june 1962.: Dobrota

Vacation with the kindergarten in Dobrota, Boka Kotorska. First time alone away from home; this could count as my first serious trip.

The travel was incredible. First, the regular bus to Belgrade, I was already used to that. In Perlez there was a wheelwright surnamed Fijat. I fell asleep in the bus* and woke up just when bus stopped at his house. Read the plate three times and couldn't believe my eyes. Later I heard that the surname was real.

Then, long wait for the diesel train to start, late in the evening. Slept on the floor on some tent sheets. Finally for the first time saw those blue lights in the compartment turned on. Watched the neon bars float by the window. Then we woke up near Sarajevo. Everyone get their backpack. Don't know where my rucksack came from, it was made of some fake leather, could have been handmade, I know it was different from others. I still had the same white plastic bottle from years ago, and the plastic collapsible cup.

In Sarajevo, the huge new railway station (of which I later found an exact twin in Novi Sad), where we switched to the coal-steam narrow track train to Kotor, which was parked on the side. The scenery changed as we went; from steep mountains with lush forests to white limestone with strange and sparse vegetation, which seemed to take forever. The train couldn't make much speed, with all the ups and downs (allegedly there was a toothed middle track in some places, and a cog below the locomotive would catch to it because the friction alone wouldn't suffice). By sunset, we were at the end of the track (another first - never saw an end of track) in Zelenika. Soon after, a boat came (my first boat ride that I remember - I guess not a real first, as we were on an island once) and took us to Dobrota. The trip was only a couple of kilometers, and it was dark when we arrived. I guess they didn't have a bus - a gravel road ran along the coast anyway - and the ride was actually better this way.

I learned to swim there, on my own. Then to dive.

The incredible naval museum in Kotor, with all the models of the ships from the city's history, unforgettable.

We all had our little backpacks with toothbrush, soap in a box, a collapsible plastic glass (those were a big gimmick at the time, quite popular for any longer trip) and the pack had to be clearly marked with each one's initials (luckily no repeat initials in the group).

The magistral road above the coastline wasn't built until years later, so the backyard extended far up the mountain, where we went to chase turtles and generally explore. The house was built from stone, just like all the others, with raw planks for floor. It had a huge terrace upstairs, and the dining hall was beneath it. The food was actually better than in the obdanište, and the white coffee (i.e. milk with some cocoa powder**) was far better than the tea. Perhaps even sutlijaš (rice cooked in milk) tasted better. At home (in obdanište, that is) I hated it because it was too bland, I guess they didn't use real milk but rather dissolved powdered milk in too much water. But then I didn't like the white coffee at first, because it seems it wasn't just cocoa powder, there was some coffee too, and that must have been turkish coffee, the way it's made here, finely ground but not into sheer powder - the particles wouldn't quite dissolve and in the end there was always some on the bottom. Which I didn't expect and a few times I coughed out the last slurp. At home we had Zdravka, which was actually ersatz coffee, a fake made from chicory and perhaps barley, which tasted so much better than real cocoa (well, with milk, of course, it only resembled coffee but wouldn't fool a passionate coffee drinker). Don't know how they did it, but even the packaging was great, the shiny red tin cans, always spanking clean and without any blemish, a perfect industrial product.

All in all it wasn't bad and we weren't hungry, the food was actually better than in obdanište. At times we'd walk around the place, just looking around. There were only three directions to go - left or right on the coast road, and up the hill into the backyard. The latter was actually quite interesting, with strange plants and even turtles. This yard extended rather far uphill, which will change in a few years when they build the magistral road up there. Once, after a rain, we walked the road to Kotor, seven or eight of us, went maybe half a kilometer and then came back.

I slept on the lower bunk bed, in the corner. Only the corner beds had the uppers. The younger son of the teacher (which was "vaspitačica" - literally, the upbringer) was on the upper bed, and the other one was on the other upper bed on the other end. I once hit the frame with my head, got a little wound, a scab got created, but it never properly healed because it went into salt water every day. I still have a bump there.

We got postcards (pictureless, blank) and wax chalks, half inch thick, to make a drawing to send home. Don't know how they imagined we could draw with something so thick, but it didn't turn out too bad. The teacher put the addresses on the reverse side in advance, and these were delivered a couple of days ahead of our return.

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* it was called autobus, sometimes aftobus. The short name appeared only in the seventies, when they started painting the asphalt with the bus stop markings, where it was important that it has fewer but easily readable letters.

** not hot chocolate, though you may call it so, everyone's entitled to a few misnomers. I've seen hot chocolate, when mom would melt it for the icing on the cake. It's too hot to drink, and when it cools down enough it's not liquid. You can not drink hot chocolate.

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