That New Car Smell

We’re not sure how folks here can manage two weeks at the seaside.  After day three, we were pretty much spent.  In fact, Celia and Rosetta got out of the water voluntarily about mid-afternoon Saturday (you have to be pulling on my leg!).  After that, we got cleaned up, had dinner, and wandered around town all the way down to the harbor, where we discovered a little part of Vrbnik that had a character of its own.  We also saw what appeared to be a tunnel way out in the rocks that looked identical to the one the mermaids on Mako Island go through to get to the moon pool to regain their powers (we’ll have to investigate next year).  And we were fortunate to get all the way back up the hill to our apartment just as a serious thunderstorm hit.

So, this morning, as we piled into our brand new Opel Astra (Budget had just gotten it on Thursday…it had all of 40 kilometers on it), we felt like everything with our trip to Vrbnik had come off without a hitch.  Good weather, great beach, no sunburns, thunderstorms avoided, lots of fun.  And then, twenty minutes into our trip home, Chantelle commented about how our car-sickness adventures seemed to be subsiding.  Right on queue, two kilometers later, Celia said, “I feel like I’m going to throw up!”  We were at a roundabout and I whipped around it to get back to the parking lot of a produce stand, pulled in, yanked the parking break, unbuckled my seat belt, reached for my door handle, and sure enough…

According to Sy, it was like a volcano.  Poor Rosetta took the brunt of the eruption, which had the look and fragrance of the wild berry yogurt Celia ate just before we left.  And, yes, it was all over the brand new backseat, running down through the seat belt latches and underneath the cushion.  The general mayhem of a large-scale riot ensued, with screaming, crying, gagging…it was a disaster.

We were ill-equipped to deal with this disaster, so we stopped at the Plodine supermarket just up the road in Malinska to get wipes, paper towels, and a bucket just in case…which we did need about an hour later for Celia’s encore.  In the process, Trader Joe’s moved out of the number one slot on my list of most-despised shopping experiences, as Plodine is the main supermarket on the entire island and was so overrun with vacationers that it took twenty minutes to maneuver around the cramped parking lot to find a place to park.  At a time when patience was nonexistent.  Inside the store was worse.

However, we did manage to get things reasonably cleaned up and make it home.  And, once home, we managed with a staunch effort to get the slightly-nauseating, yet sweet and fruity, scent out of the car before we brought it back.  Ask Chantelle for the magic baking soda/vinegar treatment…it does wonders.  At least we think it did.  We’re waiting to see if Budget asks us why their car doesn’t smell new anymore.