Exploring Mali Lošinj

Since the kids had so much fun yesterday in the kids club, we decided to take advantage of their enthusiasm now, just in case it faded later in the week.  Along with our room we have half-board, meaning breakfast and dinner.  For lunch, we decided to let the kids eat and camp, while we adults drove over for a meal and a stroll around Mali Lošinj.

But first, breakfast. I'm afraid that my search for a crisp piece of bacon this side of the Atlantic must continue, but they did have platters and platters of little pancakes that tasted exactly the same as those my Grandmother Miskoe used to make.  It made me unspeakably happy...although, for some reason, they didn't have any syrup. But that's all right: Grandma used to serve them with a milk gravy, too, or a chunky tomato preserve that she used to call cold ketchup, anyway.  And today I found that they're awfully good with jam, too.

Tummies full, we thought we'd take the kids to the sea for a little morning swim before abandoning them to their conference, er, play room.  Under the stairs, near the exit, was a small mish-mosh of rafts and floaty toys that I assumed were up for grabs, so Ella and I grabbed two--a little boat for the toddlers and a raft for the bigger kids--and we strode down to the water.  And then we discovered just how complicated swimming was going to be this week.  Where the water meets the shore, there are nothing but large, solid rock shelves, and these are slippery at best and jagged at worst.  It seemed the best approach was to carry a kid out into the water, plop him or her on a raft, and take it from there.  Alex quickly decided that it was all a little too scary, and he opted for a lawn chair game of Uno instead.  Joey wouldn't look twice at the little boat that Ella offered him, sticking by his brother.

But Ella, at least, would go into the water with me.  Her raft had a clear window, and we could peer through it at the fish below: they're not particularly colorful, but they are numerous, and we both thought it was fun. Unfortunately, our raft also featured a slow leak, so we decided to take it back to the hotel in search of something sturdier.   Ella eventually settled on something that was more boat than raft, but as we were carrying it down to the water, we were chased down by a kid and our daughter.  "Signora! What are you doing? That is our boat! Why? Why would you take it?" Oops.  I mentally added a raft to our shopping list for this afternoon.

Our dear friends, Brie and Geoff, and Juniper, too

Ella had no interest in going into the dark water without some sort of flotation device, so we got the kids changed and dropped them off in the care of the counselors rooms, asking Alex and Ella to take care of the little ones while we finished our swim.  Before we left for town I checked in on them at the lunch room. I suppose I was reassured: I found Ella with Kael in her lap, bouncing him to keep him happy.  She sternly informed me that she'd had to confiscate Joey's juice because he didn't eat his vegetables.  Anyway, she had things well in hand.

And so the rest of us (including wee Juniper) drove to Mali Lošinj.  I suppose it's fair to say that the town is quite a bit cuter from a distance: all the buildings, filled with the leather-banded necklaces and t-shirts that you might expect, looked a little tired.  But the view was so pretty: we walked down the length of the main street, and then found ourselves a pizza restaurant among the many that edged the bay. And we all got a chance to enjoy a lunch uninterrupted.

But these sorts of things can only last so long.  When we went back to pick up the kids, who were enjoying "Sea Day" in the kids club, they were supposedly in the middle of the 15:00 Meet the Dolphins session.  That wasn't quite as cool as you or I might hope: they were watching a documentary, in Croatian, about the dolphins that live in the Lošinj waters.  So they weren't too disappointed that it was time to go. But Ella, in particular, is very eager to return tomorrow.

Still, after being shut up for a while, they were ready for a swim: we all walked up to the pool complex, which they've filled, to Alex's dismay, with salty water.  He hates the taste of the salt on his lips, and so he was a very reluctant swimmer this afternoon.  Ella, too, had some hesitation, especially since she couldn't open her eyes underwater, but Joey, in the baby pool, had a wonderful time pretending to swim.  He was so proud of himself, wading around on his hands in the shallow water: I asked him if he was pretending to be a crocodile, and he giggled: "No, I not crocodile, I fish...wait! Nooo, I BOY!"

Well, my little fish-boy collapsed after all of that swimming, and when our dinnertime approached, he refused to wake up.  We rolled him downstairs in his stroller, and there he slept, through the meal, through the sunset that we walked down to enjoy, and then, after we changed him into his pajamas, through the night.

Our view at dinner of the piney seashore

But the rest of us had a fine evening: in the dining room, there are all of two tables on the outdoor veranda that can fit our large party, but because we were ready to eat at the early hour of 7:00, we were able to snag one, and so we had a gorgeous view during dinner.












And after dinner we walked down to the water's edge to see the sun set.  Alex, especially, loved this, scrambling around on the rocks for me, watching the palm-sized crabs tucking themselves away in the rocks.

When I took the adjacent picture of him, he suggested that it might be a good enough picture to sell, and that there might be people out there who would be willing to pay piles of money for a photo of a little boy and a beautiful sunset.  He mentioned his grandparents as potential customers, in particular.  But I convinced him that, because his grandparents love him so much, maybe we should share this photo with them for free. So here you are, compliments of a boy with a fine self-image.

Ella was getting very sleepy--she'd had a long day of taking care of toddlers, after all--but Alex really wanted to go to the Pino's Mini Disco this evening.  And so he got to take his turn trying all of the dances that Ella "performed" yesterday.  And he did them with absolute joy, bouncing around and giggling and beaming whenever a counselor came over to tickle him or dance with him.  After a half-hour of dancing, we were all instructed to take seats, and we curled up to watch an evening show.  They'd brought in local kids from the island to do traditional Croatian dances for us. They were cute to watch, but Alex was impatient: after the fourth troupe started, he gave a small sigh of frustration. HE wanted to do the dancing.

But after the kids finished, things started getting really interesting.  It turns out that all of the Pino Club counselors are also professional dancers, and they put on a two-hour show that Alex found exciting and hilarious. He couldn't believe that the people he'd been playing with all day could dance like that. At one point the men did a dance that involved some fancy dance moves while sitting in chairs (see the video), and Alex could hardly breathe, he thought it was so funny: "Look mom! I think they're supposed to be little boys who are dancing when they're in time out!"

Hopefully I won't have to put Alex in time out any time soon: it could get interesting.