Day 20 (Day of Rest, Icici)

Today we got a late start and almost missed breakfast. We walked in to see that the buffet was a little lacking today. As I worked my way down the cases of disheveled food I spotted a lonely donut with chocolate filling spewing out. Obviously over stuffed with deliciousness. Ignoring everything around me I focused on the donut imagining how delicious is was going to be sliding down my gullet. Just as I arrived at my happy place a lady in a swim coverup shot in front of me and grabbed the delicious morsel with her hand. Passing right over the tongs which could have given her the opportunity to change her mind. She raises the donut to her face as if her glasses prescription is too weak. Exhaling in disgust she puts the handled donut back on the tray. I approached the lonely donut as if it was begging me to help it. I had to pass it by and am still feeling sorry for what it had to endure. It remained there the rest breakfast before I am sure it was discarded. I secretly am hoping the lady is met by a sea predator or is swept out to sea by an undertow.

Today we changed rooms from the Handicap Room to another room with a better bathroom. I just wanted out of the Handicap room because there were at least 4 things that needed fixing and I had no tools with me. The patio door handle was loose, the sink faucet and toilet seat was loose. And the worst thing was that the Handicap rail next to the toilet was pulling out of the wall. This is a disaster room for a handicap person. I wrote it all down and reported it to the front desk. Lori would not approach the front desk with me for some reason. Maybe she dislikes handicap people?

We are looking forward to a relaxing day today. No tours, hopefully no walks and some relaxing time by the Sea. When Sophia and I travel we try to swim in everybody of water that we come across so my plan was to keep that going and swim in the Adriatic Sea today. It looks like there are some rolling waves but not too bad. Once we got down there the waves turned to white caps and were crashing on walls in front of the hotel. If I dared to go in I may not make it back on my own power and would probably be slammed against the sea wall which might be a little painful. Instead Lori sat in the sun and I sat in the shade as we watched waves crash and flood onto the sunning platform in front of us. The view was awesome with a large island off to the right and the town of Rijeka to the left. There were lost of open seats today for good reason. The waves would not subside until later in the day when we were up at the room. The weather is funny here as it is really hot in the morning and then about noon it starts to cool down pretty fast.

We like to surprise our kids with a little something when we go on vacation and this trip is no different. I wasn’t going to bring this up but it is more of a learning lesson than something that we wish to remember. While at the Eagles Nest we were looking around the gift shop. I was looking for more information on the history when we came across some really nice embroidered hats. I like hats but usually do not wear them much. We found a really nice grey hat that we thought Chase might like. Our luggage does not give us much room so a hat would be hard to carry and keep nice but we decided to buy it anyway. It said Kehlsteinhaus with Eagles Nest (in English) below it. An attractive hat that I might even wear. A few days pass and we are talking to Chase on FaceTime. Lori is pretty excited about this hat and decided to show him. His response was not what we expected. He said “I am not sure that I would wear a Nazi hat”, in a kind, Christmas present rejection kind of way. It completely deflated us. Not because he did not want the gift but because we bought Nazi memorabilia as a gift. What have we done!! Who are we?! How did we not think of that! For days now we have been kicking ourselves for this purchase and questioning why we did it. We landed on “We were in such awe at the beauty up there that we didn’t know what we were doing”. Yup, let’s stick with that. Now we have a Nazi hat that we don’t know what to do with. It feels like we are carrying around a cursed idle of some kind. Lori is thinking about leaving it in the room at this point.

We ended up sitting on our balcony with a glass of wine and looking at the Sea. The Sea calmed down a little and there were people swimming now. I was tempted to go down there but opted for the view instead. We are going to be in Croatia a couple more weeks so there will be time to satisfy the swim. It was a nice way to end a day of relaxation.