09-VIII-1993.
Day one... we arrived at Sutomore around 7:00, while the mountains were still keeping shade. Took our suitcases and backpacks to the reception of the hotel, about a kilometer plus some, luckily on the flat road, not up and down slopes. The reception at the reception wasn't too warm, except that we were, again, under the warm mediterranean sun, the smell of connifers and rotting seaweeds and the pervasive sound of crickets, more than made up for all the trouble around us.
There was, of course, some kind of serious snafu between the agency and the hotel, so it took more than an hour until we got the rooms and the keys. Ours was on the north end, rather away from most of the rest of the gang - our only neighhbors were Števa with wife and daughter (about Go's age, made friends) and Rade with Gradek and their son. Blaža was somewhere in the middle, and Nena as well, but they chose our side of the beach as better and less crowded. Everybody else was on the other side.
Nina saw one guy sleeping on the beach on his side with the hand on the other side stretched up, so he'd tan his armpit. She did likewise, still got the photo.
The room was fine, but there were five of us with only three beds. One double, that would be Go and Nina, one single (for her and Lena) and... I'll inflate a mattress and sleep on the floor. Except I discovered it was a holy mattress, and couldn't find the hole and didn't have any glue or sticker patch either.
The beach was all the way down - 125 (counted several times) steps carved in, or made of, stone, rather uneven. We thought we'd die, we're flatlanders, but no - got used to it in half a day. Probably the air, because food it surely wasn't.
The, ah, food. This being 1993 and the inflation already got to the point where you didn't read the price, just the first digit and the number of digits behind it, the hotel kitchen was somehow functioning. The cook was trying to keep up appearances, and would have the three dishes for the next day printed on sheets of paper, where we'd just circle what we wanted so he could plan accordingly. And the names of dishes were inventive and foreign sounding, there was even some mysterious "russian bitak" that even today nobody knows of, but then after a third or fourth substitution of required ingredients with affordable, or just available ones, it came down to the same white soup with rice and some rice or potatoes with ćufte (just one, actually). Steaks sometimes, but far from the best cut and decent size. We didn't mind - we were lucky that our area of the restaurant wasn't served by locals, but by help from Bajina Bašta, and these guys were working as if they'll be paid some real money. Any attempt to turn a montagnaro into a waiter is doomed to be a civilizational failure, as was witnessed by our colleagues who weren't this lucky.
Mentions: Blagoje Vrbović (Blaža), ćufte, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gradinka Peretić (Gradek), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Nevena Žaja (Nena), Rade Peretić, Stevan Garaj (Števa), in serbian