Excitement was in my every fiber about leaving Zagreb and going for 2 weeks to the sea, the Adriatic Sea. I had seen it from the bus on a weekend trip to Pula, but now I was going to actually go there and stay by the sea. I had a room in a stone house on the water, 5 minutes from the beach, so the airb&b said. Since all the students were leaving on Saturday, I emailed the host and requested a day early arrival. I got my bus ticket days ahead, I was at the bus station, the bus was late, but my seat mate and I met early on while waiting for the bus and though she did not speak English we compared tickets and discovered we were sitting next to each other. I was not surprised at how much we could communicate during our two hour travel together. She wished me luck when I exited and waved from the window as I got my luggage. I was excited to have arrived. I got a taxi and headed to the address. As we got further into the suburbs and higher on the hill top, I began having misgivings. Soon the taxi stopped at a heavily graffiti apartment building with a steep stone stairway and no handrail. I still kept my spirits up thinking surely this will be fine. I rang the doorbell and the hostess answered the intercom. Everything was severely bolted and shuttered up. The neighborhood was pre world war II and desolate with lots of trash and graffiti everywhere someone could reach. My hostess came, the taxi driver left and Marijane helped me get my heavy suitcase up two more flights of steps to the apartment. It was small, cluttered, the room I had was clean but bumper to bumper furniture. The view out the window was of a destroyed courtyard bricked in partially by cinder blocks and covered in debris.  I had waited to go to the bathroom; I asked. It was cluttered as well, a high tile tub with shower curtains draped up over the rod, only used towels available. Then when I was being given the tour of the apartment there were at least two very large cats, everyone who knows me knows I am allergic to cats, I smelled heavy cigarette smoke (everyone smokes in Croatia, everywhere), she showed me the balcony where if you could look over the tall trees in the front, you could actually see some of the sea. She showed me the keys and explained the multiple locks. Then she told me she had two teenage sons who were with their father for the weekend but that they spoke English. Four of us sharing a cluttered bathroom. Hmmm. There was no map of the area and the only restaurant was on the way to the beach, she explained. I walked down the 2 flight of steps, the flight at the entry, and found the first steps leading down (2 more flights), crossed the street and then found the next 2 flights of steps to the restaurant. I peaked over the railing and saw steep steps down to a concrete platform: the beach. I ate a late lunch of soup and salad and had two glasses of wine. I needed two glasses of wine. I remembered seeing a hotel on the way up the hill. I walked down to it. They had a room facing the sea. The room was small, slightly bigger than the one I had in the nunnery at Santiago de Compostella, Spain, but it did have a view of the sea. I took it, ordered a taxi, the driver even went up to the apartment to help me bring the suitcases down. I thanked her and told her it just would not do for me. I gave her the key. She seemed to understand. I explained and even showed her the photo on the airb&b where the room was to have been on the water. The house actually exists, I found out later, but it is not her house. The Jabran Hotel was a tourist hotel where people en-route to another place stayed for a night, that is all. It was designed for quick turnover. I walked down to the center city, it took me 40 minutes. No way could I do that for 2 weeks. I went to the tourist office, who suggested that I go to the Marina, a botel, that’s right a boat that is a hotel. We called, they could accommodate me for 2 nights on Sunday and Monday. I took it. Ate an early dinner at a canal with sea gulls and got the restaurant to call a taxi for me. I went to sleep that night and had the most violent dream I have ever had. I can still vividly recall most of it. Awful dream. The really nice taxi driver from the day before came again and brought me to the Botel Marina, where I am now. There is a really spacious wine and coffee bar on the upper deck overlooking the big yachts moored on the sea. They play American music (“I can’t get no satisfaction” just played). The boat is noisy with student groups coming through, they have bunk beds for groups. And my room is located near the front and on the outside of the boat is a metal staircase going up to the restaurant on the 3rd level. Luckily it closed at midnight and everything quieted down. The people at the botel are really nice, they were working on getting an extended stay past the 10th but I got word that the Westin could put me up from the 10th to the 18th; I am returning to Zagreb on Friday. I have my bus ticket in hand. Rijeka’s tourist office had no tours, no excursions, no concerts going on, nothing and not that friendly (I have been totally spoiled by Zagreb and by Pula). I can’t wait to get back to Zagreb on Friday. I had been warned, my seat mate on the bus ride to Pula several weekends ago, told me not to stay in Rijeka but to go on to Opatija, a Vienna rich place to be but beautiful. I had already booked the airb&b and it was paid for; surely, with all the other positive, good results I have had with airb&b, this one would be good too. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I don’t know what questions I could have asked that would have told me the truth, the information posted was to have been checked out and confirmed…not so, absolutely not so. I must fill the next three days with activities. So I will write more.