Living off the Land

The other day, I came very close to being a Balkan version of Laura Ingalls. Or, rather, a Vietnamese-American, 33-year-old, 21st century, Montenegrin version of America's favorite pioneer girl from the Little House on the Prairie books. So, I guess not so close. But, I did go for a nice, long hike up the hills past the Hippo Hostel to a natural spring, where I drank my fill of the cool, clear water, and then meandered my way back down, picking wild blackberries and fresh figs along the way. I ate and drank from the land that day.

The pioneer party included me, Nadya, our neighbor, Jelena, and her mother, Sonja, along with Travis, an Australian guest staying at the hostel. We hiked for maybe an hour up the hill and the view along the trail was spectacular the entire way up. As we climbed, we could see the entire town of Budva, Old Town in the distance, a big swath of the Adriatic Sea, and Sveti Nikola island, a wedge-shaped mass of land 1 nautical mile offshore. And, we passed old stone ruins of houses that have stood on these hillsides for centuries now. Some of the ruins had been incorporated into lovely modern houses, sprawling across the hillside, and some of them had chickens penned inside. There was a small church, rebuilt and looking quite sharp, with headstones in the graveyard that were labeled in Cyrillic and which dated back at least a couple hundred years. There were lots of trees and fences made with twigs and barb wire. It felt like I was hiking Point Reyes at times.

The natural spring that we drank from has been tamed, put into a wall and piped out now in 3 faucet-looking things that continuously run, which kills some of the romance of the spring itself, but I guess makes it less muddy around where the water comes out of the rock. And, after drinking our fill of spring water, we picked juicy, perfectly ripe blackberries from bushes all alongside the hiking trail on the hill. We ate as much as we collected to bring home with us. And, the figs. Figs are in season now too, so there was an assault on all the fig trees that we encountered on the road home. Jelena, the scorchin' hot blond bombshell and her mom, with long sticks that they found in the woods, whacked at the high branches of the fig trees to get the fruit down. We all had fig seeds stuck in our teeth by the end of the afternoon, but there were no complaints. We came home to a nice cup of Turkish coffee, some good conversation, and playing with a kitten that Nadya and Sonja found trapped in a barn up in the hills, which Jelena insisted on adopting.

There will never be better-tasting blackberries or sweeter figs or clearer mountain spring water in my life than on this afternoon in Montenegro.

Bedroom Voice

So, I've been sick for the past week. Sore throat, bad cough, lots of juicy, juicy phlegm. The entire staff of the Hippo Hostel came down with something gnarley within days of each other, and we're all just now climbing out of it one by one. In the meantime, I've learned how to hock an impressive loogie. I can projectile spit them even. I'm almost southern with my jar of moonshine and my cut-off denim shorts, carrying a spittoon around with me wherever I go!

So, the result of a week of bad cough and torn-up throat is that your voice is very tired and deep. You know -- the I-have-a-cold voice, which is kind of sexy and raspy. The bad thing about the I-have-a-cold voice is that I can't sing whenever I want to, and at the end of the night, I'm really tired from a day of trying to talk. The impromptu karaoke thing happens a lot around here, can you believe it? And, I can't stand that I don't have the voice to belt out showtunes on command. Heartbreak! My fans are waiting!

Though, the sexy, raspy trade-off is good too. Tonight, I walked into the Irish Pub here in the Old Town and the owner of the pub, a guy that we all know pretty well because we go in there a lot with our hostel guests when we're on pub crawls, said to me: "Hey, I thought I heard your beautiful voice out here. Whatchou doing?" Also, there are these 3 Asian-Australian guys staying with us here, and the one who had to call a couple of days before they arrived to make their reservation for 3 beds, his friends told me last night that he had said after getting off the phone with me that I had a really sexy voice and he wondered what I looked like. You have NO idea how much a compliment about my voice gets me! I mean, I'm in radio dammit. You KNOW that everyone who works in radio inherently likes the sound of their own voice to SOME degree. Well, with my penchant for judging voices (I can't be someone's friend, truly, if I don't like their voice. I just can't!) on a regular basis, it stands to reason that high praise to me is a compliment on the sound of your voice. So, yes, when a person tells me that he or she likes the sound of my voice, I tend to get all soft and fluttery. It's a little button I have. Is it wrong of me to publicly admit this on a forum like my blog?

Well, now you know. It's easy to butter this bread. Just tell me you like the sound of my voice, and yes, you can have any favor you want. Even 2 extra nights for 3 people in a hostel so full that we turn away walk-ups daily.