted around in their bikinis irrespective of their physical attributes. When I had enough of people-watching I would go for a swim. Slathered with enough sunscreen to make me look like a demented clown with the makeup applied without a mirror, I would make my way around all the umbrellas to the crystal-clear water of the Adriatic Sea.
On our first morning, I mentally divided the beach area into three neighborhoods. They were not separated by any chain; not even a rope. Nevertheless, they were very distinct. The only hotel with beach access had white coloured umbrellas, all of the same size with matching white beach loungers lined up like troops ready for battle. Next to it was what I labeled as the affluent neighborhood populated by beach-goers who did not mind paying a fee to use beige-coloured loungers and umbrellas. And then came the poor neighborhood displaying a riot of different colours as people brough their own umbrellas of different sizes and colours. These were planted in the sand shading their beach mats or towels that were only adding to the melange.
In my preparation for the trip, I had bought a light cotton shirt to wear over my bathing suit. It almost reached my knees, making it a wonderful sun protection. Its white colour serves as a good canvas for various words printed seemingly at random intervals in different fonts. On the second day of our trip as we were sitting in the café sipping our morning coffee, Dave started to laugh pointing at my shirt. “Do you even know what you are wearing?” “What do you mean?” I said, uncomprehending. I looked where he was pointing and started to laugh as well. Amongst meaningless words such as ‘crepe,’ ‘top’ and ‘latte’ were also the words ‘ASAP Whore!’ English gets mangled in many countries and, during our travels, we have come across some pretty funny translations. Our favorite one is from Thailand where, many years back when we were childless and without a mortgage, we spent several weeks. On the island of Ko Samui, before it became a hot tourist spot, we frequented a small café that boasted on the blackboard by its entrance, ‘Our food will make you full and delicious.’ So many years later, and used by us so many times, we are still not tired of that quote. The ‘ASAP Whore’ has that potential too.
Our afternoons resembled our mornings. After a long siesta, we would return to the beach for more swimming and people-watching. After several days, I began to notice some regular characters. One was an endearing older man in his tiny dingy. I like optimistic people, and this guy qualified. What else to conclude after watching him every afternoon sitting in a small, kiddie-sized inflatable boat just outside the swimming buoys with two, sometimes even three fishing rods. Perhaps he might have been more successful had he gone a bit further from the area where the swimmers were constantly churning the water. But he was probably afraid of the oversized man on the jet ski who performed his crazy antics, riding the jet ski fast and making wild turns for everyone to see and, presumably, admire. I noticed his corpulent silhouette against the setting sun on the third day. ‘He is probably really overweight and compensating’ went through my head as I watched him in the distance. Two days later, he came close to the ropes with markers delineating the swimming area, protecting swimmers from idiots like him. I finally got a good look at him. The jet skis are not a small thing but, with the guy being so humongous, the jet ski underneath him looked like a child’s toy. No wonder my timid fisherman didn’t dare to leave the safety of the ropes.
Dave managed to exhaust our mobile data within four days of our arrival. A feat not many people can accomplish. When we mentioned to our Serbian landlady that our internet didn’t work anymore, she sent a new data card with her friend. Sveta was a tall and fit-looking young Serbian woman who spoke fluent English. After she explained what to do about the data card we chatted a bit.
In her late twenties she represented a new generation of Serbs who only knew about the nasty Yugoslav breakup and the civil war that followed from history books. The smile in her tanned face was contagious. “I had to drive through some heavy smoke to get here.” When she saw our blank faces she added. “The mountain fires from Lucifer. But it was worth it. I love it here. You can climb mountains and then go for a swim in the same day. You must have noticed all the Serbians here.” Her remark reminded me that poor Serbia doesn’t have any sea of her own and that they, just like the land-locked Czechs, look with envy at the marine nations and their readily available seafood supply. After she left, I told Dave. “We need to check out that seafood place we noticed yesterday. If I don’t get my share of fish, you can cancel my return ticket, because I am staying.”
Uzbekistan, as a double land-locked country, is a poor candidate to satisfy seafood lovers. We get our salmon when we visit Tashkent, but we have not found any supply of other seafood. It is one of the life’s ironies that Dadu, living in one of the best corners of the world as far as seafood goes, doesn’t really like seafood, reminding me of a farmer with a gluten allergy, while I, a bona fide seafood lover, am relegated to a double land-locked country.
When we mentioned to Sveta how disappointed we were that we had to wade our way to the sea through all the masses, she nodded and said, “Yes, July and August are the worst. It was even worse last year. Right after COVID. Everybody needed to have a break from all the restrictions. It seemed like they all decided to have it here. It’s bad now, but it was worse last year.” I found it hard to believe that it had been worse the previous year. Did they stack the bodies up in layers to fit more of them onto that precious beach? went through my mind. “You could do better if you walk to the other beach. It’s a bit further but it’s not as busy. Look!” From our small airy porch she pointed to the horizon. “It’s maybe a twenty-minute walk.” You must be kidding me, I thought. I am fainting after the ten minutes it takes us to luge down to our crazy beach. I am not walking any further even if I must mow through the bodies to make my way to the sea. She interrupted my morbid musings. “Or you could take a water taxi and go to Queen’s Beach. It’s a lot less busy.”
We noticed many excursions around Montenegro advertised on various tourist boards dotting the main drag leading to the sea. It was easy to locate and buy our tickets for a half-hour trip by water taxi to Queen’s beach. The picture accompanying the description of the outing looked promising. A nice little bay with some pines not too far from the shore and very few umbrellas spoiling the view. We all know how deceiving pictures can be. What springs to mind is a juicy hamburger that looks much too big for a single person. No need to worry what to do with the leftover. The brown cookie cutter product the fast-food server plops in front of you doesn’t even come close to the picture. To our delight, Queen’s Bay turned out to be as lovely as the picture and we ended up going there several times.
Any initial ideas about exploring the natural beauties of Montenegro were burnt to nothing by Lucifer. We were unwilling to leave the seashore with its breeze and refreshing water. I was not devastated by this unexpected development. The sea is the main attraction, and that part did not disappoint. Any land explorations will have to wait for when we are no longer restricted by teachers’ vacation limitations. Because of the Babylonian nature of Sutomore, I was unable to confirm to Anni that the Montenegrins are indeed taller than the average. But, based on Google, I had no trouble telling her on our return, that there must indeed be some Montenegrins lurking in her family tree.