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My brekkie consisted of a Swedish buffet, apparently. It looked like a continental breakfast to me, but it was a bloomin’ good one.

As I will be back in Western Europe soon prices will be a risin’, so it’s necessary for me to start making concessions when and where appropriate. An easy one is to demolish any breakfast with the word free before it to avoid paying for that meal and also making only a snack required for the following one.

So that being said I had 2 large slices of bread with jam, 2 slightly mini (but not on taste!) chocolate croissants, 2 slices of bog standard buffet cheese, a slices of bog standard buffet ham, 4 slices of bog standard buffet salami, a Dairylea like triangle of cheese, a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. My lunch will be a tin of tuna I smuggled out. That’s cricket mate.

I’m feeling a bit zombie like this morning as by the time I checked in and got to bed last night it only left me with 3 or 4 hours kip time. I’m in a positive mood though so will plough on regardless and get out and see what Podgorica is all about before getting a bus to Kotor this eve (though I need to get back down the station and figure that out).

So what’s Podgorica like? Not got a clue. No sooner was I ready to leave and have a butchers than an almighty storm had broken out. I borrowed an unmbrella to go back to the bus station to get money to pay for hotel (you have to pay cash to get the discount) and I still got completely soaked in a matter of minutes. From the look of the sky it’s going to be here for the duration so there’s not really anything to do but get outta town. I would stay another night but I can’t justify another €55. A shame eh.

If this was to happen anywhere Podgorica is probably the best place. I certainly can’t make a full judgement on the place from what I’ve seen, but from what little I have (and have read and heard from others) it looks like there isn’t too much going on anyway.

The buses are pretty much every hour and it’s 20 past 12, so I’ve bought a ticket for the 14:23 to give me a couple of hours to sort some things out on the internet in the hotel.

I do hope the weather in Kotor is improved, it’s only 2 hours away though so I’m not holding my breath. I’ve got 2 night’s there though so hopefully the weather will be okay tomorrow at least.

On route to Kotar we passed through Budva and the coast of the town (which I got a view of from the surrounding mountains before entering it) looks beautiful, I expect likewise from my destination.

There now and the weather still looks a bit humpty but it has stopped chucking it down for now at least. Let’s go and find the hostel then.

Kotor is lovely. A pretty little old town surrounded by the sea one side and mountains on the other. No sooner has it stopped than It’s pouring down again, I hope it subsides in the morning as I’m really looking forward to exploring.

The hostel seems okay too though it is inundated with mosquitos. I’m all repelled up this time though and have already killed 2 of the sods with my shoe, payback.

I’ve just handed over €2 to have my washing done, much needed I can tell thee. This means I’m going to have to squat round here for the next 4 hours or so though unless I fancy a walk about in the rain in my shorts.

It will give me time to try and figure out my transport to Tirana at least. There’s no direct bus, I think it might involve 2 or 3 changes but trying to find out the schedules beyond the first bus is pretty much an impossibility. I might be best going back to Podgorica and trying to get a train from there maybe. At worst I’ll just have to get the bus to Ulcinj (which is the furthest point I can get a bus to in the right direction) and then if I’ve missed whatever connection I need I’ll just have to try and find accommodation there. Cripes.

I know it’s Saturday but i will likely take it easy tonight, I am operating on 3 and a half hours after all. Maybe just a few cans or somet.

Crystal Stilts ‘Alight of Night’ is the album I’ve been listening to today. Okay it’s not particularly original, but who cares, it sounds great. Lots of fuzz, lots of distortion, lots of wall of sound type stuff, lots of miserablist fun. Super I say.

The rain eased off eventually so I ventured out to get some supplies in. On my return I still couldn’t get WiFi access (I hadn’t been able to since I arrived) so I asked the fella working here if he could reboot the router, christ he’s a miserable sod. I wasn’t impressed with his aloofness and lack of info offering at check-in, you get more words out of this guy. Anyway router, he was just like “It works for me”. This lead me to suspect the DHCP server on the router wasn’t working (a reboot would likely fix!) so I went down the static route and asked to quickly check the settings on his laptop, grudgingly he let me and a minute later I had WiFi. Apologies for the tech mumbo jumbo, but the point was that the guy wasn’t very friendly and made things more difficult than need be. Poor staff rating on Hostel World I reckon.

Would anyone like to hazard a guess how much dosh I’ve accrued from Google AdSense on the Lonely Planet pages so far? Closest to gets a KitKat chunky courtesy of moi.

That reminds me of a KitKat related joke:

Gerald is feeling peckish and goes to a 24 hour garage late at night, he says to the girl at the window “Get me a KitKat chunky”.

The girl twoddles off and returns with a KitKat chunky.

“What the hell’s this, I wanted a traditional standard KitKat you fat cow” says Gerald.

Oh dear. Claire Roberts told me that, blame her.

I’m now sat roun waiting for my washing and wanting to get some kip. The girl said 3 hours and we’re on 5 now. Mr personality is at the controls so I think he’s doing his best to extend my misery. Goit.

Montenegro brings us up to country number 20, if you include Transinistra (which I do). Well there you go eh.

Favourite search this time round, ‘the north face vespa backpack’. Wowzers, I’d be interested in that myself!

Lastly, I like this.

PS The photo is actually from Sofia, I did take a few of Kotor but none came out up to scratch.